Page:LewisMeriam-TheProblemOfIndianAdministration.djvu/154

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The Matter of Organization
127

established to train persons in the principles involved and their application. Persons with this excellent training and with wide and successful practical experience are available. One such person should be on the central staff of the Indian Service, so that it will have the benefit of this type of knowledge and be kept in contact with the organizations that are now rendering such service in white communities, both urban and rural. The need for work of this character in the Indian Service is striking, as will be apparent from reading the section of this report regarding family life.[1]

Law and Order. The Division of Planning and Development would be incomplete without one permanent man with excellent legal training. He should have in addition a broad social background, as many of the legal matters with which he will be concerned are distinctly social in their nature, marriage and divorce, the handling of petty offenders, juvenile and adult, the provision of legal aid for the poor and ignorant in cases which are petty from a national standpoint but vital to the individual Indian who is trying to get on his feet and finds himself victimized by his sharper neighbor. The questions of whether the Indians should be subject to state laws regarding marriage and divorce and crime, for example, cannot be answered by one uniform decision, applicable to the entire Indian country; they must be answered by detailed studies of particular jurisdictions with due regard to the social and economic conditions of the Indians and their geographical location or, in other words, their isolation. These subjects are of course discussed in detail in other sections of the report.[2] It is believed that they demonstrate clearly the need for a permanent position to be filled by a person competent to bring to their consideration specialized knowledge and wide experience and to establish contacts with organizations having special experience in these fields.

Classification of Positions, Salaries, Appropriations, etc. These recommendations for permanent positions in the Division of Planning and Development would call for eleven specialists in addition to the five needed as assistants to the medical director who might administratively be attached to his office. One permanent

  1. ↑ Pages 547 to 661.
  2. ↑ Pages 743 to 811.
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