Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

220 LETTERS.
rangement was binding on the government of the
United States.
General Grant has disappointed me. His Indian
policy looked candid and just on paper; but he does
not seem to have taken adequate care that it should be
carried out. The Modocs have formerly had a good
name as peaceable neighbors; but they have been
driven from place to place, and finally pushed into a
barren corner, where the soil did not admit of their
raising sufficient for a subsistence. They were driven
to desperation by starvation, and wearied out with
promises that were never fulfilled. Poor Captain Jack
said, " To die by bullets not hurt much; but it hurts
a heap to die by hunger." I regret the barbarities of
Captain Jack, but not more than I regret the barbarities of Phil. Sheridan. I look upon Osceola and
Captain Jack both as worthy of an historical place in
the list of heroes that have died for their oppressed
peoples. But I may as well stop writing on this
theme, for it is a hopeless task to try to delineate
the "general cussedness" of governments. It is a
strange thing, but it seems impossible to convince
politicians that it is not "visionary" to be guided
by correct principles in the administration of affairs.
Their idea is, the greater the indirectness and the
double dealing, the greater the statesmanship. Yet,
all the time, they make loud professions of following
the teaching of him who said, "Let your yea be yea,
and your nay, nay." Oh, Sarah, I am so tired of
shams! It is very inconvenient to be habitually direct, in such a world of indirectness.
I pitied Mr. Curtis when I read his patient answers
to the " interviewers." Really, those men, who have
made a profession of audacity and impertinence, are as