TO APPOINT A COMMISSION TO SETTLE THE CLAIMS OF THE INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1944 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The Committee on Indian Affairs met in the committee room, the Capitol, at 10 a. m., Hon. James F. O'Connor, chairman, presiding. Other members present were: Hon. John R. Murdock, Hon. C. I. White, Hon. George E. Outland, Hon. Antonio M. Fernandez, Hon. Anthony J. Dimond, Hon. Fred C. Gilchrist, Hon. Usher L. Burdick, Hon. Fred J. Douglas, Hon. Richard P. Gale, Hon. Karl Mundt, Hon. Robert Rockwell, Hon. Hal Holmes, and Hon. Wat Arnold. Also present were: Mr. Joseph C. McCaskill, assistant to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior; Mr. Fred A. Baker, special counsel of the attorney general of California; Mr. Adam Castillo, president, and Mr. Purl Willis, counselor of the Mission Indian Federation; and Mr. F. G. Collett; and others. The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection, we will come to order. While I am not sure we have a quorum, at the same time we have very good minds sitting around the table and we may as well proceed. The matter before the committee this morning is a continuation of the hearing on H. R. 3622, a bill introduced and sponsored by Mr. Outland of California, "To appoint a commission to settle the claims of the Indians of California." Mr. Outland wishes to make a further statement to the committee. I understand there has been considerable litigation about the claims of the California Indians in the past and that they found their ways into the courts and now this bill comes before this committee upon the theory that we should provide for the appointment of a commission of three to try and find a common ground for the Indians and the Government regarding their respective claims. Now, if we are ready, I will ask for a statement of the bill from its author, Mr. Outland. ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE E. OUTLAND, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA Mr. OUTLAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Might I say, first, that I appreciate very deeply this committee considering the bill at one meeting before the recess. I had requested that hearing and the chairman had granted it, and then the flu intervened, insofar as I was concerned, and I was unable to be present; but the clerk of the committee, Mr. Dunn, had my statement placed in the first day's hearing. There are two or three points that I would like to make at the outset because I think they are important in any consideration of this bill. In the first place, the bill was drawn at the suggestion of the attorney general of the State of California. As it has been brought out before, the attorney general of the State of California is representing the Indians of that State in this whole matter of the claims, and it was at the direction and instigation of his office that the bill was introduced. In the second place, the man who has made the most detailed study of this case is Mr. Frederic A. Baker, special counsel, who is here representing the attorney general of California. Attorney General Kenney has assigned Mr. Baker to remain in Washington until action in one way or the other is taken on this particular bit of legislation. There are two other points that I should like to mention very briefly: One is that I called to the attention of members of this committee that this bill provides simply for the establishing of a commission and it does not provide for anything more than the payment of funds for the expenses of such a commission. Any recommendations made by the commission after they are worked out are subject to the will of Congress; so that this bill is not far reaching except inasmuch as it establishes a commission instead of abiding by the findings of the Court of Claims. There is one portion in section 1 of the bill that I should like to suggest be amended before further consideration is given, because that point has already been discussed, and I think that an amendment here would be very wise. I should like to suggest, Mr. Chairman, that on page 1, starting line 3, it be changed to read That the President of the United States is hereby authorized and directed to appoint a commission of three qualified individuals, one of whom shall be a citizen of the State of California. The CHAIRMAN. In other words, the bill now provides that all three should be residents of California. Mr. OUTLAND. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. And you would wish to change it so that only one commissioner would be a resident of the State of California and the other two might be appointed from any of the other States of the United States? Mr. OUTLAND. Yes; so that two could be appointed from any part of the United States. The reason for that is this: It has been explained, and rightly, I think, that to get a completely unbiased finding that it might be well that all members be not from the State in question; and I would suggest that that change be made before further consideration be given to this bill. The CHAIRMAN. Suppose we proceed upon the theory that that change was made, and you may proceed with your statement on the bill. Mr. OUTLAND. That would be very satisfactory. Now, Mr. Chairman, I am not going to elaborate on the statement which was presented to the committee at the last meeting. It sum marizes briefly the position not only of myself but of the attorney general of California. I should like, however, to submit for the record a very few exhibits at this point. First, I have a letter and a resolution sent to me by the California Indian Rights Association, Inc., under date of December 8, 1943. The letter and resolution are both brief and I do not think they need to be read unless some member of the committee should request it. The CHAIRMAN. What is the purport of it? Mr. OUTLAND. The purport is wholehearted support for this particular bill, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. And