But Not For Free

BERKELEY TRIBE/Box 9043/Berkeley, Calif. 94709/Weekly/
Single Issue, 25¢/US One Year, $6.00/Foreign One Year, $9.00

An Indian is only six feet tall. If he leaves the Great Valley at daybreak and follows the sun he can reach the Sea by nightfall. With a steady stride and good luck.

The white man covers the distance in less than an hour. He races across the earth almost as swiftly as the sun moves across the sky. And without effort. A slight twist of his wrist to begin, and then steady pressure applied through his leg to the ball of his right foot. Nothing more. He sits there, enclosed in a hunk of steel, rushing through space.

You white men think you are gods. To travel from the Great Valley to the Sea in less than an hour.

But not for free. The chrome horse demands its price.

You must lay a hard mixture of rock and sand over the brown earth. You must criss-cross this land with huge, smooth paths. You must destroy the trees. You must remove the wild animals. You must make a part of the world regular . . , even, predictable.

What energy hurtles you through space? A series of small explosions in the center of that hunk of metal. Explosions terrify my people. They are man-made thunder. Man does not make thunder cheaply. The small explosions fill the air with poison gas. Soon you will not be able to breathe without choking . . . soon you will not be able to open your eyes without crying . . . soon you will not be able to live at all.

It is not an easy journey to walk from the Great Valley to the Sea. My people would not make such a journey without good reason. We would finish the day tired and hungry. But when we travelled that distance we knew the earth we walked across. We knew the leaves of the live oak, the chatter of the squirrel, the tap tap tap of the woodpecker.

White man, what do you know?