"There are plenty of other homes about the reserve, both new and old, no better than this. It seems that there is much room for improvement in home conditions. Only here and there a family is found that keeps a cow; more of them have some hogs about the place, and chickens are beginning to be raised in considerable numbers. Gardens are seen in the vicinity of many the farmhouses, but these very often are rather indifferently worked.

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Progress in agriculture here is hindered because of the large area of Indian land which is held as inherited undivided estates, often 10 to a dozen heirs or more having fractional interests in a tract of land. This is a situation peculiar to this reservation brought about by the way a large part of the allotments were drawn up years ago. A recent law enacted by Congress may make it possible to remedy this state of affairs in the course of time. Leasing is really the only practical way this land can be handled at present. It is reported that only about 1 Winnebago in 10 can farm land of his own on account of the large acreage tied up in estates. Confronted by such a situation the agency staff can not do what it would like toward expanding and improving farming operations.

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The Winnebago is responding somewhat to the intelligent and friendly advice of the agency farmer and is improving his methods of farming. Of the leased area of over 30,000 acres 50 Indians rent around 2,000 acres. Some of this small number are Winnebagos who have been granted patents in fee to their own land, have sold it, spent the proceeds, and now are forced to get down to work. For lease administrative purposes, in particular, the Indians of the reserve have been divided into two classes as regards their relative competency. One class is rated as competent enough to handle lease matters direct, making out the leases on agency forms and collecting the moneys as they come due. Over 4,000 acres are handled in this way. The other and more incompetent class has its lands of some 26,000 acres leased entirely by the agency office.

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'The outstanding thing in regard to the leasing of lands on the Winnebago Reservation is the lease form and the requirements that are in effect as to the rotation of crops and the maintenance of the good condition of the soil. On some reservations the lessees can raise about what they want to, and at the end of their periods of tenure they can leave the soil in such a deteriorated condition that the land has depreciated considerably in value. By continued and unrestricted leasing, Indian property can be nearly ruined for agricultural purposes, and it is what farm land will actually produce that is the determining factor as to its money value. It would seem advisable to adopt the same methods of leasing, with requirements of crop rotation, as those now in operation at both the Winnebago and Omaha Reservations, at all agencies where it is found practicable to do so.

"It was reported that 60 Indians worked in the packing houses of Sioux City and were preferred to the white labor employed in this industry. They were said to work well and seemed to be satisfied when they were laid off for a few days when shortages in stock shipments compelled the closing down of certain lines of work at the plants for brief periods. Other Winnebagos were working in the city of Omaha and at other places. Attention was particularly called to the fact that no Indians were working at farming pursuits away from the reserve, even though agriculture was the one activity in which most of them had some training.

"The larger Indian population of the Omaha Reservation is concentrating more and more in the east portions of the jurisdiction. Lands in the more level western part of the reserve are passing into the hands of the whites: at some places in the east section two or more families are quartered at one house. This country, preferred by the Indians for their homes, though hilly and less valuable than the more western lands, is capable of producing the same excellent crops as at Winnebago to the north.

"The Omaha resides in a well-located one or two story frame house, near which is a small barn and usually other outbuildings. Considerable money has been spent on this reserve for houses, some of them being quite attractive structures, but now and then a large and fairly expensive dwelling will be seen that seems poorly designed for the needs of the Indian. The interiors of the homes here, as at Winnebago, are not clean and orderly enough. Even some of the women who have attended the best Indian training schools in years past seem to have failed to make their early education show to advantage in domestic affairs. The large fields of corn about this reserve show that the Indian is taking some interest in farming.

"There are plenty of these Indians who could spend more time at farming and devote less attention to other things. Not every farm has its cow and the number of chickens could be materially increased. From a distance an Indian home can fairly easily be distinguished from that of a white man by the number of chickens seen about the dooryards.

"The Omaha has no great desire to leave his home country. If he loses his own lands he is very apt to move over to another place and res.de with relatives instead of leaving the reserve and getting a job. Although the alienation of Omaha land has been rather large the resident population has not diminished to a great extent.

"The Indians of the Winnebago and Omaha reservations have lived in the vicinity of a prosperous white farm country for many years and have been attending good nonreservation boarding and local public schools for a long time. They have begun to cultivate a respectable amount of farm land. Still an improved home life, cleaner and more orderly houses, better health, and a more intelligent application in agricultural operations are needed to put these people on the same plane with the white residents of their part of the country."

