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Show 18 COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. warehouses. The needs of the service, however, require no more than two, or at the most three, warehouses. Partly because of inadequate supervision of superintendents and their relations with Indian allottees and through lack of timely information in Washington, water rights essential for the use of allotted lands on several of the reservations are in jeopardy, although extensive works for irrigation have been constn~cted. There is danger that while the United States keeps in trust the legal title to allotments, title to water, without which the land is of small value, will have been alienated under State laws based upon beneficial use. Several administrative changes are necessary that there may be unity of responsibility. For example, the head of the Irrigation Service is a direct subordinate of the Secretary, whereas his staff are subordinate to the Commissioner of Tndian Affairs. In the management of affairs in the Five Civilized Tribes there is a some-what similar condition. The Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes, who has in his hands tribal concerns, reports directly to the Secretary; the officer in charge of individual interests for the same Indians reports to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The neces-sity of separate administration of tribal and individual affairs has passed; the duplication incident to the present arrangement, with its heavy expenditure for salaries and office expenses, should come to an end. And, finally, the force of clerks in the Indian Office should be in-creased. The present staff labors under a burden of business which at times is almost intolerable. Clerks drawing salaries of $1,600 and $1,800 a year can not get sufficient stenographic assistants; the work of reducing traders' claims to stated accounts can not go for-ward; the task of determining heirs entitled to the estates of de-reased Indians? and in this way preparing for the sale of inherited lands, can not progress in any satisfactory way; and even the exami-nation of disbursing officers' accounts and the posting of expendi-tures under a thousand or more heads, as required by the form of - appropriation, falls into arrears. The energy put into the administration of Indian affairs for 10 years has had results, but there has to be still more tightening of tho tension. Educational opportunities must be t&en to thousands of Indian children who are not yet in school; industrial impulse and opportunity must be given to Indians who do not now value their possessions or who have no way to turn their properties to beneficial account; zealous and effective protection of Indians in their property and personal rights has to be secured; medical attention and in-struction in the laws of health must be given broadcast throughout the Indian country; a chance has to be extended to thousands of |