The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-02-01
TAMS HEAD Is SECURE
SENATE WILL RESTORE THE INDIAN
TERRITORY COMMISSION
Curtis Bill for the REORGANIZATION
of the Territory Considered Too
Far-Reaching I'm It's Efforts to
Remedy All the Existing Evils at
One StrOke-Wrongs of the Reds
Washington Bureau st. Paul Globe, J
C0rcoYan BUILDING.

One StrOke-Wrongs of the Reds
Washington Bureau st. Paul Globe, !
Corcoran Building.
Special to the st. Paul Globe
WASHINGTON, jan 31-When the
annual Indian appropriation bill reach
es the senate, an amendment will prob
ably be offered to restore the Dawes
commission to five members. 1t Is a
characteristic exhibition of the way
congress goes at its business, that while
the duties of the Dawes commission
were such that a larger or smaller
number Of members would answer its
purposes about equally we'll, the num-
Der was raised from three to five; and
that simultaneously with a very great
increase of its burdens, such as is in
volved in making a new census of the
five civilized tribes, the membership
should be cut down from five to three
again. The work of the commission in
Indian territory has never been an en-
Tiable task, in view of the uncomfor-
table conditions of life there, the actual
personal peril sometimes involved, and
the thankleSsness of the whole business
TO matter how 1t might result but its
heaviest tasks are still to come. 1t Is
believed that this is more fully appre-
ctated IN the senate than in the house
as the senate has had the more to do
With Indian territory affairs general
ly.
Another amendment which Is propos-
ed, and to which it does not seem that
any objection can be made, has to do
with the right Of appeal from the de-
cisions heretofore rendered on applica-
ton for citizenship in the civilized
tribes.
BY the act of 1896, which gave the
commission its original Jurisdiction of
citizenship questions, the rolls of citi-
zenship then existing were confirmed
as they stood. and the commission was
authorized simply to add thereto the
names of applicants VINO had obviously
been deprived of rights which belong
ed to them under the Indian laws,
usages and customs. This gave the
commission no authority to go back to
any of the earlier rolls to find out
whether applicants or their ancestors
had been entered there, and not few
cases of hardship have resulted from
such limitation of the commissions
powers. since the admission of names
to the tribal rolls and their exclusion
therefrom had become so much a mat
ter of bargain and sale among the
Indians that the rolls were honeycomb-
ed with fraud
THE ONLY APPEAL
permitted under the law of 1896 was
to the United States district court. 1t
IS to the credit of the commission that
in the vast majority of instances the
court sustained its decisions; but one
or the newer judges, being little ac-
quainted with local conditions laid
down certain principles of law in direct
contradiction of the commissions rul-
ings, and the Indians felt seriously ag-
grieved thereby. In one case, for ex-
ample, where a white man had married
into the Choctaw tribe and thus, ac-
cording to Choctaw law, become a clti-
zen, but after the death of his Choctaw
wife had married a white woman, the
commission held that his children by
his first wife were citizens of the
ChoctaW nation, but his children by
his second wife were not
This decision proceeded upon the
theory that whereas, having once be-
come a citizen himself, the man could
not be deprived of his citizenship by a
mere incident of second marriage, the
children by the second marriage, not
having any Choctaw blood would have
no claim to citizenship by descent. But
the court overruled the commission on
this point, holding that the children Of
any citizen were themselves citizens
The Choctaw nation naturally feels
sore over this decision, but there is no
appeal under the law of 1896.
1t Is proposed, in the interest at once
of the Indian nation and of honest
claimants who have been denied eitl-
zenship through technical defects In
their cases or the limited powers of
commission and court, to present to the
senate an amendment to that part of
the Indian appropriation bill which
provides for the expenses of the COM
mission and its future work, author
izing the United States court of ap-
peals for the Indian territory to enter
tain appeals from either an Indian ma
tion or claimant If filed within, say
thirty days of the passage of the act
1t was at first proposed to permit the
taking of appeals to the United States
supreme court. But as the questions
are so multifarious that they could not
be settled by a few test cases, and as
the supreme court is already SO we'll
laden with business, appeals to that
court would be liable to delay the fur
ther progress of affairs in the terri
tory inordinately. Moreover, the
judges in the Indian territory are
familiar with the local laws and GUS
toms, which would not have to be ex-
pounded afresh at every hearing There
are four judges in the territory, which
would always leave a court of three
appellate judges who had not had any
thing to do with the appealed case in
its earlier stages, and they would de-
eide each case on its appeal from the
fourth judge. AS both the Indian ma
tions and the dissatisfied claimants are
desirous of carrying some controversies
further, 1t is not believed that any
serious opposition will be developed to
the amendment in the senate; and the
house has hitherto followed the lead
in the senate in Indian territory affairs.
THE CURTIS BILL.
as 1t Is called for the protection of
the people of the Indian Territory,
providing for the laying of towns, the
leasing of coal and other mineral, tim
ber farming and grazing land, and for
other purposes" is the fruit of an eX-
tended series of conferences between a
subcommittee Of the house committee
on Indian affairs and a subcommittee
In the senate. The purpose of these
conferences has been to work the bill
down into such a shape as would be
satisfactory to both committees, so
that both could support 1t and protect
1t against amendment in either house.
The members Of the two-subcom-
mittees realized that in this course lay
their only hope of getting any bill at
all through the present congress. By
permitting a bill to be loaded down
with amendments in either house, It's
friends of course endanger 1t with the
other house, and the peril of having
conference committees appointed and