The Daily Ardmoreite

INDIAN GIRL RELIES ON NATION'S HONOR
STUDIES LAW AND FIGHTS THE
WYANDOTTE CEMETERY CASE.
WHICH IS HER LIFE WORK.

Kansas City, Kan, July 22 -The immediate granting of a temporary restraining order to stop the sale of Huron cemetery, the Wyandotte burying ground in Kansas City, Kan, was denied Miss Lyda B. Conley yesterday by Judge E. L. Fischer in the first division of the Wyandotte county district court. W. A. Simpson, a Kansas City real estate dealer, who is a member of the commission appointed by congress to sell the cemetery, stated he would not immediately disturb the graves, thereby giving Miss Conley an opportunity to present her case. Judge Fischer set July 29 for a further hearing.

The petition was prepared by Miss Conley, one of the three sisters, descendants of the Wyandottes buried in the cemetery and was filed soon after the office of the clerk of the district court was opened yesterday morning. Although the legal fight for the protection of the graves in the little burying ground has been made her life work, and for its sake she studied law and is admitted to practice in the supreme court of the United States no feminine display of emotion had a part in Miss Conley's argument. It was composed of logic and extracts from the supreme court decisions and the constitution of the United States.

After stating that the temporary restraining order was desired only to prevent opening of the graves until the question of ownership could be passed upon, Miss Conley presented her argument. She alleged that the two-acre tract was deeded to the Wyandotte nation by the United States in a treaty January 31, 1855, to be used permanently as a burying ground. She stated that her mother, Eliza B. Conley, was buried there in 1878; her sister, Sarah, in 1880; her father, Andrew S. Conley, a white man, in 1895; and that, although the last interment was made in 1909, the cemetery has been maintained by the three sisters ever since.

"We, at least, have a foothold in court," Miss Conley said last night. "If the injunction is denied I will immediately appeal and the question of ownership, never before tried, will be taken straight through to the supreme court of the United States."

She also stated her belief that congress takes comparatively small interest in the sale of a two-acre burying ground, the proceeds of which when divided among all the descendants of the Wyandottes, will amount to 53 cents each.

"The motive lies nearer home in the desire among certain real estate men to have a valuable piece of property put on the market," she said.