And now, it being clear that the papers were delivered into your hands ten months ago, you undertake to charge the Interior Department with having for ten months forgotten to answer the inquiry and you iterate and reiterate that charge. The question is no longer whether the Interior Department forgot to furnish those papers, but what you did with them after they had been furnished! I will charitably suppose that your memory is not long enough for the business you are engaged in; for without such an explanation it would appear that you show a dangerous readiness to overcome ordinary scruples in an eager desire to make small points.
But you venture a step farther the effect of which you have probably not calculated beforehand. You say in the debate following your prepared speech:
I have complained of them [these wrongs] to him [the head of the Interior Department] and before the public, and entreated him to take hold of this thing himself and leave upon the records of the country not only that he had no part or lot in this great crime, but that he disapproved of it. This very action of the Senate itself—this resolution that he forgot to answer for ten months—I implored, myself, the Indian Bureau to so answer that it would leave upon the records of the country the disapproval of it—that disapproval which they were free enough to give me in private.
Here I find myself and the Indian Office accused of having resisted your personal entreaties and implorations.
Do you undertake to say to me, Senator Dawes, that you, personally, have ever complained of these wrongs to me and “entreated me to take hold of this work myself”? Do you mean it to be understood that you implored, yourself, the Indian Bureau or any officer thereof “so to answer that it would leave upon the records of the country the disapproval of it, which they were free enough to give you
