[Because the publisher felt it detracted from Angel’s lifestory, this chapter (which came just before the Epilogue) was cut from the published version of Fire Light: The Life of Angel De Cora, Winnebago Artist. To site use this website's url and author's name, "Linda M. Waggoner."]
Chapter 13
If Dietz grieved for Angel, his feelings were overshadowed by the crisis that lay before him. The war was over, but he had violated the Selective Service Law. Two counts were filed against him, the first alleging that when he registered for the draft in Spokane on September 12, 1918 as “a non-citizen Indian of the United States” he was “a natural born American citizen of the white race.”[1] The second count charged that the he made “false statements as to the fitness and liability of himself for military service” on a questionnaire for the “Local Board Number Two, for the City of Spokane.”[2]
District Attorney Charles H. Leavey asserted that “in truth and in fact” Dietz was a “white person born in Barron County, State of Wisconsin,” he was “a natural born citizen of the United States,” and he had never received an Indian allotment.[3] When the grand jury indicted Dietz on January 31, 1919, a bench warrant was issued in Spokane and a Western Union “Night Letter” sent to the United States Marshall in San Francisco. The Marshall was informed that Dietz coached football for Mare Island Naval and Marine base, in Vallejo, California, and was “reported to be working for a moving picture concern near San Francisco.” Dietz was in Los Angeles, however, when the Marshall tracked him down. Ruby Enid Rheinschild, wife of Los Angeles attorney, Walter Rheinschild, and Pop Warner’s brother, Fred S. Warner, paid the $1000 bond, so no warrant was served. Dietz was required to appear in court in Spokane on March 18.
Two hearings determined the verdict. The first was held in Spokane at the United States Eastern District Court of Washington and was presided over by Honorable Frank H. Rudkin. “William H. Dietz” alias “William Lone Star Dietz” was arraigned and pled “not guilty.” The jury was impaneled, and testimony was taken from June 23 to June 25. Although “cause was submitted,” the jury was discharged on June 26th “for inability to agree.”[4] The hung jury reflects the contradictory evidence in the case and suggests jury members lost sight of the specific charges when Judge Rudkin advised them to determine whether Dietz really “believed” he was an “Indian.” The frustrated prosecutor immediately re-indicted Dietz after the first trial and rearticulated the charges.
The problem with Lone Star’s “race” did not become public until 1916, just after his Rose Bowl victory. The headline “A German Indian is Dietz,” found its way to newspapers all over the country, including Portland, Oregon. The report, which originated in St. Paul, Minnesota, stated the “former football star at Macalister College here, is regarded today as the only German-Indian in sporting circles. Dietz said he was German when he went to school here, but later played with the Carlyle [sic] Indians.”[5] Dietz addressed the innuendo in Pullman’s alumni magazine.[6] He retold the tale of his German father, “an engineer engaged in railroad work,” who was kept by “war-like Sioux for several years.” He disclosed for the first time the name of his sister, “Sallie Eagle Horse.” Dietz explained, “until I was well in my teens everybody supposed I was the child of his second marriage,” since “Father kept his romance to himself.”[7] “Father” later took the details of “his romance” to his grave.
The Spokane Review offered the most in-depth coverage of the trial, but it was news across the country. The prosecutor explained after Dietz registered for the draft, his registration card was forwarded to Spokane. Since Dietz was in California, a supplemental questionnaire was forwarded to him. When he filled out the questionnaire, he claimed exemption “on four different grounds”: “as a necessary government employe, as a man of technical skill, as the head of a necessary industrial enterprise and as an Indian who was not a citizen.”[8] Grounds one through three centered on his claim he was the owner of “the American Indian Film corporation,” “an industrial enterprise necessary to the maintenance of the military establishment.” He stated he had fifteen employees, and his “enterprise furnished entertainment to soldiers and sailors and spread war propaganda in the United States.” The prosecutor did not pursue charges against these grounds during the first trial, but they were reintroduced for the second hearing.
The first trial focused on Dietz’s last ground for exemption, which supported his noncitizen Indian status. He had claimed “he was born on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation, his “nearest relative” was “Sally Eagle Horse, a Sioux Indian,” “his parents were born in the Dakotas,” and though his name on tribal roles was “One Star” he used “Lone Star” instead. He also “claimed to have left the reservation 28 years ago,” returning intermittently, “but had not been back for 15 years.” He “left the tribal life” in 1890 and, he was unsure whether he had received an allotment. He further claimed he “spoke the Sioux language in addition to English.”[9]
District Attorney Leavey intended to prove that Dietz “was born of white parents at Rice Lake, Wis.,” “had not assumed the role of an Indian until he entered the Carlisle Indian school,” and that once he “learned of the existence of One Star, an Indian,” he “began to impersonate him and assumed his name.” Leavey said Dietz told “college authorities that he was a quarter breed Indian and that his mother was a half breed Sioux,” but he would “show that there was a real One Star, that he had a sister, Sally Eagle Horse, and that the defendant opened negotiations with this sister by representing himself as her brother and on this claim secured money from her.”[10]
The official who helped Dietz fill out the questionnaire in California was called to testify. He said Dietz had trouble “remembering” his age. There were good reasons for his temporary memory lapse. Sallie Eagle Horse’s brother was known as James One Star. He was an Oglala Teton Sioux born at Pine Ridge in 1871 or 1872, about twelve years before Dietz was born. James’s Indian name appears as Wicarpi wanjila and his English name appears as simply “One Star” on most Pine Ridge tribal rolls, except for a 1906 record concerning allotment where he is shown as Sallie’s brother and only living relative, “James One Star.”[11] James was sent to Carlisle in 1889, just one year before Dietz claimed he “left the tribal life.” His brief Carlisle record shows he was “James One Star” of Red Shirt’s band, a “Full Blood” Sioux from Pine Ridge, his parents were dead, and he was five feet, nine and a quarter inches tall, much smaller than the six foot, two hundred pound Dietz.[12] He went on two outings in 1891 and the activities of “James One Star” are mentioned at least once in the school paper in 1891. He is pictured at Carlisle with a group of Sioux students. He does not resemble Dietz.
