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they had died before that date, because he has been unable either to locate them or to find any record of their death. Consequently, unless the present statute is amended their names will not be removed from the roll and the per capita payments credited to them will be held indefinitely in the Treasury pending the submission of a claim and proof that the person was living on May 24, 1950. As many of them may in fact have died during the 22-year period involved, it is equitable that after all efforts to locate them have failed their names should be removed from the rolls and the money made available for distribution to enrollees whose living status has been ascertained.

The second proposed amendment is merely corrective, so as to make the language in section 2 to conform with the citations of the acts of Congress to conform with that of section 1.

The purpose of this proposed bill is to extend until June 30, 1955, the time during which there may be added to the revised roll of the Indians of California certain Indians who applied for enrollment within the time fixed by law, but whose applications were not processed within the time specified.

This bill also provides that the Secretary of the Interior shall transmit to Congress on or before August 31, 1955, a full and complete report of funds used and the purposes accomplished to carry out the provisions of this and preceding acts.

In 1928 a jurisdictional act (45 Siat. 602) was passed which provided in part for the enrollment of the California Indians. The act limited the enrollment to Indians who were living in California on May 18, 1928, and whose ancestors were living in California on June 1, 1852. This roll was completed in 1933 and listed 23,586 names.

In June of 1948 another act (62 Stat. 1166) was passed providing for the enrollment of children living on June 30, 1948, and born since May 18, 1928, to enrollees on the 1933 roll of California Indians. Over 11,000 applications were submitted under this act.

On May 24, 1950, another act was passed which provided for a per capita payment to California Indians from tribal funds on deposit in the United States Treasury, and also provided for a further enrollment of certain Indians of California. Approximately 10,000 applications were submitted for enrollment.

The 1950 act allowed the Indians 1 year during which applications might be filed. Approximately 6 months elapsed before proper forms were available to use in making application. At that time, applications made pursuant to the 1948 act still were being processed. After the 1 year for filing applications under the 1950 act had elapsed, only 6 months was allowed for the Secretary of the Interior to approve and promulgate the revised roll. Unforeseen complications and problems which developed during that period made it impossible to complete the roll in 6 months. On November 24, 1951, when the 6 months expired, approximately 16,000 applications remained to be processed.

More than 2 years have passed since the end of the 6-month period allowed for enrollment under the 1950 act. Many of the aforementioned 16,000 applications are of a questionable nature and require time and study before being processed.

The Secretary of the Interior and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget recommend the enactment of this bill as amended.

The reports submitted on H. R. 2974, by the Secretary of the Interior, dated July 30, 1953, and October 13, 1953, are as follows: DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

Hon. A. L. MILLER,

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, Washington 25, D. C., July 30, 1953.

Chairman, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs,

House of Representatives, Washington 25, D. C.

MY DEAR MR. MILLER: Reference is made to your request for a report on H. R. 2974, a bill to add to the revised roll of the Indians of California certain Indians who made application for enrollment within the time fixed by law, and for other purposes.

I recommend that the bill be enacted, if it is amended as set forth in the proposed substitute, which is attached.

Section 1 of the bill authorizes and directs the Secretary of the Interior, within 6 months after its approval, to add to the revised roll of the Indians of California the names of those Indians who applied for enrollment within the time fixed by the acts of May 18, 1928 (45 Stat. 602), June 30, 1948 (62 Stat. 1166), or May 24, 1950 (64 Stat. 189), if he finds that such persons are descendants of an enrollee on the revised roll which was approved on November 24, 1951, and that such applicants were living on May 24, 1950.

The act authorized the Secretary of the Interior to revise the roll of the Indians of California that was approved by him on May 16, 1933, by adding or removing, as the case may be, the names of certain classes of Indians. The 1933 roll was made and approved pursuant to section 7 of the 1928 act, as amended by the act of April 29, 1930 (46 Stat. 259).

Section 1 of the 1950 act further amended the 1928 act, to increase the classes of Indians who were eligible for enrollment, but specified that the applications of eligible Indians must be submitted within 1 year from the date of the 1950 act, and that the Secretary of the Interior must approve and promulgate the revised roll within 6 months thereafter. The effective regulations of the Secretary of the Interior for the revision of the roll of the Indians of California approved May 17, 1933, appear in 25 Code of Federal Regulations 53. Section 2 of the 1950 act also authorized and directed the Secretary of the Interior to make a per capita payment of $150 to each enrollee under the 1928 or 1950 acts who was living on May 24, 1950, from the fund on deposit in the Treasury of the United States arising from the judgment in favor of the Indians of California (102 Ct. Cl. 837) for $5,024,842.34 and appropriated for them by section 203 of the First Deficiency Appropriation Act, 1945 (59 Stat. 77, 94).

