Page:LewisMeriam-TheProblemOfIndianAdministration.djvu/98

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Foreword
71

ascertaining the number living in the household and their relationship. The families often have not only three generations, but also friends and relatives; and the Indians apparently do not think of relationship in such precise terms as the whites use. Here again the effort was to see the best and the worst, but mostly the average.

A word should be said regarding the almost hungry eagerness with which this woman from the outside was seized upon by the woman employees of the more isolated schools and reservations. In part it may have been due to the fact that she was generally the only woman in the visiting group, but it is also true that since most of the administrative officers and inspectors from Washington are men and the reservations are rarely visited by women interested particularly in the problems of women, women employees naturally feel that a woman’s viewpoint on many important matters is not given due consideration.

Work to Determine General Economic Conditions. The specialist in general economic conditions had likewise a subject of great diversity. At the boarding schools he paid particular attention to the prevocational and vocational industrial work and to the purely productive work of maintaining the institution. On the reservations his main work was to look into the chief economic resources and to visit the various economic activities in company with those who were primarily responsible for them. In the cattle country, as has been pointed out, this meant going out to see the cattle with the cattle man. In the timber country it meant visits to the lumbering operations and the mills with foresters and mill men; in the oil country, visits to the oil fields and work in the office studying the methods of leasing and control. Where irrigation and water development have been undertaken these systems were generally gone over. Many family visits were made by Dr. Dale to get by original observation a general understanding of the economic conditions of the people.

The Work of the Legal Specialist. The legal specialist had little or no work at the schools. He visited several reservations to get a general background for his studies, especially with respect to the Indian courts, jurisdiction over criminal offenses and marriage and divorce, and Indian claims; and then concentrated on a relatively small number of special problems, notably the Pueblo Land Board, the legal affairs of the Osages and of the Five Civilized Tribes,