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6. On page 2, line 15, after the word "defendant" strike out the comma and insert a semicolon, and on the same line after the word "any" and before the word "band" insert the word "other."

7. On page 2, line 16, strike out the word "said" and after the word "tribes" insert the words "of California."

8. On page 2, line 17, strike out the words "or suits."

9. On page 2, line 18, strike out the period after the word "order" and substitute a semicolon, and add the following: "provided that said court shall settle and determine the claims or rights of any such band or tribe as may be joined in said suit.' As thus amended the committee recommends that the bill do pass. The bill as thus amended will read:

["S. 3998, Sixty-sixth Congress, third session.]

"AN ACT Authorizing any tribes or bands of Indians of California to submit claims to the Court of Claims.

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all claims of whatsoever nature which any tribes or bands of Indians of California may have against the United States may be submitted to the Court of Claims for determination of the amount, ff any, due said tribes or bands from the United States for lands formerly occupied and claimed by them in the said State. which lands are alleged to have been taken from them without compensation, and jurisdiction is hereby conferred on the Court of Claims, with the right of either party to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, to hear and determine all legal and equitable claims, if any, of said tribes or bands, against the United States, and to enter judgment thereon.

"SEC. 2. That if any claim or claims be submitted to said court, they shall settle the rights therein, both legal and equitable, which shall be based upon the fair value of any such lands at the time the treaties were ratified by the several tribes or bands of Indians, not to exceed $1.25 per acre, of each and all the parties thereto, notwithstanding lapse of time or statutes of limitations, and any payment which may have been made upon any claim so submitted shall not be pleaded as an estoppel, but may be pleaded as an offset in such suits or actions, and the United States shall be allowed credit for all sums heretofore paid or expended for the benefit of said tribes or any band thereof, including gratuities. The claim or claims of the said tribes or any bands thereof shall be presented jointly by petition, subject, however, to amendment, suit to be filed within two years after the passage of this act; and such action shall make the petitioner or petitioners party plaintiff or plaintiffs and the United States shall be the party defendant; and any other band or bands of tribes of California the court may deem necessary to a final determination of such suit may be joined therein as the court may order: Provided, That said court shall settle and determine the claims or rights of any such band or tribe as may be joined in said suit. Such petition, which shall be verified by the attorney or attorneys employed by the aforesaid tribes or bands of Indians of California, shall set forth all the facts on which the claims for recovery are based, and said petition shall be signed by the attorney or attorneys employed, and no other verification shall be necessary; official letters, papers, documents, and public records, or certified copies thereof may be used in evidence, and the departments of the Government shall give access to the attorney or attorneys of said tribes or bands thereof to such treaties, papers, correspondence, or records as may be needed by the attorney or attorneys for said tribes or bands of Indians.

"SEC. 3. That upon the final determination of such suit, cause, or action, the Court of Claims shall decree such fees as it shall find reasonable to be paid the attorney or attorneys employed therein by said tribes, subject to approval by the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and under contracts negotiated and approved as provided by existing law, and in no case shall the fees decreed by said court be more than 10 per centum of the amount of the judgment recovered by such cause, such fee to be paid from said judgment."

On April 15, 1920, the Committee on Indian Affairs of the House favorably reported H. R. 12788, Report No. 840, Sixty-sixth Congress, second session, which is in substance the same as the present bill with a few slight amendments for clarification. The Committee on Indian Affairs of the Senate, in making report on Senate bill 3998, made report on said bill, which report is as follows:

"The Committee on Indian Affairs, to whom was referred the bill (S. 3998) authorizing any tribes or bands of Indians of California to submit claims to the Court of Claims, having considered the same, report favorably thereon with the recommendation that the bill do pass without amendment."

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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
Washington, March 23, 1920.

MY DEAR SENATOR: I have the honor to refer again to your letter of March 3, 1920, inclosing for report a copy of Senate bill 3998, authorizing any tribes or bands of Indians of California to submit claims to the Court of Claims.

The bill is similar to H. R. 12788, upon which favorable report was submitted to the chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, House of Representatives, under date of March 9, 1920. A copy of said report is inclosed.

Cordially yours,

Hon. CHARLES CURTIS,

JOHN BARTON PAYNE,

Secretary.

Chairman Committee on Indian Affairs, United States Senate.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
Washington, March 9, 1920.

MY DEAR MR. SNYDER. I am in receipt of your letter of February 28, 1920, referring for report a copy of H. R. 12788, authorizing any tribes or bands of Indians of California to submit claims to the Court of Claims.

