futile to deny that the issues involved are of sufficient moment to demand the most careful thought and that the proposed transfer of responsibility if carried out should be a gradual process so arranged as to offer the least possible chance that the existing organization should be disrupted to an extent that would endanger the main objective at which it aims. In this connection we would call attention to an analytical presentation of the question of Federal and State relations in the annual report for 1927 of the Board of Indian Commissioners. The policy of turning over to States the education, health, care, and welfare of Indians who are under Federal supervision is likely to become a live issue in the Seventy-first Congress; indications seem to point in that direction. SUMMARY In this review we have indicated as many of the happenings affecting the Indians during the six decades beginning with 1869 as we were able to compact within our restricted space. Obviously, many important occurrences could not be noted; this omission is a regrettable necessity. The principal source material for this syllabus was the 60 annual reports of Commissioners of Indian Affairs. We entertain the hope that the selected data from the successive annals of Federal Indian administration which are presented in these pages may be of service in the formulation of policies and programs for future administration. Our retrospect of the 60 years under consideration leads to the following conclusions: Health. The records disclose the fact that up to 20 years ago the Government paid little attention to the health of reservation Indians. In his special message of 1912 President Taft explicitly stated, "In 1909 tens of thousands of Indians were substantially without any chance to reach a doctor," and he stressed the prevalence of trachoma and tuberculosis throughout the Indian country. About 1911 Congress and the Indian Bureau began the cooperation to improve health conditions on reservations and in Indian schools, which continues to-day and which has achieved highly commendable results. But, notwithstanding the marked improvements, tuberculosis and trachoma admittedly prevail among the Indian people to an alarming extent. The consequent deplorable situation is a reproach to the Nation. It demands a special program for the Indian medical service centering on a vigorous and sustained campaign against tuberculosis and trachoma, aided and abetted by largely augmented appropriations from Congress sufficient to adequately finance the intensified medical service activities which necessarily would be brought into action and which should be carried on by tuberculosis and trachoma specialists. In emphasizing what we deem to be the major Indian health problem we are not overlooking the importance of increasing and bettering the personnel and equipment of the Indian medical service, but we are satisfied that the present organization is making good progress along practical lines toward a satisfactory health service. Industrial. The annual reports show that a large majority of the Indians are doing something in the way of farming. It can not be denied that with the help of the Indian Service there has been con siderable agricultural advancement among them, but the Indians who have succeeded as commercial farmers are the exception. There are, however, many Indians who raise enough produce to meet most of the food needs of their families. Such Indians can well be called successful subsistence farmers. In our opinion a fundamental reservation need is an economic program designed to develop subsistence farming to the point where each Indian family would have its garden, poultry, milch cow (where pasturage and fodder are available), potato patch and grain fields sufficient to provide the family with the bulk of its food and, perhaps, with some surplus that could be sold. In short, subsistence, not commercial, farming should be emphasized as, indeed it is where the 5-year industrial program of the Indian Service has been worked out. Each reservation should have its particular agricultural program, determined by qualified specialists sent there for that particular purpose, and where there are none competent agricultural instructors should be detailed to reservations to lead the Indians toward a better appreciation of subsistence farming. Employment.-Any reservation economic program will fall short of its full purpose if it does not include provision for ways and means to secure gainful labor for the Indians, especially at times. when crop failure or other causes makes it necessary for Indians to leave their homes to find work. Although the recent annual reports of the Indian Bureau indicate a growing interest in the important question of opening up opportunities for outside employment when desirable for reservation Indians, and for gainful work for boys and girls who leave the Indian schools, the Indian Service never has had a well-planned organization to get jobs for Indians. The Board of Indian Commissioners has repeatedly recommended that the Indian Bureau should direct its earnest efforts to the purpose of obtaining employment for able-bodied Indians who ought to be doing useful work. In this connection' we strongly suggest close cooperation along practical lines with the Department of Labor. In the board's last annual report (1928) the question of employment for Indians is considered at some length, and we respectfully direct your' attention to the recommendations we offer in that report. Education. Our studies of Indian Office annual reports, together with the knowledge gained by official visits to reservations and schools lead us to the following conclusions concerning Indian education: The principal reason for the existence of the Government's Indian schools is to prepare the Indian children to mingle with white people, as eventually they must do, and to be able to take care of themselves. The great bulk of the Indian boys and girls in school to-day will not go beyond the high-school grades, and the majority of them will not complete those higher grades. A few, comparatively speaking, will stand out as promising candidates for colleges and universities, and efforts should be made to provide opportunities for such students to secure a higher education. Where Indian children are fitted to profit by the public schools they should attend them, as half of them do now. To say that children, merely because they happen to be Indians, should be provided by the Government with special schools is not a valid excuse for Indian Service schools. But where the stage of development or the environment of the Indian child make a