Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/154

120 convince that it is a crime to kill an Indian, or that to rob an Indian of his lands is not a meritorious act. This pressure grows in volume and intensity as the population increases, until finally, in some way or another one Indian reservation after another falls into the hands of white settlers. Formerly, when this was accomplished, the Indians so dispossessed were removed to other vacant places farther westward. Now this expedient is no longer open. The western country is rapidly filling up. A steady stream of immigration is following the railroad lines and then spreading to the right and left. The vacant places still existing are either worthless or will soon be exposed to the same invasion. The plains are being occupied by cattle-raisers, the fertile valleys and bottom-lands by agriculturists, the mountains by miners. What is to become of the Indians?

In trying to solve this question, we have to keep in view the facts here recited. However we may deplore the injustice which these facts have brought, and are still bringing, upon the red men, yet with these facts we have to deal. They are undeniable. Sound statesmanship cannot disregard them. It is true that the Indian reservations now existing cover a great many millions of acres, containing very valuable tracts of agricultural, grazing and mineral land; that the area now cultivated, or that can possibly be cultivated by the Indians, is comparatively very small; that by far the larger portion is lying waste. Is it not, in view of the history of more than two centuries, useless to speculate in our minds how these many millions of acres can be preserved in their present state for the Indians to roam upon?—how the greedy push of settlement and enterprise might be permanently checked for the protection of the red man's present possessions, as hunting-grounds upon which, moreover, there is now but very little left to hunt? We are sometimes told that ours is