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This Division should as a general rule be kept free from regular routine administrative duties. The regular administrative duties should be left in the administrative units as at present. When called upon to do so by the Commissioner, members of the Division should study and report upon the work of the administrative units, but they should not issue orders to superintendents or attempt to assume any direct administrative authority. If orders are to be issued, they should come from the Commissioner so that there may be no confusion in lines of responsibility and authority. Heads of administrative units should, however, be free to seek the advice and suggestions of members of the Division when technical and scientific questions are involved.
Organization and Procedure. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs should be ex officio, the chairman or director of the Division. Routine matters of administration in the Division should be handled by an executive clerk or secretary. The members of the staff of the Division should each have a permanent or residual status of independence of other members of the Division and should report directly to the Commissioner for all assignments. Their temporary relations to each other should be established from time to time by assignments to projects made by the Commissioner. Thus an organization can be perfected for each project according to the needs of that project without undue embarrassment from previously established lines of authority and responsibility, and without undue commitment as to future lines.
To be more specific, an outstanding need for planning and development at the present moment relates to the Pima Reservation where the entire situation will be changed as the result of the building of the Coolidge Dam, and the irrigation of some 30,000 to 40,000 acres of land affecting about 4500 Indians. Here the Indian Service has a problem of the first magnitude calling for the best expert advice obtainable. It would be folly to entrust it to a single superintendent whose training and experience is that of a general administrator.
The Commissioner should be able to organize through his Division of Planning and Development a special committee to develop the entire program for the work. In this instance he might select as director of the particular project an agricultural economist or a broad gauged irrigation engineer. With them should be someone