hasten the complete Christianizing of our Indian tribes.

For let it be said while I have your freshest attention, that it is
the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ, and not education or
civilization, that is to solve this problem; and all I have to say is
to lead up to this thought. Wherever modern civilization without
religion has touched the barbarian it has been to curse him.

The blood of every American ought to tingle at the thought of the
foul stain upon our national honor because of the treatment the
Indian has received.

General Sherman has told us that we have made more than one thousand
treaties with him, but the United States Government has never kept
one of these treaties, if there was anything to be made by breaking
it; and the Indian has never broken one, unless he has first had an
excuse in some cruel wrong from the white man. No wonder that the
Sioux have hesitated to sign their treaty. Do you not blush at one of
the reasons for this hesitation? Because they doubt whether we can be
trusted. This boasted American Republic is to them a nation of liars.

I am glad to speak for these men who have been, so cruelly wronged.
Here before we had any rights, they have been steadily driven back
before our civilization as it has advanced from the Atlantic and
Pacific shores. While our ears have ever been open to the cry of
distress the world over, the silent Indian moan has passed, too often
unheeded. We have made him a prisoner upon the reservation, and when
we have wanted his land we have taken it and put him on some we did
not want just then. His appeal, when in suffering and distress, has
been stifled by those who can make the most money out of him as he