FACTS CONCERNING THE RECENT RESIGNATION, 265 



republican simplicity, and perfectly safe. I said that, for a tranquil pleasure 

 excursion, there was nothing equal to a raft. 



Then the Secretary of the Navy asked me who I was ; and when I told him I 

 was connected with the Government, he wanted to know in what capacity. I said 

 that, without remarking upon the singularity of such a question, coming, as it did, 

 from a member of that same Government, I would inform him that I was clerk 

 of the Senate Committee on Conchology. Then there was a fine storm! He 

 finished by ordering me to leave the premises, and give my attention strictly to my 

 own business in future. My first impulse was to get him removed. However, that 

 would harm others beside himself, and do me no real good, and so I let him stay. 



I went next to the Secretary of War, who was not inclined to see me at all until 

 he learned that I was connected with the Government. If I had not been on 

 important business, I suppose I could not have got in. I asked him for a light (he 

 was smoking at the time), and then I told him I had no fault to find with his 

 defending the parole stipulations of General Lee and his comrades in arms, but 

 that I could not approve of his method of fighting the Indians on the Plains. I 

 said he fought too scattering. He ought to get the Indians more together — get 

 them together in some convenient place, where he could have provisions enough 

 for both parties, and then have a general massacre. I said there was nothing so 

 convincing to an Indian as a general massacre. If he could not approve of the 

 massacre, I said the next surest thing for an Indian was soap and education. Soap 

 and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the 

 long run ; because a half-massacred Indian may recover, but if you educate him 

 and wash him, it is bound to finish him sometime or other. It undermines his 

 constitution ; it strikes at the foundation of his being. " Sir," I said, " the time has 

 come when blood-curdling cruelty has become necessary. Inflict soap and a 

 spelling-book on every Indian that ravages the Plains, and let them die ! " 



The Secretary of War asked me if I was a member of the Cabinet, and I said I 

 was. He inquired what position I held, and I said I was clerk of the Senate 

 Committee on Conchology. I was then ordered under arrest for contempt of court, 

 and restrained of my liberty for the best part of the day. 



I almost resolved to be silent thenceforward, and let the Government get along 



