Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1895.djvu/9

Rh REPORT THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, Washington, D. C., November 27, 1895. Sir: I have the honor to submit the following review of the business transacted by the Interior Department during the last fiscal year, together with suggestions and recommendations which seem worthy of considertion: INDIAN AFFAIRS. The plan for the conduct of the Indian Bureau, indicated in my last annual report, has been executed so far as existing laws permitted. While only a portion of the offices are covered by the civil service, all removals, promotions, and appointments have been made solely for the good of the service. Accurate information has been sought as to the character of work being done by those occupying all positions; the higher places have been filled by promoting the most capable, without regard to any consideration except efficiency, and new employees have been given subordinate places. Applications for promotion have been discouraged. I have considered it the duty of the Indian Bureau, which has knowledge as to the character of work required, to possess also the necessary information about the men in the service most suited to do it. For twelve months past no agent has been appointed whose experience in the service did not fit him especially for the position, and the man believed to be the best suited to a particular agency has been designated, his first information that his name was being considered usually having been the notice of his appointment. The Indian reservations are scattered all over the United States. While the work of education both on and off reservations must prove effective, I do not consider it of so much importance as the business management of the reservations, which should require the Indian to be self-supporting, by the cultivation of land or by ordinary occupations outside of the reservations. To make all possible progress it is necessary that each reservation and the Indians upon it should be treated

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