INDIANS OF SOUTHERN ARIZONA

Commissioner McDoWELL

In the spring of 1925 Commissioner McDowell spent several weeks in Southern Arizona, during which he visited the Phoenix Indian Vocational School, the Salt River Agency, and the Gila River, or Pima Agency. He also held a conference with more than a hundred Papago Indians at the Sells Agency, where a number of matters concerning them were discussed and, at the Indians' request, were later taken up by Commissioner McDowell with the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

Commissioner McDowell found that the unprecedented drought in this section was seriously affecting the livestock and farming industries of both Indians and white people outside of the irrigated areas of the Salt River Valley; that a large percentage of the cattle were dying for lack of fodder, which had been burnt up by the drought, and that the failure of the rains had caused a lamentable decrease in Indian farming. The result was that many Indians were leaving the reservations to seek outside work, of which, fortunately, there appeared to be plenty at good pay. He found all superintendents were alive to the situation and were doing what they could to help the Indians in their dire need. At the time of his visit he did not find or hear of cases of actual destitution, but he expresses the opinion that there likely would be suffering among the old and decrepit.

The Phoenix Indian Vocational School is located about 3 miles south of Phoenix, Ariz. It is one of the most important of the Government nonreservation institutions and is under the superintendency of Mr. John B. Brown. Connected with it is the East Farm Sanatorium for the treatment of tubercular Indian children and adults. The student body of the school numbers 877, and there were 32 tubercular children under treatment at the sanatorium. The total of 909 children represented 27 tribes, but the great bulk of the pupils were Pima, Papago, Hopi, Navajo, Apache, Maricopa, and Mohave Indians of Arizona. Commissioner McDowell found the school plant in good condition but inadequate for the present authorized capacity of 850 children. He recommends that two additional schoolrooms be added, that the dining room for students be enlarged, and that the building of two more cottages for employees be authorized. He commends the administrative activities of Superintendent Brown and Principal John Whitwell and the effective teamwork which he says characterized the entire school management. Commissioner McDowell stresses the need of increased hospital facilities as follows:

"The school hospital, in charge of Dr. Douglas S. Duncan, can take care of 70 patients when crowded to the limit. It is supposed to be exclusively a school hospital, but it often is forced to take in adult patients. Each year more and more Hopi, Navajo, Papago, and other Indians are coming into the Salt River Valley to pick cotton and do other farm work. In a few years the Coolidge (San Carlos) Dam will be completed and will bring a large irrigated area under cultivation. The outlook is that in a comparatively short time there will be a great many Indians at work in Salt River and Gila River Valleys. This prospect would seem to call for increased hospital facilities in this section.

"After talking over this situation with the superintendents of the several reservations in this part of the country I came to the conclusion that the Phoenix School hospital should be enlarged into an institution that could be used both as a school and a base hospital. This hospital needs more bed room now, and traveling Indian Service officials have recommended that it be enlarged. If these recommendations are approved, I would further recommend either that another building for a base hospital be erected or that wings be added to the present hospital so as to give it sufficient capacity to care for the school and for the Indians at Salt River and Maricopa Reservations and those who are working in and around Phoenix. I found the hospital in good shape, with Dr. D. S. Duncan, an efficient physician, in charge.

"This school hospital must not be confounded with the East Farm Sanatorium, which is in charge of Dr. A. J. Wheeler, and is exclusively a tuberculosis hospital with 120 beds. In the 1924 fiscal year, during winter and spring, it had an average of between 115 and 124 patients. The infirmary building contains two wards for bed cases, each ward having 10 beds. This is the only building that is properly equipped for taking care of bedfast cases, and for some years the demand has largely exceeded the capacity. I was told there had been times when as many as 25 bed cases were kept in the 20 bungalows on the grounds until there were vacant beds in the infirmary wards. This one fact ought to be sufficient justification for increasing the bed space in the infirmary building. Tubercular Indians are brought here from all parts of the United States. Children of school age who are physically able to do so attend classes, so that in a sense the East Farm Sanatorium is also a school sanatorium."

About 14 miles northeast of Phoenix, Ariz., is the headquarters of the Salt River Indian Agency, which has jurisdiction over the Salt River (Pima) Reservation and Camp McDowell (Mohave-Apache) Reservation. The Salt River Reservation, with an area of 51,000 acres, has an Indian population of 1,090, composed of 963 Pima and 127 Maricopa Indians, and Camp McDowell, with an area of 24,000 acres, is the home of 212 Mohave-Apache. The Pima and Maricopa Indians were using the water of Salt River for irrigation long before any white men came into the valley. Consequently they had the best of prior rights when the Salt River Valley irrigation project (more commonly known in the East as the Roosevelt Dam project) was started and the water appropriated under court decree. The Indians were allotted 700 miner's inches of water when they should have had at least 416 inches more. As a result these Indians, to whom were allotted 30 acres of land with at least 5 having assured water rights, are getting water only sufficient for 3.14 acres. There now is a prospect that they will get more water. A situation is developing which may result in giving the Indians water rights for 10,000 acres of land.