The period of time allowed by the 1950 act for approving and promulgating the revised roll expired on November 24, 1951. By that date the names of 12,246 persons who had been found to be eligible under the 1948 or 1950 acts were added to the revised roll, which was thereupon approved and promulgated. The review of the applications of more than 16,000 other persons, who timely applied for enrollment, had not, however, been completed by November 24, 1951. Further consideration of these applications was precluded solely by the statutory imposition of a period of time which, it developed, was too brief to enable the available staff of the Bureau of Indian Affairs of this Department to review all of the applications that were submitted.

To permit a review of these pending applications the Department believes that the time for their review should be extended for a reasonable period, such as 2 years, from the date upon which this bill is enacted. Such a period should be sufficient to review the remaining applications, afford to any person whose application may be rejected an opportunity to appeal to the Secretary of the Interior, permit him to pass upon any such appeals, and thereafter to prepare and promulgate a revised roll which would include, in addition to the names on the 1951 roll, the names of any eligible applicants whose applications were pending on November 24, 1951.

Section 2 of the bill provides that the amount due any enrollee who was living on May 24, 1950, but who thereafter died intestate shall be paid to the surviving spouse, if such spouse is a descendant of an enrolled Indian of California, or otherwise to the following successive classes of relatives of such deceased enrollee: the children; the parents, or the surviving parent; or the brothers and sisters. To the extent here relevant, the heirs to the restricted personality in the estate of an intestate Indian are determinable according to the law of descent and distribution of the State of the decedent's domicile. There does not appear to be any substan

tial reason for establishing a special Federal statute, such as that contemplated in section 2 of the bill, and which may differ from the applicable State law, for a distribution of this per capita payment in the event that an enrollee is deceased. The rule of descent and distribution in section 2 of the bill differs, for example, from that provided in the California Probate Code for the descent and distribution of the separate property in the estate of an intestate whose domicile was in the State of California (Statutes of California, 1931, ch. 281).

Section 3 of the bill provides that any amount not claimed by an enrollee or the beneficiaries named in section 2 of the bill within 2 years after the approval of the bill shall revert to and be deposited in the Treasury of the United States to the credit of the Indians of California and thereafter be subject to appropriation by the Congress for the benefit of the Indians of California. To provide that an enrollee or his beneficiaries should forfeit his per capita payment because of failure to demand payment within 2 years seems unnecessary. If for any reason it develops that a check in payment of his per capita cannot be delivered because a payee who was living on May 24, 1950, cannot be found, the check can be canceled by administrative action and the proceeds returned to the judgment fund. If it is known that a payee who was living on May 24, 1950, has subsequently died, the per capita payment can be distributed to his heirs or devisees, as the case may be, in accordance with the regulations of the Secretary of the Interior in 25 Code of Federal Regulations 81 for determination of heirs and approval of wills, except as to members of the Five Civilized Tribes and Osage Indians.

Section 3 of the bill also provides that any amount due a testate enrollee shall be distributed in accordance with his will. Section 81.15 of the regulations in 25 Code of Federal Regulations 81 makes adequate provision for the distribution of the restricted estate of a deceased Indian in accordance with his will. Hence it is believed that the proviso in section 3 of the bill is unnecessary.

Section 4 of the bill provides that the Secretary shall submit to the Congress a full and complete report of funds used and purposes accomplished in carrying out the provisions of the above-mentioned acts of Congress and an alphabetical list of the enrollees, their addresses and dates of birth, and any other factual information tending to identify each enrollee. This section also provides that 3,000 copies of each report shall be printed as a House document. While the Department certainly has no objection to furnishing to the Congress a full and complete report of the funds used and the results accomplished in preparing a revised roll of the Indians of California, it does not appear that any useful purpose would be served by publishing 3,000 copies of any such report as a House document. Nor is it apparent that similar publication of 3,000 copies of a per capita payment roll, which may ultimately contain as many as 50,000 names, would be of any substantial value to the Congress, the Indians of California, or the public. The publication of these reports would appear to be an unnecessary expense.

