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of the Congressmen, a great many of the very conditions that it is now neces sary for you to adjust and compose were created by the legislation enacted at their instance.

Mr. ROACH. During those years since 1913 that you have been representing, or assuming to represent, the Chippewa Tribe, without a contract approved by the Interior Department, has there been any other attorney who has been selected by the general council who has had an approved contract with the department?

Mr. BALLINGER. No, sir.

Mr. ROACH. Has there been any special attorney with whom the department has been cooperating?

Mr. BALLINGER. No, sir.

Mr. ROACH. You have had no contract with the department, as I understand it?

Mr. BALLINGER. No approved contract.

Mr. ROACH. When did you attempt to secure the approval of any contract with the department? From your general statement you have been appearing before the department from time to time making suggestions, filing briefs, petitions, and memorials. Have they been cooperating with you and recognizing you as the counsel?

Mr. BALLINGER. As the attorney for the council; yes, sir; and committees of Congress and in the courts and everywhere that I have been I have been recognized as the attorney for the General Council of the Chippewas.

Mr. HAYDEN. In a committee of Congress did not you have some difficulty with one chairman of this committee at one time?

Mr. BALLINGER. I think I did.

Mr. HAYDEN. My recollection was that the chairman of the committee forbade you appearing before it any more?

Mr. BALLINGER. That was because of a personal difference.

Mr. HAYDEN. Was it in connection with the Chippewas?

Mr. BALLINGER. It was on account of a personal difference having no connection with the Chippewa matters.

Mr. HAYDEN. I merely mention that from the fact that I came here about that time and I was so informed by the committee that Mr. Ballinger was persona non grata before the committee. They decided they did not care to hear from you any more and, shortly after that, we had a matter up in the House and to it Mr. Knutson offered an amendment and a certain question of fact arose as to a Supreme Court decision, and Mr. Knutson stated on the floor of the House that the decision was a certain way and on the strength of that statement the House adopted an amendment to the bill, and it afterwards turned out it was not, and that Mr. Knutson had been advised by you as to that decision, misrepresenting the law and the facts to him.

Mr. BALLINGER. Mr. Congressman, the only representation I ever made to Mr. Knutson was in writing, and I have a copy. I do not think there is any question but what I have a copy of the memorandum that I gave him in writing, because in handling these Chippewa matters, particularly with reference to amendments to bills, I have uniformly reduced them to writing, with an explanation, and I think Congressman Knutson was mistaken. My statement to him was in exact conformity with the decision of the court.

Mr. HAYDEN. I know on the strength of that reference the House adopted the amendment and when it reached the Senate and they found the law and the facts were the other way the House promptly reversed itself when the bill came back.

The CHAIRMAN. We will have a statement from Mr. Meritt at this time with regard to Mr. Ballinger's status now and his status down to this year, from 1913 down to this date.

Mr. HAYDEN. I think that would be very valuable.

Mr. MERITT. I had not intended to say anything in connection with this matter and we were satisfied to simply bring to the attention of the committee the report we have submitted on Mr. Ballinger's bill, which report is dated January 7, 1922, and signed by Acting Secretary Finney. We have submitted previous reports on similar bills and those reports have been adverse. I think a short statement of the general conditions in the Chippewa country might be enlightening to the committee. A number of the members of the committee know that situation, but for the benefit of the newer members of the committee I will say that we have about 11,000 Chippewa Indians in Minnesota on six

reservations. We have, unfortunately, two factions among the Chippewa Indians, one claiming to be the full-blood faction and the other the mixed-blood faction. Whatever one faction wants the other faction is against. We have had considerable difficulty in the Chippewa country in recent years. We have tried our best to iron out those difficulties and two or three years ago we went so far as to say to the different factions that we wanted them to get together in a meeting and whichever faction won out at that meeting and had a majority of the votes we would recognize. Such a meeting was held among the Chippewas and differences arose at that meeting and the full-blood faction left the meeting. We recognized the mixed-blood faction, which has been represented here in recent years by this General Council of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota. We have never recognized Mr. Ballinger as the attorney for the Chippewa Tribe of Indians. We have always given Mr. Ballinger a hearing in the Indian Office and when he has brought matters to the attention of the office we have endeavored to give them consideration. I think Mr. Ballinger will agree that whenever any matter has been brought to the attention of the office that seemed to be irregular we have had the matter investigated, and where there were irregularities we have endeavored to straighten them out.

Mr. HAYDEN. You did that for him as for any other citizen who brought some information to you?