James One Star never returned home to the Pine Ridge reservation or to his sister, and they had no immediate family but themselves. They were not from Red Cloud’s band, but from the band of Red Shirt, who became a popular performer in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.[13] James and Sallie were apparently the nephew and niece of another Buffalo Bill performer named One Star, who lived with his wife and children on the Rosebud Reservation, adjacent to Pine Ridge. Dietz openly claimed he met the elder One Star at the St. Louis World’s Fair. His picture appears in The Red Man, and he is identified as the uncle of Lone Star Dietz.[14]
Leavey subpoenaed witnesses from Pine Ridge reservation. They were Mark Marston, a non-Native lease clerk for the agency, William White Bear, and Sallie Eagle Horse, and the agency interpreter, William Garnett, a mixed-blood Oglala. Marston was the first to testify. He was fluent in the Lakota language and lived on the reservation with his family. He did not know whether James One Star was “living or “dead,” but he knew an allotment had never been made for him, and that he had been “missing for years.” He had never seen Lone Star Dietz at Pine Ridge and did not believe he “looked like an Indian.” “Any white man can be dressed up to resemble an Indian,” declared Marston. He pointed out that Dietz’s hair was “pasted down after the fashion of some young Indian boys.” Marston confirmed that “back pay as interest” was due James One Star. The money had been “unclaimed for years” until 1916, when “a man signing himself One Star at Pullman, Wash. first drew $60.00 of this money and then $14.00.” Marston testified he would have heard if James One Star had returned, since “every effort had been made to find him without success.” On cross-examination, however, he said, “he had never seen a member of the Caucasian race that looked like Lone Star Dietz.”[15]
One effort to find James had been sent to Moses Friedman, just as he was facing charges for incompetence and mismanaging the school. The letter, in poor English, was not part of the evidence, but was saved in James One Star’s Carlisle student file.
Pine Ridge
So Dak.
Jan. 29 1914.
[De]ar sir.
Please Iwant you todo little thing for me. I like know where is one star or lone star i think name is james one star or lone star. he left the oglala reservation many years he isgoing to school. some where i thinkgo to carlisle ind sch.
and he never get home and last iheard he was outto soldier some wherebut i heard come back to school again
he only got one sister lives so she like to know where is he now. i think he is 40 or over years old by this time iwant you to do that right the away and you let me know you try to finde out please.
your truly
Chas Yellow. Boy[16]
Friedman answered that James One
Star was discharged on Aug 10, 1892 to enlist in the army. He said records
“indicate” James One Star died in Cuba. These records are not included in
James’ student file. Only the word “Dead” is written across the top of his
enrollment card. “The War Department can probably secure definite information
regarding his death,” Friedman wrote, “and I would suggest that you write to
the Honorable Secretary of War at Washington, D. C., for full particulars.”[17]
James One Star’s military records, however, show that it was unlikely he was
killed in Cuba, particularly since the Spanish American war broke well after he
was dishonorably discharged from the army. It is unclear what led Friedman to this theory, unless he hoped to
protect James’ sister from the humiliation of her brother’s dishonorable
discharge.
William White Bear took the stand. He knew Sallie and James well. He attended Carlisle Indian school from 1887 to 1894. He believed James was sent from Carlisle to reform school in 1891, after which he had never been heard from again. White Bear agreed Dietz was not the “missing Indian One Star,” and identified James One Star from a picture he was shown. White Bear stated that he never heard of another “Indian named One Star,” and Dietz was not he. “The original One Star, which in the Indian tongue is synonymous with Lone Star had he lived would now have been 49 years old,” said White Bear, “while Lone Star Dietz is but 35.”[18] He not only believed Dietz was not “a Sioux Indian,” but that “he was not an Indian at all.”[19]
After certified copies of Dietz’s Carlisle school records were introduced as evidence, Sallie Eagle Horse was called to testify, accompanied by the interpreter.[20] Sallie said she was fifty-eight years old and that her parents, Crazy Elk and Good Fox, were Oglala Sioux.[21] She said James was sixteen when he left for Carlisle. The last time she heard from him was when “he was about to enter the army,” thirty years ago. He might have “adopted the name Jim Crazy Horse” when he enlisted, but she wasn’t sure. Her “brother had a scar on his forehead” from an ax wound and “another on his nose and had his ears pierced.”[22] Lone Star’s features were different, she said. He was not her brother.