it is signed by whom did you say? Mr. OUTLAND. I did not say, but the letter is signed by Thomas Largo, sachem, and Stella_von Bulow, secretary of the California Indian Rights Association, Inc., of Los Angeles, Calif. The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection, the letter and resolution may be incorporated in the record at this point. (The letter and resolution above referred to are as follows:) Hon. GEORGE E. OUTLAND, CALIFORNIA INDIAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION, INC., Los Angeles, Calif., December 8, 1943. House Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN: We are advised that you have succeeded in getting a hearing on our bill for a commission to settle our claims, H. R. 3622, for Friday of this week. We are pleased that you are making such good progress on the bill. We are unable to send a delegate to be present at the hearing. We did not get word of the date until last Friday and have been unable to arrange for sending a delegate although we are very anxious that the bill you introduced should be approved by the House committee. The House committee has always been friendly to bills we have sponsored for amendment of the old jurisdictional bill to enable us to get a decent recovery for all of our Indian people. There was no provision for a recovery of our Indians who were never given a chance to sign the treaties in 1852 in the old jurisdictional bill, and there were as many or more of them who were never given a chance to sign as those who did and they were as much entitled to a recovery as those who did sign. We have tried for years to get an amendment that would give recovery to all of us and the formula adopted by all of us Indians in California was approved by the Committee on Indian Affairs in both the Senate and the House but white racketeers, politicians, fee-hungry attorneys were so anxious to get their hands into our recovery and get some of it for themselves that they kept buffeting the passage of the legislation for us and delaying it trying to get clauses into it that would allow them to exploit our recovery, that it never got to final passage by both Houses. We are sorry to say that with the help of a Senator or two and the special assistant to the Indian Affairs Committee in the Senate, the Senate always stuck the clause into our bill allowing these greedy ones to exploit our award. The House committee always struck it out or left it out in their committee action and thus we were constantly stalled. Our attorney general of the State of California who has been handling all of our litigation in the Court of Claims for us and efficiently, too, advised us officially in June that we could not expect to get a fair recovery if he was forced to trial under the old jurisdictional act-that we might not get anything under it, and suggested that we try to get Congress to pass a commission form of bill to settle our claims outside of court, and representatives of all our groups of Indians met in Oakland and approved his commission plan and later asked us to get it introduced. We think it is a fair plan and is more practical than trying to get it through the Court of Claims with all its law technicalities that hamper our attorney general in getting a fair recovery for us. Our board of directors approved the commission plan by resolution, a copy of which we are sending you, and we are willing to trust such a commission as the President may appoint to deal fairly with us. The commission plan will enable the commissioners to meet us Indians first hand and get the Indians' side of what they think they are entitled to recover. The majority of our California Indians are fair-minded and are not going to try to get "the biggest award possible." We are not acquisitive minded and a majority of us will approve a fair award, barely enough to help us rehabilitate ourselves. There are a few of our people here and there who are demanding their "day in court" and have never been willing to listen to a settlement out of court. This is the argument that has been rehearsed into them by the racketeers who see no other way of being able to get their hands into our award. But those misguided ones are a very small minority and a very large majority of all our California Indians are more interested in getting a fair settlement as soon as possible than we are in taking up the racketeers' cry of having "our day in court." Judging from decisions in the Court of Claims against other groups of Indians heretofore, we find that so many techhnicalities are advanced to and recognized by the Court of Claims that we do not have a very fair chance of getting a recovery that will do justice to us in the Court of Claims. The Duwamish case in Oregon is an illustration in point. There legal objections and demands of the court of exactness in establishing boundary lines of lands occupied by the tribes so far back that no one can deny their continued occupation of lands for time immemorial and exactness in proving other points that the Indians lost out on these objections and other technicalities. We are anxious to get our old claims almost a hundred years old settled, and get something in our hands to put us on our feet, so that we are glad and willing to trust to the commission plan of settlement. Indians in all other States were given some kind of a settlement but we never got any in California. We never had a fair break. We were driven out of the settled communities in the early fifties and were given no consideration by the Government for over 30 years. Most of our people in that time died off from starvation, privation, and fear, and the worst of it was that we were not given a chance to learn the white man's way of "getting by" under the "competitive" system. We were given no chance to learn how to make a living in the white man's ways, and we have never caught up. Most of our people in California have lived in proverty ever since, and few of