For the past 12 years, no matter which of the major parties were in power, and irrespective of the personality of the incumbent of this office, there has been a constant atmosphere of suspicion, of charge and countercharge, of factional jockeying, of favoritism and discrimination surrounding the office of the Superintendent for the Five Civilized Tribes. The incumbent not only has been subjected to attacks from the party in opposition but also by the faction of his own party to which he did not belong and which vehemently wanted to get him out in order to get its man in.

If these political maneuverings did not affect the Indians, this matter perhaps might be passed over as of minor consequence. But the injection of practical politics into the administration of the affairs of this group of tribes has been most injurious to the welfare of the Indians and has brought discredit to the Nation and the State of Oklahoma.

The sole cure for this evil situation is the repeal of the law which changed the office of superintendent from a civil-service status, making it a political appointment.

Such action would make this office similar in all respects to that of other superintendencies in the Indian Service. Whenever this suggestion has been offered it was promptly met by the argument that the great importance of this superintendency, the large number of its Indian population, and the vast wealth evidenced by their valuable land properties made it necessary to have a superintendent who was appointed by the President.

That argument no longer has any force, if it ever had any. As a matter of fact this agency has lost the standing it once held as the most important superintendency in the Indian Service. Its present apparent importance is due to the presence of some opulent Indian estates owned by less than 5 per cent of the total enrolled restricted Indians. By placing these estates in the charge of trustee banks and trust companies, as we are recommending, the population, financial, and land-holding statistics of this agency would dwindle down to those of a fair-sized jurisdiction.

We are recommending that the agency be subdivided into two jurisdictions, each with a civil-service superintendent. The natural division would seem to group the Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole, with a population of restricted enrolled allottees of about 11,000 or more, into one jurisdiction, and the Choctaw and Chickasaw, with a population of restricted enrolled allottees of about 5,000, into another. Quite recently, at your request, the President by an Executive order placed all employees of the tribal school in this agency under the civil service. We beg to urge you to do what you properly can do to secure legislation which will enable you to subdivide the agency for the Five Civilized Tribes into two or more Indian Service units, in your discretion, with superintendents and all employees having a civil-service status.

THE MISTAKE OF 1908

We are recommending that Congress shall enact legislation which will restore to the Secretary of the Interior the protective authority over the estates of restricted members of the Five Civilized Tribes which was taken from him by provision in the act of May 27, 1908.

Prior to that year adult heirs of a deceased allottee were permitted, by law, to sell and convey the inherited lands, and minor heirs could join in such sales through a guardian who was appointed by the proper United States court for the Indian Territory. This permission was authorized by the act of April 26, 1906, and was safeguarded by the following provision:

All conveyances made under this provision by heirs who are full-blood Indians are to be subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe.

This safeguard supervision of the Secretary was taken from him and the probating of Indian estates was conferred exclusively upon the county courts of Oklahoma by the act of May 27, 1908. The pertinent provisions of this act read as follows:

The persons and property of minor allottees of the Five Civilized Tribes shall, except as otherwise specifically provided by law, be subject to the jurisdiction of the probate courts of the State of Oklahoma.

That the death of any allottee of the Five Civilized Tribes shall operate to remove all restrictions upon the alienation of said allottee's land: Provided, That no conveyance of any interest of any full-blood Indian heir in such land shall be valid unless approved by the court having jurisdiction of the settlement of the estate of said deceased allottee.

In addition to administering the probate affairs of minors as authorized by the law the county courts have assumed the right to declare adult restricted Indians "incompetent," and to appoint guardians for them. As a general rule such Indians are in the wealthy class, made rich by oil leases on their lands. It is a question whether these courts legally have this jurisdiction, but the fact is they have taken it and have acted accordingly. Some of the most famous of the Oklahoma "Indian cases" of country-wide notoriety concerned oil-rich Indians who, almost immediately after it became known that oil had been found on their lands, were adjudged "incompetent " by county courts.

It is inconceivable that the Congress had any idea that through the operations of its act of May 27, 1908, the United States of America, as the guardian and trustee of these Indians, would be made subordinate to some Oklahoma county courts in the administration of Indian probate affairs and that some Oklahoma county judges would be made superior to the Secretary of the Interior who is held accountable by Congress and the country at large for the welfare of the Nation's Indian wards. Nevertheless, that is exactly what the practical working out of this act has done. And nowhere else in this land can a like situation be found.

Whatever may have been the motives that were back of the passage of this act the cold facts set forth in the official records of the past 18 years prove conclusively that its provisions have been shamefully perverted to the great injury of the Indians. These records are easily available for they may be found in the printed reports of hearings and investigations made by the Senate and House Committees on Indian Affairs, by reports made by Government and non-Government organizations, by Government officials and private individuals, and much information also can be had from the files of Oklahoma newspapers.

