Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1883 — The Red Man’s Eloquence. [ARTICLE]

The Red Man’s Eloquence.

The writer, some years ago, in the Northwest, heard a young Indian chief make a speech before a Government commission and army officers which fairly deserved to be classed among eloquent speeches. He was a splendidly formed Indian, with large, muscular limbs, an unusually fine head and expressive eye. He was dressed in all the paraphernalia of savage taste. He was painted with rich, bright colors, laid on without stint, and when he rose to speak he looked, in purposeful energy, like an athlete about to enter upon a hard contest in the stadium, with his veins standing out like cords and his lips compressed. He pleaded against the removal of his tribe to some other reservation, and his heart was in his words. He was in earnest. He meant everything he said, and there were bursts of eloquence which would have electrified members, lobbies and galleries of the House at Washington had they emanated from a Congressman. The Indian’s eloquence was all the more effective because it was spontaneous. His eloquence and his rhetoric, impassioned both, we re forest born. It was oratory in voice and gesture, not garrulity like that which obtains too often at Washington.— New Orleans Times-Democrat.