Dietz did not accept her rejection. He “approached Sally Eagle Horse and tried to tell her in his limited knowledge of the Sioux tongue that he really was her brother,” stated the Spokane Review. Sallie became confused and began to cry. She held his hand until “her Indian escort induced her to leave.” The district attorney warned that Dietz’s “little effort of theatrical work” was “an attempt to interfere” with one of his witnesses. Dietz also tried to speak “Sioux” to “William White Bear in the corridor of the federal building.” White Bear asked him a question in his language. When Dietz attempted an answer, White Bear replied: “You can’t talk Sioux; you are no Sioux.”[23]
Military
records, which were not in evidence, show that on August 9, 1892 James One Star
was one of “eight Indians” from “the Indian Industrial School at Carlisle”
recruited to serve in Company I of the 12th Infantry. The company was stationed
at Mt. Vernon Barracks near Mobile, Alabama, where Geronimo and three hundred
plus Chiricahua were prisoners of war. Four months after the Chiricahua were
transferred to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in May of 1894, James was dishonorably
discharged. He proved at least one Indian boy did not find redemption in
Pratt’s precept, “Kill the Indian in him, Save the Man.” James repeatedly
disobeyed regulations, until his commanding officer advised, “The service would
be greatly benefited by this man’s discharge as he is a drunken worthless man,
not fit to be a soldier of the US. Army.”[24] Matthew K. Sniffen of the IRA and Pratt sent
separate inquiries to the War Department in 1908 and 1909. The Adjutant General
told them “James One Star” had been discharged on September 15, 1894, but “this
office has no later information concerning him.”[25] When Charles Yellow Boy wrote, “where
is one star or lone star i think name is james one star or lone star,” he was
confused by the “Lone Star” who he had “heard come back to school again.”
Attorney Alex M. Winston tried to establish his defendant’s motivation for draft evasion. According to newspaper coverage, “when Dietz left Pullman in 1918 to take on a coaching job for the Mare Island Marines in Northern California, he was making $4000 a season.” Out of “patriotic fever,” Dietz agreed to go to Mare Island “at a much reduced salary,” although the football program at Pullman was temporarily discontinued due to the war.[26] Mare Island Marine officers sent Pullman alumnus Richard Hanley, “one of the marines’ football stars,” to Washington to persuade Dietz to head the team. Dietz said Major Reiner and the post adjutant “asked him to claim exemption on the ground that he was of greater service as coach of a victorious marine team than as coach at Camp Lewis or as a private in the army.” The officers felt Dietz would “stimulate enlistments in the Marines,” and help build morale.[27] They promised to put him “into the officers’ training camp after the football season along with members of the football squad.”[28]
Major Reiner confirmed he had asked Dietz “to claim an exemption, as he was worth more to the government to help keep up the morale of the marines at Mare Island than he could be as a private in the army.” Reiner testified that Dietz told him “he was an illegitimate child,” and “that his father formerly was a sheriff in Wisconsin and that his mother was a Sioux Indian.” Hanley also admitted to soliciting Dietz. Captain Elwood Coovert of the Marines “testified that Dietz could not have acted as coach and have gotten the discipline if he had enlisted as a private.” When Leavey cross-examined Reiner, he testified that Dietz told him “that his name on the government Indian rolls was ‘One Star,’ but the rolls erroneously gave his birth year as 1871, rather than 1884.[29] How Dietz became privy to the year of James One Star’s birth is unknown.
Several witnesses were intimately acquainted with the Dietz family. Among these was Rice Lake’s postmaster, William Dunn, who was first called to the stand. He said he had known Dietz since the boy was twelve years old, that he was the son of Leanna Lewis, formerly Dietz, and that “nobody at any time intimated at Rice Lake that he was anything but a white boy.” When Dunn saw newspaper reports about Lone Star at Carlisle, he said he showed them to W. W. Dietz, who commented, “Personally I don’t give a d____, but I’m sorry for his mother.”[30]
To prove that Dietz was the “son of the late W. W. Dietz and his divorced wife, Mrs. Leanne Lewis,” the prosecution produced certified copies of his birth certificate and his father’s probate records.[31] His birth certificate states he was born on August 17, 1884 in Rice Lake, Barron County to Leanna, nee Ginder, and W. W. Dietz.[32] Dietz gave the same birth date on his Carlisle enrollment form and his marriage certificate.[33] His birth, however, was not recorded until 1889, though this was not brought up at trial. According to one authority, however, a late registration date was not unusual in remote areas such as Rice Lake at that time period.[34] Photographs were also produced “to show that no trace of Indian blood existed in the family,” though Almira Dietz “was shown to be black haired and of dark complexion.” The mysterious affidavits of 1915 stating Dietz was a Rice Lake resident, voter, and “an American-born citizen” were not mentioned.
The next witness, Chris Kurschner, who “knew Lone Star Dietz, as a boy” and was “on intimate terms with the Dietz family” was called. Kurschner had never heard that Dietz was “an Indian,” until he found out he was at Carlisle. He stated that when he asked Dietz, Sr. about it, he “said that his son was posing and seemed greatly worried by his conduct.”[35] Asked about Dietz’s appearance, Kurschner said, he “looked darker now and his hair was straighter and blacker than when he knew him.” The next witness called was S. E. Washburn, a Barron County, Wisconsin clerk, who knew the family well. “There was not talk of Indian blood in Willie Dietz” when he was young, Washburn testified. “It was not until he entered Carlisle.” A wife and two sons of W. W.’s youngest brother, John F. Dietz, gave affidavits in Wisconsin before the trial, claiming that W. W. had made vague remarks to them that his son was “an Indian” when Dietz, Jr. was at Carlisle, but W.W. did not give specifics on how his son was “an Indian.”[36]
Mrs. Henry Dietz, wife of Dietz’s paternal uncle, testified she had seen Willie “as an infant.” She visited Lewis just before she went into labor, and witnessed her nursing the baby five days after his birth. “She never heard of Indian blood on either side of William Wallace Dietz’s family, and never heard the suggestion that the elder Dietz might have had an illegitimate child.”[37] On cross-examination by Winston, she admitted, he “was the darkest baby she ever had seen,” commenting “on the fact to her husband at the time.” Again, she had never heard “the Indian talk” until he went to Carlisle. She also never knew that her nephew attended Chilocco. Her husband, Henry Dietz, testified that he had always believed his nephew was “not an Indian as Lone Star Dietz afterwards alleged.” He saw “Willie” as a baby, the second day after he was born. “He was a good sized infant with black hair and eyes and his mother seemed very proud of him. Nothing was said then or later to indicate that W. H. Dietz was not a white and legitimate child of his parents.”[38] The testimony of Lone Star’s stepmother, Elizabeth Dietz, followed. Dietz Jr. “once saw a picture of his grandmother on the wall and remarked that he must have some Indian blood,” she said. Dietz Sr. responded, saying, “his son must be crazy.” Just because Almira Dietz “was dark” didn’t mean she “had Indian blood.” He “worried over his son’s posing as an Indian for fear it would get him into trouble,” said Elizabeth.[39]
Mrs. Mary M. Bassett was acquainted “with the Dietz family since 1877.” When Willie was born, she resided “across the lot from the family.” According to the newspaper report, Bassett “had been anxiously awaiting the news of the arrival and visited Mrs. Dietz as soon as the attending physician would permit.”[40] Unfortunately, “the attending physician” was dead, but Bassett claimed, Willie “was a nice baby and that the parents were very much pleased. She commented to the mother on the child having such a profuse growth of black hair, to which Mrs. Dietz replied that she was glad the infant was not a ‘towhead like I am.’” Bassett confirmed there was no mention that Willie was “an Indian until he became a football star.” His hair was curly when he was a boy, she recalled, but it’s “now straight and he is very much darker that when she knew him.”