our families— very few-have ever been able to own homes or get away from the fear of eviction by landlords. Many of our old folks still live in squalor, one-room shacks that will not keep out the cold, and without sufficient food or clothes. We do hope the committee will approve your bill at once and that the House and Senate will pass it. Very sincerely, CALIFORNIA INDIAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION, INC. STELLA VON BULOW, Secretary. RESOLUTION ENDORSING H. R. 3622 AND S. 1529 Whereas the Supreme Court of the United States has denied the appeal of the attorney general of California for interest on the claims of California Indians in their suit in the Court of Claims; and Whereas the attorney general of the State of California, the Honorable Robert W. Kenny, has officially notified the various leaders of Indians throughout the State of California that if he is forced to trial on their claims in the Court of Claims under the old jurisdictional act of 1928 without the allowance of interest on their claims, that any judgment he may be able to get for California Indians will be so small as to amount to a denial of justice to them; and Whereas Attorney General Kenny in said letter of notification suggested to said leaders that the appointment of a commission by Congress to investigate and estimate the amount that should be awarded the California Indians for their claims would be the most practicable and expeditious way of getting a settlement, if anything were to be done before he should be forced to trial on the old jurisdictional act; and Whereas leaders of groups representing more than a majority of all California Indians, therefore, called together a council in Oakland and approved asking Congress to vote the commission plan of settlement, and as a result thereof, Congressman Outland, of California, was asked to introduce a bill for such commission plant, which he did, asking for the appointment of three commissioners from California, under H. R. 3622; and Whereas Senator Sheridan Downey, cooperating with Congressman Outland, introduced a companion bill in the Senate under S. 1529; and Whereas it is the desire of a majority of all the Indians of California that their claims be settled by the appointment of such a commission as provided by said bills H. R. 3€22 and S. 1529, rather than to wait longer for apparently endless attempts to amend the old jurisdictional bill and wait on the delays and technical procedure of the Court of Claims to give us a just recovery: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the California Indians Rights Association, Inc., by their warriors (directors) duly assembled in regular meeting regularly called, That we urge and request the Committees on Indian Affairs in the House of Representatives and in the Senate to recommend out said bills for the appointment of a commission to settle the claims of California Indians; and That we urge and request the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States Congress to pass said commission plan bill; and That we urge the President of the United States to approve such commission plan bill, when the same shall be passed by Congress; and That copies of this resolution be sent to the President and to the Committees on Indian Affairs, both in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Adopted November 28, 1943. THOMAS LARGO, Sachem. The CHAIRMAN. I might say to the gentleman from California that I would like to have him make a brief statement summarizing his previous statement, because I do not believe all the members of the committee have read his statement. Mr. OUTLAND. Yes; I shall be glad to do that, Mr. Chairman, but might I, in addition to that letter and resolution, ask that at this point the following letters be also inserted in the record from O. H. Lipps, of 365 North Thirteenth Street, Salem, Oreg., under date of November 18, 1943; Mrs. Elizabeth C. Rodden, of 1604 North La Madera Avenue, El Monte, Calif., under date of November 20, 1943; and Mrs. Hazel H. White, of the California Federation of Women's Clubs, Los Angeles district, dated November 16, 1943. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the letters will be inserted in the record at this point. (The letters above referred to are as follows:) Congressman OUTLAND, SALEM, OREG., November 18, 1943. House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN OUTLAND: Through the courtesy of Mr. F. A. Baker I have been furnished with a copy of your H. R. 3622, the same being a bill to provide for the appointment of a commission to settle the claims of the Indians of California. My purpose in writing you is to express my unqualified approval of this measure, since my experience as superintendent of the Sacramento Indian Agency enables me to form a just if not an absolutely correct opinion on the subject. As you no doubt know, treaties were negotiated in 1851-52 with 119 tribes or bands of the California Indians by commissioners appointed by President Fillmore, all in good faith, and the President recommended their ratification. By the terms of these treaties the Indians surrendered their right of occupancy to the greater portion of the State of California, the consideration being the payment to them of certain specified sums, goods, supplies, services, and the setting aside in perpetuity for their use and occupancy specified reservations aggregating 7,500,000 acres. Much of the area within the boundaries of these reservations now comprises some of the most productive, valuable, and densely populated sections of the State as well as some of its richest gold and oil bearing lands. These treaties failed of ratification all because the two Senators representing California at the time, owing to the close division between the two political parties in Congress, held the balance of power in the United States Senate and when the treaties came before that body for consideration, the California Senators, as was natural, |