REFER IN REPLY TO THE FOLLOWING:

ADDRESS ONLY THE
COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS

UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS
WASHINGTON
CHICAGO

January 9, 1943.

Mr. Felix Cohen,
Assistant Solicitor,
Department of the Interior,
Washington, D. C.

Dear Felix:

You will be interested in the enclosed comment on the Handbook
from the current issue of The American Political Science Review. I
have sent a copy to Mr. Collier.

Enclosure

It is peculiarly fitting, at a time when the rights of minorities
are being blotted out by war, that the United States should not only re-
assert adherence to and faith in the principles of democratic government,
but also give actual proof of sincerity by adopting an enlightened policy
of governance for our oldest minority group, the Indians. To aid in the
implementation of this policy, the Department of the Interior has published
a *Handbook of Federal Indian Law* (Government Printing Office, pp. xxiv,
662, $2.00). The text was prepared by Felix S. Cohen, an eminent author-
ity in the field of jurisprudence and chairman of the Board of Appeals
in the Department. The foreword was written by Secretary Harold L. Ickes,
and the interpretative introduction by Nathan R. Margold, solicitor for
the Department. The subject-matter of the chapters falls into the follow-
ing general fields: the class of persons and the places with which the
federal Indian law deals; the basic strands of development--administration,
treaty-making, and legislation--that make up the federal Indian law; the
governmental source of legal relations; substantive rights, powers, privi-
leges, and immunities of parties and of individuals; problems of court ju-
risdiction in the field of criminal and of civil law. The Pueblos of New
Mexico, the Indians of New York, and the natives of Alaska are treated in
separate chapters. In the final chapter, the author discusses special
laws relating to Oklahoma. The discussion throughout is completely docu-
mented. The supplement contains a tribal index of materials on Indian
law, tables of statutes and treaties, federal cases, Interior Department
rulings, Attorney-Generals' opinions, and an exhaustive bibliography.
The scholarly study not only reveals what the law relating to the Indians
is today, but also shows the antecedent conditions out of which it has
evolved. For the Indian, the *Handbook* will be a valuable guide in de-
termining his rights and privileges, and for the administrators of the
Indian Service it sets a high standard of attainment. To the laymen,
it will give a truer perspective and a better knowledge of the Indian, whose
legal position in the scheme of our government is so little understood and
even less appreciated.
--JOHN P. SENNING. (*The American Political Science
Review*, pp. 1181-2, Vol. XXXVI, No. 6, Dec., 1942).

*Handbook of Federal Indian Law*, by Felix S. Cohen. 1942. United States Government Printing Office. Pp. XXIV, 662.— The American Indian has an anomalous legal status. While he is, by virtue of congressional act and the Constitution of the United States, a citizen of the state in which he resides, he is also in a very special degree subject to the supervision and protection of the Federal Government, and also in many instances in intimate relationship to the tribe of which he is a member. The result is a conflict of jurisdictions in the fields of crime, domestic relations, taxation, police power, public relief and the like, which are not readily solvable. Previous to Mr. Cohen's *Handbook* the lawyer with an "Indian case" had first to orient himself in the whole domain of federal, state and Indian relationship, and then to seek his way through a maze of statutes, treaties and decisions with no good sign posts to guide him. For the first time Mr. Cohen and his assistants have collected and analyzed in a systematic manner all of this material and produced a first class text on "Indian law." Separate chapters deal with the peculiar problems of the New York, Oklahoma and New Mexico Pueblo Indians. An appendix includes an index of materials on Indian law by tribes, a table of federal cases, a bibliography, and chronological table of statutes and treaties annotated. No lawyer with cases involving Indians or law relating to Indians can afford to be without this book.

