Nation, prescribe. This ballot is prescribed by such rules and regulations for use in the election.

If the commutation is approved by a majority vote in the election, the sum of $350,666.67, when appropriated, is required to be deposited to the credit of the Choctaw Nation and distributed per capita to the enrolled members of the Choctaw Nation entitled under existing law to share in the funds of such nation, or to their lawful heirs and devisees determined in the manner prescribed in the act ratifying the contract for purchase of lands and mineral deposits from the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations (Public Law 754, 80th Cong.).

The approval of the commutation and the deposit of $350,666.67 to the credit of the Choctaw Nation shall constitute a full and complete discharge of all rights, claims, or demands of whatever nature against the United States arising out of any of the annuity provisions of the treaties referred to above.

Question.-Shall the commutation in the amount of $350,666.67, in the manner and subject to the conditions set forth in the act of September 1, 1950, be approved?r Yes

Mr. FURCOLO. Do you know whether or not the word "commuta tion" was on it?

Mr. GREENWOOD. Yes; I think it was.

Mr. FURCOLO. It is more or less academic, but in the other hearings we had quite a little testimony as to how smart and how advanced these Indians were. I imagine you could send out a ballot to 5,000 or 10,000 people in any district in the country-I am not talking about Indians now, but any district and I would be surprised if everyone would understand a word such as "commutation" or anything like that.

You are satisfied, at any rate, that they understood what they were voting on?

Mr. GREENWOOD. Yes, sir; I am sure that they did.

Mr. KIRWAN. Is that all?

Mr. FURCOLO. Yes; that is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KIRWAN. Dr. Fenton.

TREATIES WITH OTHER TRIBES

Mr. FENTON. Mr. Greenwood, of course I realize that this is in pursuance of a particular act which was passed by Congress. Not to burden the record, but about how many such treaties do we have remaining with Indian tribes?

Mr. GREENWOOD. We have very few like this one, Dr. Fenton. I think there are about four, besides this one, that call for annual appropriations in perpetuity.

Mr. FENTON. In perpetuity?

Mr. GREENWOOD. Yes, sir. We have one with the Senecas of New York, one with the Six Nations of New York, and one with the Pawnees of Oklahoma. All of those call for annual appropriations in perpetuity.

89877-51-14

Mr. FENTON. And none of the other tribes of the country have such treaties?

Mr. GREENWOOD. Yes, sir; that is correct.

Some of them still have treaties. For example, the Navajos have a treaty which is still effective, which requires the Federal Government to furnish a teacher for every 30 children. That treaty has never been kept in its entirety because we still have a number of Navajo children out of school, and there are other treaties of that nature that do not call for specific annual appropriations that are still effective.

Mr. FENTON. Are there any other treaties that call for cash payments?

Mr. GREENWOOD. Yes, those that I mentioned, the Senecas of New York, the Six Nations of New York, and the Pawnees of Oklahoma.

COMMUTATION OF OTHER TREATIES

Mr. FENTON. Have they gotten any cash payments at all? Mr. GREENWOOD. No; the matter of commuting their treaties has never been presented to them.

I believe, at the moment, we are exploring with the Pawnees of Oklahoma the desirability of commuting their treaty. Their treaty calls for an appropriation of $30,000 annually, and the question of whether or not that treaty should be commuted in order to wipe out the necessity for this annual appropriation is being discussed with them at the present time.

Mr. FENTON. Then, as I understand it, this will conclude the Government's part of the treaty?

Mr. GREENWOOD. Yes, sir, and this will conclude the Government's obligation to make this annual appropriation which it has been making over the years for these various purposse which have long since passed out of existence, such as the support of light horsemen and blacksmith.

Mr. FENTON. Now, as to those other tribes that have not participated in this particular type of treaty what would be the amount that would be required to commute their treaties?

Mr. GREENWOOD. It would depend on the basis on which you commuted the treaty. The Pawnees, for example, have an annual claim of $30,000 which is appropriated for. If we commuted that on the basis of 3 percent, as was done in the case of the Choctaws, that would run in the neighborhood of $1,000,000 to commute that treaty. In the case of the Six Nations of New York, I believe the amount of the annual appropriation is $6,000. That $6,000 was based on a fund of $100,000 that the Six Nations had at one time held in trust by the United States, and the United States agreed to pay what amounts to 6 percent annually on the $100,000. In that case it would probably take $100,000 to liquidate the treaty obligation, although that is open to question. In the case of the Senecas of New York, the annual appropriation, I believe, was $4,500.

Mr. EMERY. For the Senecas it is $6,000, and when you speak about the Six Nations it is $4,500.

Mr. GREENWOOD. That is the annual appropriation we have there, so it would not take a very large amount, you see, with an annual payment of $4,500.

AMOUNTS OF PAYMENTS TO CHOCTAWS

Mr. FENTON. Have you estimated the minimum and the maximum amount that will be given out to any particular individual in this case? Mr. GREENWOOD. The maximum amount would be this amount of $350,666 divided by 20,799. The maximum would be $17 a share. Mr. FENTON. With a minimum of about $2?

Mr. GREENWOOD. Yes, sir; that is right, it could run as little as $2 in some cases depending upon the number of heirs who will share in the $17.