The last Rice Lake resident, Mrs. Sarah Manhein, was called to the stand. She moved to the area in 1880, shortly after the Dietzes married. She was aware when Leanna was expecting and “helped to make some of the baby clothes.” The morning after Willie was born, “she visited the house, kissed the mother and congratulated her on the fine boy.” On cross-examination, she said he “had very black hair for a baby,” but remembered that Almira Dietz “was quite dark.” “At first the elder Dietz thought the talk of his son being an Indian was a joke,” Manhein testified, “but later he expressed regret, as he considered it an aspersion on the mother.” She recalled Leanna Lewis “was bitter” when she learned her son “had married a half Indian in the west.” She “did not want to be a grandmother to any Indian children,” according to Manhein.[41]
The courtroom audience was riveted when William Henry Dietz, alias “Lone Star,” took the stand. The defense began establishing Dietz’s Indian identity with three “facts” the defendant confirmed. One, he had attended Chilocco Indian school in 1904 “as a commercial student.” Two, he entered Carlise Indian school in 1907. And three, in the same year, he married Angel DeCora, “an Indian woman,” though they “divorced last year.” Lone Star confirmed he was the son of William Wallace Dietz, “three times sheriff of Barron county, Wisconsin.” He said he believed Lewis was his real mother until he was fifteen years old. If he was seven years old when he first met his “foster mother,” as he stated in “How Art Misrepresents the Indian,” how did he manage to forget she was not his real mother? Why he publicized his Chilocco days over those at Friends University becomes clearer. “The first reference to my resemblance to an Indian came when I was attending school in Rice Lake.” Dietz testified. His classmates derided him for resembling “an Indian.” “I resented this very much,” he claimed. “With tears in my eyes I went home to mother, telling what the children had said to me. She replied it was all right, ‘little boy, you are as good as anyone else.’ I then took it up with father and he said not to worry, there was no truth in it.”
When he played baseball in high school, he said, he had the same problem. His teammates would not play with him because they said he was “an Indian.” “The first night I knew I had Indian blood,” said Dietz, was “when I went home late and heard my parents discussing it through an open door leading to their bedroom.” He asked his mother about it the next morning; she told him to ask his father, but his father wouldn’t discuss it with him. His father told him “not to bother him,” he said, “as I was as good as anyone. A week later I went to him and asked who my mother was, and he replied she was a long, long ways from here. I asked if she were a Chippewa woman and he declined to answer.” Dietz’s question was logical. The Lac Court Oreilles Ojibwe or “Chippewa” reservation was located just north of Rice Lake.[42] Dietz claimed he “was still persecuted” when he attended McAllister College in St. Paul. He said he told his father “if I were an Indian I wanted to know and come out from under a cloud.” He claimed his father told him, “I was of Sioux blood and that my right name was One Star.”
How Dietz became “One Star” was not something his father explained. “When the St. Louis world’s fair was on I went there to do some decorating in the Indian village and met an Indian named One Star,” Dietz testified. “I told him my history as my father had told me and the Indian said I was the son of his sister Julia One Star, who had married a white man and left the reservation.” The elder One Star was extremely perceptive, and recognized the grown up Dietz as his long-lost nephew. Dietz elaborated. Sallie Eagle Horse sent him a letter while he was at Carlisle, telling him he was her brother. “She said that there was money at the Indian agency awaiting me,” he said. “I replied that my father had told me that I had a sister and suggested to her that she draw the money at the agency and keep it herself. Later $61.60 of the money due One Star as an annuity was drawn out. I sent Sally $50 and kept $14.79. Another check for $4 came, which I also sent to Sally.”
Dietz said his salary at Pullman was only $3500 a year, not $4000 as had been claimed. He also stated he did not give his birth year as 1871 on the questionnaire, which had been approved by the Mare Island officers before he sent it to Spokane. Only a question mark appeared on the space of the form. He told the court that he and Angel had visited Pine Ridge in 1908 “and again in 1910.” Angel certainly could have gone with him in 1908 as she met with “Sioux women” that year and discussed their beadwork with them, but it’s doubtful she went again in 1910. It’s certainly possible Dietz visited his “uncle” One Star, however, at nearby Rosebud, as he had been in contact with the family. Dietz “denied that he had obtained any money from the government on account of [James] One Star.” He also admitted “his foster mother” was “affectionate toward him,” and that “she was the best friend he ever had.” He confirmed his father told him “his mother was a Sioux Indian and that he had a sister somewhere in the Dakotas.” When asked what his employment had been since he became an adult, he said he had been “a reporter on a Chicago paper, a decorator, a football coach, and an artist.”
