it up, so that it may not be subject to legislation or a claim at some future time. The 62,000 acres is not very much and the Indians have been deprived of money that ought to have gone to their credit years ago, and it does seem to me that we ought not to exclude that little portion of 62,000 acres and, therefore, this amount ought to be incorporated in the bill.

Mr. HUDSON. If that has not been proved upon it remained part of the public domain.

Mr. BURKE. That is Government land. The Government has it. Mr. KNUTSON. The Indians have lost jurisdiction and title to it? Mr. BURKE. It is too small an area to withhold paying for and it ought to be disposed of. I want to say to the committee that I have always believed that the Government should be prompt in keeping its obligations with a tribe of Indians and here is an obligation-it is not an old claim, going back 100 years ago. It is a transaction that has occurred in the lifetime of all of us, and there can not be any defense on the part of anyone, it seems to me, to this H. R. 26 having consideration, and it ought to be passed. Now, I am ready to answer any questions.

Mr. HASTINGS. I have no question to ask providing there is no dispute as to the figures in the bill. There is no dispute as to the figures of the amount or calculations?

Mr. BURKE. I want to say that the acreage and the amount was worked out in conjunction with the General Land Office and we believe that it is accurate.

Mr. KNUTSON. If anything it should be more. The Government is not being defrauded.

Mr. BURKE. Not a cent.

Mr. ROACH. Those amounts, as I understand your last statement, are the amounts the Government should have paid in since the passage of the free homestead act?

Mr. BURKE. The free homes act.

Mr. ROACH. And the amounts do not include any amounts previous to the free homestead act that were paid in by homesteaders? Mr. BURKE. Not at all.

Mr. HUDSON. I was going to ask that question.

Mr. BURKE. There had been proven up and paid for $497,940.62 by the settlers when the act of May 17, 1900, was passed.

Mr. ROACH. Stating it another way, then, since the enactment of the free homestead act those amounts represent the acreage and amount of land that the Government itself purchased, pursuant to the act of 1889, at $1.25 an acre?

Mr. BURKE. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROACH. Then the necessity for this bill, as I understand it, is due to the fact that in the free homestead act it directed the Government to purchase these at $1.25 an acre and did not make any provision for having the purchase made outright then and the funds deposited to the credit of the Indians. It is simply a direction as to the future that where I came in and homesteaded a portion of that land instead of paying the Government price of $1.25 to the Indian tribe that the Government paid it for them.

Mr. BURKE. The language would seem to have contemplated that the Government would at once pay for these lands.

Mr. ROACH. As they were homesteaded.

Mr. BURKE. No; I think when the free homes act passed, the settler was relieved from paying for the land.

Mr. ROACH. But what if you did not have a settler, a thousand acres upon which there was no homestead?

Mr. BURKE. There may be some cases where that may be true. Mr. HUDSON. Did not the act really provide that, in the case of Chippewa land, the Government took that from the Chippewa land and held it for the settlers?

Mr. BURKE. Let me read that:

That all settlers on homestead lands of the United States, upon agricultural public lands which have already been opened to settlement acquired prior to the passage of this act by treaty or agreement from the various tribes, shall be entitled to a patent for the lands so entered upon the payment to the local land officers of the usual or customay fees, and no other or further charge of any kind whatsoever shall be required from such settler to entitle him to a patent to the land acquired by the entry, providing, however, that any sums of money so released, which if not released, would belong to any Indian tribe, shall be paid to such Indian tribe by the United States.

Mr. HASTINGS. That is a direct obligation of the Government of the United States to pay it?

Mr. HUDSON. It is very clear.

Mr. ROACH. It would become a direct obligation when the settlement was made upon that land, not before.

Mr. HUDSON. I think it would be before.

Mr. BURKE. Some of these lands have been settled upon and the title acquired long after the passage of that act. The United States, in effect, acquired the land, and it became the public domain; they could go on there and file, and as I stated a while ago my contention is, when that act of May 17, 1900, passed that the United States then

Mr. HUDSON (interposing). Took title to that land?

Mr. BURKE. Assumed the liability.

Mr. ROACH. Technically that is true, but when you consider in connection with the original agreement that these lands were to be paid for as settled upon, then the Government simply occupies the position exactly, to my mind, of the settler himself with respect to the former agreement. I do not think it affects this law materially one way or another.

Mr. KNUTSON. The Chippewas have lost title to this land.
Mr. HUDSON. Under the act of 1900.

