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Show 70 COMMISSIONER OF INDUN AFFAIES. branch of the office work; i. e., mails and files, stenographic, and statistics sections. It is unfortunate that the inadequate force prevents a person familiar with business methods and organization devoting his entire time to this task of organization and method to the exclusion of all other duties. Large returns would be realized on such an investment. During the year much attention has been given to organization of the statistical work with very gratifying results. Heretofore statisticaiinformation concerning the service has been very incom-plete. I was in the position of head of an institution of gigantic proportions and with widely diversified interests without adequate knowledge of what had been and was being accomplished, what yet remained to be done, and the material I had to do with. Without this knowledge administration must necessarily have lacked intelli-gence to some extent. This condition has been materially improved and will be further remedied during the ensuing year. RECLASSIFYING AND INDEXING OLD FILES. In March of this year, through exhaustion of the special appro-priation of $5,000, it became necessary to furlough the three his-torians who were doing valuable work in mending, classifying, and flat filing the old files of the office, which date from its establishment in 1824, and for years have been practically inaccessible. Much remains to be done on these files. They are valuable both for the history they contain and for administrative purposes. At present there is no index of papers previous to 1881, and the filing, which was by subject, has been so frequently rearranged into special 'files and cases, and Indians have been assigned to so many different superin-tendencies, agencies, and schools that papers relating to one sub-ject or case are very often found in four or five different places. During the past year calls for these papers have been unusually numerous, resulting in many long and tedious searches. No less obsolete and inconvenient than the old classification and the former practice of folding papers are the unsightly cases in which files are stored. The files from 1881 to 1907 are fairly well indexed, but they are filed numerically, folded, and stored in old-fashioned cases, which afford them practically no protection. The files subsequent to 1881 are in by no means as chaotic a condi-tion as those prior thereto, but they should all be properly classified and fled after modern methods, both for present administrative needs and for benefit of posterity. There are not more than a dozen clerks now in the o5ce who are to any extent familiar with the old method of filing or the old agency names, many of which have long |