public school undesirable, then the special Indian school has its task. This task is to provide the needed development and supply the lacks caused by a faulty environment, so that the Indian child may be brought up to that standard of cleanliness, order, regularity, and discipline which the public school presupposes in its white children. Its task is the changing of a way of living rather than the carrying out of a routine of academic studies. If this is not needed, then the Government school itself is not needed. An Indian school, therefore, which tends more and more to stress the academic at the expense of the practical, to lay emphasis on the completion of high-school courses and the attainment of college entrance credits, is losing sight of its real reason for existence, which is to prepare the Indian boys and girls eventually to take their places as self-reliant members of an American community. We are of the opinion that the Indian Service schools should strive not so much for uniformity and standardization as for adaption to actual and varying needs; they should not endeavor to reproduce the experiments and failures of the public schools, but should apply methods suited to the special problem of the Indian. Above all they should emphasize vocational training and the teaching of applicable and useful trades. Law and order. The annals of Federal Indian administration disclose a curious timidity on the part of Congress and the Indian Bureau whenever the question of law enforcement on reservations had been raised. There has been much talk but practically nothing has been done to place reservation Indians under the same laws to which their white neighbors are amenable since the so-called general crimes act was placed in the statute books 44 years ago. The Indian Bureau should draft a bill which would properly and adequately provide for the enforcement of law and order on reservations, have the bill introduced at the coming session of Congress, and then do all things that are proper to get the bill enacted into law. The anomalous situation is well known, the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs have skilled lawyers, and we believe Congress now will give this question serious consideration. Personnel. From the beginning of the 60-year period spanned by this review the directing heads of the Indian Bureau in their annual reports have asked, begged, and almost demanded that Congress provide ways and means for making the Indian field service more attractive so that a stronger field personnel could be built up. Until quite recently their pleas were futile. Within the past few years provision has been made for increases in salaries, but in many jurisdictions the working and living conditions of agency, school, and hospital employees are far from satisfactory. The fact that this undesirable field situation is so well known that to merely state it is sufficient for its presentation is little short of a reproach to the Government. It is cause for some wonder that there now are in the field service so many capable, efficient, and loyal men and women who continue to work for the cause despite many discouraging conditions and who will fit in with the program you have in mind. There, also, are a number of employees who do not measure up even to the minimum of desirable qualifications and who, too often, are used by critics as examples to prove that the entire field service is incapable and inefficient. The Indian Bureau can not hope to get and to hold a field organization personnel generally intelligent, capable, and efficient unless it can successfully compete with other organizations in the matter of salaries, living and working conditions, and, also, recognition in a practical way of good work. We hear much of loyalty to the "office" as an essential attribute of desirable employees. We beg to point out that loyalty is a two-sided proposition; if the superior expects loyalty from his subordinates he should prove his loyalty to them. Instances are not wanting in the Indian Service where conscientious field employees, standing out against white men who had designs against the Indians, have not received the backing of the Washington office. The simple answer to the question "How shall the field service be bettered in all respects?" is, "Get more money from Congress and use it to make the service so attractive that the right kind of men and women for their respective places in the scheme can be secured and held on the job." Allotments. The results of the Dawes Act and amendatory legislation have not been what the proponents of the general allotment policy hope for. The statistical data in the Indian Bureau's annual reports show that by reason of allotments tens of thousands of Indians have disposed of their lands, and it is known that the great majority of them sold their allotments for inadequate payments and quickly spent the proceeds. They became landless, moneyless Indians. The failure of the purpose of the allotment act must be admitted. What has been done can not be undone, but the future handling of Indian lands by the Indian Bureau should be characterized by caution and guided only by consideration for the best interest of the allottees. Information. The great American public is lamentably ignorant about the American Indians. The white folk know but little about the red men and, because of little knowledge, they seemingly have little interest in them. We believe the Interior Department or the Indian Bureau would be doing only a plain duty by disseminating sane and reliable information about the American tribes and their people, about their peculiar relations to the Nation, and about the various phases of the perplexing and complicated Indian problem. Missionaries.-In the earlier reports of the Indian Bureau the work of the Christian missionaries was frequently, and generally favorably, referred to. For some reason the missionaries figure but little in the later annals. The Board of Indian Commissioners has always maintained that the spiritual needs of the Indians ran with their material wants, and it has deplored the scant interest which the churches apparently have taken in their Indian missionaries. We express the hope that the devoted labors of reservation missionaries may yet be appreciated by church members and that the churches will encourage their home mission boards to continue and enlarge their mission activities in the American Indian country. Respectfully submitted. The SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. SAMUEL A. ELIOT, Chairman. WARREN K. MOOREHEAD. FRANK KNOX. DANIEL SMILEY. MALCOLM MCDOWELL. HUGH L. SCOTT. CLEMENT S. UCKER. |