Mr. MERITT. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALLINGER. You knew all the time that I was appearing there, that I was appearing as an attorney for the Chippewas.

Mr. MERITT. We knew that you were claiming to represent the General Council of the Chippewa Indians but the office never recognized you as the tribal attorney for the Chippewa Indians.

The CHAIRMAN. You knew, of course, that the council, as it existed, desired to have him recognized as their counsel?

Mr. MERITT. We knew that the council desired to have Mr. Ballinger as their attorney, although we have never approved a contract with Mr. Ballinger as the attorney for either the General Council of the Chippewa Indians or as the attorney for the Chippewa Tribe.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you confirm his statement that there never was a contract presented by him?

Mr. MERITT. Mr. Ballinger has submitted a contract as tribal attorney, calling for a salary of $6,000 a year and expenses, and that contract was recently disapproved. That contract was submitted under this administration.

Mr. COLE. Have you ever approved a contract with any attorney for this tribe?

Mr. MERITT. No, sir; no general attorney. We have approved a contract for an attorney for the Red Lake Band of Indians. The law on the statute books is plain in regard to tribal attorneys, sections 2103 to 2106 of the Revised Statutes requiring that contracts shall be submitted in a certain way and that they shall be approved by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and the Secretary of the Interior before the attorneys have any rights whatever.

Mr. ROACH. Do those special contracts with attorneys, of which you spoke as having to approve, govern any litigation in matters which have been mentioned here by Mr. Ballinger?

Mr. MERITT. No, sir; we approved the contract with Mr. Henderson of this city as the attorney for the Red Lake Indians after the representatives of the General Council of the Chippewa Indians had attacked title to certain lands claimed by the Red Lake Indians, and they desired to have Mr. Henderson as their attorney to offset the activities of Mr. Ballinger and representatives of the general council.

Mr. BURTNESS. Before you leave the matter of disapproving of Mr. Ballinger's contract-the recent action-was that a contract covering any time prior to July 1, 1921?

Mr. MERITT. No, sir.

Mr. MCCORMICK. You heard Mr. Ballinger's statement about the improvement that had been made in the school system and certain reimbursements made in regard to timber, and also the matters occurring to Indian bondholders in their Liberty bonds and other incidental matters; would you state that these benefits have been conferred upon the Indians as a tribe or as individuals, mainly through the efforts of Mr. Ballinger?

Mr. MERITT. I want to be absolutely frank with the committee and just as kind to Mr. Ballinger as I can consistently. Mr. Ballinger has an unfortunate

way in presenting his case to the committee of not intentionally misrepresenting the facts in the case, but he does emphasize the importance and benefit of his work, at the same time painting as black as he possibly can the work of the Indian Bureau. I am not stating this behind Mr. Ballinger's back, because I have spoken to him outside of the committee room about that attitude of his. I think that the services of the Chippewa council and Mr. Ballinger have been helpful in a general way in the Chippewa situation in the administration of Indian affairs, and we have improved conditions up there as a result of matters brought to our attention. On the other hand, I must say frankly that some of the activities of the General Council of the Chippewa Indians and some of the activities of Mr. Ballinger have tended to stir up strife among the Chippewa Indians, and it has accentuated the differences there. The Red Lake Indians are bitterly opposed to the White Earth Indians and to the claims of Mr. Ballinger as the general counsel of the Chippewa Indians. The full-blood Indians of the Chippewa country are bitterly opposed to any recognition of Mr. Ballinger or the general council. We have in this city at this time a man by the name of Mr. Coffey, who claims to represent the full-blood element of the Chippewa Indians. In fact, he has claimed before this committee that he represented 90 per cent of the Chippewa Indians I think his statement is a great exaggeration, but he has a bill coming before this committee wherein he is claiming compensation and wants to be reimbursed out of the Chippewa funds. We have submitted an adverse report on Mr. Coffey's claim, and we know that if we recognize Mr. Ballinger's claim immedately we will have the claim of Mr. Coffey coming in, and he will insist on his bill being paid.

Mr. HAYDEN. Would not that be true of other tribes? The Osages have complained to us from time to time that they have millions of dollars of property and oil deposits and that they ought to have an attorney selected by their tribe acting independently of the Indian Bureau. The Indian Bureau has not for some time been able to agree with them about having an attorney. I do not know whether they have recently or not. But if this Indian council in Minnesota could have it, the Osages or other Indian tribes having a dispute with the department could come around to Congress and ask that they pay out of their funds for a lawyer likewise.

