Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/514

488 opinion, coming from persons ever so well-meaning, will be materially weakened in their influence upon those charged with public responsibility, when they proceed upon assumptions known to be groundless, when for instance in the discussion of the Ponca case we are told by prominent speakers in public meetings, that the Poncas are kept in the Indian Territory by the influence of the “Indian ring,” while I know that this Department has no authority of law for moving them back and that I have never been approached by a human soul with regard to the matter; or that the Poncas were stripped of more than $200,000 worth of personal property, that is to say every man, woman and child of the 700 Poncas of about $300 each, while the ridiculous absurdity of such a statement is clear to every one knowing anything of Indians and the personal property they are apt to have; or that the Poncas were driven away from their old reservation in Dakota by the Indian ring which wanted to get possession of their lands and whose bidding was done by this Department, while I know as every well-informed person knows that the old Ponca reserve, being Indian country now as it was before, could not be and has not been taken possession of by any white person. The wrongs suffered by the Poncas are grievous enough and this Department is doing everything it can under the law to repair them, but you will readily understand that such wild statements as here mentioned are not calculated to inspire great confidence in the judgment or the regard for the truth of some of the advocates of their cause.

Such confidence ought to exist if there is to be fruitful coöperation for a common end. It needs no argument to show that the philanthropic sentiment of the citizens of Boston will accomplish more if working in good understanding with the Government than without it. I am very anxious that such good understanding and coöpera-