Killers of the Flower Moon: Fallacy 1 key example

The reporter argues that "something will have to be done" about the rising socioeconomic status of the Osage. This claim does not build on actual logic put forth by the reporter, but rather on the white reporter's (and his intended audience's) sense of anger and envy. It follows an over-the-top description of how the Osage are displaying their new wealth—wealth that most of the white readers cannot access. The idea of a sudden and rapid rise from rags to riches is the ultimate American dream that has historically been reserved for mostly white Americans. The journalist shows white readers that the Osage are enjoying a dream that they implicitly think is supposed to belong to white Americans too, if not to white Americans exclusively. The journalist claims that "something will have to be done about" the Osage's new wealth not because wealth itself is a demonstrable problem, but rather because he doesn't like how wealth in the hands of American Indians threatens the social hierarchy.

The reporter's comment foreshadows the way, over the next several years, supposed allies of the Osage will murder their own family members to get rich. This particular reporter works for Harper's Monthly Magazine, a traditionally progressive publication that ran abolitionist content during the Civil War. The fact that even a magazine like this would depict the Osage as undeserving social climbers hints at the bitterness that has tainted even familial relationships between the Osage and their white neighbors.