Evening star., 1947-02-03

The business of making restitution
to the Vanishing American-at cost
Of $40, ,705 ,879 this fiscal year-has
| the Bureau of Indian Affairs labor
4 ing in such widely separated spots as
Point Barrow, Alaska, and the ever
glades of Florida.
4 In between are half hundred
reservations, regulated by ga Indian
agencies and administered by most
of the 1873 Indian Affairs employees
Their job is to furnish the equivalent
1of Federal, State and local Govern
ment to something less than 100000
Indians.
1t all began in 1924 when the Gov
ernment, in moment of remorse
i decided Indians had as much right
to live as anybody else and estab-
lished an Indian Office in the War
Department. Last week Senator
LANCER, chairman of the economy
bent Civil Service Committee, said it
was about time they let the Indian
run his own business.
Is Per Cent Are Illiterate.
BY the time the Interior Depart
ment annexed the Indian office IN
1849, the Government had decided to
give some of the land back to the
Indians in the form of reservations
and in 1887 some sections were
divided into individual allotments.
That is the way things stand
today, and after more than 100 years
of Government supervision, about(25
per cent of the Indian Affairs Bu-
reau's wards" are illiterate.
Senator Langer's committee has
ordered William Zimmerman, jr.,
acting Indian Affairs commissioner,
to prepare model bill, showing how
certain of the 900 tribes can be re-
moved from Government supervis-
ion, and how the bureau may be run
more efficiently and economically.
Half Funds for Services.
Nearly half the bureaus fiscal ap-
preparations, or $20,189, ,480, were
earmarked for community services.
This included $10,0O0,000 for educa-
ton. $5,98O,O00 for health, $488,910
for welfare and $3,72o,oOo for roads
and trails.
Most of this is spent on the reser-
understanding in size from the
16, 900 ,00O-acre Navajo country in
Arizona and parts of New Mexico
and Utah, to the 719-acre wasteland
of the Czette Indians in Washington
State. Last September 70-year-old
Elliott Anderson, last of the Ozettes,
quietly left the reservation and
moved to the Makah reservation to
the north.
About 1000 of the bureaus en-
ployes work i'll the semiarid Navajo
country, helping the Indians exc out
an existence from sheep-herding
and craftsmanship that fashions
beautiful rugs and pottery.
Most Can't Speak English.
An estimated 80 per cent of these
Indians cannot speak English. Free
to come ad go from their reserva-
tions as all Indians are, most of the
55, 900 Navajos prefer to stay. There's
no particular profit in it. During
the lush war days, when some were
working in war plants despite their
illiteracy and others were drawing
allowances from the armed forces,
the average Navajo family earned
only $1,000 a year. That slipped to
$40 last year.
But the Indian Bureau says their
lot would be worse If 1t were not
for the community services. As in
adequate as they are, there are
schools enough for about one-third
of the 10000 children and some hos
pitfalls.
AS on other reservations, the bu-
reau enforces the law, maintains
welfare, supplies forestry service and
range management, teaches the
farmers. conserves the soil, tends the
roads and encourages irrigation and
construction.
Bureau Has 50 Boarding Schools.
Following their sheep as the sea.
sons change, Navajo families some
times have two or three homes, but
they are crude "hogans" or log cabin
affairs, usually of one room.