Space does not permit an extensive review of the situation as it has been disclosed by the records referred to, but a fair-minded,

disinterested inquirer, seeking knowledge of conditions existing in the Five Civilized Tribes from the recorded facts, is quite likely to arrive at the following conclusions:

That so far as the Indians are concerned the enactment of the law of May 27, 1908, has proven to be a grave mistake and should at once be amended to return to the Secretary of the Interior the protective authority over the estates of these Indians which the act in question took from him.

That for some 18 years these Indians have been robbed, overreached, and otherwise mistreated under cover of this act by the class of men commonly known in Oklahoma as "grafters" through the allowance of exorbitant fees by county courts to guardians and their attorneys; through the sale of lands with the approval of county courts at prices far below their known values; through the leasing by Indians, without the Federal supervision, of their agricultural lands under terms which produced ridiculously low rentals; through the practice of declaring adult Indians "incompetent" by county courts to the profit of guardians and lawyers and loss to the Indians; through the opportunities afforded by the provisions of the "partition act " of 1918, by which Indian heirs have been compelled to sell their interests in inherited lands at prices set by the purchaser of the interests of another heir, and by involving Indians in complicated litigation that developed unconscionable fees and

costs.

That in many instances county judges have been extremely lax in their duties, or indifferent to their responsibilities, or overinfluenced by considerations of social or political obligations, or have been the willing tools of designing men.

In a report of the Board of Indian Commissioners, dated January 26, 1926, on the Five Civilized Tribes, these matters were considered in some detail. Had we the space it would be comparatively easy to cite numerous typical cases of the misuse of the provisions of the act of 1908. But we are content to go to Congress itself for confirmation of our views on this lamentable situation.

VIEWS OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE

A subcommittee of the House Committee on Indian Affairs investigated the affairs of the Five Civilized Tribes on the authority of a House resolution "to inquire into and investigate the situation with reference to the administration of Indian affairs in Oklahoma." The majority report (Rept. No. 1527, House of Representatives, 68th Cong., 2d sess.) of the committee was laid before the House by the chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, February 19, 1925. This report presents the condition of affairs obtaining in the Five Civilized Tribes arising out of provisions of the act of 1908 concerning the sale of inherited lands and the leasing of agricultural lands by restricted Indians. It is a convincing presentation, and we beg leave to offer the following excerpts to indicate the state of mind of the committee on this matter:

The act of May 27, 1908 (35 Stat. L. 312), provided that the probate courts of Oklahoma should have jurisdiction over the persons and property of minor allottees, except as otherwise specifically provided, and that full-blooded Indian heirs might alienate their inherited Indian lands with the approval of the

county courts. Thus a full-blood restricted adult Indian, uneducated, unlettered, inexperienced, and incompetent to manage or transact his business, may seli his inherited lands without restrictions, except that the county court must approve the deed of conveyance. This requirement, however, in practical administration, furnishes no safeguard or protection to the Indian; the procedure in such cases, simply requiring the approval to be granted, not by the judge sitting as a court or acting in a judicial capacity, but simply as an agent of the Federal Government in the exercise of ministerial powers only. No petition for sale is required to be filed, notice of hearing is not required to be given, no appraisement of the land is required by law, and simply acting as an agent without remuneration, but little if any consideration is given, and the matter is treated as a formal act to accommodate the parties interested in the purchase. As a result of such total lack of procedure, the purchase price is often far below the actual value of the land sold, and as no necessity for the sale is required to be shown, the lands in many cases pass out of the hands of the Indian for a price much less than their true value. The purchase is often paid in bulk to the Indian, who entirely ignorant of values and inexperienced in trade, and susceptible to the artifices in the commercial world his moneys are often dissipated and irretrievably lost. Many complaints are filed from the Indian heirs against their grantees on account of alleged inadequate considerations and practices of fraud.

Under existing law a full-blood restricted Indian may execute and deliver a valid and subsisting agricultural lease for a period of one year upon his reIstricted homestead, and for a period not exceeding five years on his surplus allotted lands. This unlimited, unsupervised authority given full-blood restricted Indians, a great many of whom are wholly incompetent to transact such business, has resulted in the creation of a class who makes it a business of trading and trafficking in such leases, in many instances obtaining leases on valuable agricultural lands at a nominal rental. Unable to read or write, not being under guardianship, and approached by unscrupulous and designing persons when assistance is not available, the Indian is induced to give a lease on his valuable agricultural lands, and additional leases for overlapping periods, the persons taking them knowing that by recording same he can exact a profit from a bona fide lessee. With authority vested in the unlettered and ignorant Indian to execute such instruments, many forged leases appear of record, slandering the titles and depreciating the values. One witness alone produced for examination at the hearings of the committee at Muskogee over 100 leases on Indian agricultural lands, the signature of the lessor to each of which he declared to be a forgery and that said leases were placed of record for the purpose only of compelling the lessee, in maintaining his quiet and peaceful possession, to purchase said forged claims.

