OCR Text |
Show Secretary Schultz has perfected his arrangements with regard to the Utes. He recently appeared before the Senate and House committees on Indian affairs, and after explaining the futures of the agreement and setting forth its advantages from various points of view, submitted the draft of a bill to carry it into effect, which the committee will consider at a future meeting. The bill proposes to apportion in perpetuity $50,000 a year, as interest at the rate of 4 per cent per annum, upon an amount of $1,250,000 stipulated as consideration for the relinquishment by the Utes of their reservation, and also to continue to appropriate the present annuity of $25,000 per year. The $75,000 thus appropriated for each year are to be divided among the Utes per capita. The bill further proposes to appropriate $400 a year for distribution among the most deserving of the Utes, and $4,000 per annum to continue Ouray's present annuity for thirteen years from the present time. It is also proposed to appropriate $350,000 for the purchase of agricultural implements, erection of saw and grist mills, construction of about 1,000 houses for the Utes in their new locations. The other sections of the bill provided for the necessary authority for the allotment of the lands to the Indians in severalty and for the restoration of the great bulk of their present reservation to the public domain. |