Some of the previous agents on the case, including Burger, had betrayed the kind of casual prejudice toward the Osage that was then commonplace. In a joint report, Burger and another agent had stated, “The Indians, in general, are lazy, pathetic, cowardly, dissipated,” and Burger’s colleague insisted that the only way to make “any of these dissolute, stubborn Osage Indians talk and tell what they know is to cut off their allowance…and if necessary, throw them in jail.”
