recently, had charge of all the Indians in the United States:

"From reports and testimony before me, I find that Indians
removed to the Reservation or Indian Territory, die off so
rapidly that the race must soon become extinct if they are so
removed. _In this connection, I recommend the early removal of
all the Indians to the Indian Territory._"

The above coarse attempt at second-hand wit is quoted from memory. But
if the exact words are not given, the substance is there; and, indeed,
the idea and expression is not at all new.

I know if you contemplate the Indian from the railroad platform, as you
cross the plains, you will almost conclude, from the dreadful specimens
there seen, that the Indian Commissioner was not so widely out of the
way in that brutal desire. But the real Indian is not there. The Special
Correspondent will not find him, though he travel ten thousand miles. He
is in the mountains, a free man yet; not a beggar, not a thief, but the
brightest, bravest, truest man alive. Every few years, the soldiers find
him; and they do not despise him when found. Think of Captain Jack, with
his sixty braves, holding the whole army at bay for half a year! Think
of Chief Joseph, to whose valor and virtues the brave and brilliant
soldiers sent to fight him bear immortal testimony. Seamed with scars of
battle, and bloody from the fight of the deadly day and the night
preceding; his wife dying from a bullet; his boy lying dead at his feet;
his command decimated; bullets flying thick as hail; this Indian walked
right into the camp of his enemy, gun in hand, and then--not like a
beaten man, not like a captive, but like a king--demanded to know the
terms upon which his few remaining people could be allowed to live. When
a brave man beats a brave man in battle, he likes to treat him well--as
witness Grant and Lee; and so Generals Howard and Miles made fair terms
with the conquered chief. The action of the Government which followed
makes one sick at heart. Let us in charity call it _imbecility_. But
before whose door shall we lay the dead? Months after the surrender,
this brave but now heart-broken chief, cried out:

"Give my people water, or they will die. This is mud and slime
that we have to drink here on this Reservation. More than half
are dead already. Give us the water of our mountains. And will
you not give us back just one mountain too? There are not many
of us left now. W