Men and women are of a certain bent, and then, as the situation changes and the years pass, they may change. A man who campaigns for President is one kind of man. After he has been President for three or four years, it is quite likely he is another kind of man. Certain kinds of people gravitate to certain kinds of jobs. Some men are inclined to apply for jobs as policemen, while others become professors. There is something that attracts some people to government. It is of these last we shall speak, and of the changes which take place in them after they enter government service.
These are small events which took place some years ago. They generally involve Indians and are set mostly in the remains of the Wild West.
These events are part of the great adventure my parents embarked upon in 1922, when my father joined the Indian Defense Association of Northern and Central California, which had its headquarters in San Francisco. My mother and father, Ruth and Charles Elkus, had an intense and continuous interest in the Indians for the next forty years. There are many wonderful memories of this association.
Naturally, the four children, Charlie, Ruth, Ben and Bob, were part of this interest, and each of us became friends of many of the people involved, including, of course, the Indians.
It is my hope that these little stories will give a picture of the country, and will portray the Indians in such a way that they will appear to be humans, as indeed they are. It is to be noted that Indians and Irish and English and Polish and Chinese and, well, etc., are all humans, no one different from another. If one must see differences, then the differences are mainly geographical. Those who live in a dry country live differently from those who live in a rain forest. They love, hunt, fight, drink, eat and walk the same. The difference between where the Indians live and where we live, and the consequent difference in culture, is key to our interest in each other.
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