Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/104

70 advocates of fiat money deplored the reviving prosperity of the country because it destroyed their arguments. Can it be that any sincere friend of the Indians would regret the success of a solution apt to avoid serious risks and difficulties because it stopped their agitation? I should be sorry to think so.

I say to you frankly that I desire this solution. I know very well that no reparation can be perfectly complete, for the loss they have suffered by death, which I deplore as much as you do, cannot be repaired by this settlement, nor can it be by their return to Dakota. But we have to take care of the living, and this can be done by the solution here set forth, which appears to me the best for the Poncas as well as the safest with regard to the maintenance of peace and the protection of the rights and interests of tribes in the Indian Territory much more numerous than they. Nor would such a solution leave out of view the principles contended for. It is in the nature of compensation for property taken by the Government in the way of expropriation for public use, or by an error like the Sioux treaty of 1868, where restitution in kind would endanger the rights of other innocent parties. I will say further that conscientiously believing this to be the best solution, I shall express that opinion to the Ponca chiefs and encourage its acceptance, not by way of command, but by way of argument. I shall consider it my duty to do so, and I shall be glad if the Poncas accept it. It is quite possible, if new emissaries are sent among them again for the purpose of dissuading them from any consent to this proposition or of inducing them to run away in a disorderly manner from the lands they now occupy, that the Poncas may be prevailed upon to reject the reparation thus offered to them, notwithstanding the petition they have sent to me. But I trust that you and all the sincere friends of the Indians engaged in this movement will