Valdez weekly prospector., 1908-11-26
GOVERNMENT IS ID
 ASSIST NATIVES
Valdez Physicians Are Ask ed To Submit Proposals
 For Giving Treatment

Various physicians in Valdez have by the federal government been asked to submit proposals for the giving medical attention to the natives in that section ,f the interior between Gulkana and Taral. The spccifica- tions of the advertisement Cor these proposals call for two visits month to each of the villages, and the ad- ministratiou of Whatsoevc? is IcCdful in the way of medicine and other services from q physician.
 In addition to the call having to do with the naWvyS of the interior, pro- pOsals are also asked for q bi-m onthly visit to the village of Tatitl2t, down the sound. This call provides for twenty-fOur hours being spent in the village each visit.
 To persons familiar with conditions in the native villages, this action on the part of the government comes as an awakening from q long period of sluggishness. For years the con- ditions in the native villages, those down the sound and those in the in- tcrior, have called loudly for govern mcnt aid, even as have the conditions elsewhere in Alaska; in the locality around Valdez this call has seemed to be in vain.
 To those who possess knowledge of the plighG of the natives, the history of the past few years has been the his tory of tragedy. Disease and hun ger have taken awful toll from the ma tive settlements, and today the na- tivcs around Ellamar and the natives around Gulkana arc suffering the bangs of hunger and are facing star vation.
 What the government ia doing for the natives in other parts Of Alaska, in educational, and in sanitary and medical lines is briefly told in the re- gently issued statement of the com missioner of education. This state mcnt, insofar as it has to do with flask, is in part as follows:
 During the fiscal year ended June 30 1908, the Bureau of Education maintained fifty-nine United States public schools for natives of Alaska, (Of which ten were established during tho fiscal year,) with an enrolment of 3,067 and an average attendance of 1,204.
 "In the summer of 1907 the erec- tion of school buildings was under taken on Diomede Island, in Boring Strait, at Kobuk Village, on Kobuk river about 300 miles from it's mouth, at Igloo and Sinuk, on the Seward peninsula, at Stevens camp, Rampant, and Kokrines, on the Yukon river, at Nenana, on the Tananana rever, and at Seldovia and Kenai, on Cook Inlet, making q total of ten new school buildings. Tie coming of win ter put stop to building operations.
 During tho present summer school buildings are in process of construc- tion at Noatak and Selawik, in nor thern Alaska; at Mountain village, Pilot Station, Russian Mission, Ham, ilton, Oulato, Koyukuk, and Louden, on the Yukon river; at Illiamna, Su- sitna, and Kaguyak, in western Alas ka, and at Petersburg, in southeast ern Alaska, a total of thirteen build- ings. AtTyonic, in western Alaska, and at Douglas, In southeastern Alas ka, buildings have been reconstructed for school purposes. At Point Ellis and sitka Bay, in southeastern Alas ka, portable buildings were erected for the accommodation of summer schools at those places. Thus twen. ty.seven additional buildings for school purposes have been provided during the two seasons 1907 and 1908, of which twonty-three are new and permanent buildings. Of these twen. ty.throe buildings, two were coustruc. ted from tho appropriation "Educa- tion of natives of Alaska, l907;" eight