1964 – Ache in the Tummy

Marlon Brando has left our state, having presumably suffered a slight sea-sickness padding about at the head of tidewater in the Quillayute River. He was much better in "Mutiny on the Bounty." Many Washington residents have a pain in the tummy, too. They wonder how it is that a Hollywood actor can come into Washington and get away with the sort of fracturing of game laws that no Washingtonian could accomplish. And how the swashbuckling hero can incite the Indian people to disregard the orders of the courts. With the Indian folk we have small quarrel. Surely their white brothers have pressed them unduly through Indians is a quarrel with method. Fish can be taken from the Puyallup, the Nisqually, the Quillayute without threatening the whole fish run. Brando, we take it, was only partly successful in his publicity campaign. He did call attention to the real problem of the Indians. But he failed to score the big "feat" he would have scored if he could have tripped local officials into jailing him. Maybe they’ll be running "Mutiny on the Bounty" on TV again soon. If so, we’ll cast a sharp eye on Brando, to see how he’s taking the rolls of a ship on a wrathful sea. Perhaps we can spot a slight queasiness about his braggadocio demeanor.

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