The CHAIRMAN. You recall that the bureau has been willing that the Osages should have counsel but not willing that the Osages should select their own counsel?

Mr. HAYDEN. Exactly, that is the situation.

The CHAIRMAN. But here is a case where the counsel went ahead on his own account after the bureau had decided to bring the elements together and insisted that the majority should rule.

Mr. HAYDEN. That was in 1918. This bill of Mr. Ballinger is submitted and runs from 1913.

The CHAIRMAN. He is simply trying to recover for his services during that period. This has been an active proposition before this committee since 1915, to my certain knowledge, and Ballinger's interest in the council and the division among the elements out there continued until finally, as the commissioner said, they were brought together and formed a body to represent that tribe, and a council was created from that convention, or whatever it was.

Mr. HAYDEN. The Osage council has existed in the same manner and had the same general line of difficulty with the department. They disagreed about. how their property should be administered from time to time, and agreed on the name of an attorney and sent his name here to the department, but the department has not approved it.

The CHAIRMAN. That is exactly what I brought out here.

Mr. MERITT. There were two factions in the Osage country, one mixed-blood faction and one full-blood faction, the same fight we have on practically all these reservations. Each wanted to control the attorney and finally the full blood faction was successful in electing the majority of the members of the council, and they finally selected a reputable attorney and that attorney's contract was approved. That contract has been in force about two years.

Mr. BURTNESS. In the case of the Chippewa Indians, was this difficulty between the two factions out there apparent until the last two or three years? Mr. MERITT. There have been factions among the Chippewas for the last 15 years to my knowledge.

Mr. HAYDEN. The division was among the full bloods and half bloods? Mr. MERITT. The full bloods have been against the mixed bloods and the mixed bloods have been against the full bloods.

Mr. BURTNESS. When was the first. voting convention on the reservation? When did the full bloods first vote at the annual meeting this last summer, 1921?

Mr. MERITT. About four years ago.

Mr. BURTNESS. Has it happened more than once?

Mr. MERITT. Yes, sir.

Mr. BURTNESS. Do you know how many times?

Mr. MERITT. I think they have had two meetings where they have had votes, and then they have had voting at. separate meetings at various times.

Mr. HAYDEN. I wish you would answer the question asked at the other end of the table about the value of Mr. Ballinger's services, about schools, hospitals, and tribal funds, which you started to answer when I diverted you.

Mr. MERITT. Mr. Ballinger has taken the right. attitude on a number of matters, and I think he has taken the wrong attitude on a number of questions coming up. For instance, he and the general council caused a material reduction in the appropriation for administrative expenses in the Chippewa country. As a result of that reduced appropriation we were compelled to close one of our best boarding schools in the Chippewa country and also two of our hospitals. The White Earth Boarding School, which is a splendid plant, was closed as the result of reduced appropriations. The hospital on the White Earth Reservation was closed, and the Fond du Lac hospital was closed.

Mr. HAYDEN. The beneficiaries of the schools and hospitals were mainly full-blood Indians and their children?

Mr. MERITT. Yes, sir; and we have had protests since those hospitals were closed and since the schools were closed about the closing of those institutions. There is now quite an activity to get those hospitals reopened and there has also been considerable correspondence about the opening of the boarding school at White Earth.

Mr. HAYDEN. The motive of the mixed blood was that if the children did not go to the Indian school and their families did not need the Indian hospital that the money that was not expended for schools and hospitals would be available for distribution to him?

Mr. MERITT. That is one of the motives.

The CHAIRMAN. I suggest that Mr. Meritt be allowed to proceed in his own way.

Mr. MERITT. It is no new proposition to get Indian children into the public schools. Mr. Ballinger has emphasized that point. We are doing that all over the country. It has been the policy of the Indian Bureau and of this committee and of Congress to get Indian children into the public schools and we are pursuing that same policy in the Chippewa country. So far as the hospitals are concerned, we have supplied three good hospitals for the Chippewa Indians and as one of the results of the activities of the general council we have been compelled to close two of those hospitals and now we are criticized because of the health conditions among these Indians. Mr. Ballinger claims that trachoma and tubercular cases were not admitted to those hospitals. We took that matter up with the superintendent recently and the superintendent denies the statement of Mr. Ballinger on that proposition.

As to the swamp-lands claim, Mr. Ballinger represented that the Indian Bureau had taken no action in that. I want to bring to the attention of the committee a letter dated as far back as December 7, 1905, where the Indian Office took a strong position on this matter and we have always contended that the Indians were entitled to certain swamp lands in Minnesota, and for the information of the committee I would like to include two of these letters in the record, one dated December 7, 1905, and the other dated July 20, 1907. The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection, they will be inserted. (The letters referred to are as follows):

The SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR:

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS,
December 7, 1905.

