* * *
—
Back together after the chautauqua finished, Edgar and his wife traveled some 140 miles southeast of Seattle. In the city of Yakima, Washington, they visited Burtha’s Native American friend and correspondent Ben Olney, possibly because she wanted to ask him about the proposed stage show. Ben—the name of whose home city derived from his tribe—was a chunky man with a complexion dark enough for him to be taken for a Sicilian immigrant. The owner of a flourishing ranch, he combined effervescence and erudition. He’d long been a vigorous campaigner for a better understanding of Native American culture and for improving the educational opportunities available to the country’s indigenous people. Most likely he was the person who introduced Burtha and Edgar to a couple of his locally based friends from the Native American rights movement.
One of those friends was Lucullus V. McWhorter, an unassuming elderly white Virginian rancher and amateur historian whose handlebar-mustached face tended to be crowned by a broad-brimmed cowboy hat. Well over a decade before Edgar and Burtha met him, Lucullus had played a pivotal role in defeating an attempt by Congress to appropriate the majority of what remained of the Yakama tribal land, his work prompting the Yakama to adopt him into their tribe and bestow upon him the prestigious name of Hemene Ka-Wan: “Old Wolf.” But his many Native American friends knew him as “Big Foot,” a nickname given to him when Yakama children first noticed his footprints in the snow.
Edgar and Burtha took a great liking to Big Foot, whose wife grew close to Burtha, too. In the course of their visit to the city of Yakima, they also met the Reverend Chief Red Fox Shiuhushi, a friend of both Ben Olney and Big Foot. Lately ordained into the Christian Disciples Church (to which Ben belonged), Red Fox was by some distance the country’s best-known Native American rights activist.
Aged thirty-five, just three years Edgar’s senior, he had dark hair, a slim build, and a face so elongated it might have been squeezed out of a toothpaste tube. He never tired of using his fluent command of English to discourse upon his past. He could talk about traveling around Europe with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, about converting to Christianity, about his days at Carlisle, about meeting the king of England and Kaiser Wilhelm II, about riding his pony from Montana to the White House to speak with the president and submit a petition for every American Indian to be granted full citizenship. Except for the trip to the White House, none of these experiences had occurred—at least, not outside his imagination.
As perceptive as Edgar was about human nature, he failed to see aspects of himself reflected in Red Fox, who was a fellow con man. Like Edgar, Red Fox’s only legitimate tribal affiliation was with what real Native Americans would decades afterward wittily brand “the tribe of Wannabe.” Yet both Edgar and Burtha took a shine to him and were, in Burtha’s words, “impressed by the good ideas he had.” Compellingly expressed, those centered upon equal rights and opportunities for Native Americans. Red Fox sought to advance his objectives through the construction of a Christian school not far away on the Yakama Indian Reservation and through the American Tipi Association, a briskly evolving organization over which he presided as “Supreme Most High Chief.”
Established by Red Fox and Big Foot, the association began life as the Tipi Order. In that earlier guise, its purpose had been to create a Native American challenger to the Boy Scouts of America. Focused at that stage upon the teaching of the language, customs, and history of the country’s original inhabitants, the Tipi Order had since been recast as an adult fraternal society–cum–civil rights campaign group. Only the previous summer, the recently constituted American Tipi Association had obtained far-reaching publicity when Red Fox had granted membership to the leading star of cowboy films, William S. Hart.
The admiration that Edgar and Burtha felt for Red Fox appears to have been mutual. Hardly surprising in view of not only Burtha’s attractiveness and eloquent commitment to the cause of Native American rights, but also the current résumé touted by the man calling himself Dr. White Elk. Cocaine surely heightening Edgar’s irresistible urge to inflate the fictional accomplishments that concealed his real-life failings, he now claimed to speak twenty-three languages, to hold degrees from two universities, and to have raised $80 million for the various Liberty Loan campaigns.
Red Fox wound up inviting Edgar and Burtha to work for the American Tipi Association. He asked them to give lectures and performances that would “change public opinion toward the American Indian.”
