Custer and Government Corruption

This is a quoted story from Larry Gonick's amusing "Cartoon History of
the United States"

Does anyone else here find themselves reminded of CSE when they read this?

* * * * *

"By this time, the Plains Indians were already threatened by the
dwindling supply of buffalo. The government urged the Sioux and
Cheyenne to give up their home on the range for a bunk on the
reservation... to exchange buffalo robes for wool blankets, and buffalo
jerky for reservation beef. But now, with the fresh invasion of White
settlers, the Indians went on the warpath!"

"Despite the hostilities, official government records showed that nearly
all of the Plains Indians were safely on the reservations. But... in an
age of corruption, the records were falsified by corrupt government
agents. The agents, in charge of the reservations, received funds
according to the number of 'their' Indians. This number they routinely
inflated, skimming off the money of thousands of imaginary or absent souls."

(There follows a chart listing four reservations with "Official" and
"Actual" population tallies)

"Adding up the numbers, you get a discrepancy of roughly 25,000... most
of whom were camped along the banks of the Little Big Horn river,
Montana, when Col. Custer's cavalry arrived on a search-and-destroy
mission (June 25th, 1876)."

"Custer, receiving the surprise of his life, made a Last Stand. About
265 cavalrymen fell that day -- victims of government corruption!"

- Ron ^*^