A few years ago Chief Joseph attended the commencement exercises of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and there sat at the same banquet table with Gen. 0. 0. Howard. The two former foes, but at that time fast friends, toasted each other.
A special correspondent of the Inter Ocean wrote of this incident:
"These two men were the chief opposing figures in a most remarkable Indian war twenty-seven years ago. During this war, in 1877, Chief Joseph's battle line was fourteen hundred miles long. He proved one of the greatest foes who ever fought against an American army, but his present attitude is vastly different, as was shown by his speech at the banquet. He spoke in the Indian language, the literal translation being as follows:
"'Friends, I meet here my friend, General Howard. I used to be so anxious to meet him. I wanted to kill him in war. To-day I am glad to meet him, and glad to meet everybody here, and to be friends with General Howard. We are both old men, still we live, and I am glad. We both fought in many wars and we are both alive. Ever since the war I have made up my mind to be friendly to the whites and to everybody. I wish you, my friends, would believe me as I believe myself in my heart in what I say. When my friend General Howard and I fought together I had no idea that we would ever sit down to a meal together, as to-day, but we have, and I am glad. I have lost many friends and many men, women and children, but I have no grievance against any of the white people, General Howard or any one. If General Howard dies first, of course I will be sorry. I understand and I know that learning of books is a nice thing, and I have some children here in school from my tribe that are trying to learn something, and I am thankful to know there are some of my children here struggling to learn the white man's ways and his books. I repeat again I have no enmity against anybody. I want to be friends to everybody. I wish my children would learn more and more every day, so they can mingle with the white people and do business with them as well as anybody else, I shall try to get Indians to send their children to school.'"
During the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, at St. Louis, in 1904, Chief Joseph was one of the greatest attractions at the Indian Congress, the early part of the season. But the thought of exhibiting himself for money was very distasteful and humiliating to the proud chieftain. This, together with his habit of brooding over the wrongs and afflictions of his unhappy people, brought on a sickness. He went back to the reservation the early part of July, but it was simply going home to die. He lingered along until the 21st day of the following September, when his great soul took its flight to the "Great Spirit Chief," who will judge between him and the Government who (it would almost seem) deliberately wasted and destroyed one of the noblest and most civilized of the native American tribes.
Soon after his death, Dr. E. H. Latham, the agency physician, was interviewed by a newspaper reporter, and he declared that "Joseph had died of a broken heart."
No people on earth have a nobler patriotism, or greater love for their country than the Indians. We doubt not the doctor's diagnosis was correct, and we firmly believe that thousands of other leaders of that race have died of the same malady.
All fair-minded people now believe it was a mistake, and a burning shame, to take the Wallowa valley away from Joseph and his band for the benefit of a few greedy settlers, when there were at that very time teeming millions of acres of land just as good, and open to settlement, throughout eastern Oregon and border States. All the vast treasure and bloodshed would have been saved, and to-day there would have been in that valley of "Winding Water" one of the most civilized, prosperous and progressive Indian settlements in America.
It would actually pay our Government in dollars and cents to mete out the same protection and justice to the Indian as it does to every one else under the flag whose skin is white. Whatever the theory may be, the practice has been to regard the Indian as the legal prey and predestined victim for every white scoundrel who wanted to rob or even murder him, and he was often justified on the theory that "the only good Indian is a dead one."
But it is a long lane that has no turn. Those broken-hearted martyrs, like Joseph, have not died in vain. We seem to be entering on a new era of human brotherhood, in which the value is placed on the jewel rather than the color of the casket containing it. Manhood, worth, virtue, are now sought for and honored even by the proud Anglo-Saxon, regardless of race or color.