Mr. KNUTSON. The titles are either vested in the individuals or the Government. The Chippewas of Minnesota can not go on the lands unoccupied and hunt and fish out of season any more than I could.

Mr. ROACH. That same thing was true when the agreement was made. They simply agreed to put this open to settlement through the Government and permit the settler to go on there and take up lands and the title was in the Government, and when that was done the settler paid them, etc.

Mr. BURKE. And Congress May 17, 1900, said of such sales that they would give them free.

Mr. HUDSON. They did not say that they belonged to them until the settlers paid $1.25 an acre, under the 1900 act, to the Indians or the Government?

Mr. BURKE. The Government said "We will give the land to the settlers."

Mr. HUDSON. As between the settlers and the Indians it is entirely disposed of by the 1900 act.

Mr. KNUTSON. To pay the Chippewas for these lands or turn them back to them.

STATEMENT OF MR. JAMES I. COFFEY,

CHIPPEWA INDIANS

Mr. HUDSON. What is your position?

REPRESENTING

Mr. COFFEY. I am representative for four different bands of Chippewa Indians of Minnesota interested in this bill.

Mr. HASTINGS. You are a Chippewa Indian yourself?

Mr. COFFEY. Yes, I am a member of the tribe. The bill mentions this sum, $1,787,751.36, with interest thereon at the rate of 5 per cent per annum to December 31, 1922, and I understood the commissioner to say that the interest accrued from the time that the lands were taken over. Is that correct?

Mr. BURKE. No.

Mr. HASTINGS. From the time the lands were entered.

Mr. BURKE. From the time proof was made.

Mr. COFFEY. Then this statement does not represent the intent of the law?

Mr. BURKE. This report, Mr. Coffey, was made up to December 31, 1922, and it gives the amount that would have been due as of that date. Then the report provides rather than to figure out this interest all over again, for adding 5 per cent interest on the total from that date up to the passage of this bill.

Mr. HASTINGS. That is, up to the date of settlement.

Mr. COFFEY. It is supplemental to what you have already.

Mr. HASTINGS. In other words, there would be over a year's interest

at 5 per cent to continue until settlement.

Mr. BURKE. At compound interest.

Mr. ROACH. I would like to have a citation of the several acts. Mr. BURKE. The act of March 3, 1889, the act of May 17, 1900, referred to in the report by the department.

Mr. HASTINGS. There is a lengthy report made here and all those acts are referred to.

(Thereupon the subcommittee voted unanimously to report favorably H. R. 26 to the committee.)

Mr. HUDSON. H. R. 27, which has been referred to the subcommittee, reads as follows:

A BILL To compensate the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota for timber and interest in connection with the settlement for the Minnesota National Forest.

Be it enacted, etc., That there is hereby authorized to be appropriated, out of any funds in the Treasury of the United States not otherwise appropriated, the sum of $422,939.01, with interest thereon at the rate of 5 per centum per annum from February 1, 1923, to the date of settlement, said amount to be credited to the general fund of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, arising under the provisions of section 7 of the act of January 14, 1889.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
Washington, February 6, 1924.

Hon. HOMER P. SNYDER,

Chairman Committee on Indian Affairs,

House of Representatives.

MY DEAR MR. SNYDER: Further reference is made to your letter of January 3, 1924, with reference to H. R. 27, "A bill to compensate the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota for timber and interest in connection with the settlement for the Minnesota National Forest."

Under the act of May 23, 1908 (35 Stat. 268-269), a commission of three persons was appointed to appraise the property in the Minnesota National Forest Reserve, and this commission, on January 16, 1923, submitted their findings to the department, and the same were approved and afterwards, upon appeal, approved by the President of the United States. Said appraisement is as follows:

(a) Value of the 5 and 10 per cent of timber reserved from cutting1

(b) Value of timber on the 10 sections, islands, and points. (c) Value of the land included in the forest reserve1.

Total amount awarded.

$336, 684. 33

914, 830. 09

238, 681. 16

1, 490, 195. 58

The value of the timber on the 10 sections embraced in item (b) was appraised as of the date of the award, but the property involved in the other three items was appraised as of May 23, 1908, as this apparently was the purpose of the legislation with respect thereto.

At the time the act of May 23, 1908, was passed it was apparently contemplated that the said appraisal and award would be made within a short time, but for various reasons the appraisal was not finally approved by the department until January 31, 1923, so that the Indians have lost approximately 14 years' interest on those items, and the amount of this interest from January 31, 1909, is $402,755.84. Under the circumstances, and inasmuch as the delay was not due to any fault of the Indians, it is believed that such an amount should be allowed the Indians by way of further compensation.