During the cross-examination, Dietz altered his story about his uncle “One Star.” Instead he said he met “Chief Yellow Hair at the St. Louis fair and from him learned of the existence of his sister, Sally Eagle Horse.”[43] Dietz did not explain how Yellow Hair knew about Sallie. He claimed he later tracked down “the Indian One Star, whose name he had taken, traveling with a wild west show.” He explained he had “associated with Indians more or less since 1902,” and that he “had himself traveled with a wild west outfit.” He did not disclose that his maternal grandmother worried about his association with Indian women, when he was a teenager.[44] He stated he worked as an actor, playing mostly villains. One witness recalled when Dietz “was about 18 years old, he fixed himself up as an Indian and had a photograph taken in costume, and it was remarked at the time how much he resembled an Indian.”[45] This event may have also occurred in 1902 when Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show came to Rice Lake for “one day only.”[46]
Sallie’s letters from Dietz were entered as evidence. He was asked about his letter written to her in February 1914, when he told her of his adoption “by a white family.” He confessed “this statement gave him the appearance of more prosperity with the Indians.” When Dietz was asked about his hair, he said “he had combed it in various ways in his lifetime.” Was his foster mother offended when he “pose[ed] as an Indian because it had made her out a squaw”? No, he said. He also claimed he was somewhat familiar with the Sioux language. When the prosecutor asked if “he would answer a simple question in Sioux,” Dietz’s attorney objected, and his objection was sustained. The prosecutor also inquired whether Dietz had “a trunk full of clippings advertising himself as an Indian,” and Dietz answered, “he had only the usual press notices.” As the Spokane Review reported, “A number of photographs were submitted by the district attorney to show that Dietz in his earlier career did not resemble an Indian to the extent that he does today.”[47]
Although it appears Dietz visited the Rosebud reservation where “One Star” and family lived, Sallie’s “long lost brother” neglected to visit her at Pine Ridge. He did correspond with his “uncle” One Star’s family while he played football at Carlisle.[48] Though several letters passed between Lone Star and Sallie, he never met her face to face, which is why she did not reject him as her brother until the trial. As one reporter stated: “The Indian woman believed Dietz to be her brother until she reached Spokane and was deeply disappointed to find that [s]he had been writing to the wrong man.”[49]
After he was indicted Dietz wrote to his “dear sister” from Wisconsin in April 1919. His letter was full of lies. He told her he had just been discharged from “the marine corps” and that he was “glad the war is over.” “I suppose you are, too,” he added, “for it was hard on everybody and we all had to do our part.” He asked her to write him, because he wanted to “to know how everything is getting along with you and if your health is good and your heart is glad and you are happy.” Since her “brother” had just been discharged, Sallie had asked him for a helmet from the enemy. Such trophies were often used in a “scalp dances,” to honor the soldiers, in this case, her “brother.” On May 20th he answered her letter from his mother’s house in Lodi, Wisconsin. He entreated her “please send it (the affidavit) right away, so please, sister, send it as soon as possible.” He was undoubtedly referring to an affidavit for his case that would support his claim that she was his sister. He told her, “I haven’t got a helmet right now, but I believe I can get one from the boys and send it to you, so you can have it to dance with. When you get it dance good and hard for me, too.” He closed affectionately, “With much love to you, dear sister, with many hopes that you will be glad and happy and that I shall be able to help you, as ever, your loving brother.”[50]
The defense saved Leanna Lewis for last. Her blond hair and blue-eyes startled the courtroom. She informed the jury that she married William Wallace Dietz in 1879, but they separated in 1883. After three months they reconciled, and she became pregnant. Her husband was thrilled, because he “had always wanted to have children.” Their baby was born prematurely and dead, she said, so Dietz, Sr. took the “dead child and buried it in the timber.” While she was recovering in bed, Dietz Sr. confessed that he had just had “another child,” and he asked her if he could fetch the baby and “replace the one that died.” “I felt that a child would be a bond between us,” Lewis testified, “and consented.” Her husband left the house and “was gone several days.” Lewis testified her mother “admitted no visitors” during her husband’s absence. “When my husband brought the baby,” she said, “Dr. Morgan certified the birth as regular and no one knew the difference for many years.” She explained that she “preferred to have a child come into the family in this way,” rather “than go through all of the publicity and trouble of an adoption.”[51] As the Spokane Review summed up her testimony, “she remained in her home without visitors being admitted until four or five days later when her husband returned with the Indian boy baby, now William H. (Lone Star) Dietz, who replaced her dead child.”
The only material evidence to support Lewis’ testimony was a red shawl shown to the jurors, in which, she claimed, the “Indian child” had been wrapped. An affidavit given by her mother, Leanna M. Barry, corroborated much of her daughter’s testimony, but also created further confusion. It took Dietz, Sr. at least a couple of days to convince his wife to take in his illegitimate child, Barry said, but she claimed that W.W. Dietz went out into the “brush” surrounding their home to get the baby, where “Indians were everywhere.” Neither woman knew who the baby’s mother was, except that Barry thought she was “Chippewa or Sioux.” Barry’s affidavit did not support the fact that Dietz, Sr. went to South Dakota to get his son. Barry had trouble deciding how long it took him to “fetch” the baby, though she stayed near daughter, during and after her “confinement.” It could have been just days or even weeks, as far as she remembered.
