Page:LewisMeriam-TheProblemOfIndianAdministration.djvu/120

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General Indian Policy
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work which the Indians who are below the minimum standard require and will require for many years to come.

What Agencies Shall Render the Needed Service? The agencies at present doing active work are: (1) The national government, (2) the state and local governments, (3) the Christian missionaries, (4) certain national organizations of general scope such as the Red Cross, the National Tuberculosis Association, the American Child Health Association, (5) special organizations concerned with Indian welfare, and (6) social welfare agencies in urban communities to which Indians have come.

Although constitutionally and historically the care of the Indians is a function of the national government,[1] some tendency toward the withdrawal of the national government from this field is apparent. A great increase, for example, has taken place in the number of Indian children in the state or local public school systems, although the federal government frequently pays tuition for them. In Oklahoma, by Congressional enactment, large numbers of Indians have been released from federal supervision and have become entirely dependent for developmental social service on the state and local governments.

In a few states, notably California, Minnesota, Washington, and Wisconsin, the state governments have evidenced a growing sense of responsibility for Indian affairs. Their state departments concerned with education, health, and public welfare appreciate that it is a matter of grave concern to the state to have in its midst groups of people living below reasonable hygienic and social standards. To them the question of whether the responsibility rests on the state or on the national government is very properly being relegated to a minor place and the real question is being faced as to whether these inhabitants of the state are being fitted to be assets rather than liabilities.

In several states with a fairly numerous Indian population the tendency is still to regard work for the Indians as purely a federal function. Even in these states, however, it is probably true that a minority, a growing minority, appreciate that the state cannot well continue in this attitude and that it must actively cooperate with

  1. ↑ For review of the reasons for control of Indian affairs by the national government, see Schmeckebier, pp. 2-11.
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