The claim of these bands or tribes of Indians, as shown by the bill, is for compensation from the Government for lands formerly occupied and claimed by them in California, which lands are alleged to have been taken from them without payment and disposed of as public domain.

As these Indians believe they have a meritorious claim against the United States, and the said bill properly protects their interests and the interests of the Government as well, I recommended that it receive your favorable consideration.

Cordially yours,

Hon. HOMER P. SNYDER,

ALEXANDER T. VOGELSANG,

Acting Secretary.

Chairman Committee on Indian Affairs, House of Representatives.

The report of the Committee on Indian Affairs of the House on H. R. 12788, above referred to, is hereby made a part of this report and is as follows:

The committee on Indian Affairs has had under consideration and after such consideration reports favorably on H. R. 12788, authorizing any tribes or bands of Indians of California to submit claims against the United States to the Court of Claims for adjudication, and recommends that it pass with the following amendments:

After the word "equitable," in line 5, page 2, insert the following phrase: “which shall be based upon the fair value of any such lands at the time the treaties were ratified by the several tribes or bands of Indians, not to exceed one dollar and twentyfive cents per acre.

After the word "thereof, " in line 11, page 2, insert the words" including gratuities." Line 14, page 2, strike out the word "five" and insert in lieu thereof the word "two. H. R. 12788 was submitted for report to the Secretary of the Interior, who reported thereon as follows:

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
Washington, March 9, 1920.

MY DEAR MR. SNYDER: I am in receipt of your letter of February 28, 1920, referring for report a copy of H. R. 12788, authorizing any tribes or bands of Indians of California to submit claims to the Court of Claims.

The claim of these bands or tribes of Indians as shown by the bill is for compensation from the Government for lands formerly occupied and claimed by them in California, which lands are alleged to have been taken from them without payment and disposed of as public domain.

As these Indians believe they have a meritorious claim against the United States, and the said bill properly protects their interests and the interests of the Government as well, I recommend that it receive your favorable consideration.

Cordially yours,

Hon. HOMER P. SNYDER,

ALEXANDER T. VOGELSANG,

Acting Secretary.

Chairman Committee on Indian Affairs, House of Representatives.

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There are about 20,000 Indians belonging to the various bands and tribes in California distributed throughout 50 of the 58 counties of the State. These bands, numbering approximately 300, reside in small villages and range in number from 15 to 600 persons. About 5,000 of these Indians are on small reservations that do not provide sufficient lands upon which they can become self-supporting. The remaining 15,000 are known as nonreservation Indians, and constitute in the main the bands or tribes who desire to take their claims against the Government for lands originally occupied by them and from which they were for various reasons dispossessed or forced to abandon to the Court of Claims for final adjudication.

Under the Spanish and Mexican laws which controlled prior to the cession of the territory now known as California to the United States, the Indians' right to occupancy was expressly recognized; and under the Mexican treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, by which California was ceded to the United States, this Government guaranteed the Mexican land titles in the ceded territory as they stood at the time of transfer. Under the act of Congress of March 3, 1851 (9 Stat. L. 631), which provided for a settlement of the titles to Spanish and Mexican grants, a commission was appointed to make the settlement and to ascertain the rights of these, Indians to lands with a view to setting the same apart to them for their use. From the report dated March 21, 1906, of a special agent of the Department of the Interior, it appears that the said commission in but two cases-at Pauna and Santa Ynez-out of several hundred grants, reserved lands for the Indians, practically all of these grants having been disposed of as public lands to early miners and settlers who desired the same.

In 1851-52 a United States commission was appointed and duly authorized to obtain the consent by cession of the various bands and tribes in California, and secured the signatures of about 400 Indian chiefs and heads of bands to 18 treaties, all similar in terms. However, it appears that there were a few bands with which no treaties were negotiated. The latter bands will, under the said bill, also be allowed to take their claims against the Government to the Court of Claims.

These treaties, which are printed in the report of the hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Indian Affairs, were transmitted with a message from the President of the United States to the Senate and were on June 7, 1852, read and referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs and ordered to be printed in confidence for use in the Senate.

The terms of these treaties were substantially as follows:

The Indians agreed

1. To accept the sovereignty of the United States and to keep the peace.

2. To refrain from retaliation for wrongs done them by the whites and to aid the civil authorities in keeping the peace and in bringing criminals to justice.

3. To accept certain diminished reservations, 18 in number (aggregating about 7,500,000 acres), described in said treaties by metes and bounds, worth at the Government price of $1.25 per acre about $9,375,000.