Both Barry and Lewis agreed the stillbirth occurred on August 17, 1884, Lone Star’s birthday. When the changeling arrived, Barry said her daughter had difficulty nursing him. This conflicts with the testimony of Mrs. Henry Dietz, who said the five-day old baby was having no trouble nursing when she first saw him. Something that was not part of the evidence, however, was an item that appeared on August 21, 1884 in the Rice Lake Chronotype: “A young policeman put in an appearance at W. W. Dietz’s on Monday morning,” the reporter stated, “and Will has been setting up the cigars.”[52] The term “setting up the cigars” was used to signify a baby had been born, not that he or she was expected to be born. “Monday morning” was August 18, 1884, the day after Lone Star’s recorded birthday, and the day after Lewis and her mother claimed the stillbirth had occurred. It seems very peculiar, not to mention cruel, that Dietz Sr. was “setting up the cigars” following the night of his wife’s stillbirth, especially since he needed some time to convince her to take in his illegitimate child.
After Lewis’ testimony, the prosecution recalled the two neighbor women. As the Spokane Review reported, “Mrs. Bassett testified that she saw Mrs. Dietz the morning before the baby came. She stated that Lewis a was “a sister in the Eastern Star besides being a very close neighbor,” and that she had been “very anxious about her.” Two or three days later she entered the house and saw the baby.” She added, “In a small place everybody knows everybody else’s business better than his own.” She didn’t believe the baby looked unusual, “except for the long, black hair.” When Manheim was called back to the stand by the defense, she said she had seen Lewis “a night or two before she was confined, standing in the yard at her home.” They had talked about her “approaching motherhood, which naturally was uppermost on her neighbor’s mind.” She saw the new baby a day or two later.
Whether the changeling story was true or not, Lone Star Dietz continued to tell the romantic story of his birth in South Dakota until he died, except each time he grew younger when his father brought him to Rice Lake.[53] The report of the trial’s conclusion did not make anything clear. Dietz’s mother cried on the stand, and her testimony, “with its sincere manner of delivery” was viewed as “the most effective testimony for the defense.” The prosecution found her tears to support its argument as well. It was painful to have to lie for her only son. Leavey also pointed out that “Mrs. Lewis has prominent cheek bones the same as Lone Star Dietz.”[54] He asked, “if people had not commented upon the resemblance Dietz bore to her.” Some found Leavey’s “denunciation of Dietz” to be “the most scathing heard in the federal court in years, but Dietz sat through it without betraying the slightest emotion.”
Some branded Lone Star Dietz a “faker,” “impostor” and “impersonator.” Winston, however, “argued that Dietz believed he was an Indian and answered the questions of the government in good faith.” “Judge Rudkin said that the jury could consider Dietz’s entering an Indian school” and “his marriage to an Indian woman as evidence of his intent and belief as to his parentage and Indian blood.” Regardless of what they felt about Lewis’ testimony, the jurors were instructed not to decide what was true, but to try to determine what Dietz believed to be true.
At least they were “saying something about” the Lillian Russell of the gridiron. “Crowds filled the corridors of the federal court, eager for admittance to the trial long before the doors opened,” as one reporter observed. “In the assemblage were a large number of young women of the high school age, who filled one section of the courtroom. After the close of the trial in the afternoon they still lingered near and engaged Dietz in conversation whenever the opportunity presented itself.”[55] After twenty hours the jury could not reach a verdict. By breakfast time, when the jury was finally discharged, it was eight to four in Dietz’s favor. Leavey quickly filed a new indictment that tactically ignored the question of whether or not Dietz was in fact “an Indian.” It still claimed he was “a natural born American citizen,” rather than “a noncitizen Indian as he stated in his registration card.”[56] It also reintroduced charges regarding Dietz’s claim he was exempt as the head of a motion picture company that produced wartime propaganda films. Sol Bleiswiss of Spokane, the company’s alleged “manger,” testified at the first trial “as to the character of the work being carried on by the company,” until the defense counsel objected. Leavey believed that Dietz’s film corporation had no employees whatsoever, and also “never got beyond the stage of trying to float its capital stock, and never operated as a going concern in making pictures.”[57] The statement Dietz made to the Spokane-Review in January 1918 was prophetic: “I may die a poor man, with my ambitions far from realized, but I will never attain them or wealth by portraying the savage Indian again.”[58]
On January 8, 1920, Dietz appeared before Judge Rudkin’s court and pleaded nolo contendre or “no contest”.[59] According to Winston, the plea was not “a confession of guilt,” but reflected the dire circumstances of his client. “Mr. Dietz had no money, either to pay his lawyer or to procure the attendance of witnesses,” stated a reporter. “If a second trial had been he would have been compelled to have gone to trial without his witnesses.” Winston said his client “could fight no longer. His weapons (witnesses) were impossible of procurement. He was in the position of a man without a weapon, fighting an army equipped with repeating rifles.”[60] Since the nolo contrendre plea is “in the nature of a compromise between the state and the defendant—a matter not of right, but of favor,” the court must agree to it. Winston said his client’s situation should be “shocking to the sense of justice of every American,” not just because Dietz had been falsely accused, but because the lack of funds for a defense witness was essentially unconstitutional. The law only allowed funds for witnesses “within the district where the case is tried.”[61] However, the plea, which the court accepted, provided an out for Dietz. If he was a victim of injustice, and portrayed as such in the newspapers, then he would no longer have to prove his identity. In fact, such “unjust” punishment served to support his Indian identity until even after his death.
On January 8, 1920, William Henry Dietz was sentenced to thirty days in the Spokane County Jail “without fine or costs.” He entered his cell at 4:00 p.m. Dietz began his confinement two days after the one year anniversary of Angel’s death. He certainly had time to grieve, but he was, apparently, not remorseful about Sallie or her brother. For the rest of his life he continued to promote himself with their past. All was forgotten, if not forgiven, in the end, because the story his mother told of his birth distracted everyone from the identity theft, not to mention the fraud, Dietz did in fact commit.
