Hearings.

party to make such appointment within thirty days after the appointment made by the President the vacancy shall be filled by the judge of the United States court for the central district of the Indian Territory, upon the application of the other party. A majority of said referees may be competent to act in case of the absence of a member, after due notice. The chairman of such board shall appoint the time and place for all hearings: Provided, That-where held. the hearings shall be within the county in which the property is situated for which compensation is being assessed for the taking thereof or damage thereto, and at a place as convenient as may be for said occupant, unless the said occupant and said railway company agree to have the hearing at another place. Each of said referees shall receive for his services the sum of four dollars per compensa. day for each day he is engaged in assessing compensa- tion. tion, with mileage of five cents per mile for each mile necessarily traveled in the discharge of his duties. Said board of referees shall have power to call for and examine witnesses under oath, and said witness shall receive the usual fees allowed witnesses by the laws of the Choctaw or Chickasaw nations. Cost, including compensation of the referees, shall be made a part of the award and be paid by the said railway company. In case the referees can not agree, then any two of them are authorized to make the award.

Witnesses:

fees.

Costs.

district court.

SEC. 4. That either party being dissatisfied with the Appeal to findings and award of the referees shall have the right, Indian Terri within sixty days after the filing of the award, as herein- tory. before provided, and notice of the same, to appeal by original petition to the United States district court for the central district of the Indian Territory, sitting at the place nearest and most convenient to the land and property which is sought to be condemned; and said suit shall then proceed for determining the damages done to the property, in the same and like manner as other civil actions in the said court. The said court shall have jurisdiction to hear and determine the subject-matter of said petiton, and the same shall be heard and determined by said court in accordance with the laws now in force or hereafter enacted for the government of said court; and the measure of damages in condemning property author- damages. ized by this Act shall be that prescribed by the laws of the State of Arkansas, in so far as the same are not inconsistent with the laws now in force or hereafter enacted for the government of the United States courts in said Choctaw and Chickasaw nations in such cases. If Costs. the judgment of the court shall be for a larger sum than the award of the referees, the cost of the litigation shall be adjudged against the railway company; and if the judgment of the court shall be for the same as the award of the referees, then the costs shall be adjudged against the party claiming damages. When proceedings shall Work may be have been commenced in court, the railway company iting double shall pay double the amount of the award into court to award.

Measure of

gin on depos

Crossing the tracks of other roads.

Freight charges.

Provisos.

rates.

Passenger -regulations.

abide the judgment thereof, and then shall have the right to enter upon the property sought to be condemned and proceed with the construction of the railway and telegraph and telephone lines. If such appeal is not taken as hereinbefore set forth, the award shall be conclusive and final, and shall have the same force and effect as a judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction.

SEC. 5. That said railway company is authorized and hereby given the right to connect or cross with its tracks the tracks and railroads of any other company or person owning or operating a railway in the said Choctaw and Chickasaw nations. In case of failure to make amicable settlement with any such corporation or person for such crossing, such compensation shall be determined in the same maner as hereinbefore provided for determining the compensation for land and other property taken and damaged.

SEC. 6. That said railway company shall not charge the inhabitants of said nations a greater rate of freight than the rate authorized by the laws of the State of Arkansas for services or transportation of the same kind: Provided, That passenger rates on said railway shall not exceed three cents per mile. Congress hereby reserves the right to regulate the charges for freight and passengers on said railway and messages on said telegraph and telephone lines until a State government or governments shall exist in said nations within the limits of which said railway or a part thereof shall be located, and then such State government or governments shall be authorized to fix and regulate the cost of transportation of persons and freights within their respective limits of said railway; but Congress expressly reserves the right Interstate to fix and regulate at all times the cost of such transportation by said railway or said company whenever such transportation shall extend from one State into another or shall extend into more than one State: Provided, however, That the rate of such transportation of passengers, local or interstate, shall not exceed the rate above expressed: And provided further, That said railway company shall carry the mail at such price as Congress may by law provide, and until such rate is fixed by law the Postmaster-General may fix the rate of compensation.

transportation.

- maximum rates.

Mails.

Additional compensation.

SEC. 7. That said railway company shall pay to the Secretary of the Interior, for the benefit of the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, the sum of fifty dollars, in addition to the compensation provided for in this Act, for property taken and damages done to individual occupants by the construction of the railway for each mile of railway that it may construct in said nations, said payment to be made in installments of five hundred dollars as each Provisos. ten miles is graded: Provided, That if the general council general coun- of the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, within four ell of tribes, months after the filing of maps of definite location, as hereinbefore set forth, dissents from the allowance here

cil

Appeal by

etc.

Award to be in lieu of com

inbefore provided for and shall certify the same to the Secretary of the Interior, then all compensation to be paid to said nations under the provisions of this Act shall be determined as provided in section three for the determination of the compensation to be paid to the individual occupant of lands, with the right of appeal to the courts upon the same terms, conditions, and requirements as herein provided: Provided further, That the amount awarded or adjudged to be paid by said railway com- pensation. pany for said dissenting nation shall be in lieu of the compensation said nation would be entitled to receive under the foregoing provision. Said company shall also Annual rental pay, so long as said territory is owned and occupied by the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, to the Secretary of the Interior the sum of fifteen dollars per annum for each mile of railway it shall construct in the said nations. The money paid to the Secretary of the Interior under Disbursement the provisions of this Act shall be disbursed by him in accordance with the laws and treaties now in force within said nations: Provided, That Congress shall have the Additional right, so long as said lands are occupied and possessed by said nations, to impose such additional taxes upon said railway as it may deem just and proper for the benefit of said nations; and any Territory or State hereafter formed through which said railway shall have been established may exercise the like power as to such part of said railway as may lie within its limits. Said railway company Surveys, etc. shall have the right to survey and locate its railway immediately after the passage of this Act.

