So, on page 3, to make this perfectly clear, if you will let me read an amendment which we have, I think it will make it so clear that there cannot be any controversy.

The CHAIRMAN. To save the committee time and the time of the attorneys, here is the situation: There is no member of the Senate from California present, and there is no member of the House from California present. If this bill ever gets through, it must be gotten through in such a way as to afford them no reason to object to it. If the committee cannot agree with the attorneys of the Department, we cannot make any progress. I suggest, if you have an amendment to offer, you confer with the members of the Department and the other attorneys, and come to an agreement, and present your amendment to this committee.

Mr. BUTLER. I can do that, but these amendments here have been worked out by all of the attorneys and they are all in agreement. The CHAIRMAN. What about the Department?

Mr. BUTLER. I have not submitted them to the Department because the Commissioner stated at the last meeting of the committee that the Department would have some amendments to offer, and we thought we would hear those before offering these.

The CHAIRMAN. There is no occasion to take up time here when you are not in agreement yourselves, and I suggest that the attorneys, whoever they may be, confer with the Department and agree on the amendments, and present those amendments for consideration.

Mr. COLLIER. Any formula which will do justice and meet the situation, will suit us.

The CHAIRMAN. I am trying to get this bill in such shape as to get it through the House and Senate.

Mr. BUTLER. I was afraid it was too broad as it was at first, and that it would not be passed, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. COLLIER. I think it is going to be mighty hard to pass any of these broadening things.

Mr. BUTLER. I thought what we could best do, and every attorney and every member to whom I have talked about it agreed, that if we treat them all alike, it will appeal to everybody. We have provided that in an amendment which Mr. Meaney read. That would appear to everybody as being fair, and would stop the talk of an enormous dollar judgment because it would treat the other Indians on the same basis exactly as the treaty Indians. I find the Indians say that will be satisfactory. There are only 23,000 or less of them now. I think if we went to the Supreme Court, we would recover a judgment for all their possessory rights, but if we do not pass this bill, then we will not get to the Supreme Court.

Mr. COLLIER. Mr. Chairman, we see no reason for this bill unless it gives to all of the Indians substantially the same. I am not attempting to say whether this would do it or not. The Department, so far as we are concerned, would like to see something substantial accrue to the Indians, and we will be glad to confer on these proposals.

Mr. BUTLER. I am gratified at the statement of the Commissioner that any bill passed should provide for a substantial measure of relief for all the Indians of California and that the compensation to accrue to the treaty Indians and to the nontreaty Indians should be substantially the same. That is exactly what this bill with the amendments proposed is intended to do. We must have a bill which is so

obviously fair and just that it cannot be beaten by this propaganda of an enormous judgment.

We do not think we are getting too much for the Indians, and hardly enough under this bill, but we think it is a bill which you can pass, and you can answer objections so easily on the floor. This talk of an enormous judgment has got to go. Say this doubles what the treaty Indians will get. Surely the nontreaty Indians should receive as much as the treaty Indians. It is not fair to take a judgment for the treaty Indians and then divide it up among all the Indians of California. It is a bagatelle. Yet that is all the Attorney General of California is asking the court to do. Justice demands that the door of the court shall be opened to hear and determine all the claims of all the Indians of California. To refuse to pass such a bill will be the crowning wrong of 85 years of monstrous injustice.

Mr. MEANY. May I submit these amendments? They are in chronological order and easily understood.

Mr. BUTLER. They clarify the bill.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the amendments that the attorneys, or any of them have offered to this bill may be placed in the record and printed with the hearings held this morning.

Mr. BUTLER. I submit these amendments which the attorneys have agreed upon.

The CHAIRMAN. Give them to the stenographer.

Mr. BUTLER. This is a unanimous agreement, after many days of consultation.

(The amendments referred to are as follows:)

On page 3, line 2, strike out all after the word "provided", down to and including the word "same", on page 3, line 9, and insert in lieu thereof the following:

That the courts shall determine, as near as may be, the acreage of the lands described in the said unratified treaties as lands set apart forever for the occupancy and use of the Indians of California, parties to the said treaties, and shall compute the value thereof at $1.25 per acre and shall render just compensation for loss of the use of the same.

On page 3, line 15, after the word "hereunder" strike out the period and insert a colon and add the following:

And provided further, That in order to render just compensation to the tribes or bands of Indians not parties to the said unratified treaties for the loss of their lands, the courts shall determine, as near as may be, the number of such tribes or bands and shall divide any amount found due on the claims arising out of and under the said unratified treaties by the number of tribes or bands parties to the said unratified treaties, and shall multiply such quotient by the number of tribes or bands not parties to the said unratified treaties and include such amount in any judgment hereunder.

On page 4, line 5, after the word "Interior", insert the following: Notwithstanding sections 2103 to 2105, United States Revised Statutes, and the courts are directed to recognize such attorneys as attorneys of record.

On page 4, line 14, strike out all after the word "any" down to the word "shall" in line 16, and insert in lieu thereof the following: Appropriation by Congress in payment of any decree rendered and the balance of such appropriation.

