From the News

Dated: August 16, 1915

Indian Patriotism

Indians of the Canadian West Are True Patriots

The excellent patriotic work of the File Indians in Balcarres, Sask., continues and the Canadian Pacific through W. R. Baker, the secretary of the company, has received another encouraging report.  It was in October last year that 33 of those Indians subscribed $502.10 to the Patriotic Fund, each farmer giving a certain number of bushels of grain, which when sold amounted to the above sum.

During the winter that followed the now famous File Indians Brass Band gave concerts thereby raising another $212 which went to the Belgian Relief Fund, and since March last, the Red Cross branch of this colony has raised $500 and endowed a bed in Cliveden hospital.  The young Indian women have done a great deal of knitting and sewing.  The branch has a membership of 36 while there are only one hundred and sixty souls - thirty-eight men, twenty-six women and ninety-six children -- in the colony.

The patriotism of these Indians does not stop here.  Two young men went to the front with the second contingent and six more are going with the next.  The File Indians lay claim to having the oldest Red Cross Society member in the British empire in the person of Pointed Cap.  This celebrated character says that he is the ripe age of 107 and on Nov. 12 next will attain his 108th year.  He is now an "associate member" of the Red Cross and proudly wears on his heart the little red cross, the emblem of the society.