Repeated efforts have been made by the General Land Office to dispose of the timber on 18 small tracts widely scattered throughout the forest reserve, but without success. The appraisal committee estimated that a total stand of 15,833 feet of white pine and 28,500 feet of Norway pine on these scattered tracts have a minimum valuation of $183.17, and it recommended an appropriation of that amount.

The appraisal committee also found that certain tracts of land within the said forest reserve had been wrongfully classified as agricultural land, and that they, as a matter of fact, contain sufficient quantities of merchantable timber to entitle them to be classified as pine lands. The timber of these tracts was excluded from sale, for the reason that the lands were classified as agricultural land, and a table furnished the committee by the superintendent of logging for the General Land Office on November 27, 1922, shows that the said tracts contain merchantable timber, as follows:

White pine

Norway pine...

Feet

900, 000 1, 214, 000

and that at the minimum value fixed by law this timber, at the time of appraisal, was worth $20,000, and the appraisal committee recommended an appropriation to cover this item.

These three items together make up the total amount of $422,939.01, included in H. R. 27. The department believes these several amounts are justly due the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota and recommends favorable consideration of the bill to your committee and to the Congress.

Very truly yours,

HUBERT WORK.

Mr. BURKE. The act of May 23, 1908, which has already been referred to, as I have stated, contemplated that an appraisement was to be made of the timber of the 10 sections, Pine Point and Star Island, and also the timber left standing on the cut-over land,

1 These draw interest at 5 per cent from 1908.

and it was undoubtedly contemplated at that time that that appraisement would be made within a reasonable time. I was rather of the opinion that the Indians now ought to be compensated as of the value in 1908 assuming that the appraisement would have been made about that time. The law only contemplated that there was pine on these lands and did not take into consideration certain hardwood and jack pine, etc. The Solicitor for the Department of Agriculture and the Solicitor for the Interior Department both rendered an opinion in 1922 holding that the timber on the 10 sections, Pine Point and Star Island, should be made as of the date when it was made, and therefore would take into consideration timber that had matured, timber that in 1908 may not have had any value, and that the appraisement should be, as I say, the full value as of date 1922, or whenever it was made, I think it was 1922, and so item b which fixes the value of the timber on the 10 sections, Pine Point and Star Island, at $914,830.09, gave to the Indians its full value and it went to their credit within a few months thereafter on the books of the Treasury and is now drawing 5 per cent interest. Consequently it can not be asserted, and no one can claim, that upon this amount there ought to be any interest allowed because they got the full value of timber in 1922. The item a, $336,684.33, and item c, which was the value of the land at $1.25 an acre and amounted to $238,681.16, they are entitled to interest on that because the price of the land was fixed arbitrarily and the appraisement of the 5 and 10 per cent timber left standing was of the value as of 1908, and, therefore, this bill provides for interest on these amounts and also a small sum of $187, which appears in the report, and $20,000 for land wrongly classified.

Now, as to what is incorporated in H. R. 27, we are committed, as the report shows, in its favor, and have recommended its enactment, but the commission-and I may say this was recommended by the commission, the commission in reporting, at least, if it was not the commission, it was a part of the commission, I am not clear about that made a recommendation that these Indians were entitled to be paid for jack pine and hardwood and timber that would advance in value and that they should be compensated on the same basis that the timber was paid for on the 10 sections, Pine Point and Star Island, which was of date when the appraisement was made in 1922, and so H. R. 28 has been introduced by the Congressman from Minnesota, Mr. Knutson, which proposes to pay another $1,000,000, plus, in addition to the amount carried in H. R. 27, and my opinion is that H. R. 27 should not be finally acted upon until you consider H. R. 28, and upon the claim as represented in H. R. 28 there should be very full hearings and opportunity for any of the Indians to be heard so that in disposing of the claim that is incorporated in H. R. 27 and H. R. 28 it can be disposed of in one bill and have it adjudicated, rather than to pass H. R. 27 and leave H. R. 28 for further consideration. That is a suggestion. I do not know how Mr. Knutson feels about it.

Mr. KNUTSON. I requested of the committee that H. R. 26, 27, and 28, and two other similar bills, be referred to this subcomittee. Has your bureau submitted a report on H. R. 28.

Mr. BURKE. No; it has not come up.