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profit from levying taxes against Indians which still further depress their already low standard of living and tend to make them landless. The Indians thus made landless are often Indians who have been released from federal supervision as competent. Under the law they become the responsibility of the state and county governments. These governments should be made to see the ultimate price which they must pay for the immediate privilege of subjecting Indian property to the full weight of state and county taxes.
Improving Family and Community Life. The program developed for each jurisdiction should place special emphasis on family life and community activities. Experience has abundantly demonstrated that the family as a whole is the social unit of major importance in the development of a people. The importance of community activities has also been generally recognized. Among the Indians, community activities are probably even more important than among white people because the Indians’ social and economic system was and is communistic. Individualism is almost entirely lacking in their native culture. Thus, work with communities as a whole will follow a natural line and will result in accelerated group progress.
The program should embrace health, home making with special emphasis on diet, the use of money, the supplementing of income by home activities, and organized recreation and other community activities.
In all these activities the Indian point of view and the Indian interests should be given major consideration. In home design and construction the effort should be made to adapt characteristically Indian things to modern uses. For example, among Indian tribes the outdoor arbor in some form is almost universal and is used for many purposes. Several of the wealthy Osages with elaborate modern houses, the like of which relatively few white men can boast, have erected in addition elaborate adaptations of the arbor. These arbors gave them the chance for self expression. The Indians will take more interest in their homes and in the improvement of them if the construction appeals to Indian taste and is well adapted to Indian uses. There is no reason at all why the Indians should be urged to have dwellings which are replicas of what white men would build. Some of the Indian’s ideas regarding outdoor rooms may be found worthy of adoption by the whites.