REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 1923 69 
plete control or whether the State wants to continue in this work or 
go further than the Indian Office...... I don’t care whether it is a 
bill in the Senate or the House, it will be referred to the Secretary 
of the Interior and he in turn hands it to the Commissioner of In- 
dian Affairs. I hear that they all keep away from the New York 
Indians because they don’t want them........ _ The only intention 
that the United States has is to carry, out the treaties that they hold 
with the Indians of the State of New York. 
Visit of Commission to Indian Reservations 
On August 15th the commission met at the Onondaga Hotel, Syra- 
cuse, for the purpose of starting its visit to the New York Indian 
reservations. The object was to discover the actual legal, social and 
economic conditions on the reservations and to gain some idea of 
the needs of the Indian people. 
As a result of this visit the commission saw that the New York 
Indians living on reservations had but one social and economic out- 
look—that toward the white man’s world. 
New York Indians 
Dress like white men 
Live in the same kind of houses 
Eat the same kind of food, except a few native corn dishes 
Use the same kind of tools and farming implements 
‘Speak the English language 
Read American newspapers and periodicals 
Attend, when young, the same kind of schools as are prescribed 
for citizen children 
Have a form of native government with native officers, and con- 
sider their reservations a restricted domain 
New York State does for these Indians the following things: 
It has provided thirty-four day schools under the Department of 
_ Education 
It provides teachers and books for the Indian children 
It has provided a splendid institution for the orphaned and for 
the children of the poor. This institution is the Thomas In- 
dian School under the control of the State Board of Charities 
It provides for cases of extreme poverty and for the hospital 
care of the poor sick 
It encourages agriculture through the training of Indian chil- 
dren in the short courses at State College of Agriculture at 
Cornell University 
It has provided for a system of visiting nurses and for sanitary 
inspection 
