Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/127

Rh garded by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and the Department.

The request by the agent to have the Indian arrested and confined “for the rest of his natural life” was at once rejected and altered by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to an arrest until further disposition. So it went to the War Department.

From this plain statement of facts, and all the evidence in the case, which also shows that the agent who was present called out to the soldiers not to shoot, it appears clearly that this deplorable catastrophe was only the result of a sudden impulse of a soldier, a bad impulse certainly, and that no one else but he himself could be held responsible for the murderous deed. This will be the conclusion of every fairminded man, as it was the conclusion arrived at by Senator Kirkwood, who is conversant with all the circumstances of the case, being the chairman of the committee appointed to investigate it, and who expressed that opinion clearly and unmistakably on the floor of the Senate.

Now, what have you made of this story? Delivering a eulogy upon the murdered Indian, you describe him as one of two brothers who had long and firmly resisted the tyranny of the Government; one of the brothers “the Government is at this moment engaged in the laudable attempt to starve into submission since it has not as yet been convenient to otherwise dispose of him,” which I suppose is intended to mean that the Government has as yet not found it convenient to procure his assassination; while the other, Big Snake, has “fallen in the conflict.” “With the latter,” you say, “the work was quicker and more effective.” As you describe the attempt to arrest Big Snake, “the struggle continued with doubtful odds, until a soldier, from a position prearranged for the purpose, put an end to it by a ball which pierced the brain of the victim.”