Federal departments and establishments through which payments were made to States and District of Columbia for the gasoline tax collected during 1937.-The $1,007.99 gasoline tax collected during 1937 and restored to the Federal Government represents expenditures therefor by departments and establishments, as follows:

Departments and establishments through which collected tax was paid: Collected tax Agriculture, Department of__

Commerce, Department of..

Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works.

Interior, Department of the

Justice, Department of..

$22. 41

14. 72

65. 36

13. 97

50.26

COLLECTIONS

The General Accounting Office is by law charged with the settlement of claims and demands not only against the Government but those in its favor, and is required to superintend the recovery of all indebtedness certified by it as due the United States. See statement as to such indebtedness and the collection thereof in the annual report of the Comptroller General for 1932, pages 52 to 54.

During the fiscal year there was collected through the efforts of the General Accounting Office $5,187,819.79. For the items comprising such collections and the units of the General Accounting Office through which the collections were effected see pages 109 to 110 of this report.

The General Accounting Office had remaining at the close of the fiscal year 1937 on its books for collection 175,147 claims of the United States, aggregating $526,690,575.20 of reported indebtedness to the United States-a gain over 1936 of 33,104 claims and of $25,229,671.64 of such indebtedness.

INDIAN TRIBAL CLAIMS

The work of compiling and preparing reports on Indian tribal claims for use in suits pending in the Court of Claims was begun in the General Accounting Office in January 1925. This work so far as the actual compilation of reports on Indian cases before the Court of Claims is concerned was completed October 12, 1936. However, requests for information relating to Indian matters are frequently made upon this Office by Members of the Congress, Committees of Congress, etc. Also, as additional jurisdictional statutes are enacted by the Congress, requests for reports on claims presented by the Indians authorized to bring suit in the Court of Claims will no doubt be received here. Such requests require a detailed search among the records in order that proper replies may be made.

There have been enacted 35 separate Indian jurisdictional acts, under which 112 petitions have been filed in the Court of Claims and forwarded to the General Accounting Office for report thereon. Pursuant thereto there have been compiled and forwarded to the Department of Justice 138 reports, including 25 reports on nonreservation Indian schools, showing information in connection with the contentions and requests for accounting contained in said petitions. Twelve of the petitions referred here for report were dismissed by the Court of Claims before the data could be assembled and report made thereon. Some of these reports were in letter form in which detailed information could not be furnished, many required considerable work in the preparation thereof and the majority were in an improvised form of binding, consisting of several hundred pages to each volume, and several volumes to a report.

In the beginning of this Indian tribal claims work it was necessary first to assemble in one place convenient for easy access, the vast volume of scattered files of Indian accounts and claim settlements, covering a period in many instances of more than 100 years; their classification and segregation for examination purposes; and also their repair which was frequently necessary because of disintegration. This work also required a vast amount of research of the history of the tribes; their origin, migration, and unions with other tribes and their many treaties and agreements with the United States Government and between tribes. Much information valuable and necessary to the

proper disposition of the cases was obtained from reports of the Bureau of Ethnology, House and Senate reports, and records of the War, Treasury, and Interior Departments.

The accounts and claim settlements covering payments to the Indians are not filed by tribes but in numerical sequence. To obtain for examination the particular accounts and claim settlements pertaining to specific tribes of Indians it was necessary to know the origin of said tribes, their migrations, their unions, the treaties and agreements made with them, and appropriations made in fulfillment of said treaties and agreements and for other purposes. This knowledge could be obtained only after a complete and exhaustive study and analysis of the statutes at large, the records and ledgers of the War, Treasury, and Interior Departments, the State Department treaty records, and other reference data.

There were approximately 1,451,200 claim settlements and 86,900 accounts examined, analyzed, and classified in connection with the compilation of the reports heretofore referred to. The accounts, thus examined, analyzed and classified, covered vouchered expenditures of varying types and kinds, and in varying amounts, the larger accounts containing as many as 6,000 vouchers. The expenditures represented by these accounts were made from advances to disbursing officers on accountable warrants, while expenditures through claim settlements were those made direct by the accounting officers.

The largest and most involved report was the one made in connection with Sioux Petition No. C-531. This report comprising 4,385 pages of text, tabulation and data, bound in eight volumes, involved, among other things, the examination and analysis of 162,899 claim settlements and 7,279 accounts, containing approximately 600,000 pages and the classification of disbursements pertaining to Sioux Indians.

