For its purposes it owns a splendid high-school building costing nearly $100,000. The building includes 14 rooms for the accommodation of the pupils, and 9 teachers are employed to handle the work. The annual cost of maintaining the school is $12,000. The school maintains a department of agriculture for conducting experimental agricultural demonstrations under the Smith-Hughes Act. It is necessary, in order that the school may perform its highest service in this regard, that it have an additional tract of land of approximately 10 acres and with the large area embracing 1,350 acres of land owned by the Nez Perce tribe of Indians, the small amount will be inconsequential so far as the larger acreage is concerned and will answer the school purposes perfectly. The only tract of land that can reasonably be acquired for the use of the high school is through transferring a portion of the Indian land to the high school district.

At Fort Lapwai is located the agency of the Nez Perce tribe of Indians, and at this point are many Indian families who are there to take advantage of the sanitarium, the Indian farm, other Indian interests, and who own small tracts of farm land in the vicinity. The rural high school referred to furnishes opportunity for educational training for the Indian pupils, and there are at present 20 Indian pupils in attendance at the high school. There is no Indian school doing high-school work maintained at this point. It is the desire of the Indian Office to arrange with the school district for cooperative work so that the Indian pupils may have, in every way, the same training that is afforded the white pupils attending the school, and the lands proposed to be transferred will be for the mutual benefit of the white children and Indian children of the community. The school building which has been erected at a cost of approximately $100,000, and the school, which is maintained at an expenditure of $12,000 annually, have almost entirely rested upon the white population in this community and the granting of approximately 10 acres of land to the high school from the Indian lands is an exceedingly reasonable, or in fact, almost nominal contribution from the Indians for the services that will be rendered to the Indian pupils.

There are several inaccuracies in the description of the lands in question, which are corrected in the proposed amendment.

The committee recommends that the title of the bill be amended by inserting the word "approximately" after the word "of" in the first line of the title.

The bill has the support of the Secretary of the Interior, and for the convenience of the House the Secretary's report addressed to the Hon. N. J. Sinnott, chairman of the Committee on the Public Lands, is appended herewith.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
Washington, August 2, 1919.

DEAR MR. SINNOTT: In reply to your request of June 30, 1919, for a report on the bill (H. R. 6772) authorizing the transfer of 10.747 acres of land to rural high school district No. 1, Lapwai, Idaho, I wish to say that this high school maintains a department of agriculture for conducting experimental agricultural demonstrations under the Smith-Hughes Act, but has not sufficient ground for the purpose; therefore the school desires to acquire additional land for the benefit of both white and Indian

pupils. A cooperative plan is in contemplation between the public school authorities and the Office of Indian Affairs whereby a great deal more can be accomplished for the Indians along agricultural lines.

The public schools within this jurisdiction are receiving Indian children without objection and there are now 20 Indian students in the high school.

The land which it is desired to set aside is a part of the Fort Lapwai Indian school farm, which contains 1,350 acres; it is not needed by the sanatorium, and there is no Indian school at this place. Several errors occur in the description of the land as given in the bill. A correct description follows, and I suggest that the bill be amended accordingly:

"Beginning at a point which is thirty feet west one hundred thirteen and sixtenths feet south, and six hundred ninety-six feet south eighty-six degrees six minutes west of the northeast corner of lot twenty-seven, section two, township thirty-five north, range four west, Boise meridian, which is the northwest corner of the present Lapwai school grounds; thence south eighty-six degrees six minutes west four hundred eighty-three feet; thence south forty degrees twenty minutes east eleven hundred seventy-four feet; thence north forty-three degrees fifty-four minutes east five hundred ninety-eight feet; thence north two hundred sixty-four feet to southeast corner present school grounds; thence south eighty-six degrees six minutes west six hundred ninetysix feet to southwest corner present school grounds; thence north three hundred feet to place of beginning, excepting eighty-nine one-thousandths acres as shown on plat "Reserved cemetery," containing ten and seven hundred forty-seven one-thousandth If the bill be changed as indicated, I recommend its enactment.

acres. "

Cordially, yours,

Hon. N. J. SINNOTT,

FRANKLIN K. LANE, Secretary.

Chairman House Committee on the Public Lands,

House of Representatives.

CONGRESS,

PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDING, PETERSBURG, ALASKA.

AUGUST 21, 1919.—Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed.

Mr. GRIGSBY, from the Committee on the Territories, submitted the following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. R. 7709.]

The Committee on the Territories, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 7709) to authorize the incorporated town of Petersburg, Alaska, to issue bonds in any sum, not exceeding $75,000, for the purpose of constructing and installing a municipal electric light and power plant, and for the construction of a public-school building, having considered the same, report it to the House with the following amendment, in line 19, on page 2, strike out the figure 8 and insert in lieu thereof the figure 7, with the recommendation that as amended it do pass.

The town of Petersburg is situated on Mitkoff Island, at the head of Wrangell Narrows, in southeastern Alaska. It has a population of about 2,000 people, and is growing rapidly. The town is out of debt, is very prosperous, and already owns its own electric-light plant, which is operated by fuel power. The plant is old and much too small to supply the entire community with light, so that either new and additional machinery must be purchased or a power plant installed. There is an abundance of water power available from the mountain streams close to the town. The operation of a waterpower plant will be much more economical and efficient than the present system.

Petersburg is one of the most prosperous towns in southeastern Alaska; probably the entire bond issue for which authorization is asked will be taken up by the residents of the town. Practically all of the people own their own homes. The town has a newspaper, a bank, several general stores, a sawmill, a fish cannery, four machine shops and shipways, hotels, restaurants, bakeries, and drug stores, also a courthouse and jail, wireless station, customs office, and is a subport of entry. It is located adjacent to the halibut fishing banks, north and south, and is headquarters of a large number of herring, halibut, and salmon fishing vessels. It has over 100 children of school age, and the school accommodation is entirely inadequate

to take care of them, three different and ill-equipped buildings now being used for school purposes.

The construction of a new building is absolutely necessary, and $25,000 is needed for that purpose.

The proposition of installing a power plant has been submitted to engineers by the authority of the town of Petersburg, and their estimate is that $50,000 is required for that purpose.

The assessed valuation of the town is about $400,000, which is much below the real valuation.

In all the Liberty loan and Red Cross drives Petersburg went "over the top."

The town of Petersburg has already held a special election to determine whether or not the town should be bonded, as provided in this bill, and only four votes were cast against the proposition. The bill provides for another election on the proposition.

The organic act of the Territory of Alaska prohibits municipalities from levying a tax in excess of 2 per cent on the assessed valuation of property, and also prevents the incurring of any indebtedness in excess of the annual revenue; consequently it is impossible for the town to provide sufficient funds for making these improvements without a bond issue.

Similar authorization to the one provided in this bill has been heretofore granted by Congress to the towns of Seward, Valdez, and Juneau for similar purposes.