cable, so that their children, some of whom must help with the sheep in all seasons, can all have school privileges for at least a part of the year. 11. A conference of all school supervisors in Washington at the beginning of the year covered many subjects of school improvement and established closer cooperation between the office and field service. 12. Junior Red Cross societies were organized in nearly all Indian schools and have awakened great interest along lines of educational value. 13. On 15 reservations, 642 allotments of land were made to individual Indians, embracing about 170,000 acres, besides 103 allotments on the public domain covering 14,500 acres. Of allotments completed and waiting approval, 1,171 were to Indians on the Fort Belknap Reservation, Mont., 91 on the Kalispell Reservation, Wash., and for 180 Ute and Paiute Indians in Utah. 14. Purchase was made of 190 acres for homeless Indians in California; also 800 acres to supply home sites for 11 Fort Sill Apaches, Oklahoma. 15. Sales were made of 1,286 allotted tracts totaling 125,099 acres, and 913 fee patents and competency certificates covering 106,199 acres were approved. 16. Important progress was made in the Supreme Court of the United States for the recovery of swamp and overflowed lands in the States of Wisconsin and Minnesota. 17. Official reports show a year of encouraging progress in farming and stockraising, a larger acreage cultivated, improvement in dairy stock and Navajo sheep, and elimination of worthless horses in several reservations. 18. Club work for boys and girls had a remarkable growth on 17 reservations, with over 400 children from 9 to 14 years of age enrolled. Their activities relate to gardening, canning, bread making, sewing, poultry, and much other domestic work. 19. Special encouragement was given to Indians to take part in county, district, and State fairs in competition with the whites and promising results have followed. 20. Road and bridge work was greatly advanced on seven reservations last year. A total Federal aid of $2,766,449 has now been approved for projects of this class. 21. Oil and gas operations were less than normal, owing to previous overproduction, but the leasings reached 226,910 acres; the gross oil production was 49,640,458 barrels and the total revenue $29,145,517. One 160-acre tract on the Osage Reservation, Okla., was leased for nearly $2,000,000, and several others for more than $1,000,000 each. The total income to the Osages from oil and gas was $24,670,483. 22. A sale of oil and gas leases on the Navajo Treaty Reserve, N. Mex., netted the Indians $80,598. Eight oil wells were producing there at the close of the fiscal year. Five exploratory leases were sold on the Southern Ute Reservation, N. Mex., for $43,600. 23. Employment of Indian labor was active in agricultural, mechanical, and commercial pursuits, especially in the cotton fields of the Southwest, where many Indians received good wages as cotton pickers. Outing service by students from six of the larger schools earned about $110,000. 24. Constructive progress in irrigation was made on the Gila River Reservation in Arizona, in connection with the proposed dam now authorized across the Gila River Canyon near San Carlos; also on drainage and water systems for the Pueblos in New Mexico; in well drilling on the Navajo and Hopi Reservations, N. Mex.; in further development on the Fort Hall project, Idaho, the Flathead project, Montana, the Yakima Reservation, Wash., and in several other localities. 25. The forestry work of the year was well maintained. Sales of yellow pine in Oregon and Washington brought the highest prices known to that region, running as high as $6.67 per thousand. The Menominee Indian mills in Wisconsin cut 20,000,000 feet of lumber, and the total sales of lumber on all reservations was $510,312,449 feet for the sum of $1,932,001.20. 26. In pursuance of legislation extending citizenship to all Indians, steps were taken to inform the Indians through field officials of their suffrage rights under State laws and that their restricted property will continue under Federal protection. 27. For the restricted Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes, numbering about 17,500, there was expended $3,152,040.34 for houses, barns, wells, and livestock. The school attendance of these tribes was 19,586; the gross oil production from their lands was 10.665,492 barrels, and their total income from this product was $3,580,007. The Indian Service assisted in an investigation of the handling of the estates of these Indians under State jurisdiction, and upon reports submitted, legislation for restoring to the Federal Government the complete administration of these estates has been sought. 28. Eleven leases covering approximately 1,900 acres were made in the Quapaw Reservation, Okla., for lead and zinc mining at increased royalty rates. 