Mr. BURTON. The legislation would grant authority to the Federal District Court in Guam to make these decisions.

Mr. RUPPE. Is that just an appointed position?

Mr. SAYLOR. Yes, Federal judges are, of course, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate.

Mr. RUPPE. I just wanted to be sure that there was not any change in procedure.

Mr. BURTON. The gentleman from New Mexico.

Mr. LUJAN. Are you through?

Mr. RUPPE. No, I would like to ask one more question of the staff. Chairman Aspinall mentioned the Indian claims that are going through renegotiation at this time. I would like to ask the staff, if I might, what range of time do these Indian claims address themselves to, what range of time were the Indian lands acquired, and is there very strong reason to believe that they were acquired by a different type of arrangement than through negotiated sale or condemnation proceedings?

Mr. SIGLER. If I may answer, Mr. Chairman, the claims of the Indians are based upon the action of the Federal Government in taking lands that were then owned by the Indians. That taking in the early days was by treaty. A treaty is comparable to a negotiated sale, if you think the Indians were able to negotiate for themselves. But they signed a treaty conveying certain lands to the United States. And the United States agreed to pay. The present claims are based upon the failure to pay adequate consideration, or fair consideration.

Mr. RUPPE. On the assumption that the negotiation was not a good faith negotiation, or at least a negotiation that the Indian community fully understood?

Mr. SIGLER. That is correct. But the statutory provision is, we failed to make a fair and just payment to the Indians.

Now, the time factor, it goes clear back to the gaining of our country. We started making treaties in the late 1790's. And some of the land transactions are in more recent times, in the early 1900's, some of them. But most of them were during the 1800's.

Mr. RUPPE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. The gentleman from New Mexico, Mr. Lujan.

Mr. LUJAN. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Who were the appraisals of the property purchased made by?
Mr. FRANK. Staff appraisals.

Mr. LUJAN. By the Department of Defense?

Mr. FRANK. Yes.

Mr. LUJAN. Mr. Chairman, I do not think we have asked for copies of those appraisals. That is the only way we will be able to determine if in fact a just price was paid.

Are those still available?

Mr. FRANK. I do not know.

Mr. LUJAN. If there is no objection, Mr. Chairman, I would ask, if those appraisals are still available, that they be included among the information to be given to us.

Mr. BURTON. That is a good point.

And Mr. Frank, to the extent you can find them, we would like to have the appraisals that provided presumably the basis upon which negotiations or condemnations were promulgated.

The gentleman from Puerto Rico.

Mr. CORDOVA. As I read the bill, it grants the District Court of Guam jurisdiction to entertain claims, and does not grant any Guamanian any right he does not now have. Do you read it differently? Do you understand that it grants Guamanians rights other than the right to resort to court and file a claim, substantive rights in real estate which they do not now have?

Mr. FRANK. I do not quite understand the question.

Mr. CÓRDOVA. For example, you have spoken of the difficulty of getting witnesses to reopen the issues of appraisals which were already adjudicated, perhaps, in condemnation proceedings. As I understand it, no such right is given any Guamanian, the right to upset judgments obtained by the United States in condemnation proceedings. Do you understand that this upsets existing judgments resting title in the United States in condemnation proceedings?

Mr. FRANK. No, title would still be vested in the United States. But as I understand the bill, the issue would be whether a Guamanian owner was paid full value as of the time the property was acquired. Mr. CORDOVA. Do you understand that the court would have jurisdiction to retry the issue which was already decided once as to what was just compensation?

Mr. FRANK. Yes, I think that would be the effect of the bill.

Mr. CORDOVA. I differ with you on that. Certainly, I did not understand that that was so.

Mr. FRANK. As I read the bill, any owner whose property has been acquired, all that he has to do to get before the court is to allege simply that he was not paid fair value.

Mr. CORDOVA. That is all anybody has to do to get before any court, allege a cause of action. But he has still got to allege a cause of action. Is that not right? Or do you think this bill gives them the rightthis bill says you got less than you were entitled to, therefore, you are

entitled to some more?

Mr. FRANK. That is the way I read it.

Mr. CORDOVA. Do you think that this bill says that every man who sold land to the United States or whose land was condemned, this bill gives them the right to get more money?

