The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-04-30

affairs generally. According to his showing
the impending war is due, not to the unrea-
sonable demands of the chiefs, nor yet to the
rapacity of the Government agents or traders,
upon whose shoulders the blame has been so
freely laid but to mismanagement in Wash
ington. With the exception of band of
Sioux, headed by a chief named Red Cloud,
there are really none of the tribes hostilely
disposed towards us. Even this chief irri-
tated as he is by bad treatment could easily
have been kept quiet if a disposition had
been shown to conciate them. He is
represented to be manly and honest and
he has taken to arms simply because,
after repeated remOnstTances with the
agents of the Government, he has been suffered
to acquire the conviction that nothing remains
for him and his followers but the alternative
OF fighting or starving. He now serves as the
leader around whom all the macontent spirits
OF the other tribes rally. Mr.. Bogy thinks il
would be easy to satisfy the requirements of
this chief and his tribe, and that it would be a
much more humane aud economical policy for
the Government to spend a few hundred thou
sand dollars in providing them with reserva-
uons and cattle for stocS-raising than to allow
itself to be involved in a general Indian war
which, if once started will, extend from the
Missouri river to the foot of the Rocky Noun
tains, and from the mouth of the Yellowstone
to and including Arizona and New Mexico,
costing, as he believes, many millions of dol
lars, thousands of lives, and the entire sus-
pending and perhaps destruction of the rail
roads now being built upon the Plains.
The expedition sent out under General Han
cock is, Mr.. Bogy thinks, a great mistake.
All that was wanted was the sending of a
small number of men to the Yellowstone to
chastise the chief Red Cloud and his adhe-
rents. The effect of the appearance of an
army of the magnitude of that under Gene
raj HancOck's orders will be to alarm all the
well-dispOsed tribes and render a general
war inevitable. These views, ne says, he tried
months ago to impress upon the Government:
but no attention was paid to them. This he
attributes to the influence of the Indian Bu-
reau at Washington, where, he contends, have
originated the numerous frauds that have per-
meated our Indian affairs and that have Gre
ated all our present difficulties. The head
Office there, he asserts, is surrounded by a set
of heartless cormorants who care but little for
the consequences, provided theirlrapacitv-is
satisfied. HNNFFE7Ty,5u
In all this there is but too muCn JruJh, and
1t is melancholy reflection that, repeatedly as
1t has been urged, it has failed in producing
any impression. If we wage a war of general
determination against the tribes-and we do
not see what else is the result from Hancocll's
eXpedition-the world will, in view of these
statements, hold us responsible for blood un-
necessarily shed, while the addition to our
public debt of the millions of dollars which
the war will cost will render such of us as are
insensible to the moral guilt ultimately con-
ylnced OF its impolicy. 1t is not as yet too
late to retrace the steps that have conducted
us into such a criminal and dangerous error.
In the name of humanity and justice, let there
be no delay in backing out of it.