Page:Visit of the Hon. Carl Schurz to Boston, March 1881.pdf/35

22 offer him is, that in the execution of his honest purposes he may find as kind a public judgment as you are giving me.

I am sure that the honorable chairman has not mentioned the recent controversy about the Indian question for the purpose of continuing it here, and certainly I do not mean to do so. While it may be necessary sometimes to repel attacks in self-defence, I am always ready to give to every honest critic of my acts the same credit for good intentions which I claim for myself. Among those who have the public good in view, differences of opinion should not be permitted too easily to degenerate into impeachment of motives. You are certainly right in thinking that I could not possibly have spent four years of my public life in maliciously plotting the oppression of a poor Indian tribe. You may safely assume that no man at the head of the Interior Department, unless he be a corrupt and depraved wretch, will ever be inclined wilfuly to maltreat the Indians.

But the management of Indian affairs has to deal with complications of difficulties of which nobody has any clear conception who is not personally conversant with its details. It may easily happen that those charged with responsibility, and having the whole field in view, find themselves forced to resort to expedients of which those who direct their attention only to one point of the intricate problem do not appreciate the necessity and bearing; and thus