there. A majority of this twelve hundred people are earnest, faithful,
consistent Christians. They get no help from the Government. They have
built up and support their churches. Where can you see anything among
the whites that equals it?

Then there is another reason why we should go to them with the gospel of
Christ. It is a good thing to engage in works of charity and
benevolence, but before we do this we should pay our debts. We owe so
much to the Indians of this country, that I think before we go anywhere
else we should do something to atone for the years of wrong, for the
centuries of injury, that they have suffered at our hands. We have taken
their homes from them. We have driven them from reservation to
reservation. We have taken their crops when almost ready to reap. We
have removed them into climates where they have died by hundreds. We
have not listened to their cries. We have on various trumped-up charges
frequently slaughtered these people, and treated them in the most cruel
manner. There is no question that I know of that so holds a man, once
interested, and so grows upon him, as this Indian question.

I was first interested in this subject about ten years ago in the city
of Boston, where Bright Eyes, Mr. Tibbles, and old Standing Bear came to
tell of the wrongs of the Poncas. They were to hold a public meeting.
Wendell Phillips was to speak. I went to that meeting more with a desire
to hear Phillips than from any interest in the Indian. At that time all
I knew about him was what I had learned from the current literature and
romance, and my idea was very far from correct. At that meeting a state
of affairs was shown to exist that seemed astounding and impossible. A
committee was appointed to investigate these statements. They found that
the half had not been told. That committee started measures that
rectified these wrongs done to the Poncas. It commenced suit under the