The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.88-89

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Valentine backed off of enforcing Departmental Regulations on white encroachment and protection of Blackfeet resources and water rights when he announced a new Indian Office Policy: “It is a cardinal, perhaps the cardinal principle of the Indian Office, that Indians in the future will have to live and should live as neighbors among the white men and any proposition which considers merely the benefit of the Indians alone from a wholly selfish Indian point of view may, in the end, have the very worst effect on the interests of the Indians, psychologically and sociologically speaking, if not legally and economically speaking. And from that point of view, even if it cost we will suppose $3 more an acre to construct irrigation projects from Badger Creek than it would be from Birch Creek it might be good business for the Government to spend more [tribal] money in irrigating reservation land than to put itself in the position of hogging Birch Creek, although at a greater cost per acre.”

The Confederates Conrad-Valier Investment Company had already “hogged” the entire flow of Birch Creek irrigating 108,000 acres for the border-whites off the southern reservation border while 112,000 acres of Blackfeet farm land went without irrigation, even as the added costs of developing Badger Creek irrigation project were thrust on the Indians. The Badger Creek project, paid for with tribal land cession funds, transported tribal waters to dams and reservoirs for storage, irrigation and municipal uses off-reservation in Toole County. The government’s decision to affix the extensive costs of Reclamation Service Projects as a lien upon the allotted lands of the Indians was enforced, although the dismal results of farming on the reservation caused members of the tribe to select exclusive grazing lands for their allotments.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.88-89