The Department believes that the proposed substitute bill, providing for an additional period of 2 years from the effective date of the bill to review the applications which were pending on November 24, 1951, incorporates the necessary amendments to the 1928 act, as amended by the 1930, 1948, and 1950 acts to permit the completion of a revised roll of the Indians of California to receive per capita payments from the judgment fund.

Since I am informed that there is a particular urgency for the submission of the views of the Department, this report has not been cleared through the Bureau of the Budget and, therefore, no commitment can be made concerning the relationship of the views expressed herein to the program of the President.

Sincerely yours,

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Hon. A. L. MILLER,

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY,

Washington 25, D. C., October 13, 1953.

Chairman, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs,

House of Representatives, Washington 25, D. C.

MY DEAR DR. MILLER: The report of this Department on H. R. 2974, a bill to add to the revised roll of the Indians of California certain Indians who made application for enrollment within the time fixed by law, and for other purposes, was transmitted to your committee on July 30. In view of information that your

committee desired an immediate statement of the views of this Department, the report was submitted without clearance through the Bureau of the Budget.

Subsequent to the transmission of the report on H. R. 2974, we have been advised by the Bureau of the Budget that the views expressed in that report, as submitted to your committee on July 30, are without objection insofar as the Bureau of the Budget is concerned.

Sincerely yours,

ORME LEWIS, Assistant Secretary of the Interior.

In compliance with subsection (4) of rule XXIX of the Standing Rules of the Senate, changes in existing law made by the bill (H. R. 2974), as reported, are shown as follows (existing law proposed to be omitted is enclosed in black brackets; new matter is printed in italic; existing law in which no change is proposed is shown in roman):

SECTION 7 OF THE ACT OF MAY 18, 1928 (45 STAT. 602), AS AMENDED BY THE ACT OF APRIL 29, 1930 (46 STAT. 259), THE ACT OF JUNE 30, 1948 (62 STAT. 1166), AND THE ACT OF MAY 24, 1950 (64 STAT. 189)

SEC. 7. The Secretary of the Interior, under such regulations as he may prescribe, is hereby authorized and directed to revise the roll of the Indians of California, as defined in section 1 of this Act, which was approved by him on May 16, 1933, in the following particulars: (a) By adding to said roll the names of persons who filed applications for enrollment as Indians of California on or before May 18, 1932, and who, although determined to be descendants of the Indians residing in the State of California on June 1, 1852, were denied enrollment solely on the ground that they were not living in the State of California on May 18, 1928, and who were alive on the date of the approval of this Act; (b) by adding to said roll the names of persons who are descendants of the Indians residing in the State of California on June 1, 1852, and who are the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles, or aunts of persons whose names appear on said roll, and who were alive on the date of the approval of this Act, irrespective of whether such fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles, or aunts were living in the State of California on May 18, 1928; (c) by adding to said roll the names of persons born since May 18, 1928, and living on the date of the approval of this Act, who are the children or other descendants of persons whose names appear on said roll, or of persons whose names are eligible for addition to said roll under clauses (a) or (b) of this section, or of persons dying prior to the date of the approval of this Act, whose names would have been eligible for addition to said roll under clauses (a) or (b) of this section if such persons had been alive on the date of the approval of this Act; and (d) by removing from said roll the names of persons who have died since May 18, 1928, and prior to the date of the approval of this Act. Persons entitled to enrollment under clause (a) of this section shall be enrolled by the Secretary of the Interior without further application. Persons claiming to be entitled to enrollment under clauses (b) or (c) of this section shall, within one year after the approval of this amendment, make an application in writing to the Secretary of the Interior for enrollment, unless they have previously filed such an application under the amendment to this section made by the Act of June 30, 1948 (62 Stat. 1166). The Secretary of the Interior shall prepare not less than five hundred copies of an alphabetical list of the Indians of California whose names appear on the roll approved on May 16, 1933, giving the name, address, and age at time of enrollment of each such enrollee, together with such other factual information, if any, as the Secretary may deem advisable as tending to identify each enrollee, and shall distribute copies of this list to the various communities of California Indians. The Indians of California in each community may elect a committee of three enrollees who may aid the enrolling agent in any matters relating to the revision of said roll. After the expiration of the period allowed by this section for filing applications, the Secretary of the Interior shall have [six months] until June 30, 1955, to approve and promulgate the revised roll of the Indians of California provided for in this section. Upon such approval and promulgation, the roll shall be closed and thereafter no additional names shall be added thereto.

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