of money, etc.

taxes.

filed.

be

SEC. 8. The said company shall cause maps, showing the route of its located lines through said nations, to be filed in the office of the Secretary of the Interior and also to be filed in the office of the principal chief of the said nations; and after the filing of said maps no claim for a subsequent settlement and improvement upon the right of way shown by said maps shall be valid as against said railway company: Provided, That a map showing Proviso. the first fifty miles of the road in the Indian Territory miles before shall be filed with and approved by the Secretary of the construction. Interior before the construction of the same shall be

commenced.

of first 50

may reside on

SEC. 9. That the officers, servants, and employees of Employees said railway company necessary to the construction and right of way. management of the railroad shall be allowed to reside, while so engaged, upon such right of way, but subject to the provisions of the Indian intercourse laws and such rules and regulations as may be established by the Secretary of the Interior in accordance with said intercourse laws.

SEC. 10. That said railway company shall build at Construction. least fifty miles of its railway in said nations within. three years after the passage of this Act, and complete the same within two years thereafter, or the rights herein.

-forfeiture.

granted shall be forfeited as to that portion not built; that said railroad company shall construct and maintain Crossings, etc. continually all roads and highways, crossings, and necessary bridges over said railway whenever said roads and highways do now or may hereafter cross said railway's right of way or may be by the proper authorities laid out across the same.

SEC. 11. That the said Little River Valley Railway Company shall accept this right of way upon the express conditions, binding upon itself, its successors and assigns, that they will neither aid, advise, nor assist any effort looking toward the changing or extinguishing the present tenure of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians in their lands, and will not attempt to secure from the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations any further grant of land or its occupancy than is hereinbefore provided: Provided, That any violation of the condition mentioned in these sections shall operate as a forfeiture of all the rights and privileges of said railway company under

this Act.

SEC. 12. That all mortgages, deeds of trust, and other conveyances executed by said railway company conveying any portion of its railroad, telegraph and telephone lines, with its franchises, that may be constructed in said Choctaw and Chickasaw nations shall be recorded in the Department of the Interior, and the record thereof shall be evidence and notice of their execution, and shall convey all rights and property of said company as therein expressed.

SEC. 13. That Congress may at any time amend, add to, alter, or repeal this Act.

SEC. 14. That the right of way herein and hereby granted shall not be assigned or transferred in any form. whatever prior to the construction and completion of the road, except as to mortgages and other liens that may be given or secured thereon to aid in the construction thereof.

Approved, February 4, 1899.

Feb. 13, 1899. 30 Stat., 836.

ed to St. Louis,

CHAP. 153.-An act to amend an act granting to the Saint Louis, Oklahoma and Southern Railway Company a right of way through the Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and Ilouse of Representatires of the United States of America in Congress assemTime extend- bled, That the Act granting to the Saint Louis, Oklahoma Oklahoma & and Southern Railway Company a right of way through construct road the Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory, and for through Indian other purposes, which took effect on March twenty-eighth, Territories. eighteen hundred and ninety-six, be, and the same is Vol. 29, P hereby, amended as follows:

Southern Ry, to

and Oklahoma

80.

"The time for completing the survey of the entire line of said road and filing a map of the same with the Secretary of the Interior and constructing the first fifty miles, and the completion of the remaining sections thereof, shall be, and is hereby, extended two years from the dates specified in said Act."

Approved, February 13, 1899.

CHAP. 178.-An act to extend and amend the provisions of an act entitled "An act to grant the right of way to the Kansas, Oklahoma Central and Southwestern Railway Company through the Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory, and for other purposes," approved December twenty-first, eighteen hundred and ninety-three, and also to extend and amend the provisions of a supplemental act approved February fifteenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, entitled "An act to extend and amend an act entitled 'An act to grant the right of way to the Kansas, Oklahoma Central and Southwestern Railway Company through the Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory, and for other purposes.'

Feb. 21, 1899.

30 Stat., 844.

Right of way granted Kan

Central &

Ry. through

tories, extend

28, p. 22.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the provisions of an Act entitled "An Act to grant the right of way to the Kansas, Oklahoma Central sas, Oklahoma and Southwestern Railway Company through the Indian Southewestern Territory and Oklahoma Territory, and for other pur- Indian and Okposes," approved December twenty-first. eighteen hun-lahoma Terri dred and ninety-three, and also to extend and amend the ed, etc. provisions of an Act approved February fifteenth, eight- Vol. 29, p. een hundred and ninety-seven, entitled "An Act to extend 529. and amend an Act entitled 'An Act to grant the right of way to the Kansas, Oklahoma Central and Southwestern Railway Company through the Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory, and for other purposes,"" be, and the same are hereby, extended for a period of three years from and after December twenty-first, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, so that said Kansas, Oklahoma Central and Southwestern Railway Company shall have until December twenty-first, nineteen hundred and one, to build the first one hundred miles of its said railway line in said Territories and as described in said above-mentioned Act approved December twenty-first, eighteen hundred and ninety-three, and two years thereafter to complete the same.

Branch line,

tory.

SEC. 2. That section three of said above-mentioned Act approved February fifteenth, eighteen hundred and Indian Terri ninety-seven, be, and the same is hereby, amended to read as follows: "That the said railway company shall have the power to construct, equip, and operate a branch. or extension from its main line, starting at or near Bartlesville, in the Indian Territory, and extending thence in a south or southeasterly direction through the Cherokee Indian Nation and through the Creek, Seminole, and