want to make the investment until she found out whether or not these Indians could sell. She said she heard about restrictions of alienation. So this lawyer wrote to the Superintendent of the Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma and said:

I am a Missouri lawyer, and I do not know anything about Oklahoma conditions, and I would like to know if my client could purchase this 80-acre tract of the Bushyhead people and whether nor not there are any prohibitions about heirship sale.

The superintendent of the Five Civilized Tribes, in conformity with the recommended practice, with which Mr. Flanery is perfectly well acquainted, wrote back a letter to this lawyer in Missouri and

said:

These lands are unrestricted, and these people are perfectly at liflerty to sell. You do not have to have departmental approval.

Now notwithstanding that attitude on the part of the Department of the Interior, and notwithstanding that Federal construction that the Department itself had promulgated, the Department of Justice made the contention, in the Williams case and in another case, that the land descended restricted to the heirs and, therefore, the heirs could not sell without approval of the county court or the Secretary of the Interior. That is what is sought to be cured here, and I think the Department is in agreement. Those are the facts.

Senator GORE. Mrs. Williams lost her money, and whatever you do you will not help her.

Mr. WHITE. Did it go to the Supreme Court?

Mr. SEMPLE. Yes, sir; and the Supreme Court denied certiorari, but the mere fact that they denied certiorari does not mean that they are passing on the case. All it means is that they have denied review. Mr. WHITE. In both these cases?

Mr. SEMPLE. No. In the Hellard case they gave the opinion which reversed the circuit court of appeals. Now the circuit court of appeals had its own decisions on this very identical question for a period of 5 years, and they stood until the Supreme Court of the United States upset them. So the Williams opinion by the circuit court of appeals itself upsets titles to quite a few tracts of land, and the Supreme Court of the United States simply denied certiorari, which left the circuit court of appeals opinion to become final.

I do not think there is any need of any further statement. Maybe Mr. Flanery wants to say something further.

Mr. WHITE. What is sought to be done by this bill?

Mr. SEMPLE. Just simply to say that titles that come under the scope of this decision are nevertheless valid, as far as the question of approval is concerned. Otherwise, if there are inequities or frauds, they are still open for litigation.

Mr. SCHWABE. Lands acquired with funds and not their own allotments.

Mr. SEMPLE. That is right. An Indian gets 160 acres. Now, lots of Indians have large revenues, and some of them may have as much as $1,000,000 in revenue; and so the Secretary of the Interior wants to buy 40 acres or the adjoining 160 acres, or maybe a thousand acres, and he goes and buys it. Now, that is not the allotment or the original program of allotments, and that is all these acts of Congress are related

It never did relate to the purchased land, but this decision said

it related to the purchased lands, in that Judge Phillips said that the land into which the money went would also have the same status as to restrictions as the original allotment itself.

Mr. WHITE. Has the Department reported on this bill?

Mr. STIGLER. Yes.

Mr. WHITE. Is the Department favorable to its passage?
Mr. SEMPLE. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCHWABE. With a suggested amendment which we agreed to.
Mr. FLANERY. Our amendment was agreeable?

Mr. STIGLER. Your amendment is agreeable to the committee. Mr. FLANERY. I do not think I can add anything to the Department's report, Mr. Chairman, other than to point out that our records indicate there are about 315 of these conveyances made after 1931.

Mr. SEMPLE. That is right. I think we estimated, the best we could, that there were 400, or about that number; but, assuming your figures to be correct, there would be that number of titles involved. Of course, 315 tracts is quite a lot of land, as there may be 500 acres in 1 tract as well as 40 acres.

I might say that in the practical operation of these statutes the Congress passes a statute, the Interior Department recommends them and works with them administratively, but when you get in the courts it is the Department of Justice that handles them.

Mr. FLANERY. You understand, of course, that the United States did not start these suits. They were started by the claimants to title. The holder of title, a non-Indian-he brought the suit and served notice on the Government under the 1926 act.

Mr. DISNEY. And everybody got in.

Mr. FLANERY. And then the United States intervened, of course. Mr. DISNEY. Mr. Chairman, should not the report of the Department be in the record?

Mr. STIGLER. Yes; that is a very good suggestion.

Without objection, the report of the Department on H. R. 1199 and H. R. 1197 will appear in the record at this point.

(The Department of the Interior statement on H. R. 1199 and H. R. 1197 is as follows:)

Hon. HENRY M. JACKSON,

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
Washington, March 1, 1945.

Chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs,

House of Representatives.

MY DEAR MR. JACKSON: Reference is made to the request for a report on H. R. 1197, a bill to validate titles to certain lands conveyed by Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes, and on H. R. 1199, a bill to amend the act of January 27, 1933 (47 Stat. 777). A request has also been received from the chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on S. 54 (H. R. 1197), a bill to validate titles to certain lands conveyed by Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes.

While I do not object to the results sought by these bills, I favor the enactment of the substitute legislation in the form hereinafter suggested.

