1st Session. No. 158.j LAW CLERKS IN THE ASSISTANT ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S OFFICE FOR THE INTERIOR DEPARTMENT. MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, TRANSMITTING A communication from the Secretary of the Interior, setting forth the ne cessity for an increased number of law clerks in the office of the Assistant Attorney-General for the Interior Department. APRIL 5, 1882.-Referred to the Committee on Appropriations and ordered to be printed. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of the Interior, setting forth the necessity for an increased number of law clerks in the office of the Assistant Attorney-General in the Department of the Interior, because of the growing amount of business in that office. The matter is commended to the attention and favorable action of Congress. EXECUTIVE MANSION, CHESTER A. ARTHUR. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, SIR: I have the honor to request that the attention of Congress be invited to the following statement of facts and the recommendations based thereon. During my official connection with this department I have become. thoroughly convinced that the Assistant Attorney-General who is specially charged with the consideration of the legal questions constantly arising in the transaction of the business of the department is not provided with adequate assistance for the prompt disposal of the large and rapidly increasing amount of work which must necessarily pass over his desk. I find that the business in his office during the past year has been double that of the year preceding. He is called upon to consider not only questions coming directly to the department, but all questions of law arising in cases coming up from its several bureaus on appeal or for legal advice. The appeals from the Commissioner of the General Land Office alone call for much labor and careful research, the questions presented being important, and in many cases very intricate, involving large public and private interests. These cases increase in number and magnitude as our western country with its varied and rapidly developing resources is opened up to settlement and business enterprise. From the Indian Bureau also, come many weighty and delicate questions of law and treaty, requiring careful and skillful handling. These questions necessarily become more numerous and complex as the enterprising white man pushes his way toward, and even on to, what the Indian regards as his domain. Aside from these land and Indian questions, the department is called upon to decide numerous questions from the Pension Office, with its constantly changing laws; and, under a recent opinion of the AttorneyGeneral of the United States, appeals from the Patent Office add to the already arduous duties of the law officer of the department. In nearly all cases of appeal the parties thereto are represented by able counsel, many of them lawyers of eminence, and it is therefore very desirable, not only that said officer have an adequate corps of assistants, but that he have competent men, skilled in the law, who from education and experience can properly examine and determine the questions before them. To this end and for these reasons I would urgently recommend that the Secretary of the Interior be authorized to appoint as additional law clerks, for duty in the office of the Assistant Attorney-General, three persons, one to receive an annual salary of three thousand dollars, and two to receive twenty-five hundred dollars each, and an additional clerk at sixteen hundred dollars, who shall be a stenographer; and that the appropriation bill for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1882, contain provision for the payment of such salaries. Believing that by such action the public interests would be subserved, I am, very respectfully, The PRESIDENT. S. J. KIRKWOOD, Secretary. 1st Session. No. 159. PIERRE GARREAUX. MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, TRANSMITTING A communication from the Secretary of the interior relative to the claim of Pierre Garreaux. APRIL 5, 1882.-Referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs and ordered to be printed To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of the Interior, of this date, with draft of bill for the relief of Pierre Garreaux, and correspondence in relation thereto. CHESTER A. ARTHUR.、 DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, SIR: I have the honor to submit herewith papers in duplicate, received from the Office of Indian Affairs, in the matter of the claim of Pierre Garreaux, formerly interpreter at Fort Berthold Agency, Dakota, growing out of a depredation committed by Sioux Indians of Grand River Agency, Dakota, in December, 1869. A draft of a bill, setting aside the sum of $500 from the Sioux funds, noted in the accompanying letter of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, will be found herewith. The papers constituting the claim were transmitted to the Speaker of the House of Representatives March 27, 1874, and will be found in the files of the House. I respectfully request that the inclosures may be transmitted to Congress for such action as may be deemed advisable by that body. I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, S. J. KIRKWOOD, Secretary. The PRESIDENT. |