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Show 106 REPOrVrB OY THE DEPABTMENT OF THE INTERIOB. ~iumbeor f years. By an item in the Indian appropriation act for the fiscal year 1906, the Secretary of the Interior was authorized lo cause an investigation to be made of existing conditions among home-less Indians of California, and to report to Congress at its next session some plan for their improvement. This investigation ishow being prosecuted by Mr. C. E. Kelsey, formerly secretary of the Northern California Indian Assmiation. It is hoped that the matter may be presented to Congress in such form that some small reparation will be made to the Indians on account of the vast area covered by these treaties which has been appropriated by the Government, but to which the Indian title was never properly extinguished. PROPOSED REMOVAL OF LEMHI INDIANS TO FORT HALL, IDAHO. The act of February 23,1889 (29 Stat. L., 687), provided for nego-tiations with the Lemhi Indians, in Idaho, to secure their relinquish-ment of the Lemhi Reservation and their removal to the Fort Hall Reservation. The Fort Hall Indians had already agreed to receive them and to have their diminished reservation allotted in severalty among both the Fort Hall and the Lemhi Indians. Any agreement made with the Lemhi Indians was to take effect only when approved by the President after satisfactory evidence had been presented to him that the agreement had been accepted by a majority of the adult male Indians of the Lemhi Reservation. On Office recommendation of March 23, 1889, Inspector F. C. Armstrong was assigned to the duty of making the negotiations; but on May 2, 1889, he reported that after a careful presentation of the matter to the Indian council not a single vote was cast in favor of the proposed removal. In the annual report for the year 1889 this Office expressed its regret that these Indians would not consent to removal, as it would be greatly to their interest to leave the small and barren reservation at Lemhi and remove to the Fort Hall Reser-vation, where they could secure good homes and avail themselves of the bendts of the educational and other advantages provided for the Indians at Fort Hall. It was hoped that the subject of removal might again be brought before them. On May 20, 1905, Senator Fred T. Dubois requested that another effort be made to induce the Lemhi Indians to remove to Fort Hall, and that they and the Fort Hall Indians be asked to take their lands in severalty, as provided in the act of February 23,1889. This Office on June 12 recommended that steps be taken to present the matter to the Indians through a United States Indian inspector, every care to be exercised to have the agreement carefully explained to them, and their assent to the agreement obtained if possible, since the civili- |