Mr. FENTON. That is about all I have to say, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FURCOLO. It almost seems unfortunate that there is not some way whereby you could put all of this money into some common fund, something like a community chest, into some common fund for the benefit of those people where it could accomplish something. You are not able to do that, I suppose, under the terms of the treaty? Mr. GREENWOOD. No, sir.

LEGAL ASPECTS OF THE COMMUTATION

Mr. FURCOLO. You mentioned something about annual appropriations in perpetuity, and that they were under the terms of the treaty? Mr. GREENWOOD. That is correct.

Is

Mr. FURCOLO. Can this still be put into effect legally, and, in effect, shut off some of the heirs that there may be later on. that what is being done?

Mr. GREENWOOD. Well, what we will do is take the original roll of the Choctaw Indians as a basis for distributing applications for participation in the distribution of this money. Those applications will indicate the information shown on that document which is before you, showing what their relationship was to the original enrollee, and who their relatives are. We do that in order to cross-check on persons who claim to be entitled to share in this payment.

Mr. FURCOLO. May I interrupt you at that point? Here is what I mean, as I understand it, once this is done that is the end of it?

Mr. GREENWOOD. Yes, sir; that is the end of it, as far as this particular payment is concerned.

Mr. FURCOLO. I perhaps do not understand. You have this language here speaking about an annual appropriation in perpetuity. My question is, where does that leave, for example, some descendant 40 or 50 years from now?

Mr. GREENWOOD. He will not, of course, benefit. It is just those people living today who will benefit from the distribution of this commuted amount.

Mr. FURCOLO. Is that what was contemplated under the original treaty?

Mr. GREENWOOD. No. The original treaty contemplated that these several amounts would be used for such things as the support of light horsemen, the support of blacksmiths, and the purchase of iron and steel, and the appropriations were made in pursuance of those treaty provisions.

Mr. FURCOLO. What I am driving at is this, have you had this checked up enough legally to know that later on some other descendant cannot come in and claim anything from the Government?

Mr. GREENWOOD. Oh, yes; the proposed payment is based on an act of Congress. That is what makes it legal.

Mr. KIRWAN. Were you done, Dr. Fenton?

Mr. FENTON. Yes. Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES LIMITATION

Mr. KIRWAN. Dr. Fenton and I are not lawyers. How are we going to get around the wording of the law to give you over $5,000?

Mr. GREENWOOD. Of course, Congress can appropriate any amount it sees fit to appropriate.

Mr. KIRWAN. While they can, we have an awful time giving you what the law calls for at times, let alone giving you more.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Chairman, all I can say is that this job cannot be done for $5,000. It is probable that the $5,000 represented the estimate of the cost of holding the referendum alone, because I can assure you that it is going to cost us several times $5,000 to go through this process of determining the rightful claimants to payments.

ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES IN EXCESS OF LIMITATION

Mr. FENTON. How much will it cost with the amount of money that is paid to hold the referendum and to carry it out?

Mr. GREENWOOD. We estimate that it will cost us a little over $34,000 to do all of the work necessary to get this money into the hands of the people who are entitled to it.

Mr. KIRWAN. There is no doubt when we look at this that they will be in here for another supplemental appropriation. If it is going to cost you $20,000 to get rid of $150,000 of this money, surely as time marches on, it is going to cost at least $30,000, even though you have some preliminary work in back of you, to get rid of the other $200,000.

Mr. GREENWOOD. It will cost us more the first year.

Mr. KIRWAN. I agree with you, but as you march on there now it is going to cost you $20,000 to get rid of the first $150,000. I again say that even though you have some of the preliminary work in back of you, to get rid of that other $200,000 you are going to have to come in here for another supplemental appropriation, or you are going to go into that and find that you are skating on thin ice.

Mr. GREENWOOD. I hope that we will not have to come back here for an additional amount for this job.

Mr. KIRWAN. I guess that about winds it up.
Mr. GREENWOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

FURTHER EXPLANATION OF ESTIMATE

Mr. FURCOLO. Someone might ask us about this, and I would like to get it clear for the record. Your estimate includes $350,666.67 for payment to the Indians and $34,333.33 for salaries and expenses. It almost looks as though you have put it down right to the penny just to have it come out in round figures.

Mr. GREENWOOD. That is a rounding-off figure; that is correct. Mr. FURCOLO. Those are pretty exact estimates?

Mr. GREENWOOD. Yes, sir, but as I indicated to the chairman a moment ago, our estimate of the cost of doing this job is $5,000 more than this estimate includes.

Mr. KIRWAN. I would like to be in this Indian village or reservation when they get their money and just listen to their comments when they get their first $2. With all of the rest of the world getting $4 billion or $5 billion they will want to know if they are not as good as Koreans or somebody else.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Of course, their share of this $350,000 will be larger than their share of $10,500.

Mr. KIRWAN. But you say the minimum is going to be $2, and the maximum is going to be about $17. There will be rejoicing in that village that night. Then they can say they agree with Congress, they are the greatest law-making body in the world.

All right, thank you, gentlemen.

PROOF OF HEIRSHIP FORM

Just put this proof of heirship form in the record, and then we will all have it available.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Yes, sir.

(The matter referred to is as follows:)