OCR Text |
Show this dam is a project absolutely not feasible. The whole question is receiving the most thoroughgoing study with a view to protecting on the one hand all the rights and equities of the Indians and the settlers, and on the other of not delaying or imposing undue hardship on railroad development of the wuutry through making demands of the railroad based on the needs of a utilization scheme not practicable. The o&e is planning this fall to allot their whole reservation to the Camp MDowell Indians, who live on the Verde River some distance northeast of Phoenix. This will be done irrespective of whether or not any of their lands can have a commercially feasible irrigation project applied to them. The whole quastion of water for these Indians is receiving the most careful study. Geronimo's band of Apache Indians, now mostly descendants of the original prisoners, are still under the jurisdiction of the War Department at Fort Sill. The office has taken the position that any of t h w Indians who wish to remain there when freed from the jurisdiction of the War Department, as it is urgently hoped that they will soon be, should be allotted there; but that any who wish may make homes among their relatives on the Mescalero Rwwa-tion, or at any other place they may choose where we can provide for them. The alternative should be absolutely voluntary with the Indians. On the Yakiia Reservation in Washington is a very complex question as to the best way in which to provide these Indians with water. The present plan, which has been before the Indians for over a year, is that if they do not have the means otherwise they should sell a part of their allotments in order that the remainder might be greatly enhanced in value by having water applied to it. For various causes, which are now under investigation, the Indians have not taken at all kindly to this plan. Any other plan would involve the appropriation by the Congress of many millions of dollars to construct a project. In Oklahoma the price of oil rose during the year from 40 to 48 cents per barrel and is 50 cents at the present time. The price is still wholly inadequate, and the office is using every proper endeavor to hring the price up to what it believes to be the fair market value of the product. The affairs of the Pueblo Indians, particularly those in New Mexico, have been for the past year the subject of very careful study. The doubtful legal status of these people and their very strong per-sonality both as communities and as individuals, will make this prob-lem in the coming year one of the heaviest with which the office has to deal. |