Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/103

Rh call it the result of fraud or other illegitimate practices, is at least a hasty conclusion not warranted by other evidence. Moreover, if the petition does not express the real sentiments of the Poncas, and has been extorted from them by illegitimate means, the men so extorting it have made a great mistake in advising that they be permitted to go to Washington where they would be at perfect liberty to express their true sentiments not only before me but before others. I would certainly not restrain them. But if that petition does express their real sentiments and they are willing to stay where they are, and to improve their condition, and to accept indemnity for the lands they lost in Dakota, would not that be, in view of all the difficulties surrounding the case, a satisfactory solution of the problem? If the point of right and principle in question be fully and clearly established by act of Congress; if the ceding away of the Ponca lands to the Sioux be thus fully recognized as a wrong; if ample indemnity be paid for it, and if the Poncas then are content to stay where they are, thus avoiding a new removal, the breaking up of their present houses and farms and mills and educational facilities, and the transfer to Dakota, where all these things would have to be begun again from the beginning, avoiding also a possibly unpleasant contact with the Sioux, and a partial evacuation of the Indian Territory, which appears especially dangerous under present circumstances—would that not be satisfactory to you? Would you in that case wish they had not come to such a conclusion? And, indeed, considering that the quality of the land on which they now are is much better than that of their land in Dakota, and the circumstance that after much suffering they appear at last to have now become acclimated like other settlers in that region, does it not seem that in time they may become prosperous and contented? Would you regret this? It was said that the