ndians,
if I could not get honest men otherwise. I would make their office perpetual, and I would make it one of honour and of trust.
But what do we do instead? We change the man in charge every few years, before he has even got a glimpse at the inner life of an Indian. We send out some red-mouthed politician, who gets the place because he happens to have a great influence with the Irish vote of New York, or the German vote of Pennsylvania. We wait, nine cases out of ten, till the matter adjusts itself between the whites and the reds. If the Indians are peaceful, as in the case of the Willamette, why interfere? If they go to war they must be made peaceful. This is the way it has gone and still goes on, to the eternal disgrace of the country. If a trouble comes of this clashing together of the whites and the reds, we hear but one side of the story. The Indian daily papers are not read.