Mr. FRANK. Yes, that is the way I read the bill.

Mr. CORDOVA. A substantive right to get more money? I just cannot understand it that way.

Mr. FRANK. Well, it reopens the case. The case would necessarily have to be reopened. Once the allegation is made attacking the judg ment, then there has to be a determination whether the owner was paid

fair value at the time.

Mr. CÓRDOVA. No further questions.

Mr. FRANK. In fact, if the purpose of the bill is not to entitle a former owner to additional compensation, if the court determines he was not paid full value, then I do not see what purpose the bill serves.

Mr. BURTON. Well, Mr. Frank, I think what we will do at this time is ask if you will stand by, and meanwhile we will have Mr. Won Pat come forward, and give us, if you will, the order of the testimony of our friends from Guam who have come such a long distance.

So. Mr. Frank, if you will retire from the witness table and be available for questions, we will hear Mr. Won Pat.

Mr. Won Pat, we would like to welcome you again to our committee. All of our colleagues have been most impressed with your effective representation of your fellow Guamanians, and your own great interest in this legislation, as well as the interest expressed by the presence of so many people from that part of the United States where the sun first rises on our country.

Before you proceed, the Chair seeks unanimous consent to include in the record a congressional research service paper dated September 11, 1972, from the Library of Congress, and excerpts from the Hopkins committee report for the Secretary on the civil governments of Guam and American Samoa. Without objection, these two documents will be placed right after the documents which were placed in the record by the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Aspinall. The gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. SAYLOR. I reserve the right to object, until I find out what they are. I am perfectly willing to have the record complete, but I have not seen them yet.

Mr. BURTON. The Chair will withhold announcing the outcome of this unanimous consent request until the gentleman from Pennsylvania and the other members of the subcommittee have an opportunity to look at them.

In the meantime, Mr. Won Pat, please proceed with your testimony.

STATEMENT OF ANTONIO B. WON PAT, WASHINGTON

REPRESENTATIVE FROM GUAM

Mr. WON PAT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Before I proceed, I would like to take the opportunity to introduce. the other witnesses from Guam who are here today to testify before this committee on H.R. 5440.

First, the gentleman to my rear, Senator Joaquin Perez, Senator the chairman of the Rules Committee of the Guamanian Legislature, and also the chairman of a Select Committee on Federal Matters. Mr. Joaquin Perez.

The other gentleman is Mr. Pedro Perez, Senator, the Guamanian Legislature.

Mr. Pedro Perez.

And the other witness is Mr. B. J. Bordallo, a private citizen and retired businessman.

Mr. Bordallo.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, hafa adai and greetings from the American people of Guam!

I am Antonio B. Won Pat. Guam's representative in Washington, elected on a territory-wide basis by the American citizens of the territory under Guamanian law. As a matter of record, I am the first and last incumbent of this office. Prior to my assumption of this position, I served as Speaker of the Guam Legislature for six terms and 2 years as minority leader. As you all know, next year, thanks to the statesmanship of the members of this subcommittee in the first instance, and that of the majority of the Congress by enacting H.R. 8787, which became Public Law 92-271, the American citizens of Guam will be represented by an elected Delegate under Federal law, starting in the 93d Congress.

Again. I express the gratitude of the people of Guam, as well as my own personal thanks, for the giant step forward that this law means for America in the Western Pacific.

Also, I want to express deep appreciation to you, Mr. Chairman, and to Mr. Aspinall, for holding hearings on this bill, H.R. 5440, at my request. This is an election year, as I know so well; it is late in the second session and each of you is pressed by overriding legislation of national concern and has problems in his own constituency which demand his attention. The holding of this hearing, therefore, is another evidence of your statesmanship and your sympathetic understanding of our problem, since its basic subject matter is justice and equity for a small group of your fellow Americans far from your own districts.

The purpose of H.R. 5440, which was sponsored by Chairman Aspinall of the full Interior Committee at my request, is to amend the Örganic Act of Guam to confer jurisdiction on the U.S. District Court of Guam to hear and determine claims against the Federal Government. based upon failure to pay just compensation for land acquired prior to August 1, 1950. This measure has the full support of the people of Guam and the Guam Legislature.

