have none of full blood whose fame is
national. Judge Hiram Chase of the Omahas and others have won local
distinction. The Hon. Charles Curtis, Senator from Kansas, was a
successful lawyer in Topeka when he was elected to the House of
Representatives, and later to the United States Senate. His mother is a
Kaw Indian. Mr. Curtis was and is a leader of the Republican party in
his state. Senator Owen of Oklahoma is part Cherokee. The whole country
has come to realize his ability and influence. Representative Carter of
Oklahoma is also an Indian.

During my student days in New Hampshire I was often told that Daniel
Webster was part Indian on his mother's side. Certainly his physiognomy
as well as his unequalled logic corroborated the story. We all know that
governors and other men of mark have proclaimed themselves descendants
of Pocahontas; I have met several in the West and South. I know that the
late Senators Quay of Pennsylvania and Morgan of Alabama had some Indian
blood, for they themselves told me so; and I have been told the same of
Senators Clapp and La Follette, but have never verified it. Their
wonderful aggressiveness and dauntless public service in my mind point
to native descent, and if they can truthfully claim it I feel sure that
they will be proud to do so. They must know that many distinguished army
officers as well as traders and explorers left sons and daughters among
the American tribes, especially during the first half of the nineteenth
century. As late as 1876 Dr. Washington Mathews, a surgeon in the United
States Army, brought down on a Missouri River steamboat a Gros Ventre
son, and left him with the missionary teacher, Dr. Alfred L. Riggs, to
rear and educate. This military surgeon and scientist not only attained
the rank of major-general, but he became one of our foremost
archaeologists. The boy was called Berthold, from the place of his birth.
He was afterward sent to Yankton College, but I do not know what became
of him. As for those brilliant men, so many in number, who have the
blood of both races in their veins, I will not pretend to claim for the
Indian all the credit of their talents and energy.

In the ministry we have many able and devoted men--more than in any
other profession. The Presbyterian Church alone has thirty-eight and the
Episcopal Church about twenty, with a less number in several other
denominations, and two Roman Catholic priests. Most of these labor among
their own people