Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/128

94 No man can read your speech, which, as I am informed by the best possible authority, was not the product of momentary excitement, but a coolly and carefully prepared and elaborated effort, printed and sent several days before its delivery to the newspapers of your State, without receiving the impression that you mean to hold this Department of the Government responsible for the murder, not as a mere accidental consequence of a hand-to-hand struggle incident to an attempted arrest, but as a concerted and prearranged act, designed to rid the Department of a troublesome opponent of its policy. You go even so far as to add: “Indeed, the whole thing has been so in accordance with the ordinary mode of transacting Indian affairs, or the life of an Indian is counted of so little consequence, that when inquired about concerning it by the Senate of the United States, the Interior Department forgot for nearly a year to answer the inquiry at all, and did not think it worth while to express an opinion upon its character.” If this means anything pertinent to this case it can only be that the ordinary method of transacting Indian affairs in this Department is to murder men unless they fall in with its official policy, and that by it the life of an Indian is considered a matter of small moment.

I must confess that when reading this atrocious statement I could not repress a feeling of indignation; but upon mature reflection it became clear to me that the outrage of so revolting an insinuation had passed the line which separates the sublime from the ridiculous. Senator Kirkwood characterized it by the following quiet remark, on the floor of the Senate:

Now, whether the Senator desired to be understood as wishing to convey the impression that this had been a prearranged plan beforehand to kill the man, that this soldier