OPA

Assistant Secretary of the Interior Roger Ernst today announced the restoration of nearly 9,000 acres on two Indian reservations in South Dakota to tribal jurisdiction.

Thirteen tracts totaling over 3,000 acres of the restored land are on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. An additional 5,880 acres are on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation.

All the lands being restored were set aside as school or administrative sites by Secretarial orders approximately 50 years ago. Since they are no longer needed for these purposes, they are being made available for use by the tribal organizations and their members.

The restorations were requested by the Indian tribal councils on both reservations.

Completion of the final membership roll of the Ottawa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma, following the disposition of all appeals, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The preliminary membership roll, published in the Federal Register March 21, 1958, included 549 individuals. The net result of additions and subtractions made as a consequence of appeals to the Secretary of the Interior is a final roll of 630.

Under a 1956 Congressional law, Federal trusteeship of the Ottawa property is to be ended by next August 3.

Acting Secretary of the Interior Elmer F. Bennett today called attention to the results of the first sale of oil and gas leases held by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the basis of a fixed bonus of $500 per acre and competitive bidding on the royalty rates. The bids were opened at Window Rock, Arizona, July 28. The total bonus offered at $500 per acre was $1,245,500.

The land offered for lease comprises 3,291 acres in San Juan County, Utah, in the "four corners" area, and is the subject of litigation between the United States, as trustee for the Navajo Tribe, and the State of Utah. Bidders were warned in advance that the tracts were being offered "without any warranty or representation of good title and subject to acceptance by the duly authorized tribal representatives.”

Acceptable bids were received on 16 tracts totaling 2,491 acres. The highest per-acre royalty bid on one of the tracts was 77.19 percent. The average royalty bid per-acre was 48.3 percent and per-tract 46.99 percent.

Final action has not yet been taken on the bids received.

Acting Secretary of the Interior Elmer F. Bennett today announced the Department has submitted to Congress proposed legislation that would advance the date for Federal purchase of the 15,000-acre marsh on the Klamath Indian Reservation in Oregon.

Under existing law the marsh is scheduled to be purchased on April 1, 1961, and set aside as a National Wildlife Refuge. The Department's proposed legislation would provide for the purchase to take place on the earliest date after September 30, 1959, that duck stamp money is available to pay the purchase price.

The new date for the acquisition is being proposed so that the Government can pay immediately to the Indians the purchase price for land which the Government has already decided to buy, instead of lending them money to meet their current subsistence needs. The realization value of the Klamath Marsh, as established by a reappraisal completed last December is $474,841.

”The Indians who have elected to withdraw from the tribe," Acting Secretary Bennett pointed out, "will be without funds for subsistence until the purchase price from the sale of the marsh and the forest is available for distribution. These subsistence needs will, therefore, have to be met with loans from the Indian revolving loan fund. If the sale date for the marsh is changed as proposed, the need for additional loans from the revolving loan fund will be decreased. If the Federal Government is already committed to the purchase of the marsh, it seems unreasonable to make loans to the Indians rather than pay them the purchase price that is due. If the bill is enacted, funds will be available for the payment of the purchase price from the sale of stamps under the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act of March 16, 1934, as amended.”

The Department of the Interior has recommended the enactment of S. 2085, a bill authorizing the use of a judgment fund of approximately $1,860,000 awarded to the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache Indian Tribes of Oklahoma by the Indian Claims Commission, it was announced today.

The Department’s report, signed by Assistant Secretary Roger Ernst, says the basis for the judgment was an inadequate and unconscionable compensation for lands ceded to the United States by the Tribes under legislation enacted in 1900. In 1957 the Tribes were awarded a net judgment of $2,067,166. After deduction of attorney’s fees in the amount of $206,716.60, the balance of $1,860,449.40 was appropriated by Congress last May and is now on deposit in the U. S. Treasury bearing interest at four percent.

S. 2085 would make the money available for use as determined by the tribal governing body subject to approval of the Secretary of the Interior.

The population of the three tribes is estimated at around 8,000 including about 4,000 full-bloods.

