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Butte miner Clark's paper E R al FLANK TURNED BY MR. CARTER SITUATION ON BLACKFEET BILL IS PRESENTED TO PRESIDENT. EVERY ARABLE ALLOTTED ACRE CAN BE IRRIGATED Provision Is Discovered in Appro- priation Bill by Which Ditches Can Be Dug Before Opening. May Go to Attorney-General. - (Special Dispateh to the Miner.) While Representative Dixon was to- day chuckling over his apparent vic- tory over Senators Clark and Carter, Montana's junior senator executed a flanking movement promises de- feat for Dixon and the interior depart- ment by the approval by the president of Senator Clark's bill opening the Blackfeet Indian reservation to set- tlement. Today Senator Carter ex- amined the Indian appropriation bill and discovered that the measure carried an appropriation of $250,000 for the irrigation of alloted lands to In- dians which is to be expended under the direction of the secretary of the interior. With this appropriation, and with similar appropriations which can be secured next winter, the secretary of the interior can dig irrigation ditches sufficient to irrigate every acre of allotable arable lands to the Indians on the reservation long before the is- suance of the presidential proclama- tion opening the land to settlement The Indian bill also carries specific appropriation for the irrigation of al- lotments to Indians on several specified reservations ranging from $100,000 to $400,000. With this information in hand Senator Carter will tomorrow ask the president to refer the bill to the attor- ney-general for report. It is almost certain that the president will make the reference. It is likewise almost certain that the attorney-general will brush aside the silly and captious ob- jections of the Indian office which have been urged with such persistency by Representative Dixon. If he does, the president will approve the bill. Facts Presented. Yesterday Senator Carter was before the president. He pointed out that proclama- tion could not be issued under five or six years, during which no settlement could be made on the reservation and no water rights could be secured; that for two years after the issuance of the proclama- tion the allottees would have a prefer- ence right in the use of water, and that if the present bill was signed the Indians would have eight years after the signing of the bill in which to acquire vested water rights before the right of a single settler could possibly attach. He stated to the president that to give to the allot- tees on the reservation priority water rights from five to twenty-five years after the issuance of the proclamation, as was proposed by Congressman Dixon and the Indian office, would tie up the 1,500,000 acres of land to be opened to settlement in the reservation, so that no settler could be induced to go on it, and in reality it would be more disastrous to the state than to continue the reservation. The president replied that he had not time to personally investigate the matter, and therefore must rely upon the report and recommendation of the interior de- partment. Senator Carter's new move bids fair to blight the beautiful scheme of the Indian office, and to likewise turn the apparent victory of Representative Dixon into a complete and ignominious defeat.