The provisions of S. 54 are, with one minor exception, identical with the provisions of the two House bills. Section 1 of S. 54 and H. R. 1197 would, if enacted, overcome the effect of the decision of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in United States v. Williams (139 F. (2d) 83, certiorari denied, 322 U. S. 727, rehearing denied, 322 U. S. 770).

The Williams case presented the question of title to land which had been purchased with restricted moneys of a full-blood Cherokee Indian and conveyed to him by deed prohibiting alienation without the approval of the Secretary of the Interior at any time prior to April 26, 1931. The Indian grantee conveyed the land without secretarial approval in the year 1934. The court held that the

restrictions otherwise expiring on April 26, 1931, were extended until 1956 by the act of May 10, 1928 (45 Stat. 495). Lacking the required approval, the deed by which the Indian attempted to convey the land was ineffective. The decision invalidates, of course, all titles conveyed under like circumstances subsequent to April 26, 1931. All such titles acquired prior to the date of enactment of H. R. 1197 would by the passage of that bill be made good, and the lack of secretarial approval would be immaterial. Conveyances made after the date of the enactment would, however, require the approval of the Secretary of the Interior to be valid.

This Department has heretofore taken the position that legislation such as contained in section 1 of S. 54 and H. R. 1197 was not necessary, for the reason that all titles acquired during the period in question could be validated by the simple expedient of submitting the deeds of conveyance to the Secretary of the Interior for approval. We have expressed willingness to approve such conveyances where the transaction was entered into in good faith and unattended by fraud, duress, or other vitiating circumstances. Inasmuch, however, as purchasers were undoubtedly misled by the recitation in the original deeds that the restrictions against alienation would terminate on April 26, 1931, and by advice from the officials of the Five Civilized Tribes Agency that the restrictions would terminate upon that date and that conveyances thereafter would not require secretarial approval to be valid, this Department is not disposed to object to the enactment of legislation that would validate titles so acquired in all cases where nonapproval is the only objection to the conveyance. Such, as we understand it, is the scope of section 1 of S. 54 and H. R. 1197.

With one minor exception, section 2 of S. 54 is identical with the provisions of H. R. 1199. These measures would add to the act of January 27, 1933 (47 Stat. 777), three sections-sections 9, 10, and 11. This Department has no objection to the results contemplated by the addition of sections 9 and 11 to the act of 1933, namely, that certain language in section 8 of the act of January 27, 1933 (47 Stat. 777), shall not be regarded as imposing restrictions against alienation on lands inherited by full-blood Indian heirs where the lands were unrestricted in the hands of the person from whom the heir inherited. Such legislation, if enacted, would remove the necessity of county-court approval regarded as a legal requirement by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in the case of Murray v. Ned (135 F. (2d) 407, certiorari denied, 320 U. S. 781).

The addition of section 10 to the act of 1933 would accomplish no useful purpose. That section, as set forth in H. R. 1199, would declare to be unrestricted lands purchased with restricted funds after the date of enactment in all cases in which the deed of conveyance failed to show upon its face that the purchase was made with restricted funds. The section, as incorporated in S. 54, would accomplish a like result unless the deed "contains express restrictions against alienation or shows upon its face that such purchase was made with restricted funds." All deeds conveying lands purchased for individual Indians with restricted funds now include this information or show that the lands are being conveyed to the United States in trust for the individual Indian owner under the act of June 26, 1936 (49 Stat. 1967). Where the deed itself contains express restrictions against alienation or a recitation that the title is held in trust by the United States for the individual Indian, this is sufficient to put all persons dealing with the title on notice of the fact that the lands are not subject to alienation without the required approval.

S. 54 and H. R. 1197 and H. R. 1199 are not, in the opinion of the Department, appropriately worded to accomplish the desired result. It is also our judgment that the desired results may better be accomplished by the enactment of a single measure. It is accordingly suggested that the following be adopted

as a substitute for H. R. 1197 and H. R. 1199:

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That no conveyance made by an Indian of the Five Civilized Tribes on or after April 26, 1931, and prior to the date of enactment of this Act, of lands purchased, prior to April 26, 1931, and for the use and benefit of such Indian with funds derived from the sale of, or as income from, restricted allotted lands and conveyed to him by deed containing restrictions on alienation without the consent and approval of the Secretary of the Interior prior to April 26, 1931, shall be invalid because such conveyance was made without the consent and approval of the Secretary of the Interior: Provided, That all conveyances made after the date of the enactment of this Act must have the consent and approval of the Secretary of the Interior.

"SEC. 2. That nothing contained in the act of January 27, 1933 (47 Stat. 777), shall be construed to impose restrictions on the alienation of lands or interests

in lands acquired by inheritance, devise, or in any other manner, by Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes, where such lands, or interests therein, were not restricted against alienation at the time of acquisition, and all conveyances executed by Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes after January 27, 1933, and before the date of approval of this section, of lands, or interests in lands, which, at the time of acquisition by them, were free of restrictions, are hereby confirmed and declared to be valid, irrespective of whether such conveyances were or were not approved by the Secretary of the Interior, or by any county court of the State of Oklahoma: Provided, That if any such conveyances are subject to attack upon grounds other than the insufficiency of approval or lack of approval, such conveyances shall not be affected by this section: Provided further, That the provisions of this section shall not be construed to validate or confirm any conveyance made in violation of restrictions recited in any deed to lands purchased with the restricted or trust funds belonging to any Indian of the Five Civilized Tribes."