The author of the *Handbook of Federal Indian Law* is, however, too much of a scholar, and too well convinced that "understanding of the law, in Indian fields as elsewhere, requires more than textual exegesis, requires appreciation of history, and understanding of economic, political, social and moral problems," to be content with a mere compilation of and commentary upon statutes, treaties and court decisions. Throughout the work the above factors, so closely related to the law, are constantly in view, and consequently the *Handbook* is of importance to the general student of Indian affairs. One word of caution should be added. Mr. Cohen, at the time this study was made, was assistant solicitor in the Department of the Interior, and the work was done within and sponsored by that department; and that department through its sub-agent, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is the federal agency charged with administering Indian affairs. Mr. Cohen would be more than human if his study were not influenced by the sincerity, and indeed passionately held belief, of his department that the Indian peoples of the country have the inherent moral and constitutional right to preserve, free from outside dictation, their native life, religion and culture; and to provide through officials and laws of their own choosing their own government and ultimate destiny. Other students of the Indian problem have believed that its solution rests in a gradual absorption of the Indian peoples into the economic, social and political life of the nation, and until that is accomplished the Indian must for his own preservation be directed largely by the Federal

Government which stands to him in the relation of guardian to ward.
While your reviewer believes that the actual practice has been largely
a compromise between these two points of view, the Wheeler-Howard Act
of 1934, ushering in a new era in the Federal Government's management
of Indian affairs, is based on the former premise. The reader of the
*Handbook of Federal Indian Law* should recognize that this official pub-
lication of the Interior Department is influenced considerably by its
commitment to that same premise.

Ray A. Brown

University of Wisconsin Law School

American Bar Association Journal, April, 1943, vol. 29.

2

Hollowell - Int. 3171

ADVANCE RELEASE

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

INFORMATION SERVICE

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY

Advance Release to SUNDAY PAPERS, JULY 15, 1945

Issuance of the fourth edition of a Handbook of Federal Indian Law, representing a compilation of about 4,000 federal statutes and treaties with Indian tribes, as well as 5,000 judicial decisions and rulings, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The Handbook, first published in 1941, was prepared by Felix S. Cohen, Chairman of the Board of Appeals and Associate Solicitor of the Interior Department, who has devoted many years to studies of the history of legal aspects of our relations with the Indians.

Since its original publication the Handbook has been frequently cited by Federal and State courts on questions of Indian law. It has been cited by the Supreme Court in eight Indian cases during the past four years.

As a new feature of the latest edition, Mr. Cohen announced, there has been incorporated as a frontispiece a new colored map of the United States showing how the national domain was acquired by purchase from 66 principal Indian tribes. The map indicates that approximately 95 percent of the Federal domain has been bought and paid for through 389 Indian treaties and numerous acts of Congress at a cost aggregating approximately $800,000,000.

XXX

P.N. 114778

ADVANCE RELEASE

Hollowell - Int. 3171

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

INFORMATION SERVICE

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY

Advance Release to SUNDAY PAPERS OF JULY 15, 1945.

A new colored map of the United States, the first of its kind, has been issued by the Department of the Interior showing how Uncle Sam since 1790 has acquired the Nation's public domain from the 66 principal Indian tribes, Secretary Harold L. Ickes announced today.

A map indicates, Secretary Ickes said, that approximately 95 per cent of the public domain, constituting some 2,600,000 square miles, has been bought and paid for as a result of 389 treaties, and numerous acts of Congress, at a cost aggregating approximately $800,000,000.

The latest purchase installment, according to Interior Department records, was a recent payment of $5,024,842.34, voted by the current session of Congress, to the Indians of California who sold most of the land of that state to the Federal Government in the 1850's for approximately $17,000,000.

"While questions are still frequently raised," said the Secretary, "as to whether the Indians received fair prices for their land, the records show that, except in a very few cases where military duress was present, the prices were such as to satisfy the Indians. Discussions of enhancement of land prices from original costs to the present estimated value of nearly $40,000,000,000, only lead to idle speculation. There is no equitable basis of value comparison then and now."

Although the Indians sold Manhattan Island for $24 to the Dutch, Secretary Ickes said that it had been calculated that, for example, if the Indians could have invested their $24 at six per cent interest they could now, with accrued interest, buy back Manhattan Island at current realty valuations and still have $400,000,000 left over.

The Secretary also pointed out that large areas of land for which the United States government paid $1.25 an acre are still on the Federal land books, no purchases at that price having been found, and the government is now content to lease these lands for cattle grazing at a yearly net return of one or two cents an acre.

"While the history of our dealings with the Indians," said Secretary Ickes, "contains some black pages, since the days of the early settlers there has been a fixed policy based upon the principle of free purchase and sale in dealings between the native inhabitants of the land and the white immigrants. In no other continent has any serious attempt ever been made to deal with a weak aboriginal population on these terms."

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