1978 Saltine Warrior of Syracuse: "It portrayed the Indian as a savage barbaric, and, on the other hand, as a comic, subject to public ridicule.... Both forms are offensive."

Saltine Warrior headed for exit?

1978 Feb 26 Press and Sun Bulletin 

       If the Saltine Warrior is on the verge of the same enforced extinction that erased the Stanford Indian and the Dartmouth Indian, how many other endangered species are about us?

      Just in Section 4 sports.. the North High Indians, Owego-Apalachin Indian, and Sidney Warriors.. the Oxford Black Hawks, Afton Indians, Chenango Valley Warriors, Candor Indian, Walton Warriors, Watkins Glen Senecas, Stamford Indians, and at least six others, maybe even the Ithaca Little Red.

       Or, elsewhere in the state.. St Bonaventure's Brown Indians, Hartwick's Iroquois Warriors, Syracuse's baseball Chiefs, Buffalo's basketball Braves, Colgate's Red Raiders, St John's Redmen, Siena's Indians.. possibly Rochester's hockey Americans. 

      Stanford abolished its "Indian" nickname in 1972, same year and same reason it happened in Dartmouth: pressure from student activists of American Indian descent who objected to what they called undignified image of their race even though Stanford several years earlier had redrawn its logo from a caricature to a noble profile.

      Now it's happened at Syracuse.

      "We felt it was a racist stereotype, and that it distorted the Indian culture in an offensive way," says Gerry Muskrat, a visit law professor from University of Oklahoma who has become official negotiator for an American Indian student organization. "It portrayed the Indian as a savage barbaric, and, on the other hand, as a comic, subject to public ridicule.... Both forms are offensive."

      The man who threw the requested switch is Melvin Mounts, vice president for student affairs. "The university was asked to respond to an expression of relatively deep concern among students and faculty whose heritage is native American," he said. "He said the decision was made with the consent of Chancellor Melvin A. Eggers and Lambda Chi Alpha - the fraternity which traditionally provides the mascot who cavorts on the sidelines, nude to the waist, except for war-paint and a shreds of buckskin. Not the noblest of figures, perhaps, but usually in good taste.

 Looking for a Replacement

      The Saltine Warrior, as an individual, was first sighted when the Indian graved the October 1931 issue of the Orange Peel, the SU campus' humor magazine of that era. A few months later the Men's Student Senate adopted the Saltine Warrior as the school's symbol and a student committee formed to promote the mascot, particularly for live appearances at home games.

      Now Mounts has announced a new committee, to choose from the ideas submitted as a new mascot. He'd like the decision by March 11, less than two weeks away, to give printers ample time to replace the Saltine Warrior in university publications that carry the Indian. Even at that. Prof. Muskrat is miffed by continuation of the mascot through the spring -- "If it's wrong now, then it's wrong for the rest of the year."

      Muskrat's lobby may wind up even more miffed, however. Public protest in the campus and city newspapers reportedly has put Mounts' basically on-man-decision expurgation on "hold." Former SU athletic director Lew Andreas, speaking for many, says, "I certainly don't agree with it, and think traditions like this should be preserved. I don't think it's a racial issue." 

      It is unthinkable to caricature a race, or to offend large numbers of people, even if the slur is unintentional. American Indians have long been sick of the eternally repeated lie that makes them out as savage aggressors against innocent whites. The sideline mascot brandishing a tomahawk and copying stereotyped fables from a Grade B 1937 movie are offensive. 

The name has meaning

      But in every cause, there are radicals who ask the unreasonable, but ask it so loudly the motion carries. A nickname is selected in admiration, and a mascot is regarded with fondness. There are colleges represented by Fighting Scots, Fighting Swedes and Fighting Irish, with no known outcry from the involved minorities.

      Is it demeaning to the race that Cooperstown -- legendary haunt of James Fennimore Cooper's Uncas and Chingachgook - makes its teams the Redskins, even though posters at rival schools may inevitably read "Scalp the Redskins"?

      The tradition is nearly as entrenched at Owego-anglication of Ahwagah, "where the valley widens" -- where Gen. Sullivan's marchers destroyed a Cayuga village in 1779.

      There are few cherished Owego traditions than the statue of an Indian horseman which is mounted on a rock, dominating the high-school lobby. It was presented in 1927 by the 44 members of that year's Owego Free Academy graduating class, a plaster of Paris replica of 'Appeal to the Great Spirit' by Cyrus Edwin Dallin, most famed sculptor of Indians... The Indian has been incorporated into the insignia of the village and its police. 

1978 Feb 26 Press and Sun Bulletin