Land Claims, the Railroad Division, the Swamp Land Division, the Public Lands Division, &c., have to prepare legal decisions in cases which in the aggregate are of greater number and involve property of greater value than the cases decided by any State supreme court in the country. It is true that the decisions prepared by those different chiefs are not final, being subject to revision by the Commissioner and to appeal; but nobody acquainted with the business of this or any other department need be told that the preparation of those decisions, which requires a thorough knowledge of questions of fact and of law as well as of the history of legislation and of judicial proceedings, is a task of the highest importance. Most of these division chiefs are mere clerks, receiving at the very highest eighteen hundred dollars a year, and in some cases less. It would seem superfluous to say that in those places the highest degree of integrity as well as large legal acquirements are needed. In every great government in the world that I know of, officers performing these functions would hold a rank high above that of mere clerks, a tenure not subject to the mere arbitrary pleasure of a superior officer, and salaries in proportion to the duties imposed upon them. Of the division chiefs in the Secretary's office and in the Indian office the same may be said. The consequence is that in many cases men, fully up to the requirements of their positions, find occasion to better their condition by going into the service of private corporations or becoming members of private business It is a mere question of opportunity, and it is only to be wondered at that such things do not happen still more frequently. During the hard times now behind us many persons of ability have sought and obtained employment in the government offices; but now, since all the business interests of the country have revived and the salaries of able men in private concerns are rising again to a more remunerative point, the probability is that the govern ment offices will be more and more drained of the ablest public servants, and that it will be difficult to fill their places unless their pay be made reasonably sufficient to compensate them for their work and they have the prospect of an assured tenure. In this respect good pay is the best economy. I therefore urgently recommend that the salaries proposed in the estimates of this Department for the coming fiscal year be granted not as the maximum but as the minimum pay which those officers and clerks ought to have. I am, sir, very respectfully your obedient servant, The PRESIDENT. 6 IN Secretary. REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, SIR: I have the honor to submit herewith the annual report of the Indian Bureau for the year 1880. Gradual progress in the arts of industry has been made by the various Indian tribes during the past year, and in some instances the advancement toward civilization has been marked. The efforts of a number of the tribes in cultivating the soil have been attended with a degree of success that has set at rest the question not only of their ability to learn the arts of husbandry, but also of their willingness to engage in pursuits at once honorable and lucrative, which, at no distant day, will make them self-supporting, and place them beyond the care of the government. Special reference will be found hereinafter to those tribes whose progress in farming and other pursuits has been especially noteworthy. The following table gives a general exhibit of the work accomplished and the gain made during the year by the Indians of the country in the direction of farming, stock raising, house building, &c. : The demands upon the office for implements, tools, &c., to enable them to perform manual labor, come from the Indians at a large majority of the agencies, and are far beyond the means at the disposal of the department for that purpose. Many cases could be cited where it has been necessary to deny the requests made for funds to supply the wants of the Indians in this respect, simply because of the inadequate appropriations provided for the purpose. In some cases the office has been unable to supplement the insufficient facilities already provided for farming, and what had been accomplished in such instances has become of little or no avail, because of a lack of means to continue the work thus imperfectly begun. The education of Indian youth is a subject whose importance cannot be over-estimated. As will be shown hereafter, the progress during the year has not been commensurate with the desires of the office, principally because of the insufficiency of the funds appropriated for the purpose. While the sum provided by Congress for educating Indian children seems to be a large one, yet it barely suffices to continue the work already begun, and is insufficient to permit of any extended increase in educational facilities, and wholly inadequate to meet the increasing demands of the service. The past year has been an eminently peaceful one amongst the Indian tribes. Excepting the incursions of Victoria and his band in Arizona and New Mexico, and the semi-hostile attitude of Sitting Bull and his followers, but little, if any, trouble has been experienced in the Indian country. POPULATION. The number of Indians in the United States, exclusive of Alaska, is 255,938. These are distributed among sixty-eight agencies at present established in the following States and Territories: Those not under the control of the agents of the government, numbering 15,802, are principally in the Territories of Arizona, Idaho, and Utah, and the States of California, Indiana, Kansas, North Carolina, Oregon, and Wisconsin. INDIAN EDUCATION. Reports from the schools on the various reservations are full of encouragement, showing an increased and more regular attendance of pupils and a growing interest in education on the part of parents. Persistent calls for the opening of new schools, or the enlargement of those already established, come to the office from every quarter. During the year sixty boarding and one hundred and ten day schools have been in operation among the different Indian tribes (exclusive of the five civilized tribes in the Indian Territory), which have been attended by over 7,000 children, and taught by 338 teachers. In the education of the Indian youth it is the policy of the office to have farm and domestic work occupy as prominent a place as study in the school-room, and the development of character and training of the pupils in the manners and habits of civilized life is held to be quite as important as acquiring a knowledge of books. But the opportunity for teaching Indian children how to live, as well as how to read and think, is found only in the boarding school, and for that reason the effort of the office during the past year has been directed mainly toward increasing boarding-school accommodations at the various agencies. Only three new schools, however, have actually been put in operation, and four new buildings erected. The educational work of the bureau could have been enlarged to a much greater extent but for the inadequate appropriations made by Congress for the support of schools. Fifty thousand Indians at seventeen agencies have no treaty school funds whatever, and for educational facilities must depend entirely on the general appropriation for Indian education. Among those tribes there are at least seven thousand children of school age. Exclusive of rations, the cost of clothing, books, and instruction in an agency boarding-school cannot possibly fall below $60 per capita per annum. The whole appropriation of $75,000 would therefore enable the office to keep twelve hundred and fifty out of seven thousand children in boarding-schools for the year, or would keep about twice that number in day-schools. But this appropriation must also be used to supplement insufficient treaty school funds at various other agencies. The following extract from the act making appropriations to fulfill the treaty with the Flatheads of Montana shows the inadequacy of many of the treaty provisions for schools: For the support of an agricultural and industrial school, keeping in repair the buildings, and providing suitable furniture, books, and stationery, per fifth article of treaty of July 16, 1855, three hundred dollars. For providing suitable instructors therefor, per saine article of same treaty, one thousand eight hundred dollars. The sum of four thousand dollars per annum is required for the support of the Flathead boarding-school, of which nearly half must be taken from the general appropriation for schools. This appropriation must also be used for the erection and furnishing of new school buildings, and the enlargement of those which are already overcrowded. In compliance with the appeals from neglected agencies, the office has made arrangements for erecting eleven boarding-school buildings during the coming season, and for the establishment of thirteen new boarding-schools. These will be the first schools of any kind ever provided for the eight thousand San Carlos Apaches and Western Shoshones, and the first boarding-schools opened for twenty-five thousand Indians at nine other agencies, where small and irregularly attended day-schools have hitherto met with indifferent success, and made little impression upon the tribes among which they were located. But few of these schools |