This blackmailing system has produced an unconscionable class who are willing to resort to forgery itself for their exactions, leaving the valuable agricultural lands in the hands of tenants who, once in possession, are seldom dispossessed, paying but nominal rentals, if at all, while the full-blood restricted Indians, to a large extent, are dispossessed of their lands and are living in the hills. Why such authority was ever delegated to the poor, unlettered, and ignorant wards of the Nation, whereby he is deprived of the possession of his lands, is indefensible from any standpoint of trusteeship, and inexcusable by those in the discharge of such responsibility.

Your committee finds that there are reprehensible and indefensible practices carried on in the oil-producing districts on Indian lands by unconscionable attorneys and persons who make it a profession to obtain appointments as guardians. That such persons, whether as guardian, attorney, or business man making sales, are indigenous not to the State of Oklahoma or its laws, but to the unprecedented production of fabulous wealth upon the lands of those who are unlettered, inexperienced, and incompetent to transact their own business, and to take care of the enormous fortunes into which they suddenly come in possession.

RECOMMENDATIONS

It appearing that there is much uncertainty in the law relative to the jurisdiction of the administration of the affairs of the Five Civilized Tribes, which uncertainty should be removed by clear congressional enactment, we recommend that legislation is imperatively necessary in the matter of (1) the approval of agricultural leases of restricted Indians; (2) the leasing of allotted or in

herited lands of restricted Indians; (3) in the matter of the approval of conveyances by full-blood or other restricted heirs or devise; (4) the approval of the partition of estates in which restricted Indians have any interest; (5) in the matter of the guardianship of property of minors or other Indians adjudged incompetent; (6) limiting amount of attorneys' fees with sliding scale, which may be allowed by the department or the courts; (7) prohibiting approval of gifts by incompetent Indians, unless found competent by the county court to clearly understand the nature of, and appreciate result of the gift proposed to be made.

GUARDIANS' AND ATTORNEYS' FEES

The average cost of the probate administration of the estates of restricted and unrestricted members of the Five Civilized Tribes is $709.81, according to a survey made of 2,821 cases by the Superintendent for the Five Civilized Tribes in 1923. This is twenty-seven times the average charge made by the Bureau of Indian Affairs from 1914 to 1920, inclusive, for handling all of the probate affairs of all restricted Indians, excepting those of the Five Civilized Tribes and of the Osage Tribe. The Indian Bureau's average charge was but $26.47.

The survey referred to showed that the expenses of probating the estates in the county courts of Oklahoma ranged from below 5 to more than 50 per cent of the total receipts. This survey required the investigation of 14,229 probate cases in six counties in Oklahoma and the investigators could get no information, whatever, from 9,042, or 63 per cent of the 14,229 cases, because all reports of such cases were missing from the files of the courts. The survey included restricted and unrestricted Indian estates and estates of freedmen and whites.

In former years, it appears that all parties concerned were of the opinion that the superintendent was compelled, without question, to honor county court orders for the payment of fees and other charges in the probating of restricted Indian estates. But about 12 years ago the Muskogee Agency began to question the authority of county courts to direct the agent of the Federal Government to pay out funds in his hands belonging to restricted Indians, particularly in respect of probate fees, and began exercising considerable discretion in the matter.

In this connection the superintendent said last year:

All attorney fees charged against restricted Indians are checked up very closely, and regardless of whether or not a court allows a fee which is apparently exorbitant this office is usually successful in determining what should be a reasonable fee and by negotiations settlements are made which are satisfactory to all interested parties. In unrestricted cases, this office has no jurisdiction and by reason of laws in force we can not enter into cases over which we have no control.

Inquiry has developed the fact that the excessive fees allowed guardians for Indians and their attorneys by the county courts within recent years have arisen out of the probating of estates of unrestricted Indians over whose affairs the Federal Government has no jurisdiction whatever. The curing of this particular evil rests in the hands of the people of Oklahoma.

The prominence given in the printed reports of congressional hearings and official investigations and in the columns of Oklahoma newspapers to the allowance of these excessive fees would make it