During his incarceration The Outlook published a eulogy for Angel by Natalie Curtis. Curtis’ words about her friend’s career were an apt sentiment for Angel’s marriage to “Lone Star”: “there is little tangible evidence that now can be shown of what Angel wrought, and above all, of what she dreamed.”[62] Some time after the trial, Leanna Ginder Dietz Lewis and her husband relocated to Florida, where she died in Hillsborough County in 1951 (Florida Death Index, ancestry.com). According to Dietz's biographer, Tom Benjey, no one knows where Dietz went after he was released from jail.[63] The next year, however, he was hired to coach at Purdue University in Indiana. He married Doris O. Pottlitzer, a so-called “Jewish heiress" and local journalist, on January 29. 1922, the week after he was fired from Purdue for illegal recruiting. He continued coaching for two more decades and even took on a short stint doing artwork for advertising. He also painted occasionally. In 1964, still married to Doris, “William ‘Lone Star’ Dietz,” as his headstone reads, died a poor man in Reading, Pennsylvania.
End Notes
[This chapter, which came just before the Epilogue, was cut from the published version of Fire Light: The Life of Angel De Cora, Winnebago Artist, by Linda M. Waggoner]
[1]. Case No. 3162, “United States of America, Eastern District of Washington, Northern Division, United States District Court. September Term, 1918. First Count, Record Group No. 21, Records of the United States District Courts, Eastern District of Washington at Spokane, Criminal Case Files, 1890-1955, Box 53, Case #3162 “U. S. vs. William H. Dietz,” and Box 55, Case # 3248, National Archives Pacific NW Region, Seattle, Washington. Although Judge Rudkin noted that the two cases were consolidated on January 8, 1920, two case files still exist, each of which contains papers from both trials. Therefore, reference notes may not reflect chronology, i.e., papers filed in the first case, #3162, may have been produced during case #3248. Exhibits from the trial were returned or destroyed on November 12, 1942. Unfortunately, the court files from this period are not as complete as they would be today, so it was necessary to supplement them with newspaper reports.
[2]. At first, the defense case rested on whether or not the District Court of Washington had jurisdiction over draft registration forms that were filled out in California. This was decided in the prosecution’s favor.
[3]. Case No. 3162, Second Count.
[4]. Case No. 3248.
[5]. Edwardsville Intelligencer, March 22, 1916.
[6]. His “Indian” identity was not the only issue. In 1916 many Germans, especially in Minnesota, faced discrimination because of the war. The implication seems to be Dietz chose to emphasize the race/nationality that was most optimum for his public image.
[7]. Pow Wow, 6:2 (November, 1915) 8-10, John Ewers Papers.
[8]. Spokesman Review, June 23, 1919. For local trial coverage, see also the Seattle Post Intelligencer, June 22, 24, 25, &27 and the Seattle Times 24-26.
[9]. Ibid and Rice Lake Chronotype, June 30, 1919.
[10]. Spokesman Review, June 23, 1919.
[11]. Regular Pine Ridge rolls begin in 1892, when Sallie first appeared as Witie or “Woman Face,” age 28. The next year she is listed with “One Star,” her “brother, ” aged 21. They appear together until Sallie married Edward Yankton. In 1897 he headed their household. By 1901 Yankton remarried and Sallie and One Star again appeared in their own household. In 1905 One Star became the head of his own household, until he was removed from the rolls in 1923. John Eagle Horse, Jr., begins heading Sallie’s household in 1913, Pine Ridge Agency Census Rolls, Oglala College archives, Kyle, South Dakota.
[12]. James One Star, Carlisle Student Files, # 5682, RG 75, NARA.
[13]. See L. G. Moses, Wild West Shows, and the Images of American Indians, 1883-1933 and Alan Gallop, Buffalo Bill’s British Wild West. Both Red Shirt and One Star toured Europe with William Cody or “Buffalo Bill.” Red Shirt first left the United States on tour with Buffalo Bill in 1887. One Star was among a group of prisoners from Wounded Knee Cody took into “custody” in 1891 to tour Europe. One Star was returned to Pine Ridge in 1892, NARA RG34, Regular Army enlisted personnel, serving 1789 - October 31, 1912, PRD 39592, October 13, 1892. One Star was also with Buffalo Bill and “Jourdan’s Show” in 1894, Rosebud Agency District Census, 1893, “Indians with Buffalo Bill” and “Indians with Jourdan’s Show,” RG 75, 6NC-77-2, Roll 15, LDS.
[14]. Barbara Landis of Cumberland County Historical Society sent the author this picture, date unknown.
[15]. Rice Lake Chronotype, Monday, June 30, 1919, Wisconsin State Historical Society (microfilm). The Mark Marston household is listed as number forty-two on the 1920 South Dakota federal census, Shannon County, Township 35, Range 45, Pine Ridge Agency. Charles Yellow Boy’s household is number one, William P. Garnett’s is number 40, and John and Sallie Eagle Horse are number ninety-four.
[16]. RG 75, NARA, Carlisle Student Files, James One Star, # 5682.
[17]. Ibid.
[18]. Spokesman Review, June 24, 1919.
[19]. Rice Lake Chronotype, June 30, 1919.
[20]. William P. Garnett became the interpreter for the Red Cloud Agency in 1877. He was the son of Richard Brooke Garnett, Brig. General, of Virginia and Looking Woman, 1880 and 1920 South Dakota Federal census, Pine Ridge, South Dakota.