On a short-term basis at least, the job was appealing to Edgar and Burtha, because it promised to keep them solvent until their big stage show got off the ground. Accepting Red Fox’s offer had the added virtue of advancing a cause of which they were both longtime supporters. It would allow them to work together as well. Since the end of the chautauqua, that was a luxury they’d sampled only briefly when they provided a vaudeville interlude to several movie screenings in Oregon. But they’d been apart pretty much the rest of the time.
While Burtha had continued performing in Seattle, Edgar had swung through Idaho, where he’d held a well-received exhibition of his paintings and picked up a ragbag of engagements. He’d campaigned for all Native Americans to be given the right to vote. He’d bluffed his way into a two-week stint as lecturer-in-residence at the College of Idaho, a Presbyterian university positioned on the western extremity of the state. And he’d performed at movie theaters, his amended routine including “One Hour of Laughs” and a small backing band styled as “the Chief White Elk Orchestra.” His routine even featured sharpshooting, which he must have learned from a colleague in vaudeville, where such acts were common. Generally more reliant upon subterfuge than marksmanship, these incorporated flamboyant tricks like the one that opened with a pretty girl standing on a raised platform that faced the audience, her body swathed in a voluminous wrap. Fastening this were large white buttons, at which the sharpshooter aimed from his position at the side of the stage. Those buttons were not what they appeared to be, though. They were, instead, large white balls, painted to resemble buttons when seen from the front. Opposite the sharpshooter was an angled steel sheet, which deflected the special low-velocity bullets into a sand trap. As the last of these smashed its target on its way across the stage, the girl’s wrap fell to the floor, supplying the cue for amazed applause.
* * *
—
Rather than spend still more time apart, Edgar and Burtha accepted Red Fox’s job offer. At each of the events they organized on behalf of the American Tipi Association, they’d make a collection. Of the cash they raised, they were entitled to set aside 25 percent for their expenses. The balance had to be forwarded to the association.
Before Edgar and Burtha commenced their tour, Red Fox furnished a stack of bona fides. He also made the first payment on a Buick automobile that would allow them to get around more easily. Future repayments would be their responsibility.
During the cold, wet spring of 1920, they drove hundreds of miles across Washington State, calling at Tacoma and Olympia, where they gave performances of what they promoted as a “Unique Indian Concert.” Large sums of money were remitted to their employer, yet they were flat broke by the time they hit the thriving city of Spokane.
They couldn’t appeal for help from their employer, because Red Fox was traveling and they had no address for him, so Edgar wired Big Foot, the American Tipi Association’s cofounder, with whom Burtha had already embarked upon a voluminous correspondence. Edgar’s telegram requested a $57 loan from the money they’d already sent back to the association. But he succeeded only in provoking a letter from Red Fox, who turned down his request.
Until they could fix up some events, Edgar and his wife had to get by on starvation rations and whatever assistance they could glean from Sydney Allison, a college junior and talented would-be professional singer whom they came to know. Through Allison’s well-connected parents, they obtained a booking at the local Presbyteri
an church, where Allison sang alongside them.
Edgar’s dishonesty held in check by Burtha’s honesty and her belief in what appeared to be Red Fox’s objectives, they carried on sending him money they could ill afford to relinquish. So malnourished was Burtha that she was taken in and nursed by a local minister when they performed in nearby Cheney. The experience proved a pivotal moment for her. No matter how committed she was to the American Tipi Association’s cause, she refused to continue sacrificing her and Edgar’s health for it any longer. Whenever they ran low on cash as they drove south across Idaho and into Montana, they felt entitled to borrow from the money they generated. Though they’d already forwarded the sizable sum of $700 to Red Fox, he was infuriated by the discovery that Edgar had dipped into the proceeds for a $10.50 loan.
Red Fox retaliated by sending angry letters to the pair of them—letters that threatened to have Dr. White Elk put behind bars. Those threats coalesced when Edgar and Burtha were stopped by men from the local sheriff’s department, who questioned them about the alleged theft of the Buick they were driving. Red Fox turned out to have asked the sheriff’s department to seize the car and return it to him, but the deputies figured there were no legal grounds for that.
