Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/111

Rh made to produce the impression as if this Department had during four years devoted itself principally to the business of oppressing the Poncas, I may be pardoned for mentioning some other ends it has endeavored to serve. If those who participate in this agitation will take the trouble to raise their eyes for a moment from that one case which alone they see in the whole Indian question, they would perceive that under this Administration many things have been done which deserve their hearty sympathy and coöperation; they would observe constant efforts to secure by statute to the Indians the equal protection of the laws and an impregnable title to their lands and homes; they would notice practical measures, not merely to declare the Indian “a person” in theory, but to make him a person capable of taking care of himself, and of exercising and maintaining his rights; they would see the establishment of educational institutions which, although new, have already produced most promising results; they would see thousands of Indians but a short time ago vagrant and idle, now earning wages running into hundreds of thousands of dollars as freighters; they would see the organization of an Indian police which has not only been most efficacious in the maintenance of law and order, but also in producing a moral discipline, formerly unknown to them; they would see multitudes of Indians but a few years since on the warpath, now building houses and cultivating their farms in their simple way, and raising cattle and asking Congress for the white man's title to their lands; they would notice the conspicuous absence of those scandals in the Indian service which at another period called forth so much complaint; they would see a general treatment of the Indians humane and progressive; they would see the introduction of principles in our Indian policy which at a future day promise to work the solution of that difficult problem. I do not pretend that this is