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Show 8 BEPORT OX THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN BFFbIBS. lea& their lands for ten years for the culture of sugar beets and other crops in rotation; to allot the Blackfeet Indians and open their sur-plus lands to settlement; giving the Standing Rock allottees each a piece of timber land; evening up the allotments of the Fort Berthold Indians; permitting the allotment of lands to the Sioux married women hitherto unprovided for; paying the Indians of the Colville Reservation for their lands already opened to settlement; and for a number of other noteworthy purposes. COORDINATION BETWEEN GOVERNMENT BUREAUS. It has always seemed to me one of the misfortunes of the great multiplicity and diversity of parts in our Federal governmental machine that there has been so niarked a tendency toward a reduced rather than an increased coordination between the various adminis-trative branches .and organs. The Government maintains, for ex-ample, a great architectural establishment in connection with the Treasury Department, and yet the Indian Service has its own archi-tectural organization and has been in the habit, for many years of having its work inspected by persons temporarily appointed for the purpose, sometimes with good and sometimes with less good effect. I have endeavored to correct the tendency to which I have referred, as far as this Office is concerned, in such matters as the superintendence of construction, where I have, through the courtesy of the Supervis-ing Architect of the Treasury, been enabled to obtain expert service by making use of men trained under him who happened to be tem-porarily unemployed. This arrangement is not always practicable but it seems so desirable on' general principles, and its results have thus far proved so excellent, that I am trying to make more and more use of it as opportunity offers. With steam engineering I am making a similar effort to avail my-self of the best technical knowledge in the well-equipped bureaus of the Navy Department and the Revenue Marine. In the reform of our medical supply department I have had occasion to draw, and with advantage, upon the experience of the Surgeon-General's offices in the &my and Navy and the Marine-Hospital Service. The in-dian Office has it own corps of timber and logging experts in the field; but as the Indian country is only part of our vast Common-wealth, and some of the problems arising in the timbered sections of it are such as concern indirectly, if not directly, large masses of our white population as well, I am trying to avail myself of the coopera-tion of the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture, so as at least to have the plans of our Service harmonize with the plans of the Forest Servite as far as can be, and I find the spirit of coopera-tion very fully reciprocated. |