"The area of irrigable agricultural land on the Camp McDowell reserve is put down as 1,300 acres, but several hundred acres of this land can not be reached by the water unless some very extensive and expensive irrigation work is done. Some years ago the Indian Office conceived the idea of inducing these Mohave-Apaches to become irrigation farmers. With that purpose

was

in mind 1,300 acres of good land, in a solid block, were set aside on the Salt River and divided into 5-acre lots. Canals and ditches for irrigating this land were built, and the Mohave-Apaches were urged to move to the south and make their homes on this irrigable tract of land. They flatly refused to do it and to this day the land awaits their coming. The Mohave-Apaches at that time believed that this plan of making irrigation farmers of them part of a scheme to rob them of their grazing lands in the Camp McDowell reserve. Some outsiders encouraged them in this suspicion, and the Indians continued in their positive refusal to accept the Indian Office proposition." Commissioner McDowell is of the opinion that the Indian Office should drop this matter and turn back the 1,300 acres to the Pima Indians, and that the surest and most effective way of removing from the Mohave-Apache minds their deep-seated suspicions of the good intentions of the Indian Office is to immediately allot their agricultural lands on the McDowell reserve to them. The Gila River Indian Agency, commonly known as the Pima Reservation, has an Indian population of 4,904, composed of Pima Indians, with several hundred Maricopa and Papagos. The agency is located at Sacaton on the Gila River about 25 miles southeast of Phoenix. The Maricopa Reservation, southwest of Phoenix, is under the supervision of the Gila River

Agency. The total land area of the Pima Reservation proper is 371,422 acres, of which 96,000 are allotted. Of the allotted land 15,826 acres are under ditch for irrigation and 80,174 acres are classed as irrigable. Of the unallotted land, 10,422 acres are irrigable and 205,000 acres are rough grazing land. When the Indians have water all of the land under ditch is cultivated. Last year 6,800 acres of irrigated land were not used because there was no water, and a large proportion of the other irrigated area which was seeded had no crops because of insufficient supply of water. Notwithstanding this serious handicap these Indians raised over $250,000 of produce, mostly cotton, wheat, corn, barley, beans, and garden truck, on 8,900 acres. The Pima will lose most of their cattle, for there was so little rain last summer, and practically none at all since, that all the forage is dried up. It was pitiful to see the thin cattle trying to sustain life by browsing cactus and mesquite. dividual financial losses, however, will not be large, for most of the cattle are owned by a comparatively few Indians, only 10 of whom are engaged in cattle raising as a principal means of support.

The in

The irrigation situation on this reservation has occupied the attention of the Indian Service and a number of persons interested in the Pima side for some time. Congress at the last session passed a bill authorizing the construction of a dam in a canyon located in the San Carlos Indian Reservation, to impound the flood waters of the Gila and San Carlos Rivers. This project, now called the Coolidge Dam, will cost in the neighborhood of $5,500,000, and it is planned to have it finished in six years. The Coolidge Dam, which will be 200 feet high, is designed to impound 760,000 acre-feet of water, sufficient to irrigate continuously 80,000 acres of land, of which 40,000 acres will be on the Pima Reservation. The Ashurst-Hayden Diversion Dam above Florence is built. It diverts the river water into what generally is known as the Florence system, shared by whites and Indians. The irrigation section of the Indian Service is building a canal, called the Pima lateral, to connect the reservation canals and ditches with this system. In a short time the diversion dam across the river at Sacaton will be finished. The concrete work of this structure is 1,500 feet long and the earthwork 1,200 feet. A bridge superstructure adds much to the appearance and utility of this dam. One of the fine public roads will use this bridge to cross the river.

Commissioner McDowell found the jurisdiction amply supplied with schools and practically all children attending some school. The reservation boarding school, with a rated capacity of 230, had an attendance of 270. This institution had enough dormitory space for 300 children, but is short of much-needed schoolroom capacity. To meet the overcrowded condition Commissioner McDowell recommends the addition of four rooms at least to the school building. The Pima Hospital is 1 mile west of Sacaton. It serves the Gila River Reservation and boarding school; the Salt River Reservation, about 30 miles to the north; the Maricopa Reserve, 25 miles to the northwest; and the nonreservation Indian population in the Salt River and Gila River valleys. Sick and injured Indians from Phoenix, Chandler, Florence, Casa Granda, Mesa, Tempe, and other cities and towns in southern Arizona are taken to this hospital. During the year Indians from all parts of the State come into this irrigated area for seasonal work, and if they require hospital treatment they go or are taken to the Pima Hospital.

