Page:Journal of Negro History, vol. 7.djvu/196

 He spoke at length on a bill "to provide and regulate the counting of votes for President and Vice President and the decision in the disputed election of R. B. Hayes. He opposed the bill to repeal the act providing for the pay of Congressmen, but supported a measure to appropriate funds for the establishment of a national board of health.

In the Forty-fifth Congress, R. H. Cain proposed a measure to establish a line of mail and emigrant steam and sailing vessels between certain ports of the United States and Liberia. His colleague, Robert Smalls, was a man of wider interests. Among his various remarks, there must be noted those on the District of Columbia liquor traffic, interstate commerce, and the army reorganization bill. In the latter instance, he attempted to have inserted into the bill an amendment providing for the merging of enlisted men into military units without distinction as to race or color.

In the Senate, B. K. Bruce was afforded opportunity to debate the issues of the day. While most active in offering bills and resolutions, he nevertheless spoke forcefully on several matters of greater than ordinary import. He spoke out fearlessly against the bill restricting Chinese immigration, and while discussing the Indian bill, he took high ground, showing that we had failed in our selfish policy toward the Indian—a policy by which the breeding of hatred and discontent had kept him a fugitive and a vagabond—and emphasized the necessity for the government to do something to civilize the Indian. There must be a change in the Indian policy "if they are to be civilized," said he, "in that the best elements of their natures are to be de-