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Show I REPORT OF THE COMMIsBIONER 03' INDIAX AFPAIRS. 11 When the point of delivery was in the far West such a roundabout routine consumed so much time that it tended to discourage bidders and thus lessen competition. This slow and awkward method has all been changed. Beginning with the current fiscal year money is sent to agents and superintend-ents who are disbursing oEcers, and they pay these contract accounts instead of sending them to Washington for settlement. They are heavily bonded, generally by surety companies, the method of ac-counting is very rigid, and they are required to file with their accounts the same evidence which was furnished when the claim.; were for-warded here; so that, in effect, the O5ce is now simply saving the former waste of going twice over the same ground, and the persons who furnish supplies to the Government receive their pay so promptly that they can afford to offer better prices. Still another endeavor to bring about more businesslike canditions has concerned itself with the time of making per capita payments to Indians. Many payments are made at such seasons as seriously to interfere with the best interests of the Indians. For example, at one agency the Indians leave their homes in the middle of the planting season and absent themselves for several days in order to draw an unnuity of a few dollars; at another they receive their money in the part of the year when they need it least, and, with their usual im-providence, it is gone before severe weather begins. In some places a payment should be made just before planting'season, so as to enable the planters to buy seed, while in others the Indians would suffer in the winter unless they received a fall payment. The agreement with the Devil's Lake Sioux, approved April 27, 1904, provided for an annual payment during the month of June; but the Indians peti-tioned that it be changed to April, because a June payment was too late for the purchase of seeds and too early to help them in harvest-ing. The date of payment was changed to April by the current In-dian appropriation act. Similar changes now under consideration will doubtless be made from time to time. Not more than two pay-ments will be made annually unless more are required by treaty stipu-lations. STOPPING ONE SOURCE OF WASTE. ' As you are aware, I have been making for the last three years rather extended tours of the Indian country, aiming as far as possible to visit agencies and schools which have never been visited by a Com-missioper before, and which rarely get a visit from anyone represent ing directly the Washington administration. Among other valuable fruits of these visitations has been the opportunity to observe what sto~kosf unused but usable material are on hand in the several store- |
