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Show 24 COMMISSIONE& INDIAN APBAIW For several years a joint fair has been held by the Cantonment, Cheyenne and Arapaho, Bed Moon, and Seger Indians. This fair has now been abolished, and a comprehensive plan is being worked out for large exhibits of Indian products at the Oklahoma State Fair next fall, which has donated a building 50 by 100 feet for this purpose, and will offer special prizes or trophies for Indian exhibits. Exhibits of Indian products were also shown at the Arizona and Nevada State Fairs, and at the International Soil Products Ex-hibition at Tulsa, Olda., last fall, at each of which a number of prizes were won by the Indians in &ect competition with products shown by their white neighbors. Plans are also being arranged for the Sisseton Indians to participate in the Tri-State Fair at Browns Valley, Minn., on the same basis as the whites, and it is expected that next year their own fair can be abolished. Instructions have been issued limiting Indian fairsto three days' duration, prohibiting old-time Indian dancing, and restricting horse racing, believing that the attention of the Indians should be directed primarily to the agricultural and industrial exhibits rather than to the amusement features of the fair. The Indian fairs on the various Sioux reservations were formerly held on different dates, thus encouraging the Indians to be con-stantly visiting from one fair to the other during the fall of each year. In order to overcome this practice the plan was adopted last year of holding all the fairs during the same week, with such satis-factory results that the practice will be continued. The following circular letter concerning Indian fairs was issued: To superintendents: You should now be arranging for your Indian fair, and I desire to impress upon yon my idea of the purpose and possibilities of these exhibitions. Iwant these fairs so conducted as to open to the Indians the vision of the industrial achievements to which they should aspire I want them to be an inspiration in arousing in the Indian a clear appreciation of the great oppor-tunity before him for real industrial advancement. The ownership of land always has been and always must be the principal basis of man's wealth. A wise development of the vast natural resources of the Indian reservations has tremendous possibilities. The Indian's rich agri-cultural lands, his vast areas of grass land, his great forests, and his prao tically untouched mineral resources should be so utilised as to become a power-ful instrument for his civilization. I hold it to be an economic and social crime in this age and under modern conditions to permit thousands of acres of fertile lands belonging to the Indians and capable of great industrial development to lie in unproductive idleness. , With keen appreciation of mese conditions Congress, in the current appro-priation bill, has made available for the Indians over $600,000 as a reimbursable fund and $250,000 additional for general and specific industrial use, all for the purchase of stock and farm equipment, as well as about $800,000,of the funds of the Confederated Bands of Utes for the civiltzatlon and support of those Indlans. |