I think most of you are familiar with the factual situation in Guam as of the period with which this bill is concerned. After 3 years of enemy occupation, and then liberation, the American Armed Forces were acquiring vast areas on Guam for use as a base from which to launch a main attack against the Japanese homeland, and thereafter as a keystone in America's outer defenses. One-third of all the land of our small island, much of it our very best land, was acquired, a substantial portion of it at well below its then value. I will speak of this situation later.

But first I would like to comment upon the surprising reports of the Departments of the Navy, Justice, and Interior, submitted in August, with the approval of the Office of Management and Budget, on the chairman's bill. I say "surprising" because only a scant year ago, before the Territories Subcommittee on the Senate, a spokesman for the Navy declared that the Navy had, quote, No objection to the purpose of the bill, unquote.

The bill to which reference was made was S. 1215, introduced by Chairman Jackson. It differed from H.R. 5440 in that it directed the Secretary of the Interior, as the head of the Federal Administrative Agency for Guam, to conduct a study of the policies, methods and procedures used in land acquisitions on Guam in the period after World War II.

But the purpose of H.R. 5440 and S. 1215 are identical: That is, to afford an opportunity for several hundred former land owners on Guam, most of them poor, to show that the compensation paid for their land was unjust and inequitable. Of even greater importance, they have been deprived of the type of legal and equitable protection enjoyed by all other Americans. It is now time to right these wrongs.

At the Senate hearing, held August 4, 1971, Mr. Abner Frank, General Counsel for Real Estate, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, told the Senators, as recorded on page 32 of the transcript:

The Department of the Navy, on behalf of the Department of Defense, has no objection to the purpose of the bill, or to the proposed study and report contemplated thereby. Nevertheless, it would appear inappropriate for the head of

one Executive Department to be authorized and directed to investigate the activities of another.

The Navy spokesman then went on to suggest that either the General Accounting Office or the appropriate committees of Congress conduct such an investigation.

However, only a year later, we now have a "don't touch" from the Navy. What happened in that year? I submit, Mr. Chairman, that H.R. 5440 meets the objections voiced by the Navy with respect to S. 1215.

The opposition of the Department of Justice seems to be, primarily, that enactment of H.R. 5440 would add to the burdens of the Guam court and the Department. Since when has such an argument been acceptable where justice and equity to the poor and helpless were at stake?

Interior defers to the other agencies, and, while we wish that the Department would shoulder its responsibilities as the designated Federal administrative agency for Guam, we must perforce accept their position.

Mr. Chairman, the reports of Navy and Justice depict a procedure with respect to post-war acquisition of land on Guam with which, had it existed in fact, we could have no quarrel. That is, appraisal by an independent appraiser or an appraisal which the owner had at least some voice in, followed by an offer, which, if not accepted, would be followed by condemnation with the result subject to appeal. This certainly is fair.

But such procedure was not the case, was not true and realistic with respect to the period we are talking about on Guam. The only appraisers in the immediate post-war period were military appraisers. That is, the only appraisal was that of the condemning agency. There were no lawyers on Guam to which the landowner could turn for help in the condemnation proceeding: The appeals body was a group of naval officers under the direct command of the officer who authorized and directed the land-taking.

In addition, and perhaps more important, there was the gratitude the people of Guam felt toward the American Armed Forces, and the awe in which so many held the Navy, which had governed them with a free hand for nearly half a century.

The landowners on Guam were up against a "stacked deck," so to speak, in the postwar land acquisition period. For the part, they were, in fact, completely at the mercy of the Navy. In this connection, your attention is particularly called to the report of "Post-War Land Taking, on Guam" which is available to the members. It provides the appropriate background and detail necessary to a full understanding of the problem. Among other things, the report demonstrates the need for some technical amendments to H.R. 5440 and points out that to do justice the cutoff date should be March 13, 1957, not August 1, 1950. Therefore, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I urge your prompt and favorable action in amending H.R. 5440 and reporting it to the full committee, notwithstanding the unfavorable reports from the affected agencies which are based on assumptions which are just not true. By this action, you will be doing equity and justice. to a group of your fellow Americans on the outskirts of democracy in the Western Pacific.