The age-herald., 1900-11-12
FULL REPORT ON
 INDIAN AFFAIRS Commissioner Jones Reviews
 Work of the Service SOME INTERESTING FACTS Many Millions Have Been Expended on the Red Men-The Ration System
 Touched Upon-Several I'm
 portant Recommendations
SOME INTERESTING FACTS

Washington. November 1.-The total ex- penditures of the government on account of the Indian service from March 1, lIS9, up to and including July 30, 190O has been S36S, ,35S 217, according to the annual report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs William A. Jones. The expenditures for the fiscal year ending last July amounted to $10, 1751Of. Of this amount at least SS.Ss0,ooo was de- voted to the cause of Indian education, Un- der the head of obstacles to self-support or the Indians the report deprecates the ra- ton system, annuity payments and the leasing of allotments.
 The Indian population of the United States Is about 267 300, of which 45,21O re- ceive a daily ration. A number of the In dians also are assisted by occasional issues and 12,57O old and indigent ones are pro- vided for. The commissioner urges that the indiscrminate issue of rations should stop at once. The old and helpless. he says should be provided for, but rations should be issued to the able bodied only for labor while those who have been eduacted in Indian schools should depend entirely upon their own resources.
 AnnullleS ulSlTlDulcu ldsl SSfii o9Si iSSeNeS S1, ,5O7. .543, the per capita ranging from $255 down to 50 cents. The report says that large money payments to the Indians 'are demoralizing in the extreme. They de- grade the Indians and corrupt the whitesi they induce pauperism and scandal and crime; they nullify all the good effects Of years of labor. Interruptions people induce the Indian to go into debt, and then when the debt is accumulated and the Indians credit is gone, pressure is brought to bear by the creditors upon the government to pay the Indian so that he can pay his debts. The state of affairs growing out of this around some agencies is a scandal and disgrace.
 "There is now in the treasury to the credit of the Indian tribes $93,31 95509, drawing interest at and per cent, the annual interest amounting to $,646, 4S596 Several of the tribes have large incomes from leasing and other sources. It is safe prediction that so long as these funds exist, they will be the prey to designing people,"
 There were 250 Indian schools of all kinds conducted by the government and an in- crease of 1412 pupils in enrolment and 1143 in average attendance shown over the pre- vious year
 The report controverts the theory that the extinction of the Indian is only matter of time. It says it can be stated with great degree of confidence that the Indian population of the United States has been very little diminished from the days of Columbus, Coronado Raleigh, Capt. John Smith and other early explorers.
 Reviewing Indian Territory affairs, the report says there are 5O,OOO children of white parents who have no schools, and that thousands of these children thus deprived of education are growing up in vice and ignorance, already filling the United States jails with youthful criminals. The cost of education will not be excessive compared with results. School benefits also should be extended to the 4250 Choctaw freedmen. Government control of the schools in the Chlckasaw nation is advocated.