The Department of the Interior has recommended changing the law under which adult Indians are being provided with vocational training at Federal expense to establish three priorities of eligibility among the Indian candidates, Assistant Secretary Roger Ernst announced today.

First priority would be given to Indians residing on trust or restricted lands r Federal lands under jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior.

Second priority would go to Indians who within the preceding three years have moved to urban communities from residences on or near Indian reservations under the Relocation Services Program of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Third priority would be given to Indians residing on or near reservations but not on trust, restricted, or Federal land.

The Department’s proposal for amending the 1956 Indian adult vocational training law is embodied in its report to Congress on S. 1565. In its present form the bill would require that the program be made available to Indians who live on or near an Indian reservation without regard to residence on trust property. The effect, Mr. Ernst pointed out, would be to nullify a Department regulation which now makes the program available “primarily” to Indians in the top priority category proposed. He recommended that the bill be enacted only if amended as proposed.

“We believe," Mr. Ernst wrote, "that there is general agreement that the Department's first responsibility is to provide special Federal services to Indians who reside on trust or restricted land. For many years appropriations have been justified and made on that basis. Both the Department and the Congress have consistently taken the position that the Federal Government1s responsibility for providing special services to Indians stems from the original concentration of the Indian population in reservation areas on tax exempt land. Indians who leave the reservation areas to settle in towns and cities throughout the country become parts of communities in which they settle and cease to be a special Federal responsibility. They take their places as citizens of the State where they live, entitled to participate in the normal State and Federal programs.

"It is also generally agreed that the Indian trust property will support only a fraction of the Indians who are now living there. The United States has a responsibility to help solve the excess population problem. The Vocational Training Program is a very effective tool for relieving the population pressure on the inadequate land base. From the standpoint of the most effective use of Federal appropriations, this group should have first priority.

"Second priority as long as funds are limited should go to Indians who have voluntarily relocated themselves in areas removed from the reservations under the Bureau's relocation services program. Experience has shown that some of these Indians lack employment skills that are needed for a successful adaption to employment conditions, and that timely vocational training assistance may prevent some o£ them from giving up and returning to the reservations…

“Third priority should go to the Indians who live on or near reservations, but not on trust land. Inasmuch as they are living on taxable land, and are a part of the States and county system to a greater degree than are the Indians who are living on trust land, they should have a lesser priority than the Indians in the other two categories."

Mr. Ernst also noted that S. 1565 would eliminate language in the 1956 law which now limits annual appropriations for the Indian Adult Vocational Training program to $3,500,000. This, he said, would be “a desirable change" and would make the amount of the annual appropriation subject to the normal budgetary process.

At the end of June there were 901 Indian men and women, principally between 18 and 35, receiving vocational training under auspices of the Indian Bureau program in more than 50 schools in 16 States. In addition, the Bureau had on hand over 700 applications for vocational training, or considerably more than it can handle with funds available for the program in the present fiscal year.

The Department of the Interior favors the enactment of legislation that would permit further leasing of lands on the Colorado River Indian Reservation in western Arizona and southeastern California, Assistant Secretary Roger Ernst announced today.

In a report to Congress on S. 2286, a bill to authorize such leasing, Mr. Ernst pointed out that the absence of leasing Authority is now "hampering the orderly development of the reservation." In addition, he said, many leases previously granted will be expiring soon and the lessees are unable to plan sound programs without assurance of renewal.

S. 2286 would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to lease the portions of the reservation not assigned to individual Indians and to approve leases of the assigned lands made by the holders of the assignments.

Special authority is necessary to authorize leasing of Colorado River Reservation lands, Mr. Ernst explained, because of the uncertainty as to beneficial ownership of the property. The Reservation was established by an 1865 law for the "Indians of said [Colorado] River and its tributaries." Whether the Indians now settled on the reservation are the exclusive owners is a question now in litigation.

