Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/136

102 cerning it; your proclamation of the zeal with which you in vain intreated me and others to rectify the wrong, are fair specimens of the spirit with which this agitation has been carried on for many months, not only by you but by others.

I know that many honest and sincere philanthropic men and women have taken a warm interest in the fate of that poor tribe, and have endeavored to do the best they knew to procure the redress of the hardships it had suffered, and for this I sincerely honor them. But it is also true, and a very large portion of the American people, witnessing this agitation, are now becoming aware of it, that agitators of a different class have endeavored to turn the movement for the benefit of Indians into one for the blackening of the character of one they choose to represent as a tyrannical oppressor. A new illustration has been furnished of the fact that it is difficult to exaggerate the malignant unscrupulousness of the speculator in philanthropy hunting for a sensation. And once more has it become apparent how easily it happens that honest people, following such lead with the dangerous assurance of half knowledge, permit themselves to be made tools for the pursuit of questionable ends. While, ever since my accession to office, I may say without a boast, I was honestly endeavoring to do the best I could for the Indian race, I have been held up for many months as a heartless tyrant, oppressing hundreds of suffering men, women and children.

What I permitted myself to say was strictly in self-defense. But the fact that I first called attention to their grievances was discarded without notice. The reason I gave for not recommending the return of the Poncas to their old homes in the winter of 1877, when, from their own statements, I had first learned to appreciate the true nature of the case, consisted in the danger of thereby provoking another Sioux war, and possibly with it the