On page 5, line 11, insert a sentence to read as follows:

The words "Indians of California" as used in this section shall be defined to be all Indians who were residing in the State of California on June 1, 1852, and their descendants living on May 18, 1928.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything further?

Mr. MEANEY. Mr. Commissioner, may we make an appointment now, so that we can get this thing straightened out. Possibly some time this afternoon?

Mr. COLLIER. No; not today.

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to have the record show that this is a California bill on matters of great public importance, and the committees of Congress and Congress itself can consider such matters and pass upon them and have a chance to get them approved by the Congress and the President, but on matters pertaining to localities and States, if the Congress passes a bill and the administrative department is not satisfied with it, making an adverse report on it, then the President vetoes it and it is wholly out of the question to pass the bill, if the President is going to veto it. For that reason, on administrative and local bills it is necessary from my point of view to get an agreement which comprises the best bill you can get prepared, and get the department which is going to administer the bill to agree, so that the bill, if passed, will not be vetoed and the President will have no reason to veto the bill.

That is why I am suggesting on matters of this kind you get together on an agreement all around. If the attorneys will confer with the department and come to an agreement and then offer the agreement to the committee, the committee has every good reason to consider favorably the suggestions made.

Mr. BUTLER. We will go there at the earliest hour the Commissioner

can see us.

The CHAIRMAN. I suggest that the attorneys confer with the department concerned at the earliest possible date to submit the agreement for the committee's further consideration.

Is there anything further?

STATEMENT OF THOMAS L. SLOAN, MEMBER OF OMAHA TRIBE OF INDIANS

Mr. SLOAN. In regard to the extension of amendments, I have had correspondence with the attorney general of California, in which I called his attention to the fact that the amended petition was filed after the expiration of the 3-year limitation within which a case had to be made. The attorney general, in answering, wrote me that the original petition was filed within the 3-year limit. The amended petition, which would largely increase the claims of the California Indians, and add a large number of new parties, if they were not already included in the bill, was filed 10 months after the 3-year limitation.

Let me call attention to two facts: One is that it took him 46 months of the 3 years to learn who his clients were, who should be included in the petition. The second is that there was a largely increased claim presented in a new and amended petition, and also a large number of new parties, that it created a new case that was not within the limits, and therefore, most likely under the decisions of both the Court of Claims and the Supreme Court of the United States subject to be dismissed at any time, even though it was not discovered until it was reached by the Supreme Court.

The attorney general himself admitted in his correspondence that the legal question was dangerous, and that he desired such an amend.

ment as would extend the time for filing a petition so that it might be taken care of without any doubt.

Therefore, the last paragraph or sentence in the bill, as it is now printed, is necessary within the judgment of all lawyers who have given the matter any study or consideration. That includes the declaration of the attorney general of California, U. S. Webb himself.

I have been requested by the Indians of California, Inc., to act with their attorneys and associate with them, and to be one of their attorneys of record.

Mr. COLLIER. For this hearing it is enough to state that the California jurisdictional act (45 Stat. L. 602) expressly states that the petition may be amended. The departmental report, which I have read to the committee, fully covers that point.

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will be closed, and the committee stands in recess until Monday morning at 10:30 o'clock.

(Whereupon the hearing in the above-entitled matter was closed.)

CALIFORNIA INDIANS JURISDICTIONAL ACT

MONDAY, MAY 13, 1935

UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS, Washington, D. C.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:30 a. m., in room 424, Senate Office Building, Senator Elmer Thomas (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Thomas (chairman) and Frazier.

Also present: Hon. John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs; Mr. S. M. Dodd, Chief Finance Officer, Indian Service; Hon. Marion Butler, Washington, D. C., representing Mission Indians; and Mr. A. K. Shipe, representing California Indians, Inc.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will now resume; taking up the California bill, S. 1793, to see if we can make some further progress with it. Mr. Commissioner Collier, what was the result of the conference agreed to at our last meeting; what were the results of such conference?

Mr. COLLIER. Mr. Chairman, we had a conference, and did not arrive at any complete agreement, unless the attorneys have had further thoughts since our conference. I have here language from which I am not clear whether the attorneys are or not agreed; it was submitted to me by Mr. Butler.

Mr. BUTLER. I want to state for the information of the committee that the language submitted to the Commissioner at said conference has the unanimous approval of all the attorneys here and the Indians whom they represent; and further, that we are all opposed to some of the substitute amendments offered by the Commissioner because they would beat the bill. We should no longer give these Indians stones when they are asking for bread which they sorely need and richly deserve.

Mr. COLLIER. It seems to me that the better way would be to state two possbile grounds of action by the committee, and then let the committee decide or use its judgment as to what to do. The disagreement, or lack of agreement, if there be one, seems to have to do with my not being willing to agree to cut down the proposed award in as extreme a way as some of the attorneys are prepared to do. They want, of course, all the award they can get, but they are inclined to think they will have to take a greater reduction in order to get anything. My view is that the proposed reduction is so great as not to constitute a settlement, and one which I am certain would not be considered by the Indians as being a settlement, and I am certain that if it were made, they would come back to Congress for something more. I would like to see the Congress pass on that question as to what is the expedient thing to do.

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