Page:Addresses in Memory of Carl Schurz.pdf/49

 words or acts please or displease. As Mr. Schurz stood before the Hampton students, it was plain that he was a man who had been able to lift himself out of the poisoned atmosphere of racial as well as sectional prejudice. It was easy to see that here was a man who wanted to see absolute justice done to the Indian, the Negro, and to the Southern white man.

At the time when Mr. Schurz entered President Hayes's cabinet, it was a popular doctrine that “the only good Indian was the dead Indian.” The belief had gained pretty general acceptance that the Indian was incapable of receiving a higher civilization. More than that, the Indian was being plundered of his lands, his rations, and was being used as the tool in a large degree to further the ends of unscrupulous schemers. It was easier to shoot an Indian than to civilize him. It has been easier to fight for freedom than work for the freedman. Easier to kick or down him than to lift him up. It was a period also when the Negro race was being plundered and deceived in reference to its vote. Not only this, when Mr. Schurz entered the Hayes cabinet, the Negro was being in a large degree used as the tool of demagogues, and at the same time many influences were at work to alienate the black and white races at the South, regardless of the permanent effect on either. Against all this Mr. Schurz threw the weight of his great name and forceful personality. Few men in private or public life did more than he to clear the atmosphere and put all sections of our country sanely and unselfishly at work for the highest welfare of the black and red races.

Mr. Schurz was among the first to see that if the Indian was to be permanently helped, he must be taught to become an independent and willing producer, rather than an irresponsible recipient of the bounty of the general government. Hence, he was among the first to encourage agricultural and other forms of industrial education for the Indians. He was among the first, both in his official capacity and as a private citizen, to aid General Armstrong at Hampton in his first attempt to give industrial training to the Indian in systematic way and on a large scale. I have said that he saw clearly into the needs and conditions of my race and its relations to the white race. Time permits