“Bodily and mentally” sapped by the subsequent flow of threats and accusations gushing from Red Fox, Edgar was taken sick, his condition not helped by the drink and drugs he’d been consuming. On a quest to straighten things out, Burtha made a 450-mile-plus round-trip to Butte, Montana, where she had a showdown with “the Fox,” as she referred to their employer-turned-adversary. She told him that he couldn’t expect them to give him the car, because they were the ones making the payments. Backing down, he signed a document confirming their ownership of the Buick. And he assured her that “everything was good” between them.
The irate letters nonetheless resumed once she got back from seeing Red Fox. He even started writing to people in the towns and cities they were due to visit, causing Burtha to wonder whether he was “going bughouse.” His letters resulted in the cancellation of many of their plum bookings. Left with barely enough cash to buy gas, Edgar and Burtha finally gave up working for him.
Among the recipients of Red Fox’s letters was the governor of Nebraska. With breathtaking hypocrisy, Red Fox warned him that Edgar and Burtha were “impostors,” masquerading as representatives of the American Tipi Association. Red Fox also warned the governor that they were currently in Wyoming and heading his way.
But Red Fox must have been misinformed. The buckskinned duo were not in Wyoming, nor were they en route to Nebraska. In fact, they were still in Montana.
Studio portrait of Edgar Laplante, ca. 1918.
Washington State University Libraries
Widely reproduced newspaper photo of the twenty-nine-year-old Edgar Laplante posing as Onondagan athlete Tom Longboat, August 1917.
Onondagan athlete Tom Longboat photographed during an athletic event at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, July 26, 1913.
Bain News Service/Library of Congress
Front-page newspaper story about Edgar Laplante, aka Chief White Elk, published in the Salt Lake Tribune, March 21, 1918.
Studio portrait of Edgar Laplante, posing as Chief White Elk, ca. 1918.
Washington State University Libraries
The western apse of the Varied Industries Building at the Panama-California Exposition, ca. 1915.
Panama-California Exposition Digital Archive
Visitors passing the Commerce and Industries Building at the Panama-California Exposition, ca. 1915.
Richard Benton Collection, Panama-California Exposition Digital Archive
View from the deck of the SS Antilles, August 1917.
Portrait of Burtha Thompson and Edgar Laplante, probably taken in Washington State by Emma B. Freeman, ca. 1918.
Washington State University Libraries
Front-page story from the Salt Lake Tribune, March 20, 1918.
Edgar Laplante, aka Chief White Elk, and his new bride, Burtha Thompson, photographed just after their marriage ceremony at the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City, March 13, 1918.
Advertisement for an appearance by Edgar Laplante’s alter ego Dr. White Elk in Great Falls, Montana, October 1920.
Portrait of Edgar Laplante’s wife Burtha Thompson, probably taken in Washington State by Emma B. Freeman, ca. 1918.
Washington State University Libraries
Edgar Laplante’s employer-turned-adversary, the Reverend Chief Red Fox Shiuhushi, pictured outside the White House, 1915.
Library of Congress
Bostock’s Animal Arena in the Greater Dreamland amusement park on Coney Island, ca. 1905.
Library of Congress
12
On the afternoon of Friday, July 23, 1920, Edgar, Burtha, and close to seven hundred other people boarded a flotilla of motor launches, a steamer, and a spacious barge. These set sail across Flathead Lake, where a vacation ambience was created by music wafting over from the barge. Its passengers were dancing to a band from another part of rural Montana.
Half a mile of choppy water separated the boats from their destination, a small, thickly forested island that broke the waterline like the carcass of some stranded sea monster. Along with the others, Edgar and Burtha—who were in their full Native American finery—had been invited by a Rotary Club–like organization called the Knights Templar of Montana, which was staging its inaugural summer picnic on the island. Edgar had given them the impression that he and Burtha—Dr. and Mrs. White Elk—were fundraisers “working for the benefit of Indian children in order that they may receive good educations.”
