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Problem of Indian Administration

extent it is perhaps necessary and inevitable that they be used as training schools for the superintendents, but such use is hard on the Indians. When a superintendent has established friendly relations with his Indians, has won their confidence, and is exerting real leadership, his success may be rewarded by his transfer to another jurisdiction where the salary is higher. His own emotions may be mixed; the natural satisfaction of having a higher salary offset by regret at having to leave a job just at a time when he believed that he had steam up and was ready for real progress. Time and time again in the course of the survey it was almost pathetic to talk with superintendents whose hearts were with the Indians they had left behind, and whose overwhelming desire was to know how things were going with them, and what the survey staff thought of conditions on that reservation. It was, moreover, pathetic to talk with the Indians and to hear from them the many expressions of admiration and regard for the superintendent who had gone. Perhaps a past superintendent always looks better than a present one, but often the Indians would give concrete evidence of the real positions of leadership that the past superintendent had achieved and which so far as could be observed the successor did not promise to reach.^[1] Every effort should be exerted to hold transfers of superintendents to a minimum and to provide for rewarding successful work on a small reservation by higher salary on that reservation. Too great emphasis can hardly be laid on the necessity for a superintendent to know his Indians and have their confidence, and that is something which cannot be done in a day.

Retirement Ages Should be Reduced. The age of retirement. under the present retirement law, is seventy, an age altogether too high for the Indian field service, and especially for superintendents of reservations. Only the exceptional man in the sixties, especially the late sixties, is possessed of the physical vigor demanded for

↑ In one striking case the home of a comparatively young Indian man was visited. A former superintendent had inspired him to real effort and he had been well on the road to success. As the Indian farmer who was our guide expressed it “He was sort of a pet of Mr. —. Mr. — would go out evenings whenever he could get a few of the boys together and he would sit round with them talking farming, and he had this boy going. The next man was more of an office man and he didn’t get out much with the Indians. After Mr. — left this boy quit, and nobody has been able to get him to take any interest since.”

[1] In one striking case the home of a comparatively young Indian man was visited. A former superintendent had inspired him to real effort and he had been well on the road to success. As the Indian farmer who was our guide expressed it “He was sort of a pet of Mr. —. Mr. — would go out evenings whenever he could get a few of the boys together and he would sit round with them talking farming, and he had this boy going. The next man was more of an office man and he didn’t get out much with the Indians. After Mr. — left this boy quit, and nobody has been able to get him to take any interest since.”

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