That they are destined ultimately to extinction does
not in my mind admit of a doubt. For the reasons above mentioned
it may at first be necessary for our government to assert its
authority over them by a prompt and vigorous exercise of the
military arm.... The tendency of the policy I have indicated
will be to assemble these people in communities where they will
be more readily controlled; and I predict from it the most
gratifying results." Another well-informed army officer, Colonel
Richard Dodge, himself a hunter, a trailer, and a rider able to
compete with the savages in their own fields, penetrated to the
heart of the Indian problem when he wrote:
"The conception of Indian character is almost impossible to a man
who has passed the greater portion of his life surrounded by the
influences of a cultivated, refined, and moral society....
The truth is simply too shocking, and the revolted mind takes
refuge in disbelief as the less painful horn of the dilemma. As a
first step toward an understanding of his character we must get
at his standpoint of morality. As a child he is not brought
up.
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