Page:A Century of Dishonor.pdf/378

360 be rendered to the Indian cause at present would be given, therefore, by some one sufficiently interested to obtain an answer who would write to Secretary Schurz, and request him, on the part of the Indians, either to aid them by publicly and cordially endorsing this effort of the Poncas to secure their legal rights in the courts, or else to give his reasons against this attempt, in so clear a form that one could understand them. If there are good reasons, there can be no ground for keeping them secret, and the public has a right to know them. If not, no man can call himself a friend of the Indians who throws cold water on the present interest of the public in this matter.

“Secretary Schurz has already stated that it was not worth while to sue for the Ponca lands, as the Poncas are better off where they now are; but Secretary Schurz cannot deny that it is worth ten times $10,000 to prove that if the Government seizes land given to the Indians forever by solemn compact, the latter can by the courts recover it. Secretary Schurz has also said that a bill to give the Indians land in severalty is already before Congress. If he wishes that bill to pass he must know that it is only by help of the people that the ignorance, apathy, and greed which are accountable for the shameful record of the past can be overcome; and that, whatever his sentiments toward these particular Poncas, he cannot afford to throw aside the interest they have excited.

“For a hundred years the Indians have been the victims of fraud and oppression on the part of the Government. Will anything put an end to it but to give the Indians the legal right to protect themselves? Promises and plans will not do it, for who can assure their performance? Secretary Schurz's position is a strange one, and the public are waiting and watching to see what it means. Is it possible that be is satisfied to have 250,000 human beings, with valuable possessions (however uncivilized), held as absolute slaves, with no rights, and at the mercy of a government like ours, whose constant changes, to say the least, render most improbable the wise, equitable, and humane treatment he recommends in his report—and when the distance of the Indians from the personal interests of all but those States which have a personal interest in possessing his lands makes the assistance of Congress in such treatment still more unlikely? I cannot but believe that he has allowed himself to be driven into an opposition he does not really feel; and that he will yet have the magnanimity to forget any criticism on his own acts, and take