can move them to the other side of the agency, and we discussed with the Bureau of the Budget the possibility of such a move.

With the other demands before us, it seems inappropriate this year to commence any new project, but we feel that eventually it must be given serious consideration if we are going to take the type of child which may become a burden and make him into a definite economic asset to the community. I think something can be done for them.

Mr. JOHNSON. Now, with reference to this proposed school that you say you have asked for but which the Budget did not give you for predelinquent children, you say that you have 500 such boys and girls?

Mr. BEATTY. They are boys and girls both, and we would not hesitate to start up a coeducational institution under proper guidance and supervision.

Mr. JOHNSON. I believe you say you are considering two propositions, either establishing it in connection with the Concho School already in existence; or on the old cantonment site, where there has been an abandoned institution?

Mr. BEATTY. That is right.

Mr. JOHNSON. Would you care to state for the record whether or not any decision has been reached as to which of those sites is preferable?

Mr. BEATTY. That is a matter on which I do not think we are prepared to give a final answer at this time. There are certain recommendations coming in from the field, not yet received in the office, which, if favorable to the Concho site, would indicate that Concho might be the ideal place.

Mr. JOHNSON. I am tremendously interested in the proposal from the standpoint of assisting these children. I have had a considerable amount of correspondence from the Indians themselves. They have heard about the proposal and are heartily in accord with such a proposal.

I am hopeful that the situation can be worked out in the future, and that such a school can be established, just as soon as it is practical to do so. I shall not, of course, press it in this bill, inasmuch as it has not received the endorsement of the Budget, but I am hopeful that the Budget will recommend it next year.

ready for that next

Mr. BEATTY. We will have all of our figures year with a concrete proposal for the site. Mr. JOHNSON. I am going to depend on that. Then I am going to insist on the cooperation of the Budget Bureau. And if it does not, I shall insist that the school be established anyway. Such a school should, in my judgment, stress agriculture and vocational training.

INCREASE IN BUDGET ESTIMATE DUE TO ESTABLISHMENT OF NEW DAY

SCHOOLS

Mr. LEAVY. Doctor, there is a very substantial increase, is there not, in the Budget estimate this year over last year?

Mr. BEATTY. There is some increase.

Mr. LEAVY. In what manner can you justify that?

Mr. LAMBERTSON. Where are the big increases?

Mr. FICKINGER. On page 2 of our justification we show our figures for 1937, and the 1938 estimates, and show the increases also.

Mr. FICKINGER. Yes, sir; that is correct.

Mr. LEAVY. Your position is that there will be a continuing appropriation year after year for the Service, because of the fact that it is permanent?

Mr. BEATTY. That is right.

Mr. LEAVY. And, in all probability, it will continue to grow?

Mr. BEATTY. Yes, as long as we have children out of school who ought to be in school, it will unquestionably grow.

INDIAN APPROVAL OF SCHOOL EXPANSION

Mr. LEAVY. Has there been a change in policy in the Indian Service in the last few years that is bringing about this new growth?

Mr. BEATTY. I do not know that this is anything more than an opinion. The feeling of the Indian people, as I find them throughout the country, is that the schools offer something to their children more than they used to offer.

For instance, on the Navajo Reservation I have found that there are Indians who, 4 or 5 years ago, would have opposed their children going to school, and they would also have opposed their children learning to speak the English language. Now, they are not only very much concerned that their children learn the English language, but request it.

We are showing respect for the Navajo language and the Navajo people and their customs, and they, in turn, have almost reversed themselves in their attitude toward us, and many of our day school teachers in the Navajo area today are not only teaching children in the daytime, but assisting the parents in the communities during part of the time to run night schools.

Mr. LEAVY. You say that this expanded program that is being put into operation is winning Indian approval rather than the contrary? Mr. BEATTY. Very much so; yes, sir.

Mr. LEAVY. Is there any particular tribe from which it has met with opposition?

Mr. BEATTY. I have not found any. Of course, you will find opponents in any area. For instance, I attended a meeting of the Pine Ridge council a year or so ago. One old gentleman opposed the new program on the ground that his children should go to an academic high school and then should go on to college, because that would keep them from drinking and running around with the girls and doing other things that they should not do, according to his pastor. Well, we talked it out, and the rest of the council sat and talked it out with me, and the final agreement of that group was that one of the best ways to keep children out of mischief was to give them something to do, and the members of the tribal council decided that they would rather have the youngsters able to farm and raise stock or something on that level successfully than to come out of college with a college diploma and no place to go with it, and he offered no more opposition to the

program.

