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Show 46 COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIBS. ' tions might seriously impair &ciency. I have tried to prevent any possibility of this impairment by lifting such appropriations in the current estimates as are necessary to secure, first, a decided improve-ment in the quality of our personnel, and, second, freedom from danger to Indian 'children and to employees from fire and from unsanitary conditions that exist because of lack of proper repair and replacement funds for our agency and school plants. Another year, on the foundation that will be then securely laid if the Congress appropriates according to these estimates, we shall need more funds for our allotment and irrigation work and our health and industrial campaign. I have not asked as a rule for increases in these funds this year, as I feel that before we take on more funds we should lift salaries of our field managers to a point that will insure a more constructive and economical use of the funds we now have. This program does not necessarily mean that the grand total of our Indian appropriations from the United States Treasury. will cease moving downward. It does mean that some of our less needed funds will diminish and tht our more vital fundsthose connected with health and industri-will increase, and in more and more cases will increase out of Indian moneys. Thus the Indians will steadily become self-supporting tribally as well as individually. Legblation of importance appears also in section 28 of the appro-priation act of March 3, 1911, which provides that hereafter pay-ments to Indians of money appropriated by the Congress in satisfac-tion of the judgment of any court shall be made under the direotion of the officers of the Interior Department charged by law with the supervision of Indian affairs, with a regular accounting to the Treasury. DECISIONS. Several judicial decisions of the year have been of importance to the administration of this office. On February 13, 1911, the Court of Claims rendered a modified decision to the effect that the Ute Indiana are entitled b judgment against the United States for a little more than $3,500,000, chiefly as compensation for lands in-cluded within national forest reserves. The decree awarded 6 per cent of the judgment as attorneys' fees. In the case of Moses Whitmire, trustee, a. The United States and Cherokee Nation, the Court of Claims, on February 20, 1911, ren-d e d a decision requiring the Secretary of the Interior to give to those freedmen and free colored persons whose names appear on the Kern-Clifton roll, but were omitted from the Dawes C ~ m m i ~roolnl, full participation in the distribution of the property of the Cherokee Nation. This decree was in favor of about 1;500 persons and their descendants, in all about 3,000 persona. An appeal has been taken to the Supreme Court. |