Dr. McGillycuddy was a controversial pioneer of the effort to build a sustainable relationship between the United States and the Native American Indian people. He traveled to Washington to protest inhumane treatment of the Indians at Camp Robinson, the Red Cloud Agency, and blow the whistle on Indian agents and military that were exploiting Indians on western reservations. His sincerity and constructive ideas for dealing with the native people so impressed authorities he was offered the Indian Agent post at Pine Ridge, the nation’s largest reservation, a challenging assignment for a 30-year-old.
When Grover Cleveland’s Democratic administration took over the White House and ordered the Pine Ridge agent to replace his efficient Republican clerk with a Democratic appointee, McGillycuddy refused to comply and was dismissed, despite protests from both races that attested to his “effective, intelligent and just administration.”
The Doctor was fed up with “government buncombe and red tape,” He had fallen victim of Washington politics, and was escorted off of the reservation with his wife and their pair of pet buffalo.
When the Ghost Dance began appearing on Pine Ridge, the man who had replaced McGillycuddy as Pine Ridge Agent called in the U.S. Army. To this, McGillycuddy responded:
“If the Seventh-day Adventists got up on the roofs of their houses in their ascension robes to welcome the Second Coming of Christ, the whole U.S. Army is not rushed into motion.”