In fact, a group of his friends came down to a series of conferences I held at Pine Ridge last year, announcing the intention that they were going to speak in opposition to our policies, and they sat through the conference all day long. That was a conference with the teaching staff of the Pine Ridge Reservation. We discussed the policies and

their application. This Indian group sat in the hall all day long and they did not say a word. When the meeting was over and we started to disperse, I went over and asked to be introduced to them. I inquired whether they had any questions to raise about the program. The reply which I got from the man who made himself the spokesman for the group was, "No. You talk sense." They filed out, and there was no protest.

Mr. LEAVY. This increased expansion, and I do not ask the question in any spirit of being in opposition to it at all, is one, the burden of which will fall upon the Federal Treasury generally?

Mr. BEATTY. Yes.

Mr. LAMBERTSON. I got the impression a few years ago that the Indian Bureau had decided against boarding schools, and in favor of the public schools as far as possible.

Has there been any change in that policy?

Mr. BEATTY. There has been no change in that policy.

REASON FOR DISCONTINUANCE OF CERTAIN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Mr. LAMBERTSON. In other days Mr. Hastings, who used to be on this committee, and who is a Cherokee Indian, protested vigorously against the discontinuance of aid to public schools. Over $67,000 has been discontinued on that. Has there been any reversal of policy there?

Mr. BEATTY. No, there is not any reversal of policy. We are just having to face the facts. With the depression period, which coincided with this introduction of the day school policy and with the public school policy, we closed boarding schools in many areas where there are whites interspersed with Indians and satisfactory public schools were in operation.

I think a typical example of what I am referring to would be shown by the Fort Yates School on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. Fort Yates was a prosperous agricultural community about 8 years ago. In fact, it was doing so well that the Northern Pacific Railway bought a right-of-way for a spur track down in there to take out the agricultural products. Fort Yates has gone through a period of drought, along with the depression, to the point where, I was told last summer, by the people in the State Department there that Fort Yates had not produced enough food to support its white population in the last 3 years.

Fort Yates, in 5 years, has not been able to collect more than 17 percent of its tax levy for educational purposes, and when I went there last spring the school was being operated almost exclusively on contributions made by the Indian Office that paid for the education of the Indian children, and a very unsatisfactory brand of education was being offered.

The district has lost its State funds by inability to pay its debts and interest or amortization on its bonds. They were in a way of having to discontinue completely.

So, we worked out a proposal with them whereby we would take back the operation of the school, make it a Federal school, and ultimately there will be some boarding units there, and agreed to accept white children on the payment of tuition to us. In eastern Nebraska, on the Winnebago Reservation we have a similar situation.

In some of the reservations, with our land-buying policy and consolidating Indian lands, we bought up white lands in the areas, tax revenue from which originally was used for the support of the public schools; that is, those lands have paid taxes, and we bought the property from the white people and turned it over to the Indian tribes, and the white people moved out, and the public school is closed, and in those cases the Indian tribes have asked us to establish Federal day schools.

The decrease that you see here is not much out of a total of $750,000. It is only a decrease of $67,000 and is itemized on page 34 of our justification.

SEGREGATION OF INDIAN SCHOOL CHILDREN

Mr. LEAVY. Doctor, I am wondering if Mr. Lambertson might not have in mind what I also have in mind in part: Do you have a policy in that regard working toward segregating the Indians and getting them in what we call Indian schools, or the reverse, endeavoring to get the Indians out into the American public schools?

Dr. BEATTY. That would depend entirely upon your Indian group. Mr. LAMBERTSON. Do the boards of education approve of the segregation of the Indians or what is the situation in that regard?

Dr. BEATTY. Well, where the Indians are interspersed more or less with the whites we feel that it is best to have the two on an equal basis and to have a segregated Indian school under such circumstances would be most unfortunate and under such circumstances the two should be together in the public schools.

On the other hand, where you have a rather compact tribe or group. largely full bloods, and very little mixed bloods in the group, where they own land which would make them largely self-supporting if they used it, you have the problem of proper training and development of Indian culture, and under such circumstances it is much wiser to have them educated in their own area than in the public schools where the two would be mixed.

Primarily it is designed to meet the needs of the Indians in the area. I, for instance, would not feel it wise to increase the number of Indians attending public schools on the Pine Ridge Reservation. For example, those Indians living in the heart of the reservation I think should go primarily to schools of their own where they would be trained to make a living under those conditions. We are giving them an education to help them to become self-sustaining.

Mr. LEAVY. In regard to the Yakima Indians, I am more familiar with that district. The situation is settled throughout that section, and they have built some very fine grammar and secondary schools. It seems to be their policy not to segregate them.

Dr. BEATTY. In Yuma and other places where the Indian group is a trained group, we can do more for them in Federal schools than can be done for them in public schools.

Mr. LAMBERTSON. I have talked to Mr. Buchanan about the education of the Indians and I have a good deal of feeling that Mr. Buchanan is against the policy of the emergency funds starting new innovations and pledging the future of the United States to such innovations with resultant increases year after year without ever coming before a committee of Representatives.