SIR: The matter of the selection of swamp lands by the State of Minnesota within the reservations under the jurisdiction of the Leech Lake Agency has been the subject of considerable correspondence between this office and the department, especial reference being made to letters of January 27, 1904, and April 5, 1905. In this correspondence the office did not raise the question of the correctness of the decisions in 27 L. D., 418, and 32 L. D., 328, but, based

upon the statements of Acting Agent Scott, took the position that the field notes were wholly unreliable, and that an examination should be made in the field for the purpose of ascertaining what lands are in fact “ Swamp lands within the meaning of the act of September 28, 1850 (9 Stats., 519), the provisions of which were extended to the States of Minnesota and Oregon by the second section of the act of March 12, 1860 (12 Stats., 3).

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The State of Minnesota has filed in this department lists of swamp land selections under the act of March 12. 1860, to the amount of 17,000 acres within the Indian reservation created by the treaties of May 7, 1864 (13 Stats., 693), and March 19, 1867 (16 Stats., 719), or reserved by the Executive orders of November 4, 1873, and May 26, 1874. The State also filed other lists of swamp land, aggregating more than 143,000 acres, which were returned by the General Land Office for correction, and which have not been refiled. It is quite certain, however, that the lists will be modified and refiled. They include a large quantity of land selected by the Forest Service from which to make its ultimate selection of 200,000 acres provided for by the act of May 27, 1902 (32 Stats., 400). The lands contain many million feet of pine timber which the Indians will lose if the State succeeds in its claims. The large quantity of land involved and the fact that the Government has no redress in case of erroneous action by the department, in my judgment, constitute a warrant for a most careful and thorough reconsideration of the matter.

In the act of Congress of March 12, 1860, a present grant is the chief question involved.

The act of September 28, 1850 (9 Stats., 519), the provisions of which were extended to the States of Minnesota and Oregon by the second section of the act of 1860, has been decided in Wright v. Roseberry (121 U. S., 488) to be a present grant. If the words "hereby granted" and hereby extended" of the first section of the act are not modified by any subsequent words of the statute, they would certainly carry the title as of the date of tha act and make the grant a present one.

To avoid the conditions which campelled the enactment of the act of March 2, 1855 (10 Stats., 634), a proviso was added to the first section of the act of 1860. This proviso is inconsistent with a present grant, as under it a reservation, sale, or disposal of the land which will defeat the grant can be made at any time before the approval of the swamp selection; provided only it is made under a law enacted prior to the swamp act. If the title were conveyed by the act as of its date, it could not be so defeated. We can not suppose a present grant liable to such defeat by the action of a third party.

The act of 1850 provided for selection by the Secretary of the Interior, and it was eminently proper that his failure to act should not be held to work a forfeiture of the State's grant, for the State has no control over him. But the act of 1860, on the other hand, recognized in its second section the right of the State to make its own selection. This is explicitly stated in Wright v. Roseberry. It not only does this, but it places a limitation of time in which the selections" shall be made" why this shall except to prescribe a limitation.

The proviso of the first section was designed for the protection of intervening rights under prior statutes, and the second section for the protection of subsequent claimants. Without these limitations the conditions that gave rise to the act of 1855 and the act of March 3, 1857 (11 Stats., 257), would be repeated, and no claimant to land in the swamp-land States would be safe from claims on the part of the State, and settlement and entry of the public land would be discouraged. It is perfectly just that the State should suffer for the inaction or neglect of its officers. The whole statute should be considered to determine its intentions. See Com. Kent Com. 462; Rice v. Minn. and Co. (188 U. S., 108); Nev. Railroad Co. (66 U. S., 1 Black 358); Nelson v. N. P. Ry. The act confers a general public benefit, and any doubt should be taken most strongly against the grantee. (Mills v. St. Clair Co., 8 How., 581).

Nullification is the "natural and usual consequences of disobedience" of the legislative direction. See Endlich on Interpretation of Statutes, page 612, section 433. The rule which operates with disfavor upon provisions of forfeiture admits of compensation and restoration, and should not be applied in the case of a public gift, as the swamp land act, where the compensation can not be made to the settlers, Indians, and others locating upon and seeking the public lands after the lapse of time fixed by the statute for selection. (See Farnsworth v. Minn. & Pac. R. R. Co., 92 U. S., 49.)

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