4. To quitclaim and cede their rights in their lands to the United States Government. The Government agreed

1. To pay the Indians certain sums in goods, agricultural implements, seeds, farm stock, etc., amounting to about $1,800,000.

2. To reserve in perpetuity for the Indians' use and enjoyment different reservations specified in said treaties.

3. To provide skilled instructors in farming, blacksmithing, and woodwork; supervisors, and such assistants as should be found necessary. Said instruction to be continued as long as might be found necessary by the President.

Although the Senate did not ratify these treaties, the Government, which disposed of the lands of the Indians as public domain, made gratuity appropriations from time to time from August 30, 1852-largely for subsistence and civilization to the present time, aggregating approximately $4,000,000 (vide the report of hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Indian Affairs heretofore mentioned, pages 71-73, inclusive).

Following the transmission to Washington, D. C., of the said treaties, these Indians maintain that they made prompt compliance with the terms therein agreed upon and carried out fully their covenants with the Government, and also with the civil authorities. However, no further effort was made by the United States to make new treaties with them or in any way to acquire the Indian title to the lands from that day to this, nor have the California Indians ever received compensation, other than gratuity appropriations, for their rights in lands which they lost.

As to the present condition of these Indians your committee finds that only about one-fourth of them reside on reservations, and that the appropriations by Congress for the care and relief of California Indians are usually inadequate for the needs of the reservation Indians--leaving no available means for the remaining (estimated) 15,000

nonreservation Indians. As shown, the latter, who are in the main the claimants, are without proper school facilities, lands for homes, and care for their aged, indigent, and sick.

A reference is made to local testimony in support of the foregoing statement (as to nonreservation Indians) as follows:

Dr. Judson Liftchild, of Mendocino County, Calif., who has been a practicing physician for 22 years, in an address at the conference of the Indian Board of Cooperation, held in San Francisco, August, 1915, said:

"I have lived for nine years as Government physician on a large reservation, and for several years as superintendent of the county hospital and almshouse, and county health officer, having studied this question, am not giving opinions second hand. With the exception of a few counties, the indigent, sick, or aged Indian receives practically no aid in this State outside of reservations, he being a shuttlecock between State and National authority, each claiming that the responsibility rests on the other. In the county in which I reside, there are no Indians in the almshouse or county hospital, although there are many instances of pitiable poverty among the aged, and cases of curable diseases which go untreated. Children die of tubercular spines and hips, and many become blind from trachoma and conjunctivitis. The aged, many of them blind, eke out a miserable existence, half clad and half starved, dependent upon the precarious help of their own poverty-stricken race, or the intermittent assistance of charitable white people."

These Indians have long been pleading for an adjustment of their claims and for reimbursement for the lands which were formerly occupied by them. Your committee therefore believes that they should have their cause fully and judicially heard by the Court of Claims.

We therefore believe that H. R. 12788 gets at the California Indian problem in a very fundamental and practicable manner, and that it also gives the best assurance possible for a satisfactory and final and early settlement of the California Indian question. Further, this proposed legislation, if enacted, would in no way go to the question of California land titles or disturb existing property rights.

Mr. RAKER. The Senate bill and the House bill of the Sixty-sixth Congress, just referred to, and the report made thereon by this committee, made them practically the same, although, I believe, there were some slight amendments. Now, the bills as thus reported, the Senate bill and the House bill, were in the same language, as I understand it, as well as the bill now before the committee. So we had the benefit of the passage of the bill in the Senate and the House reporting favorably on it. So we took the House amendments and we now have the bill which is before the committee.

The CHAIRMAN. What finally happened to the bill?

Mr. RAKER. It was during the closing weeks of Congress. The committee had one day, and they passed four Court of Claims bills that day; took them up before the House, considered them fully and passed them, bills almost identical with this, giving four other tribes of Indians in four other States the right to sue in the Court of Claims. It got down to about 5 o'clock or 5.30 and this California bill, the House and the Senate bill, was the next on the calendar to be called-it was calendar Wednesday and the committee agreed to call it. It was the last one reported and a motion was made to adjourn. It was getting late in the day; the House had been in session all afternoon and had worked hard; the House then adjourned and that is the last the committee was called, and within two months afterwards, or thereabouts, the House adjourned, and, of course, all legislation in the Sixty-sixth Congress went into the scrap heap.

The CHAIRMAN. I did not recall just what happened.,

Mr. RAKER. I had it placed on the unanimous consent calendar and, of course, one objection would prevent it from being considered.

