OCR Text |
Show such a purpose, take all that the United States owed him, cut loose forever from the control of and allegiance to our Government, and sign off forever all individual claim thereon. In other words, if they were to be United States Indians they should live in the United States, and if they were bound to live in Mexico they should become Mexican Indians and absolve their original sovereign from any further obli-gation toward them. In this pronouncement I was simply carrying out to its legitimate conclusions an argument which wa3 continually dinned into my ears by the advocates of .the freedom of the Kickapoo+that these ln-dians were citizens by virtue of their allotments, and that they there- , fore had a right togo and come as they pleased. I felt that what-ever was done in their case ought to be done consistently and that their divided or uncertain allegiance was a very annoying feature of the situation, assuring the frequent recurrence of questions similar to those already raised and certain never to he settled with satisfac-tion to all parties. Mr. Bentley then came forwardwith an old claip of the Kickapoos, of which I knew nothing, insisting that this was one of the matters which should he settled by the United States before it demanded a coniplete riddance and ahsolntion from the Kickapoos.. I answered that I was unfamiliar with the history' of the claim ; that if it was a just one of course it should be paid, and that if it. had a sufficient basis of probability to warrant its reference to a court I should be entirely satisfied to have it go to the Court of Claims. When the history of the matter was lookt up in the Indian Office, it appeared from all the data we had before ,us there that there was no affirma-tive legal ground for the claim, and I so reported, adding that if Congress wisht, with the knowledge of the facts as presented, to grant the claim as a gratuity the Indian Office mould interpose no objection. This is the entire basis for all the stories which were started about the tergiversations of the Office on the Hickapoo question. I need not assure you that any intimation that I made to any committee one assertion by word of mouth and another and contradictory asser-tion in a formal report is unqualifiedly false. I should not. have &gnified so contemptible a slander with this particularized account had not some of the .misrepresentations pretended to disclose what occurred behind the doors of a committee room, where the public could not have the opportunity of ascertaining the truth for them-selves. I still remain of the same opinion I exprest when this issue was up for discussion last spring. I regard it as worse than useless for the Government to make any further effort to bring back the Iiicka-boos who have resolved to settle in Mexico, little as their designs |