Recognizing this uncertainty, Congress in 1955 passed a law authorizing the Secretary of the Interior, for a period of two years, to lease the unassigned lands. The authority expired August 14, 1957. The day before it expired, an Arizona corporation signed a 25-year lease on some 67,000 acres of the reservation. However, the lease was cancelled May 13, 1958, when the corporation failed to explain satisfactorily its failure to post a $5 million performance bond. The terms of the lease required the bond.

The reservation contains slightly over 100,000 acres of potentially irrigable land. Approximately one-third of this has so far been developed for irrigation through the use of Federal funds.

The Department of the Interior today announced .its support of H. R. 4786, a bill that would turn over to the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Tribe approximately 16 acres of land, together with a Government-owned cottage and warehouse office building, in Dewey County, South Dakota.

The land was bought by the United States from a private company in 1915 and was for many years used as the site for an Indian Bureau farm station. Its use for this purpose was discontinued in 1948.

The Government cottage and warehouse-office building were formerly used by the Indian Bureau tribal field aid, were built at a cost of $3,104, and are currently valued at $5,352.

In addition to these two Government buildings, there are on the land five tribally owned houses occupied by Indian welfare clients and two privately owned Indian homes.

The Department recommended amendment of the bill so that it conveys the title and does not require the execution of conveyancing instruments by the Department. No opinion was expressed on whether the property should be conveyed to the tribe in trust or unrestricted status, nor on whether the tribe should be given title to the privately owned homes.

The Department of the Interior favors legislation giving the White Mountain Apache Indian Tribe of Arizona beneficial ownership of 7,579 acres of Federal land on the Fort Apache Reservation, Assistant Secretary Roger Ernst announced today.

The acreage involved was originally set aside many years ago as the Fort Apache Military Post and has more recently been used as the site of an Indian Bureau school. The lands, exclusive of improvements, were appraised in 1958 at an estimated value of $141,000.

In a report on S. 2268, a bill to effect the transfer, Mr. Ernst pointed out that the Indians have been using most of the land that is not used for the Theodore Roosevelt Indian School. Under the bill's terms the land would be held in trust for the Tribe by the United States.

The Department recommended a technical amendment of the bill to provide explicitly that the Tribe's beneficial ownership of the property would be "subject to the right of the Secretary of the Interior to use any part of the lands and improvements for administrative or school purposes for as long as they are needed for those purposes."

The Department of the Interior today announced the retirement of one Indian Bureau agency superintendent and the transfer of two others in a related series of moves.

Retiring August 31 is Elbert J. Floyd, Superintendent of the Zuni Agency in New Mexico for the past five years. He will be replaced September 6 by Richard D. Butts, Superintendent at the Cherokee Agency in North Carolina since 1955. Mr. Butts, in turn, will be succeeded September 20 by Darrell Fleming, who for the past two years has headed the work at Uintah and Ouray Agency, Fort Duchesne, Utah. Anew superintendent for Uintah and Ouray has not yet been named.

Born at Hartsville, Missouri, in 1900, Mr. Floyd came with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1925 at the Consolidated Ute Agency in Colorado and served there for 17 years as laborer, farm leader, and agricultural extension agent. In 1942 he transferred to the Klamath Agency in Oregon as agricultural extension agent and remained in that position until he was appointed superintendent at Consolidated Ute in 1950. Four years later he transferred to the Zuni post.

Mr. Butts is a native of Harrington, Kansas, and a graduate of the Oklahoma A. and M. College. He joined the Bureau in 1948 as a soil conservationist at Colville Agency, Nespelem, Washington. Since that time he has served as superintendent of the Umatilla Agency in Oregon and the Red Lake Agency in Minnesota in addition to his more recent duties at Cherokee. Prior to 1948 he served for six years in the Army and attained the rank of Major.

Mr. Fleming was born of Cherokee Indian descent in 1911 at Bernice, Oklahoma, and attended the Haskell Indian Institute at Lawrence, Kansas. He carne with the Bureau in 1933 as a clerk at Crow Agency, Montana, and subsequently served in a variety of administrative positions with the Bureau. In 1954 he was named superintendent of the Fort Belknap Agency, Harlem, Montana, and served there three years before transferring to Uintah and Ouray. He was in the Navy for two years during World War II.