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Show 38 COMXISSIONEE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. examined and then sent to the Treasury w r t m e n t for payment by warrant. A plan now in opemtion of having disbursing officers pay a certain part of these claims has given gratifying results to the office and satisfaction to public creditors; for the old methods neces-sarily involved much delay in payment. Handling all incoming and outgoing mail, keeping the very ex-tensive files, doing all stenographic work, and constantly endeavoring to improve the methods of the office, the Methods Division is our me-chanical department. Upon it falls a good share of the incrertsed burden from the intensified activities of the service as it works out its problems. _ During the fiscal year the employees of the oilice performed a total of over 1,600 days' oventime, for which they received no pay. This is an average of nearly 7 days for each person employed, and does not include the great amount of work done between 8 and 9 in the morn-ing and 4.30 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon, when no records of overtime are kept. In our files are .the original documents for a great part of the his-tory of the relations of the Government with the Indians since the middle of the eighteenth century. So far as these records have-suffered from time and wear they are being restored; 75 large boxes of &led papers are being sorted and filed; and the regular files from the establishment of the office in 1824 are being mended, classified, renewed, and placed in flat files. During the year a special appropriation of $5,000 has been available; an additional appmpria-tion of a like sum will be necessary before this work can be completed. CURRENT PROBLEMS. There are several problems now before the office which are receiv-ing its most earnest study. Most of them are still in too inchoate a state to be discussed at any length at this time: It is, however, im-portant to state briefly what each problem is. At the southwestern end of the San Carlos Reservation, in zona, it is claimed that there is a site for a big dam and reservoir, the waters impounded by which could be used for the benefit of both the Indians and the white settlers in the valley of the Gila River between the San Carlos Reservation and down to and on the Pima Reservation. The Southern Pacific Railroad is applicant for a right of way through this reservoir and dam site. The railroad desires a grade near the river. Settlers in the valIey have formed an organ-ization, called the Casa Grande Valley Water Users' Association, and are urging that the railroad be made to take a grade sufficiently high so that no possible future utilization of the waters of the river can be interfered with. On the other hand it has been claimed that |
