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Show 8 REPORT OF THE C0116MISSIONER OF INDIAN.AFFAIR8. and the greater portion of the Kiowa nation. It would be impossible, from the large number of tribes, $reat and small, known to the annals of the country, to select three wh~ch have so little in the way of past wrongs to justify present hostility as these three tribes, which commit, practically, all the outrages properly to be charged against Indians. The depredating Kiowas aud the Quahada Comanches are utterlg. without excuse. They are compelled to go hack as far as 1847 to find a sinale snbstantial grievance of which to comolain. Since that time the Uniietl State:, ha!,; gi\.eu them a nuble resel;ation, :411d hare provided an~plyf or all tileir wauts. Xo white Inan fins gone upon tlleir I;~ndsto inillre tllem : the Goverument Ins hiled ill no nnrtic~rl~orfr its duty to-ward them; yet they have persisted in leavidg their reservation,"and marauding IU Texas. They hare not done this through any misappre-hension of the intentions of the Government, from the pressure of want, or under the smart of any real or fancied wrong. I am disposed to think that the messages recently delivered to them by their agent and bv the soecial wmmission sent to them the last summer: the uneouivo-eal derl~vatiousm ade to tlrrir c:bierb on the orensio~o~f a rrceut visit to 7\-~~hi11gtoun~;~ ~l,@spt.eitahIel .c~h,a stisimeut iutlicrt~lo n the Qunl~nda Coluanel~es at \leClella~l's C1.et.k. ill October. bv Colonel JIackrnrie. have full^ convinced these tribes that the ~ovi rnmenits in earnest,and that a continuance in their present course will involve, as it ought, their extirpation. This may be enongh; but, if it proves otherwise, they should be signally punished. An example made here would do much to I strengthen the policy of peace, both with other Iudians and with the country at large,, as well as free the borders of Texas from a scourge that has become intolerable. THE POLIOY A POLICY OF TEMPORIZWG. It is saying'nothing against the course of the Government toward the semi-hostile tribes, to allege, as, is often done, that it is merely tern. porizing with an evil. Temponzmg as an expedient in government may be either a sign of weakness and folly, or it may be a proof of the highest wisdom. When an evil is manifestly on the increase, and tends to go from bad to worse, to temporize with it is cowardly and mischiev-ous. Even when an evil cannot be said to be on the increase,,yet when, not being self-limited or self-destryctive, and having, therefore, no tendency to expire of inherent vices, it cannot be shown to be tran-sient, the p+rt of prudence and of courage is to meet and grapple with it without hesitation and without procrastination. But when an evil is in its nature self-limited, and tends to expire by the very conditions of its existence; when time itself fights against it, and the whole pro-gress of the physical social, and industrial order by steady degrees circumscrjbes its field, reduces its dimensions, and sapsits strength, then temporizing may he the highest statesmanship. Such an evil is that which the United States Government at present encounters in the resistance, more or less suppressed, of the Indian tribes of this continent to the progress of railways and settlements, growing out of the reasonable apprehension that their own existenceas nations, and even their own individual means of subsistence within the duration of their own lives, will be destroyed thereby. This casediffers fiom others recorded in history only in t h i s t h a t nevcr was an evil so gigantic environed, invaded, devoured by forces so tremendous, so appall-ing in the celerity and the certainty of their advance. |