29. Heirship cases numbering 2,125 and 207 wills were disposed of and $71,000 in fees collected and covered into the United States Treasury. THE BUREAU OF PENSIONS 1. Paid for pensions $229,994,777.60. 2. Returned to the Treasury $23,125,719.28 of the amount appropriated for the payment of pensions. 3. Returned to the Treasury $146,064.25 of the sum appropriated for the maintenance and expense of the pension system, including salaries of special examiners. 4. Returned to the Treasury $2,876.98 of the amount appropriated for per diem and expenses of special examiners. 5. Receipts for addresses, certified copies, etc. (act of August 24, 1912), $3,933.34; for refundments to pension appropriation, $17,183.96; miscellaneous receipts, $60. 6. Received and classified 115,825 claims, of which 33,917 were based on Civil War service and 60,342 on account of Spanish War service. 7. Disposed of 115,089 pension claims, of which 36,578 were on account of Civil War service and 56,280 based on Spanish War service. 8. Issued 61,096 pension certificates, 907 reissues in lieu of lost certificates, 10,842 accrued pension orders, and 3,566 reimbursement orders on which $168,071.24 was allowed as reimbursement for expenses of last sickness and burial of deceased pensioners. 9. Prepared and mailed 6,577,171 checks carrying payments aggregating $239,048,814.43 for pensions, annuities, refunds, and fees and expenses of examining surgeons. 10. Conducted a survey of bureau methods eliminating lost motion, duplications of service, and unnecessary review of work, with a resultant improvement of service to the public, more expeditious settlement of claims, a reduction of 150 in the clerical force, and an estimated saving of $246,000 a year in the conduct of the bureau. 11. Coordinated the work of the finance and disbursing divisions, dispensed with voucher requirement, saving trouble and expense to a large number of pensioners, and simplified schedules of payments, doing away with the preparation and submission of approximately 75,000 schedule sheets a year at a saving in labor, time, and material of approximately $20,000 a year to the Government. 12. Under act of May 22, 1920, for retirement of employees of the classified civil service, disbursed for annuities $5,692,443.59 and for refunds $2,864,138.12. 13. Returned to the Treasury $2,964.50 of the amount appropriated for cost of administration of the retirement act. 14. Disposed of 1,637 of the 1,780 claims for annuity on account of age and 753 of the 931 claims for annuity on account of disability. 15. Disposed of 43,567 of the 43,793 claims for refund made by persons separated from the classified civil service. 16. The amount of the civil service retirement and disability fund on June 30, 1924, was $33,586,193.19. 17. Execution by pensioners of approximately 200,000 vouchers each year preliminary to issuance of pension checks discontinued, thereby saving pensioners expenses estimated at from $100,000 to $200,000 a year. 18. Practice of rejection of claims, because medical examiners were unduly technical, eliminated through order of Secretary of the Interior providing that findings of examining surgeons must not be set aside without cogent reasons. 19. Through cooperation with State Department, pension checks to pensioners are now being sent to accredited representatives abroad who satisfy themselves as to the identity of persons to whom checks are delivered. Receipts from fees- THE PATENT OFFICE Receipts from sale of copies of patents and other records_____. $2,582, 213. 95 435, 912. 27 Total Granted: Patents on mechanical inventions__. Reissue patents.. Design patents__ Registered: Trade-marks Labels Prints Total Sold copies of patents--. Shipped to foreign countries copies of patents... Copies of printed office records certified to__. Recorded assignments--- Number of pages of photostat copies of manuscript records...--- Number of applications filed for 24, 150.00 3,042,276. 22 38, 963 228 2,443 16, 203 1,350 666 59, 853 2,568, 865 1,097, 721 S. 833 39, 062 121, 078 18, 810, 700 Applications for patents for inventions, year ended June 30— 1918___ 1,797 62, 399 Applications for patents (including reissues), designs, trade Total number patents granted and trade-marks, labels, and 1. The removal of the bureau from the Pension Office Building to the Interior Department Building on November 1, 1923, distinctly improved the facilities of cooperation between the Bureau of Education and the Department of the Interior and other bureaus and offices in the department because of proximity and convenience. 2. Twenty-three members of the bureau's staff, exclusive of the commissioner, rendered an aggregate of 883 days of field service outside of the District of Columbia. Addresses were delivered in 26 different States to audiences approximating 41,227 individuals. |