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Show COXMISSIONEK OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 27 While the great majority of Indian boys and girls return to their reservation or allotment, yit many, who have learned some trade or art, bave broken loose and gone out into the world to shift for them-selves. There does not appear to be any prejudice against these work-men because they are Indiins. So long as they are self-reapectingand industrious they will be honored in any community. These boys are filling responsible positions. A full-blood Indiin holds the post of engineer on a Puget Sound steamboat. Another in the Middle West is cashier of a bank. Instances could be multiplied. Thousands are employed as laborers on the railroads of the Southwest, and some have become section bosses. As with the white race, the Indian who is industrious and "hustling" will get along. As with the white race, many are shiftless, drunken, and worthless. The educated Indian laborer, like the educated white laborer, has a better chance than the uneducated, and so the parallelism continues. Hundreds of Indian boys from Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Grand Junc-tion, and other schools, were engaged this past summer in the beet fields and on the melon farms of Colorado. For several years they have been thus employed, and as an evidence of their satisfactory work the number called for each year has been increased. Supt. C. J. Cran-dall, of the Santa Fe Indian school, reports that 40 hoys from his school were taken to Rocky Ford, Colo., on May 29,1904, to work in the sugar-beet fields, returning on August 22. The gross earnings of these 40 boys during that period were $2,663.32. Their expenses were $1,016.56, leaving net amount of earnings $1,646.76. In a few instances hoys worked for farmers and collected their wages, which are not included in the above total. The net earnings of the boys were required to be placed on deposit with Superintendent Crandall, .and they will be permitted to spend a just proportion of them from time to time under supervision, and the remainder, if any, will be set aside as a "nest egg" when th.ey return to their reservation home. One boy already has sent money to bi poor parents at the Pima Agency, and many of the boys are looking forward to going back to Colorado next spring to work. Superintendent Craudall says: The real benefit the Indian gets from this outing is not the amount of money he earns or saves, hut the experience, the contact, and the ambition to be more than a common Indm. There are several pupils under my charge I know of who make a practice of gang out amua11y to work. The principal of Hampton Institute reports that one Indian grad-uate of his school, with a degree of Ph. D., has been appointedinstruc-tor in the Columbia University in New York. Another has been admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court. Two physicians have been added to the list. A few more young men have opened stores, and several are filling business positions. The great |