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Show 4 REPORT OB THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. buys of him what he raises himself; hires at good day wages any 'members of his family who can be spared from the necessary work on their little homestead; remains in.possession for twenty or twenty-five years, and thus saves the need of finding a new tenant at the end of each five; and finally, when its occupancy ends, turns back in im-proved land, buildings, fences, irrigation extensions, etc., s vastly more valuable piece of property than it took over: can anyone question that he is permanently better off, and better equipped for the rest of his struggle for a livelihood? But this is not all. Our first duty to the Indian is to teach him to work. In this process the sensible course is to tempt him to the pur-suit of a gainful occupation by choosing for him at the outset the sort of work which he finds pleasantest; and the Indian takes to beet farming as naturally as the Italian takes to art or the German to science. It has an attraction for him above all other forms of agri-culture because it Bffords emplopent for his whole family at once; the wifeand children, who are so large factors in his life: can work in the beet fields side by side with him. Even the little papoose can be taught to weed the rows just as the pickanniny in the South can be used as a cotton picker. I am speaking by the card on this subject, for we send hundreds of Indians into the western beet fields every season to work as day laborers; and my present proposition has in view the utilization of. these same laborers and many more, wherever practicable, at their own homes instead of at a distance, and in im-proving their own lands instead of the lands of other persons. LLAdmittinga ll this," remarks some critic, what is the necessity of bringing private capital and a private corporation or syndicate into the scheme? Why should not the Government, which has the education and material welfare of the Indians in charge, undertake the same operations which you propose to encourage in the hands of a small group of citizens? " Well, for several reasons. First,.be-cause the Government is not in the manufacturing business, and could not properly enter into an industrial competition with its own constituents; and yet it would be impossible to make. beet culture pay in a wild frontier country if conducted apart from a manufacturing plant prepared to reduce the raw product to marketable form. Sec-ond, because the vicissitudes of politics would be fatal to the security and permanency of any such enterprise as I have outlined. And finally because, even if these objections could be overcome, the fact still remains that no industry conducted under governmenbl auspices with an educative design can possibly succeed like one conducted on a business basis pure and simple. The farmer who is hired by 'the Government at such-and-such a salary to teach the Indian beet culture may be wriscientious in his way and try hard to earn his monthly |