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Show 1 2 REPORT OP THE COMMISSIONEB OF INDIAN AFFAES. houses, not capable of being applied to local needs and yet too good for condemnation. Here and there at other places I find serious lacks in equipment. A year ago I made a systematic effort to obtain accu-rate statistics as to both lacks and oversupplies, which would enable me very often to avoid the expense of a purchase to meet some deficiency, by simply transferring material from one place where it is not wanted to another place where it is. A single instance will illustrate what Ihave had in mind. At a certain pueblo in New Mexico I discovered Indians plowing with oxen but using no yoke properly so called. The beam of the plow was attached to a cross-timber which was lashed to the horns of the oxen, an arrangement not only cruel in a way but wasteful of the strength of the oxen as draft animals, as it brought all the strain upon organs which were not adapted by natnre for that purpose. At another agency I found ox yokes gathering dust in a storehouse because the use of oxen in that part, of the country had gone out. entirely many years ago and horses had been substituted. An order for the transfer of a few yokes from the place where they were lying . idle and occupyingspace that could be turned to better account, to the place where the lack of yokes was pitifully obvious, involved merely the freight transportation and accomplished the double good. In like manner, clothing of sizes which would not'fit anyone in the local eontingent have-been moved to places where these sizes were needed, and the costof additional material thus saved; and the same plan has been applied to hardware, medical supplies and appliances, . etc. When I first started upon this economic campaign I found my efforts technically hampered by the'wording of the one law on which I might have depended for my authority to make the desired transfers. But as soon as I explained the difficulty to the Indian -4ffairs Committees of the Congress last winter they responded by incorporating into the then pendingIndian appropriation bill a clause granting me the powers needed, and I have been making good use of these ever since. FIELD ADMINISTRATION. Early in the history of the administration of Indian affairs the Western country was divided into large areas of territory, each in charge of a superintendent, under whom there were agents of particii-lar reservations. Superintendents reported to the Commissioner of Indian affairs and agents to the superintendents. The crudity of the telegraph and railroad systems in those days, the warlike atti-tude of the Indians and their tribal solidarity were the reasons for this complex. system. As the country became settled, with better |
