airs.

In several of the Northwestern States the value of the timber on Indian
lands is enormous; the latest official estimate is eighty-four million
dollars. If the Indian had been allowed to cut his own pine and run his
own sawmills, we should now have native lumber kings as well as white.
This is not permitted, however; and a paternal Government sells the
stumpage for the benefit of its wards, who are fortunate if the money
received for it has not seeped out of the official envelope or withered
away of the prevailing disease called "political consumption."

The irrigation force of the Bureau consists of an inspector and seven
subordinates, who supervise irrigation projects on the various
reservations, upon which more than half a million dollars was expended
during the last fiscal year. The protection of water rights, notably
those of the Pimas in Arizona, a peaceful and industrious tribe who
have suffered severely from the loss of their water at the hands of
unprincipled white men, is of primary importance.

Oil and gas, especially in Oklahoma, are proving enormously valuable,
and are being mined under leases executed by the Bureau. Many Indians
are becoming well-to-do from the payment of royalties, but it cannot be
doubted that the biggest prizes go, as usual, to our white brothers.

The Indian office maintains an employment bureau to assist in finding
profitable work for Indians, particularly returned students, and I am
informed from trustworthy sources that it has met with fair success. It
is headed by a Carlisle graduate, Charles E. Dagenett, who was trained
for a business career. Considerable numbers of Indians, particularly in
the Southwest, are provided with employment in the sugar-beet fields,
in harvesting canteloupes and other fruits, in railroad construction,
irrigation projects, and other fields of activity, and it appears that
their work gives general satisfaction.

INDIAN WOMEN AS HOME-MAKERS

Probably the average white man still believes that the Indian woman of
the old days was little more than a beast of burden to her husband. But
the missionary who has lived among his people, the sympathetic observer
of their every-day life, holds a very different opinion. You may
generally see the mother and her babe folded close in one shawl,
indicating the real and most important business of her existence.
Without the child, life is but a hollow play, and all Indians pity the
couple who are unable to obey