Since your committee has set H. R. 1197 and H. R. 1199 for hearings commencing Thursday, March 1, this report has not been submitted to the Bureau of the Budget; and therefore no commitment can be made concerning its relationship to the program of the President.

Sincerely yours,

ABE FORTAS, Acting Secretary of the Interior.

Mr. WHITE. Mr. Chairman, what will our procedure be in regard to this legislation? Will we consider one bill at a time or pass on them en bloc?

Mr. STIGLER. It is my idea, Congressman White, after we have had the hearings on these three bills, that if possible we go ahead and reintroduce one bill and report it out.

Mr. WHITE. Mr. Chairman, I note that most of the testimony presented here is in favor of this legislation and has been offered by lawyers. I notice we have a great many other witnesses present and I am just wondering if there is anybody who wants to say anything before we dispose of these bills. If any such person is present, I think they should be heard now.

Mr. STIGLER. We would be glad to hear them.

Mr. WHITE. I do not know just what the status is, whether there is any opposition to this legislation. We have heard from the lawyers. I want to know about the other witnesses.

Mr. MURDOCK. Do I understand there is a substitute bill for H. R. 1197 and H. R. 1199 that has met with approval?

Mr. STIGLER. Yes, sir.

Mr. MUDROCK. That does not include H. R. 1200?

Mr. ROBERTSON. No, sir; it is a clarifying amendment to H. R. 1200. Mr. STIGLER. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROBERTSON. I am hoping we can get the Department to agree to incorporate all these three bills in one. They have offered a substitute bill for H. R. 1197 and H. R. 1199 which is perfectly agreeable. Mr. WHITE. And they might embody all three provisions in one bill. Mr. STIGLER. Yes, sir.

We will now hear from Governor Maytubby of the Chickasaw Nation.

STATEMENT OF GOVERNOR FLOYD E. MAYTUBBY, CHICKASAW NATION

Governor MAYTUBBY. I am not an attorney and I do not represent any large firm, but in listening to the testimony with respect to this bill I am only interested from the standpoint of seeing to it that the Chickasaw Indians are protected.

Not being an attorney, I may not have been able to get a clear interpretation of this bill; but, as I understand from the testimony presented here today and yesterday, an amendment will be added that will protect the Indian against fraud.

I do not know that the element of time can be figured out as to fraud because where there is oil development, and, of course, at the present time Oklahoma is developing a lot of new oil fields-but prior to the present time if a lease was obtained by an oil company, sometimes it took 10 or 15 years before any development would be made. Now that was not because they were waiting for time to elapse but because the oil companies did not need the oil and they had to wait until the production was needed.

Now, of course, there are a lot of Indian lands involved in this litigation, and I believe that those titles should be cleared up in some manner, providing that the people that I represent are protected.

I would not like to see a bill enacted that would disregard in any way the interests of the Indians, and I am satisfied that you gentlemen in considering this bill here would see to it that there would be no opportunity for fraud where the Indians are concerned.

Mr. STIGLER. Governor Maytubby, I may say this: In the substitute bill which the Department suggested there were two provisos which I will read at this time. The first proviso provides:

That if any such conveyances are subject to attack upon grounds other than insufficiency of approval or lack of approval, such conveyances shall not be affected by this section.

The second proviso says this:

Provided, further, That the provisions of this section shall not be construed to validate or confirm any conveyance made in violation of restrictions recited in any deed to lands purchased with the restricted or trust funds belonging to any Indian of the Five Civilized Tribes.

In my judgment that amply protects the Indians and whites and there would be no objection, as far as I am concerned, to include them in the bill.

Governor MAYTUBBY. I did understand that some amendment was to be inserted in the bill to protect the Indians.

Mr. SEMPLE. You have no general objection to the limitations if those saving clauses are put in the bill?

Governor MAYTUBBY. That is right. I would like to see to it that those clauses are inserted, and they would protect the Indian.

Mr. STIGLER. And with that you would have no objection to the bill?

Governor MAYTUBBY. No, sir.

Mr. FLANERY. Mr. Chairman, may I make this suggestion?
Mr. STIGLER. Yes.

Mr. FLANERY. The Department is suggesting in section 1 a way to meet the situation brought about by the decision in the Williams case. Mr. STIGLER. Yes, sir.

Mr. FLANERY. We simply adopted the language of H. R. 1197.
Mr. STIGLER. That is right.

Mr. FLANERY. It makes no attempt to validate any conveyance where it is subject to attack for any other reason involved.

Mr. STIGLER. That is right.

Mr. FLANERY. And section 2 contains the proviso you just read which deals with the situation that we have discussed here.