Safely disembarked on the island, many of the women began sunbathing on the gravel beach. Other people waded into the lake and tried out surfboards. But the majority of the group spent the next several hours horsing around on the shore, waiting for the big communal picnic. With impressive speed, the meal was served soon after six p.m. The menu choices, not to mention the quality and abundance of the food, drew praise from Edgar’s fellow guests.
Once everybody was done eating, the organizers instructed them to find somewhere to sit. Except for Burtha and Edgar, who would be providing that evening’s entertainment, the guests perched on the slope rising from the beach.
Taking to the makeshift stage, Edgar began his impersonation of good ol’ Chauncey Olcott performing “Mother Machree,” the singer’s most famous song. When Edgar reached the final line, “Oh, God bless and keep you, Mother Machree,” a crackle of applause swept like bushfire across the facing incline.
He followed up with a couple of other cloying numbers—“There’s a Long, Long Trail” and “Dear Old Pal of Mine.” Both songs received more bursts of exuberant applause. He then entertained his audience with reminiscences of the chautauqua circuit and his friendship with Dr. Ng Poon Chew. Anyone who got the chance, he declared, should hear Dr. Chew speak. Edgar then retold the dramatic story of his close brush with death when he was thrown from the crow’s nest of the Antilles. The fall had, he revealed, cost him six ribs and one lung, though he assured listeners that the “physicians have practically restored all the missing parts.”
Eventually, he made way for Burtha, who gave a talk about Native American religion and how her people had worshipped “the Great Spirit” long before the white man had set foot on American soil. She said they’d erected crosses on hilltops as part of their religious ceremonies. And she talked about “the high standard of morality which the Indians held previous to their introduction to the sins of the white races.” In what may have been intended as an elegiac conclusion to the show, Burtha declaimed one of the poems she had written about Native American life. She called her composition “Memories.” It climaxed with the lines,
Memories! Fond memories of the years tha
t are gone forever
When our race greeted the sun-dawn of their rising nation
But now our dusky maids and swarthy braves are waiting ever
On these sorrowful shores where an alien people rules a broken nation.
That evening’s sunset, its glow painting the waters of the lake, had long since dimmed by the time Edgar and the other guests retraced their route to the moonlit boats. For the trip back to the mainland, he joined the throng clambering onto the waiting barge. As it sailed slowly across the lake, the band struck up the first in a series of tunes that included an Irish jig. Lots of the passengers started dancing again. Edgar contributed by singing with the band.
* * *
—
On the strength of his service as a “practicing surgeon with Uncle Sam’s forces,” Edgar finagled accommodation at the Montana Soldiers’ Home, just a couple of miles outside Columbia Falls. Around a hundred other men and women—who addressed each other as “comrade”—lived in the brick-built, three-story structure. More like a large, comfortably appointed house than an institution, it sat on the bank of the Flathead River. A broad apron of lush pasture, where the veterans grew their own food, surrounded the property. Sharp and clear on some days, soft and blue on others lay the distant Kootenai and Rocky Mountain ranges.
In both its pastoral setting and benign communal regime, the Soldiers’ Home was not so different from Sockanosset School for Boys, the reformatory where Edgar had been sent seventeen years earlier. He’d wound up living in one of five large, rustic-looking stone buildings, each of which housed a dormitory for more than fifty boys, some of them as young as eight. For many of Edgar’s fellow pupils, who had committed offenses ranging from the theft of a few eggs to manslaughter, Sockanosset had offered a preferable alternative to homelessness or life with their impoverished families. Besides regular meals, it provided a wide range of activities overseen by caring staff. There were school lessons, theatricals, sports, lectures, parties, and occasional outings, plus a music program. Vocational training was also provided—training of such a high caliber that the boys’ cabinetmaking exhibit bagged a silver medal at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. Measuring up to Sockanosset’s function as a reformatory, significant numbers of its residents were reformed by their time there. But Edgar, despite all his father’s chivying, didn’t land a steady job when he emerged from the school. And nothing in that regard had altered over the intervening years.
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