Now, Mr. Chairman, the laws to which I have referred are, first, a law authorizing the Sioux Tribe of Indians to submit claims to the Court of Claims, approved June 3, 1920; second, an act conferring jurisdiction on the Court of Claims to hear, determine, and render judgments as to claims of the Iowa Tribe of Indians against the United States, approved on April 20, 1921.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. What was the number of that bill?

Mr. RAKER. That was originally Senate 806, Public Law 189; and Public Law 202, Sixty-sixth Congress, Senate 2528, and act to grant certain lands to the Pocatello Indians. Then during this Congress, with the last few days, the Senate has favorably reported a Court of Claims bill similar to this, Senate Report 504, Sixty-seventh Congress, authorizing the Crow Tribe of Indians, residing in the State of Montana, to submit claims to the Court of Claims. I find upon investigation that there are a few others that have been favorably reported and a part of them have passed the Senate.

Now, Mr. Chairman, to save time and as a restatement of my position before the committee, showing the 18 treaties, showing the report of the department and its attitude on the bill, with the location of the Indians, and a description of the land as nearly as it can be described, I want to offer this part of the former hearing. A most interesting thing is to be found on pages 96 and 97 of the former hearings: it shows the claims which the Indians had before the treaties, which covered practically all of the State, and then it shows the claims which they did have or were authorized to have after the treaties were executed, which is an infinitesimal amount compared to their original claims.

I ask, Mr. Chairman, that this may go in as a part of this hearing, as these hearings are practically exhausted and as this is a new membership on the committee and a new membership in the House. I desire to call your attention to the fact that last time, after the House committee acted and after we had had hearings, we took your hearings to the Senate, and the Senate committee reported the bill out on those hearings and the Senate passed the bill on those hearings, and we will save the duplication if we can have them printed now, so that they will be in one volume.

The CHAIRMAN. I would not take the responsibility of doing that, but we will take it under consideration. You can make the request.

Mr. RAKER. That will save me a good deal of explanation.

The CHAIRMAN. We do not want to print it if we can help it.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. What hearing is that?

The CHAIRMAN. That is the hearing of March 23, 1920. The clerk just advises me that there has been a reprint, but we will take the matter under advisement.

Mr. RAKER. But if you can see your way clear to have it done I wish it could be done. The CHAIRMAN. As I say, the clerk just advises me that there has been a reprint recently and perhaps there is a sufficient number on hand.

Mr. RAKER. The California delegation prepared a statement and submitted it to the Secretary of the Interior signed by all the members except two. We then appeared before the Secretary of the Interior, Hon. Albert B. Fall, and he sent me a copy of a statement issued by him on March 2, 1922, which suggests that an appropriation be made to the Indians, instead of allowing them to sue in the Court of Claims, and so that the whole matter may be before the committee I ask that that statement may go in and also the statement of the Indians in reply. (The statements referred to follow :)

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
Washington, March 2, 1922.

MY DEAR SENATOR: For your information, I am inclosing you a memorandum of what I said to the California Indian delegation, to whom I gave a very patient hearing on Friday, the 24th ultimo, in compliance with the wishes of yourself and Senator Shortridge and several members of the California delegation in the House of Representatives, in relation to the pending jurisdictional bills, S. 2236 and H. R. 4383. Sincerely,

Hon. HIRAM W. JOHNSON,

ALBERT B. FALL, Secretary.

United States Senate.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
Washington, February 27, 1922.

The following memorandum sets forth the views of Secretary Fall in relation to the pending jurisdictional bills S. 2236 and H. R. 4383, as expressed to the California Indian delegation at a hearing in his office on Friday, February 24, 1922:

In the matter of modifying my report on H. R. 4383 of June 17, 1921, addressed to the chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs of the House of Representatives, after a hearing with a committee from the House of Representatives consisting of the Hon. Julius Kahn, Hon. Philip D. Swing, and Hon. John E. Raker, and later after a full hearing with the Indian delegation from California accompanied by Rev. F. G. Collett and Miss Helen Dare, I concluded, and advised said delegation, in substance as follows:

I can not see my way clear to modify the report that I have already made upon the jurisdictional bills that would authorize the submission to the Court of Claims of the claim of the California Indians, and can not see my way clear to approve any bill that has for its purpose compensating the Indians upon the basis of the value of the lands involved in the 18 treaties rejected by the Senate in 1852. In the hearings and reports the amount that would be involved, without taking into consideration the question of interest, would be about $10,000,000.

The treaties submitted in 1852 were considered by the Senate when that body had full information, not only from the commissioners who negotiated the treaties but

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