[21]. A note by Sallie’s name states “father of Fearless giver and Foolish elk.” “Foolish Elk” and “Crazy Elk” are the same name, but the wording is obviously a mistake and should be “children” of Fearless giver and Foolish elk, RG 75, Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota, Allottee Record Card, 1904-1909, Revision of Names on Allotment Roll, 1906, South Dakota Historical Society microfilm 5224.
[22]. Rice Lake Chronotype, June 30, 1919.
[23]. Spokane Review, June 23, 1919.
[24]. NARA, RG 34, Regular Army enlisted personnel, serving 1789 - October 31, 1912, Register of Enlistments in the U.S. Army, 1891-1892, M233, Roll 46, “James One Star”; For dishonorable discharge see Document File 4435-4737, Box 39, Special Orders, No. 212 and P.R.D. 36737, August 13-27, 1892; 9138, June 19-30, 1894; and 4651, August 27 to September 8, 1894.
[25]. Ibid, 4651, 144520 and 1531545. These are only index cards with a summary of the Adjutant General’s response to the letters--Pratt’s on June 9, 1909, and Sniffen’s on October 30, 1908. Pratt and Sniffen’s original letters were not saved with the military records of James One Star.
[26]. One newspaper reported his salary had actually been reduced from $4,500 to $3,000 “because the W. S. C. athletic authorities decided they could not stand for such frills.” His team, though victorious in the Rose Bowl, lost against the team rivals, Oregon Aggies and Oregon University the next fall, The Lincoln Daily Star, January 7, 1917.
[27]. An affidavit given by Dietz prior to the trial states he was advised “he had a right to claim exemption from military service” even though he was “willing to enlist” and “offered so to do.” He said the officers advised him that it was for the best interests of the Service that he did not enlist but . . . claimed his exemption,” “Affidavit of William H. Dietz,” signed June 19, 1919, Case 3162.
[28]. Rice Lake Chronotype, Monday, June 30, 1919, WSHS (microfilm).
[29]. Spokane Review, June 23, 1919.
[30]. Rice Lake Chronotype, June 30, 1919, WSHS, microfilm.
[31]. I was not able to find the probate records or W. W. and Leanna Dietz’s divorce decree, after looking through several county archives. This may be because they were pulled for the trial.
[32]. Registration of Births, Barron County Wisconsin Registers of Deeds, James Hansen, WSHS.
[33]. The 1885 Wisconsin state census also shows two males and one female in the Dietz household, State of Wisconsin census, Village of Rice Lake, Barron County, June 20, 1885.
[34]. James L. Hansen, personal correspondence.
[35]. Rice Lake Chronotype, June 30, 1919, WSHS, microfilm.
[36]. John F. Dietz became a Wisconsin folk hero when he refused access to Chippewa Lumber Co. of Cameron Dam, where he had located with his family. The dispute, which involved shooting on both sides, lasted from 1904 until 1910, when Dietz killed a deputy and was sent to prison.
[37]. Spokesman Review, June 24, 1919.
[38]. Ibid.
[39]. Ibid.
[40]. Ibid.
[41]. Ibid.
[42]. Ojibwe, Ho-chunk (Winnebago), and Dakota were the tribal people residing closest to Rice Lake.
[43]. Chief Yellow Hair, though dressed in Sioux costume, is pictured with his “Chippewa council” at the fair.
[44]. See Case 3162, Leana [Leanna] Barry’s affidavit, May 28, 1919.
[45].
Sheboygan Press, July 9, 1919.
[46]. Rice Lake Chronotype, June 26 and July 3, 1902. The show was advertised as “the last visit for years,” because it was headed for a long European tour. It featured “a thrilling defense of a pioneer’s home against the murderous redskins, vivid battle between Indians and U.S. Cavalry.”
[47]. Spokane Review, June 23, 1919.
[48]. Thanks to One Star descendant, Ida Marshall, for this information.
[49]. Spokesman Review, June 26, 1919
[50]. Ibid.
[51]. Spokesman Review, June 24, 1919.
[52]. Thanks to James Hansen for finding this, Barron County Chronotype, August 21, 1884.
[53]. See the fabulous biography by Charles S. Castner of Reading, Pennsylvania, “How ‘Lone Star’ Earned His Name,” John Ewers Papers. In this story Dietz, Sr. escapes from South Dakota with his “infant son” and doesn’t stop until he reaches Rice Lake, where he “took himself a new wife named Leana.”
[54]. Spokane Review, June 25, 1919
[55]. Ibid, June 26, 1919.
[56]. Ibid, June 27, 1919.
[57]. Ibid.
[58]. “Spokane Press Clipping Bureau,” Spokane-Review, January 27, 1819, State history: Native American. Biographies, 1918, Lone Star Dietz, http://content.wsulibs.wsu.edu.
[59]. Although Dietz had pleaded nolo contendre to the charges, on January 15, 1920, the Rice Lake Chronototype headline read, “Dietz Gets Jail Sentence: Former Rice Lake Boy . . . Pleaded Guilty to Government Charge of Falsifying Questionnaire.” One week later, the paper published a letter from Alex M. Winston, Dietz’s attorney under the headline: “Dietz Did Not Plead Guilty: Pleaded Nolo Contendre Which is Not Confession of Charge Made, Waived Contest Because He Had No Money to Procure Attendance of Witness,” Rice Lake Chronotype, January 22, 1920, WSHS, microfilm.
[60]. Ibid, January 22, 1920.
[61]. Ibid.
[62]. Curtis, “An American Indian Artist.”
[63]. Dietz moved back to Carlisle temporarily, “The Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art: Circular, 1920-1921,” from Drexel Archives in John Ewers Papers.