year. Hale would come to the house and ask him to sell his
inherited shares in land. Joe always refused no matter how drunk
he was. I never believed that he sold that land, he always told me
he would not even up to a few days before his death....Well, Hale
got the land.”
Despite the brutality of the crimes, many whites did not mask
their enthusiasm for the lurid story. OSAGE INDIAN KILLING
CONSPIRACY THRILLS, declared the Reno Evening Gazette. Under the
headline OLD WILD WEST STILL LIVES IN LAND OF OSAGE MURDERS, a wire
service sent out a nationwide bulletin that the story, “however
depressing, is nevertheless blown through with a breath of the
romantic, devil-may-care frontier west that we thought was gone.
And it is an amazing story, too. So amazing that at first you
wonder if it can possibly have happened in modern, twentieth-
century America.” A newsreel about the murders, titled “The
Tragedy of the Osage Hills,” was shown at cinemas. “The true
history of the most baffling series of murders in the annals of
crime,” a handbill for the show said. “A Story of Love, Hatred and
Man’s Greed for Gold. Based on the real facts as divulged by the
startling confession of Burkhart.”
Amid the sensationalism, the Osage were focused on making
sure that Hale and his conspirators did not find a way to wriggle
free, as many feared they would. Bates’s widow said, “We Indians
cannot get our rights in these courts and I have no chance at all of
saving this land for my children.” On January 15, 1926, the Society
of Oklahoma Indians issued a resolution that said,
Members of the Osage Tribe of Indians have been foully murdered for their
headrights...
Whereas, the perpetrators of these alleged crimes deserve to be vigorously
prosecuted and, if convicted, punished to the full extent of the law...
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by this Society that we commend the federal and
state officials for their efforts in trying to ferret out and prosecute the criminals