OCR Text |
Show The act similarly authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to pay his share to any Indian who is blind, crippled, decrepit, or helpless from old age, disease, or accident. Rendations to put into effect the provisions of this act were approved by the department on January 25, 1908. Applications for individual shares of tribal trust funds have been approved, as shown in Table 16. In order to enable the office to more accurately and definitely determine the competency of In&an applicants for their shares of the tribal trust funds under this act, the regulations were amended in several particulars. The changes took effect on May 1, 1909. Only a very few applications were received under the new regula-tions up to the close of the fiscal year, but it is believed that this class of work can be handled much more expeditiously and wisely under the new regulations than has been possible heretofore. HANDLING OF TRUST FUNDS BY MINORS. For the past three years the shares of minors in trust-fund pay-ments have been paid to such pments and other persons having the care and support of children as are shown to be morally and mentally competent to expend the money in a proper manner. Extraordinary care has been taken in the selection of persons to whom such funds have been paid, and in no case has complaint been made that the money paid to such persons has been squandered. On the contrary, the office has every reason to believe that the money has been used wisely by those to whom it was paid for the sole bene fit of the minors. The object of the office in paying, as a rule, to other than legal guardians is to avoid the costs of guardianship and to enable minors to receive the full benefits of their small funds. COMMUTATIOI~ OF PERPETUAL ANNUITIES. The Indian appropiiation act approved April 30, 1908 (35 Stat. L., 701, provides: That the Commissioner of Indian Ailair8 is hereby authorized to send a yecis1 Indian mnt. or other re~resentative of his ofice. to visit anv Indian tribe for the purpose if negotiating ad entering into a written'agreement with such tribe for the commuta.tion of the ~emetuaal nnuitins due under treatv sti~ulations,t o be aubiect to the approval of con&eea; and the Commissioner of Indian Affaira ahs11 tram& to Congress mid agreement8 with such recommendations as he may debm proper. Under this authority special agents of the office have visited the Six Nations of New York Indians, the Oneidas of Wisconsin, the Paw-new of Oklahoma, the Pottawatomies of Kansas and Wisconsin, and' the Sacs and Foxes of the Mississippi in Oklahoma and Iowa. |