Page:LewisMeriam-TheProblemOfIndianAdministration.djvu/88

The Institute had before it the statistical tables in the annual report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs showing the number of Indians in the United States and their distribution. It was extremely fortunate, too, in the fact that Dr. Laurence F. Schmeckebier, of the permanent staff of the Institute, already had nearing completion a descriptive monograph on the Office of Indian Affairs, covering its history, activities, organization, plant, basic law, and finances, one of the series of service monographs being prepared by the Institute for each of the important units of the government service. ^[1] Dr. Schmeckebier, an experienced statistician, had compiled for this monograph a great body of statistical data which was available for the use of the survey staff. For this monograph a bibliography had already been prepared. The bibliographer of the Institute, Mrs. Sophy H. Powell, therefore, was already prepared promptly to gather for the survey staff an effective working library.

According to the statistics in the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, which in part are compiled by the Office of Indian Affairs and in part are taken from the report of the Census Bureau, ^[2] the Indian population numbers approximately 325,000, excluding the Freedmen and the inter-married whites of the Five Civilized Tribes, with both of which non-Indian groups the Service had something to do. If they are included the number approximates 350,000.

In this figure of 350,000 are included 101,506 of the Five Civilized Tribes, of which 75,519 are Indians by blood, 23,405 Freedmen, and 2582 inter-married whites. Among the 75,519 Indians by blood are many who have so small an admixture of Indian blood and who are so far advanced in their social and economic status that they do not enter into the real Indian problem. The figures