The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-10
PHILLIPS.
He is on Another Tack-What he Saws o the III
hinns nnd the Pncific RniIrOnd.

lie
dinns and the Pacific Railroad.
From the Ai,ti-SIdUery Standard.
All hail and farewell to the Pacific Railroad. The
telegraph tells us that the Indians have begun to
tear up the rails, to shoot passengers and con-
ductors on this road We see great good in this At
last the poor victim has found the vulnerable spOt i'm
his tyrant 'ThanK God Ame .ica has resisted
cried Lord Chatham. Our feeling is the same.
For seventy years and more the Indian has begged
this great nation to attend to his wrongs His cries
have been unheard. Ruthless and unheeding, we
have tramplcd him down. To-day the worm turns
Last year Indians destroyed locomotives and shot
conductors. Timid Durant forbade the telegraph
wires to report the fact. He trembed for his road.
To-day $4,000 warriors on the war path-a thousand
miles of exposed road; this railway the pet play
thing OF the American peope Would our words
could reach every Indian chief. We would tell him,
lay down your gun, but allow rail to lie between
Omaha ana the mountains '"Ihe accuTsed code" s
OConnells best weapon, said She'll The Pacific
Railway is the Indians Alabama. Every boY
struck on those rails is heard round the globe.
Haunt that road with such dangers that none will
dare use it,
Some men may think us needlessly aggressive. No.
citizenship they may say, would be a better remedy.
Yes, byand-by At present citizenship means little
Heaven forbid that should betray the Indian to
such protection as citizenship gives to the Georgia
negro and lOyalist. No, we are thankful the Indian
has one defense the negro never had. He is no Cti-
zen, and has the right to make war Well may he
use that last right, and never yield II till citiZen-
ship means something more thanit does now.
An Ab0litionst may well glory in these red men.
When in 1865, General Sanborn carried to the Semi
noes the news Of emancipation, they instantly set
their slaves free But more just than we, they pro-
Ceeded at once to divide their possessions with them
faiTly-shared with them their pension money, and
last winter, in Washington, were specially earnest
TO secure such teacher as these emancipated men
would prefer When two or three years ago Sher-
mans Commission met the Indians the Navajoes
refused to come into conference unless their women
could be admitted on equal terms with themselves to
share the debate. Could these men be persuaded to
undertake, for few years to come, the task OF re-
construction! What a saving of time! What
saving of honor!
Earnestly do we wish that this nation could rise to
the level OF once doing an act of Justice from pure
not seem as If this level would ever be reached in
our day. In default OF that rejoice to the
ton scourged to its duty. Long and weary the
years OF blood and misfortune that finally broke us
into willingness to emancipate the black. May our
stubborness yield sooner and easier in this matter
the Indians. 1t seems probable BY the time Con-
gress assemblies again, we think its members
Will be ready-as they never have been-to
listen on this topic. The sad and ponderous
documents stored in the Capitol will at last,
be read, and we shall learn that nation by
its own confession always in the wrong, must seek
some other path out OF its troubleS than by sending
butchers TO waste treasure and blood in the vain
effort to "eXterminate" braver race than ours. We
spent hundred millions really-hfty confessedly-
TO "eXterminate and remove" the SeminOles from
Florida But there everglades in Florida to-day
where no white man enters, and which the Seminole
Still holds. II this be the case in Florida with
thousand Seminoles, how likely are we TO 'eXtermi-
nate twenty thousand such spread over the bound
less West? Sherman is barterng the gories OF At
lanta for defeat utter and shameful and wei
deserved, on the prairies. WENDELL PHILLIPS