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once get things set up as they should be. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has been reorganized about every time a Congress changes during the last five to ten years and I think it is about time that we settle down and get to work. You can't do an effective job by having a reorganization every two years because you never get geared to the one organization and your program implemented by the proper procedures and delegations before a new one comes along and you have to start all over. That is why some of our people are so busy that they don't get the things done that ought to be done. As far as I am concerned, I am going to stand on the organization we now have and make it work. If it does not work, we will do something about it. 

Let me tell you what I think we can do about it as fast as we can work it out: we are going to try to eliminate all the operations work at the Washington level and put it out here where it belongs, in the way of delegations to the superintendents and the area offices, depending on what the problem is, so that the work can be done near your level. We are going to try to set up guides for those people to do the job so there won't have to be so many dockets laying around Washington to keep people busy throughout the years. Our Washington staff, in my humble judgement, should have three basic functions; they will have line functions too. After we once get squared around and can implement and rewrite some of our procedures and delegations, the staff should be in a position to advise me on policy matters (which they can't do if they don't understand the problems out here). Second, there will necessarily be some routine work that is required from the Washington staff in handling correspondence, reviewing legislation, preparing reports, reviewing problems that come in from the field to help get the answers. Third, I am going to see that the Washington staff spends enough time in the field at the reservation and area levels to know your problems so that they can advise me as to policies and otherwise. I hope I can spend one-fourth of my time in the field and I think that every key person in Washington should do that. In order to do that during the next few months, we have to review our procedures, regulations and delegations, so we can give Morgan Pryse the authority he needs to do his job, and to the superintendents the authority to do their job for the agencies. I suspect that when it is all done, we won't agree in every detail, but at least we are going to take a look at it. 

There is no doubt in my mind but that we can provide better service by selecting a good area staff that can function with the superintendents and with the tribes on certain types of problems, that we can if we tried to use the same money, scattered all over the field, and hired people who were probably not adequate to handle those problems. I think I saw a good example of the kind of service that ought to be rendered when we met at LaConner. One of the area office engineers came up there and made a report on a boat that sounded to me as though he knew what he was talking about. Those fellows don't grow on every vine and are not available every day. We have to use their service on a rather broad basis. If you want to know what I am talking about, you can talk to Tandy Wilbur. 

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