Jr. Patriot Report - July 2026

John Stumpner

Indian Motorcycles

This July 4th, we are celebrating our nation's 250th birthday. While our current government has only been in place since 1788 (2/3rds of states ratified the Constitution) and 1789 (new United States government officially takes over,) July 4th is the national holiday. The colonists were fed up with being treated as second class citizens by the King and government of Great Britain. Pleas for their rights as British subjects were ignored. So, on July 4th of 1776, representatives from the 13 Colonies sent a letter to the King saying that they were no longer British subjects but were going to be independent.

An interesting note is that for half of those 250 years, motorcycles have been part of the United States. 125 years ago, in 1901, the Hendee Manufacturing Company of Springfield, Massachusetts started building and selling Indian Motorcycles. During the 1910's, Hendee was the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world. Indian motorcycles had great success in racing. In 1911, the Indian racing team won the top three places at the famous Isle of Man TT races. The original Indian Motorcycle company was forced into bankruptcy in 1953. Since that time, various companies have tried to revive the brand with limited results. In 2011, Polaris (maker of snowmobiles and ATV's) bought the brand and has become so successful that Indian is now a stand-alone company owned by a private investment group.

Indian motorcycles were used by many early pioneers of motorcycling. Erwin “Cannonball” Baker (the Cannonball Run is named after him), took 11 days, 12 hours and 10 minutes to make a trip from San Diego to New York in 1914. Later, the Van Buren sisters took about 60 days to go from New York to San Francisco. While this isn't impressive by modern standards, remember that back in the 1910's few paved roads existed and in parts of the United States, no roads at all.

In the 1930's, a young African American girl, Bessie Stringfield was a true motorcycle gypsy. With no plan other than to go ride, she took the first of her many cross-country trips on an Indian Scout. To support herself, she did motorcycle stunts and trick riding at carnivals and county fairs. In the 1960's, Burt Munro of New Zealand used a heavily modified Indian Scout to set land speed records that still stand to this day.

Many celebrities like Indian motorcycles. Famous actors Steve McQueen and James Dean had Indians. Even today, celebrities like Brad Pitt and Arnold Schwarzenegger ride Indian motorcycles. Actor Mark Wahlberg is even the “Brand Ambassador” for Indian.

Unfortunately, in the world today, some politicians and bureaucrats do not appreciate the history and tradition of motorcycling in the United States. In an effort to feel good about themselves, they seek to end our freedom of the road by limiting our vehicle choices, forcing us to share the road with self-driving vehicles that can't detect motorcycles and limiting our choices for repairing our vehicles. Motorcyclist rights organizations like ABATE of Wisconsin are in the lead to help make sure we will always have the freedom of the road. We want to make sure that in the future, someone like Bessie Stringfield can just hop on her bike and ride where she pleases.

John