Page:The Indian Dispossessed.pdf/209

The Indian Dispossessed feature in the correspondence. He shows clearly that the whole scheme involving the Ponca removal was laid by the preceding administration, although consummated immediately after he took office. Of this he says:

"The removal itself, in pursuance of the law quoted, was effected a very short time after I took charge of my present position, when, I will frankly admit, I was still compelled to give my whole attention to the formidable task of acquainting myself with the vast and complicated machinery of the Interior Department. If at some future day you, Governor, should be made Secretary of the Interior, you will find what that means; and although you may accomplish it in a shorter time than I did, yet you will have to pass through some strange experiences during the first six months."

In view of the subsequent career of the distinguished Governor, this friendly warning is rather interesting. But there is a depth of meaning in the secretary's admission. When revolting tales come from the realm of the Czar of remorseless cruelties, of stifled justice, and hopeless exile, the world is now enough enlightened to say, T is not the Czar—look to the bureaucracy." So, in the land of the Noble Free; secretaries may come to grope their uncertain way, and secretaries may go with the passing of the presidents, but the bureaucracy sits tight at the public crib, guiding unseen the affairs 190