Page:Schurz Birthday 54.JPG

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54

I am asked to touch upon Mr. Schurz's work as a member of Mr. Hayes' Cabinet. The brief time of necessity allotted to each speaker this evening forbids more than a very slight allusion. It is, however, an especial pleasure to me to treat two distinct lines of Mr. Schurz's Cabinet work, for both of them relate to subjects with which I have been more or less familiar for many years, and both are of great present importance—the care of the Indians and the protection of our national forests. Both subjects require, for successful treatment on the part of one occupying a position of such general control as devolves upon the Secretary of the Interior, sound general principles, intelligent interest, broad capacity, and practical common sense. It was these qualities precisely that Carl Schurz displayed in dealing with Indian affairs, and the public domain. [Applause.] In regard to Indian affairs as treated by Mr. Schurz, I desire to call your attention to two points, salient and vital, both of which illustrate the truth of what I have said. In 1878, Captain R. H. Pratt, now the distinguished head of the great Indian School, at Carlisle, Pa., where nearly 1,000 Indian youth receive a practical education, had brought a handful of Kiowa and Arapahoe warriors, taken red-handed on their murderous forays in Texas, to St. Augustine, Florida. There, Captain Pratt had made such progress in civilizing them, that rather than be returned to the idleness of their reservations, they expressed willingness to go into the prisons of civilization to learn more of the white man's ways of labor. A place was made for them, however, at the great Negro Industrial School at Hampton, of which General S. C. Armstrong was the distinguished founder