It involved also an exhaustive search and study of available records for determination of appropriations, funds, accounts, etc,. having relation to the Sioux Indians. Approximately 51 funds and 1,900 appropriations covering the years from 1831 to 1925 were examined and analyzed in connection with the preparation of the report, the work on which report was started on March 1, 1925, and completed on April 12, 1932.

Other reports of considerable magnitude were those compiled in connection with the following cases:

The Indian tribal claims section for a time, particularly in the early stages of the work, was confronted with many real and vexing problems. Generally speaking the various treaties with the Indians pro

vided for annuity and per capita payments in money, the furnishing of agricultural implements and assistance, educational facilities and equipment, subsistence, clothing, etc. In many cases there were claims that these treaty provisions were not fulfilled and in order to ascertain and show to what extent and in what manner such provisions were fulfilled, it was necessary to examine and list disbursements made under the appropriations to meet the requirements of the various treaties, agreements, and acts of Congress pertaining to a particular tribe or band of Indians.

Many of the Indian jurisdictional acts contained provisions for pleading as offsets, expenditures made under gratuity appropriations. What would be an expenditure properly for offsetting, whether it be a gratuity or an expenditure made for the benefit of a particular tribe, was a matter for judicial determination. Consequently, there was left open only one course, and that was to report all expenditures appearing as in the nature of gratuities or benefits, segregated in such way as to enable the court to eliminate such as were not considered proper items for offset. The offsetting items thus reported by the General Accounting Office with few exceptions have been allowed by the court.

Under section 2 of title I of the act of August 12, 1935 (49 Stat. 596), the matter of gratuities to some extent has been clarified.

A statement of the reports prepared and transmitted by the General Accounting Office to the Department of Justice, including a citation to the statute under which each suit was brought, the name of the plaintiff Indians, the court reference, the date suit was filed in the Court of Claims, the amount claimed, the date the General Accounting Office report was forwarded to the Department of Justice, etc., is set out on pages 133 to 137.

INSPECTIONS AND SURVEYS

During the fiscal year 1937 representatives of the General Accounting Office visited 849 fiscal and administrative field offices and inspected 855 disbursing and collecting accounts. The number of offices visited and the number of accounts inspected represent an increase over the fiscal year 1936 of 407 offices visited and 247 accounts inspected. Such increase is largely due to the increased number of field offices under emergency agencies such as the Works Progress Administration, Resettlement Administration, Soil Conservation Service, etc. As a result of the field contacts there have been rendered to this office 1,193 inspection, survey, and miscellaneous reports, representing an increase over the fiscal year 1936 of 426 reports. The large number of field offices under emergency agencies and the lack of experienced personnel for the operation thereof have resulted in a large increase in the matters ordinarily brought to the attention of the departments and establishments concerned for corrective measures. During the fiscal year 207 letters have been written to departments and establishments calling attention to the irregularities disclosed. The results thus obtained through such contacts and reports have been very gratifying and have been of inestimable value to the field personnel of the Government in the matter of the proper method of handling public funds.

It will be noted from the statistical tabulation contained herein, pages 112 to 117, that the 849 offices inspected and surveyed during the

Section 504 of the Budget and reconnng A 190 42 Stat. 23. provides that—

The Comptroller General shail prescribe the forms, zwems, and creature fr administrative appropriation and find acenting in the verte Men 2 and establishments, and for the administrative examination if isa nices accounts and claims against the United States.

In Circular No. 27 issued July 21, 1928, he Generi Areventing Office called the attention of the departments and escustments to such provision and advised them thas a miform system of seerens had been provided for use in eccnection therewith. In the annal report of the Comptroller General for the is Thr 1927 pp. 26-27 there is given a brief description of such dr system as procent gated on April 1, 1927.

During the past two fiscal years there has again been given speeis. study to the matter of revising the uniform system as prescribed in Circular No. 27, with a view to its generi morovement based upon the experience gained during the 2-year perd and especially to the inclusion therein of procedures made peressay by the recently expanded Federal activities. Such revised and expanded procedure. while not actually promulgated for general use. is now being prescribed for departments and establishments as fast as the limited personnel and facilities of the Office will permit.

The systems of administrative accounts developed and promulgated during the fiscal year include the following exhibits as to procedure: