YANKTON TRIBE-AMEND WHEELER-HOWARD ACT SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 1939 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SPECIAL SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE The subcommittee met at 10:30 a. m., pursuant to notice, for consideration of H. R. 5878, Hon. Will Rogers (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will be in order. This subcommittee of the Committee on Indian Affairs has met to hear witnesses on H. R. 5878. Mr. White is the chairman of the subcommittee, but he is not here. He will arrive in a little while. Mr. Burdick and Mr. Buckler are the other two members of the committee. Mr. Buckler is here and Mr. Burdick will be here in a few minutes. We have several witnesses to be heard this morning. So, in the absence of the chairman of the subcommittee, the chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs is taking his place until he gets here. It is understood that this is a record hearing, and that no consideration will be given the bill after the witnesses have been heard. As you will note, this bill was introduced on April 19 of this year. We have not had time to get a report from the Department. I would like to ask unanimous consent that a copy of the bill appear in the record at this point. If there is no objection to that request, it is so ordered. (H. R. 5878 is as follows:) [H. R. 5878, 76th Cong., 1st sess.] A BILL To amend Public Law Numbered 383, Seventy-third Congress (48 Stat. L. 984), relating to Indians, by exempting from the provisions of such Act the Pine Ridge Sioux Tribe of Indians of the State of South Dakota Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 13 of the Act entitled "An Act to conserve and develop Indian lands and resources to extend to Indians the right to form business and other organizations; to establish a credit system for Indians; to grant certain rights of home rule to Indians; to provide for vocational education for Indians; and for other purposes," approved June 18, 1934 (48 Stat. L. 984), be, and is hereby, amended by inserting after the words "United States" in the second line of said section the following: "or to the Yankton Tribe of Indians of the State of South Dakota." The CHAIRMAN. We have three witnesses here from the State of South Dakota who want to be heard on the bill, and we also have Commissioner Collier here, and Mr. Daiker, of the Indian Office, who wants to be heard. The Commissioner will be heard first. Then we will hear the three witnesses from South Dakota, and then Mr. Daiker will close the hearing. The Chair will recognize the Commissioner at this time. Commissioner Collier. 1 STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN COLLIER, COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS Mr. COLLIER. Mr. Chairman, my statement will be brief, and will be merely for information. I am making it because there is no departmental report as yet. I call your attention first to a detail, an error of language in the title of the bill, which states that it refers to exempting from the provisions of such act the Pine Ridge Sioux Tribe of Indians. Now, the bill relates to the Yankton Tribe of Indians, which is one of the groups under the Rosebud Agency. Pine Ridge is not in the picture at all. So, I would suggest altering the language in the title. The Yankton Tribe is one of the groups under the Rosebud Agency in a different part of the State from the Pine Ridge Agency. There is no Pine Ridge Sioux Tribe as such. The text of the bill is clear. It is simply the title that is misleading. This bill would have the effect of repealing the Indian Reorganization Act, insofar as it relates to the Yankton Tribe. The Yankton Tribe or the Yankton Band of the Sioux adopted the act by a vote of 248 for to 171 against. Subsequently a constitution was submitted for a vote; that is, a constitution under the act. That constitution was defeated. This was in 1935, and it was defeated by a vote of 234 for and 299 against. Under the act they can vote on the constitution as often as they want to, and there is now pending another proposed constitution and a future vote upon it. Now, it is my suggestion that, whatever be the grievances of the spokesmen who are here, those grievances would not be met by the repeal of the Indian Reorganization Act, and those grievances will have to be met in some other way. I will explain the Indian Reorganization Act as an act that conveys certain authorizations for appropriation payments. That is what it is, appropriations for land acquisition, for credit funds, and for student loan funds. The repeal of the act is the repeal of the authority for appropriation. A repeal in the case of the Yankton Indians would be the repeal of the authority for the appropriations for the Yanktons. Now, about $60,000 has been spent on land purchases for the Yankton Sioux. There are options on $60,000 worth of additional land. That money has not been spent yet, on land being bought for the Yanktons. About 16 young members of the Yankton Tribe have received student loans, $4,544, a rather high ratio, since only 20 applied, and 16 of them received loans. Those loans were an appropriation made under the Reorganization Act and only under it. Other funds available at that time under the act have not been forthcoming for the Yanktons, because the Yanktons have not yet organized. You see, the loan fund can only be extended to the tribe that organizes under existing law and incorporates as well. The effect of the passage of this bill would be to stop access of the tribe to these funds. If the tribe is poor, especially it is land poor. Another feature of the act is to allow, but in no sense to require, the Indian tribes to organize, and when they organize they take over various and sundry powers and authorities over their own business. They do not have to organize. It is entirely open to them. If they within their option. There used to exist a tribal constitution of the old type which gave no power at all to the Indians. It simply said that they might be organized in order to deal with the office of the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner and the agent. Under the act they can act in a much more forcible and effective way if they want to. Now, by repealing the act they would simply take away that power to organize or incorporate if they want to. The third feature of the act is the one which states that tribes which adopt it have privileges regardless of civil service. They have privileges in obtaining employment, and they say that since the adoption of this act the ratio of Indians to whites employed in the Indian Service has more than doubled, there has been more than a 100-percent increase. There has been a jump from about 1,800, as I recall the figure, to about 4,000 Indians employed in the Indian Service. Now, the withdrawal of the Reorganization Act or its repeal would immediately take away all of these advantages, none of which are advantages which the needy members or the young people have to take, but they can take advantage of them if they so desire. The land of the Yanktons is allotted, or what is left of it, and it is a pitifully small amount, so that the feature of the act which forbids the allotment of the lands would not have any bearing on the situation. If it is a matter of alienating lands, they may alienate under the act just as well as not under the act. It is entirely a matter for the Secretary of the Interior to determine. I would urge that the act is yielding definite benefits and could yield greater benefits to the tribe, and that its repeal would simply destroy these present and any future benefits without solving any of the particular difficulties that they may have to present. It would be another story if the act were compulsory in its features and if they had to go ahead and organize when they did not want to, or to incorporate when they did not want to, or if they had to accept bonanzas thrust upon them, but it is all voluntary as to whether they want to use and avail themselves of the benefits of the act. I would certainly plead for the young people, not to cut them off in access to this loan for going through college. That is all the statement I intend to make. I do know more or less what complaints are going to be made, but it is better for them to be made, and then they will be answered in detail by Mr. Daiker. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Commissioner, will you yield for a question? Mr. COLLIER. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. In reading the bill, it would appear that this bill proposes to include the Yankton Tribe of Indians of South Dakota under the Reorganization Act, but I take it that section 13 is the section where exemptions are made, and this bill adds the words "or to the Yankton Tribe of Indians of the State of South Dakota" after the words "United States," and that exempts them from the Reorganization Act? Mr. COLLIER. It has exactly the same effect as if they had voted to stay out of the act, instead of voting to come under the act. It terminates the act as far as they are concerned, against future power and advantage. The CHAIRMAN. These words proposed to be inserted in this bill follow the words that provide exemptions? |