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Show REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OE THE INTERIOR 5 Experience has demonstrated that it is futile to try to make d Indians farmers and stobk raisers. Many will not interest them-selves in those occupations. It has been believed that the young men and young women who have finished their schooling, perhaps have learned trades and prefer not to return to their reservations, should be encouraged to seek employment elsewhere. Thus many of them have formed lucrative connections in business. Education of such a primitive people in the conservation and man-agement of their resources is naturally a slow process. Even to-day superstition causes Indian homes to be abandoned because an Indian or Indians have died in them. Startling instances of human ssuffring in attempts to appease the gods frequently come to notice. The present Secretary of the Interior recently has visited reserva-tions in Montana, Arizona, and New Mexico, where he inspected the. Indian school system--day and boarding-and studied the problem of vocational guidance. For, a number of years many Indians, particularly the Apaches, have been employed in Arizona copper mines, but there has been no definite plan for guiding them and little thought has been given to conserving their earnings. It is reported that last year the Apaches on the San Carlos Reservation earned about $400,000 in mines, on roads, and in the fields, but at the year's end they had no savings. In contrast, the achievements of a group of 120 Indian boys from three schools in New Mexico, who were em-ployed in the sugar-beet fields of Colorado, under close supervision, may be cited. Their earnings aggregated $17,250 for the summer, and their savings amounted to $10,180, which they took back to their schools for their own uses. The wide distribution of the Indians adds to the difTiculties of ad-ministration. With 200 tribes scattered over 26 States, the problem is complicated not only by distance, but by climate, environment, and tribal customs. The disintegration of tribes and the division of tribal lands among individual families further complicate. Where, formerly, Indians were considered collectively, they now more and more require consideration individually. It will be recalled that the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana comprised over 600,000 acres of land, and the Indians at one time had a tribal or communal interest in the total area. This interest was divided in 1925 by approval of allotments to individuals, vhich separated the former tribal holding into 1,171 parcels. Where previously the business of the reservation was conducted by the bureau as one unit, now each parcel and its owner must receive attention: individual allotments may be leased or sold; heirs must be discovered and their rights adjudicated; allotments may be bar- I tered and exchanged between the Indian owners; patents in fee may issue; taxes are an ever present concern; fraudulent pyrchases from |