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Zeutschel OS7000, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 8,558,740 bytesDuring the 23 years intervening between the date of the foregoing report and to-day the Pima need has been stressed and some progress made toward better conditions. The Pima right to a share of the waters of the Gila has been established. While this right has been judicially determined, the use of the water has not been restored to them. The proposition to construct the San Carlos irrigation project is believed to be the most feasible way to provide the water for irrigation for the Pima lands, a right to which it has been judicially determined they are entitled. This legal right being supported by the great moral obligation of the Government as guardian of these dependent people should secure from the Congress a prompt authorization for the construction of the San Carlos irrigation project. The millions of our people are awakening as never before to the obligation of a Christian nation toward these wards of the Government. They are urging upon the Congress--yes, demanding--that justice shall mark our treatment of the red man. We urge that you will be alert in the effort to redeem the Nation's obligation by vigorously supporting the San Carlos irrigation project. Very respectfully, S. M. Brosius, Representing the Indian Rights Association. This measure is primarily for the restoration to the Pima Indians of their water rights along the Gila River, which have been gradually taken away from them by the white settlers above them appropriating the waters of the river. The moral and legal basis for this work could well be the present sad plight of the Pima Indians, who are the wards of the National Government. For 300 years these Indians have been the friends of the white man. They can properly be called agriculturists. Long before the formation of this Government they had builded long canal lines and were using the Gila River waters for irrigating fields of corn, cotton, and vegetables. Lieutenant Michler's report to Major Emory, July 29, 1856, says of the Pima Indian country on the Gila: As we journeyed along this portion of the valley of the Gila we found lands fenced in and irrigated by many miles of acequias, and our eyes were gladdened with the sight of rich fields of wheat ripening for the harvest--a view differing from anything we had seen since leaving the Atlantic States. They grow cotton, sugar, peas, wheat, and corn. Within the past few years the settlers on the upper river, especially in Graham County, have, somewhat innocently, but still in fact actually, appropriated the Gila River flow, which has belonged to the Pima and Lower River Indians for hundreds of years. The long score of injuries which the American Indian has suffered in the past from the hands of the white man can never be balanced, but it is certainly true at this time that the people of the United States do not care to make the score worse, and in such a case as this would undoubtedly prefer to treat them fairly no matter what the money cost might be. The improvements which are recommended in this report, if executed, will provide additional units of water for both the Indians and the Graham County settlers when needed in addition to providing a positive means for reducing flood crests and confining the Gila within fixed channel lines through Graham County. In addition to this evident moral obligation to meet our debt to the Indian is the prime object of self-preservation. Early records testify that at the height of the Pima cultivation by irrigation, in 1853, they had a stretch of land along the south line of the Gila about 15 miles long and by 2 to 4 miles in width, the whol