During my first term in the House on the Committee on Education
and Labor I had the important duty of investigating the conduct
of the Freedman's Bureau and other charges made against General
Oliver O. Howard. I wrote nearly the whole of the report,
all of it containing the arguments of the Committee, and the
summing up of the evidence. A few passages are by the Chairman,
Mr. Arnell. The Freedman's Bureau was established to aid
the colored people who had been suddenly emancipated by President
Lincoln's Proclamation, to attain a condition where they
could get their living in comfort, and their children could
be educated. General Howard, a very eminent officer in the
Civil War, afterward at the head of the Army, was a man singularly
fitted for this duty. He was profoundly religious, absolutely
incorruptible, a man of very kind heart, not afraid to break
out new paths, apt to succeed in all his undertakings, a lover
of Liberty and thoroughly devoted to his work. The resources
at his command were the unclaimed pay of the negro soldiers
and some other sums specially granted from the Treasury.
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