Schurz Indian Bureau 2

A heavy wooden bureau has collapsed in splinters before the door of the War Department, whose ornate knocker stares down in wide-eyed alarm. One broken plank reads (LO) THE (POOR) INDIAN BUREAU — the parenthetical "Lo" referencing the phrase "Lo, the poor Indian." Nast's argument is bureaucratic: Interior Secretary Carl Schurz's civilian Indian Bureau was a wreck, and the cartoon implies the wreckage belongs back at the War Department's doorstep, where military administration of Native affairs had previously resided. The collapsed furniture carries the political argument entirely.