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Show 4 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, to pulmonary tuberculosis, as against 11.2 per cent due to the same disease occurring in the registration area of the United States. The death rate among Indians is 32.24 per thousand, while the Census Bureau gives 16 per thousand in the registration area of the United States. It is also estimated that there are more than 60,000 Indians in the United States who are suffering from t,rachoma. This eye disease is considered so serious as to cause the exclusion from this country of all immigrants who are thus afflicted. It will be remembered that the Indians are living among .a very large white popul'ation, which is an added reason for taking every precaution to check and control this disease. Additional appropriations are needed to construct and equip hospitals to be located on Iudiau reservations and to check an& control disease among Indians and to improve their health conditions generally. 6. The housing conditions of the Indians throughout the country is one of the important subjects which tlemand immediate considera-tion. It is estimated that there are approximately 8,000 Indian families without homes, who live in mud lodges, tepees, or wickiups-a large number of them on dirt floors and under the most revolting, insanitary conditions. There are thousands of other Indian families who live in one and two room shacks or cabins, under sanitary condi-tions that must of necessity cause the propagation and transmission of the most dangerous diseases, such as tuberculosis and trachoma. Notwithstanding the fact that a large number of the Indians have been allotted valuable lands, ranging from 80 to 320 acres to each Indian, these deplorable housing conditions continue to exist. An Indian family owning from 400 to 1,000 acres of valuable land cer-tainly should not be permitted much longer to live under sanitary conditions that are a serious reflection on Indian administration. The Indians own tribal and individual timber valued at more than $80,000,000, and. as the Government has provided a large number of sawmills located on different reservations throughout the Indian country, it is my purpose to enter into a vigorous campaign to improve the housing conditions of Indians wherever practicable. 7. The Indian water-right situation on a large number of reserva-tions is such as to demand most serious consideration. Unfortu-nately, legislatioh has been enacted by Congress which makes bendcia1 use of water on Indian lands within certain reservations necessary, ' . if the water rights are to be held by the Indians. Congress ha3 pro-vided appropriations for constructing expensive irrigation projects on several reservations, reimbursable out of Indian funds, and the Indians are required to make beneficial use of the water on said reservations within a limited time. If this is not done they will be in danger of ' losing their water rights and forfeiting the same to subsequent appro-priators of the water. On a large number of the reservations agri- , , |
