BOARD OF INDIAN COMMISSIONERS. MERRILL E. GATES, Washington, D. C.; appointed June 27, 1884. HUGH L. SCOTT, Princeton, N. J.; appointed February 25, 1919. GEORGE VAUX, jr., Chairman. FIFTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF INDIAN COMMISSIONERS. FISCAL YEAR ENDED JUNE 30, 1920. WASHINGTON, D. C., September 1, 1920. SIR: We have the honor of submitting herewith the fifty-first annual report of the Board of Indian Commissioners for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1920, during which members of the board visited and inspected 30 reservations, agencies, and schools; including the following: Hoopa Valley, Round Valley, Fort Bidwell, Greenville, Digger, Tule River, and Pala Agencies, Calif.; Reno Agency, Nev.; Fort Hall Reservation, Idaho; Mescalero Reservation, N. Mex.; Blackfeet, Crow, Tongue River, and Fort Peck Agencies, Mont.; Standing Rock Agency, N. Dak.; Flandreau School, S. Dak.; Pipestone School, Minn.; Laona and Grand Rapids Agencies and the Tomah School, Wis.; Omaha and Winnebago Agencies, Nebr.; Osage. Seneca, Cantonment, Cheyenne and Arapaho, and Kiowa Agencies, and the Five Civilized Tribes, Oklahoma; New York Indian Agency and reservations, New York; the Chicago and St. Louis Indian warehouses. THE FIELD SERVICE. The inspection activities of the board brought to light the fact that there is much discontentment prevalent throughout the Indian field service. At many reservations and schools inspected by board members during the year a spirit of unrest and a pessimistic state of mind were in evidence. In our opinion this condition calls for immediate consideration and prompt action. Poor pay is the principal cause of the inquietude which is lowering the morale and efficiency of employees in the Indian country. The contributory causes are long work days; isolation and, in many cases, unattractive living conditions; indefinite hopes of a worth while within the service, and a long-established system of administration which operates against automatic, periodic advances of salaries. While the World War is accountable for much of the dissatisfaction prevailing in the field personnel, to which we invite your particular attention, the conditions responsible for the discouragement characterizing the field force are of long standing; the war, with its abnormal developments, aggravated those conditions and intensified the protests against them. There are, approximately, 4,000 white men and women in the field service. Of this number more than 800 of the experienced employees have recently left the Indian Service and two-thirds of the vacancies have been filled by temporary appointees. There are, approximately, 125 vacancies in the teaching force alone, and there is sound ground for the prediction that the coming year will see many more experienced employees separate themselves from the service. Experience counts heavily as an employment qualification in the Indian Service. and the loss of so many trained people in the field has resulted in delaying and, in many cases, sadly neglecting work in reservations and in schools. The Indian ultimately suffers, and unless measures are taken promptly to rehabilitate the field service a sorry record will be made of current Indian progress. Indian field employees always have been underpaid and the value of their services underestimated when we consider the exceptional character of their duties and responsibilities, their environments, the peculiar difficulties attached to the service, their long workdays, and the fact that the very nature of their employment unfits them, in time, to achieve success in the business world. The workday in the field is much longer than it is in other branches of Government service, and this is a prolific cause of dissatisfaction. Not only are basic salaries too low, but the service offers no substantial encouragement to its employees in the form of assured salary increases at stated periods of continuous employment as an incentive to the development of ambition, loyalty, and enthusiasm. If an employee holds the same position for a number of years he should be given increases of salary at fixed periods and not be required to wait for resignations and transfers of fellow-employees to secure better pay. The adoption of this method of making continuous service in the same unit attractive will go far, we believe, toward building up a field force of capable, experienced, and contented people. Isolation, the unavoidable living condition of a large proportion of the field force, should be reckoned with in considering salaries. Many reservation headquarters are far remote from centers of white population and are without any facilities to meet social needs or provide necessary entertainment. The smallest town affords more attractions. Employees of many reservations practically are shut out from the world; in some cases isolation is so complete that superintendents find it impossible to hold clerks and teachers for any considerable length of time. Nearly one-third of the staff of the Indian Office, in Washington, left their desks during the war and but few have returned. The Washington office has more work to do than ever before, and is attempting to do it with fewer experienced people. Formerly the Indian Office dealt, almost entirely, with tribes and bands through their chiefs and headmen. To-day it deals with individuals; it carries thousands of individual accounts on its books and keeps record of thousands of individual transactions. This change from what might be called a wholesale to a retail business made necessary an increase in its clerical staff. Because it can not offer adequate en-. trance salaries the Indian Office has been unable to secure needed experienced clerks or to induce those who left to return. There has been an unnecessary amount of centralization in Washington of the details of work which should be attended to in the field. Superintendents should be given more authority as respects many details which now are referred to Washington for decision, a course involving much unnecessary delay as well as labor. A welldeveloped organization by which superintendents are held responsible for results would lead to efficiency and saving of expense. But, with it all, proper salaries are absolutely essential. |