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 More than twenty years ago Helen Hunt Jackson closed the preface of her "Century of Dishonor" thus: "It is a shame which the American nation ought not to lie under, for the American people, as a people, are not unjust. If there be one thing which they believe in more than any other, and mean that every man on this continent shall have, it is fair play. And as soon as they fairly understand how cruelly it has been denied to the Indian, they will rise up and demand it for him." And the century of dishonor has lengthened by another quarter.

Col. Richard I. Dodge, after thirty-three years on the plains as Indian fighter, displays in his "A Living Issue" this same confiding hope: "It is too much to expect anyone of these [politicians] to risk the loss of votes and thus jeopardize his future career for a miserable savage. Politicians will do nothing unless forced to it by the great, brave, honest, human heart of the American people. To that I appeal! To the press; to the pulpit; to every voter in the land; to every lover of mankind. For the honor of our common country; for the sake of suffering humanity; force your representatives to meet this issue."

This was written more than twenty years ago. What is the matter with "the great, brave, honest, human heart of the American people"? Nothing. But a "government of the people" has not much to boast of if, when so constituted, it fails to be a 19