CARL SCHURZ'S POLITICAL CAREER
attorneys could, on the principle here laid down, thwart the government in its efforts to control the movements of the Indians. Despite this prospect, however, Mr. Schurz, when he looked into the case, decided not to take an appeal to the Supreme Court, but to let the matter pass without agitation. He felt keenly the wrong that had been done to the Poncas, but he believed that far greater wrongs would result if any attempt were now made to undo the action of Congress. By personal observation during the summer of 1879 as well as through reports of various officials, he assured himself that the tribe, however much it had suffered at the time of the change, was far better off than it had been on its northern reservation, and, moreover, that its return to the north would expose it to incessant attacks from the Sioux, with most disastrous results.
The Secretary's disposition to let the Ponca matter disappear from the public view was not shared by a former Indian agent, the Rev. Mr. Tibbles, who organized a systematic agitation in behalf of the Indians. With Standing Bear and an Indian girl called Bright Eyes, Tibbles traveled across the country, enlisting much interest in the fate of the tribesmen. In Boston, his success was complete, and large amounts of money were raised for the purpose of effecting through the courts the restoration of the Poncas to their land and their rights. For failing to take steps in this direction, Mr. Schurz was subjected to violent abuse. Well-meaning but hysterical women and men, with more sentiment than common sense, joined heartily in the attacks on the Secretary. Tibbles found himself a national character, and reveled in his greatness. Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson, a true philanthropist, who wished to be to the Indian what Harriet Beecher Stowe was to the slave, took up the cause of the Poncas, and earnestly sought to enlist the Secretary's energies in their behalf. Schurz
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