Commenting on the hospital, Commissioner McDowell says:

"The building is of the Indian Service standard frame construction and is about 8 years old. It is known as a 20-bed hospital, 10 beds in each of the two wards. There are 15 tent houses, containing 40 beds, so that the normal capacity is 60. The institution has a fairly good operating room, but there is no room or space that can be used for maternity or isolation cases. Babies are born in the woman's ward, with only screens around the mother's bed, as a measure of privacy. This institution has been very crowded for some time; 12 beds are placed where there is space for only 8, and there have been times when each of several beds had two patients. The nurses have pushed two single beds close together, so that the four little children occupying them would not fall out on the floor.

"There is no doubt but that each year the demands on this little hospital will increase, because each year will see more Indians coming into this country for more work; there will be more road building, more irrigation canal work, more railroad work, all of which will draw more Indians to the area served by the Pima Hospital. It should be increased by at least 20 beds. There is an abundance of ground space, so that the additional wards can be constructed as

wings at a minimum expense. Young women patients can not now be placed in tents. The one night nurse can not patrol the grounds and also attend to her ward patients. As a result, a number of young women are filling beds in the wards which should be used by patients who are kept in the tents, but who ought to be in a ward.

"Up to date this year there have been 30 maternity cases. This is a particularly significant indication of the great change that is coming over the Indians who are now seeking the Indian Service hospitals and doctors. It was not so many years ago when no Indian prospective mother would go near a hospital. So far as its sanitary condition is concerned, the Pima Hospital ranks with the best in the service. It is clean, neat, and sweet smelling. I carefully examined the interior and the exterior of the place, and have only words of commendation for the staff.

"Mr. Chester E. Faris comes to the Gila River Reservation as the new superintendent with a fine record of achievements along the lines of constructive work on the Jicarilla Reservation and the Southern Pueblo Agency. He is given the entire credit for the remarkable rehabilitation of the Jicarilla Apache Indians. His experiences there will be helpful to him in his new post, although conditions are dissimilar."

SANTA FE INDIAN SCHOOL, N. MEX.

Commissioner McDowELL

"About a mile and a half from the business center of the city of Santa Fe, N. Mex., is the Santa Fe Indian School, of which Mr. John DeHuff is superintendent. Commissioner McDowell spent several days in this interesting institution. Following are parts of his report:

"This is one of the Government's nonreservation schools, but Mr. DeHuff told me that in many respects it functions as a reservation boarding school for the boys and girls of near-by pueblos. It only carries eight grades with a beginners' class. Of the 454 children in attendance, 177 come from the pueblos, which, for administrative purposes, are grouped in the Northern Pueblo Agency, with headquarters in Santa Fe. Mr. C. J. Crandall is superintendent of this jurisdiction.

"What is needed here is a new hospital. The one now used is an old building with 35 beds, and it is difficult to find in it anything required in a modern hospital. It is located in the noisiest part of the school plant, and the new gymnasium is going up 10 feet from it. It is planned to build a new one in a year or so, which will be located in the extreme eastern part of the ground, where there will be plenty of good air free from dust and no noise. The boys have made between 10,000 and 11,000 adobe bricks for this building, and much of its construction will be done by the students.

"I was much pleased with the personnel of the school staff. The teachers, matrons, and other employees seemed to work together harmoniously and with enthusiasm. I was particularly impressed with the spirit of friendliness which characterized the relations between them and the children. The youngsters, to all appearances, were thoroughly enjoying their school life.

"Although my time was limited, I took occasion to inquire into the general educational situation of the Northern Pueblo jurisdiction and found that these Indians are well provided with schools. Besides the Santa Fe school, there

are in this agency eight day schools and the St. Catherine's (Catholic) Mission School, which is located in the city of Santa Fe. Superintendent Crandall, of the Northern Pueblo Agency, told me that the number of children of the Pueblos in his superintendency attending the schools within the jurisdiction was more than 24 per cent of the entire Northern Pueblo population.

"I found Mr. De Huff running his school with a full realization of the change which is coming over the Pueblo Indians. He and Mrs. De Huff are doing what they can to keep alive in the children the artistic qualities which are so pronounced in these Indians. Every boy and girl who gives any indication of talent in drawing, coloring, or designing is encouraged to develop the talent, and some of them have become extraordinarily proficient in painting and modeling."