Mr. CLAWSON. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions?

Senator WATKINS. I would like to ask Mr. Clawson about the matter of appropriations. I understood him to say, or rather imply, that the reason they have not speeded up is because of the lack of appropriations.

Mr. CLAWSON. I would not put all the blame there, Senator Watkins.

Senator WATKINS. You remember I wrote you about that very matter, that my constituents complained about it, that they could not get these things out because Congress was stingy and could not get enough money. Do you remember your reply?

Mr. CLAWSON. Quite well. As I said, I think we have done a pretty good job in the last 6 months of stepping up the efficiency of the office.

Senator WATKINS. I think you have, too. But I just wonder if I got the impression that you were implying that the Congress had not given you enough money, because as I remember your letter was quite to the contrary, that you were quite satisfied with what Congress had done in 1948.

Mr. CLAWSON. Senator Watkins, as you know I came in here and found the 1948 budget already made up. I think Congress did quite reasonably well with us, on the basis of the requests we had made for the 1948 budget. I am also convinced that that budget requestand I will even go further and say our 1950 request is actually lower than would return the maximum net revenues to the Federal Government.

The difficulty has been twofold: It has been partly that we have not done as good a job with the money we have had as I think we should be expected to do and as I think we will do in the future, and partly that we have had a restricted budget as a result of historical developments. The request for 1950 is certainly more generousnot a great deal so than for the current year.

For instance, we have now no reserve to meet the sort of situation that has crept up in Utah this year. That was unexpected and unanticipated. Certainly we did not anticipate it and I do not think you anticipated it. You got four oil discoveries in your State in a number of months.

Senator WATKINS. That can happen in any State where there are prospects.

Mr. CLAWSON. Surely. Our budget has prepared us inadequately to meet such emergencies, for such unexpected matters. As a result this year we are not giving the folks in Utah good service. That is one place where we are falling way behind in our work.

We have no slack, you might say, in our budget, in our organization, to put additional people in there.

Senator WATKINS. May I say, however, that I have had less complaints from Utah this year than I have had in other years.

Mr. CLAWSON. You will get it if we do not do better pretty shortly. I think people are being pretty patient.

Senator WATKINS. Maybe so. But I want to say to you that you have made a good improvement in the Land Office since you have come here, because the complaints have fallen off 50 or 60 percent since you took over.

Mr. CLAWSON. Thank you.

This is a figure which may interest you. Shortly after I came there we added someone whom I think Senator O'Mahoney was talking about earlier, on a planning level, we added a management expert in Washington, who I think has done us a great deal of good. He started keeping a record of the complaints we got. They were plenty. In September we had on the average of 76 complaints per week, and a good share of those came from the Congress, but not all of them. And they were typically of the kind in which somebody said, "I have written you letters and you have never answered me. Can you get me an answer on this?"

We had 76 per week in the month of September. In the month of January we had 10 per week. Now, 10 is too many, I grant you that; But that is quite a little reduction in that period of time, from 76 to 10. And that, of course, reflects better service somewhere.

Senator WATKINS. I refer to the matter of appropriations and what, if any, implication can be taken from it. After the complaint from Utah, I asked if he had talked to the gentleman from Washington. He told us that the whole trouble was that Congress had not appropriated enough money for the clerical help in Washington.

You answered me and said the Congress had done very well. I recall your answer. I wanted to clear that up.

Mrs. BoSONE. You do claim you are understaffed?

Mr. CLAWSON. I think we are understaffed in many places. But if we did not ask you for enough money the fault is not yours that we did not get it. I think there are many places in which we need additional personnel.

Senator WATKINS. When I refer to the Utah situation, I think that is true, and I think the reason they are understaffed is because nobody expected the increased business in Utah. Now you do need more personnel.

Mr. CLAWSON. But there are a good many offices where I think we have been understaffed. The current fiscal year we are doing a much better job, for instance, in New Mexico, than we did a year ago, because we were able to add some staff. It is still pretty bad in that State.

The CHAIRMAN. Do any of the other Members of the House who are here desire to ask questions?

Delegate Farrington?

Mr. FARRINGTON. I have no questions. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. We are very much indebted to you, Mr. Clawson. I think you got off easily.

Mr. CLAWSON. I did not anticipate you were going to be anything but nice to me, Senator O'Mahoney.

The CHAIRMAN. The Bureau of Indian Affairs will next present its Mr. Zimmerman.

case.

After the presentation by the Bureau of Indian Affairs the committee hopes to be able to proceed with the Geological Survey and the Bureau of Mines. If that could be done this afternoon it would be most helpful to the committee.

Members of this committee have been in constant attendance all this week at these hearings to the detriment of their office work, and I think they would like to have Saturday free for their work in the offices. Unlike the executive offices, they do not close on Saturdays.

Then, on Monday, which is the regular meeting day of the committee, there probably not being very much executive business to be handled on that date, we should like to have Secretary Krug here for the questioning which he indicated he would like to subject himself to. I might point out that the Petroleum Division has not appeared at any of these hearings, nor is it on the schedule.

Mr. WHEELER. That is a part of the Secretary's office, Senator, and we did not schedule it to appear, thinking that the matters of interest would be covered by the Secretariat. They can appear if the committee wishes.

The CHAIRMAN. I think it desirable to have a statement made with respect to the activities of that division, how it is getting along, what it proposes to do, and so forth. It may be that that can be made by the Secretary or by one of the staff, as he chooses, when he appears. Mr. WHEELER. All right, sir.

(This statement appears in the testimony of Mr. Robert Freidman, acting director, oil and gas division, on February 7, 1949, p. 407.)

The CHAIRMAN. The Chairman, on behalf of the committee, again desires to express its satisfaction on the attendance of not only the members of the Senate committee but so many members of the House committee.

I was going to say, if Mr. Clawson has disappeared, will the other members of the Secretary's staff convey the information, and it will be for all of the bureaus: I hope it will be possible before too long a time has passed to organize a visit of members of the committee to the Department of the Interior so that we may be conducted on a tour of the various bureaus and agencies and may be able to see for ourselves how the Department is functioning.

I think it might be very helpful.

Mr. WHEELER. I should be glad to give that message to the Secretary.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Zimmerman, will you proceed?

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM ZIMMERMAN, JR., ACTING COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, ACCOMPANIED BY EVAN L. FLORY, DIRECTOR, SOIL CONSERVATION, BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I should like to read a formal prepared statement, with your permission, and perhaps supplement the written statement by other comments.

The United States has two responsibilities toward the Indian people. The first of these is to protect property; the second is to provide services which otherwise are not available to Indians.

Both of these responsibilities, because they involve the Government of the United States in activities which it normally does not undertake for other citizens, require some explanation.

The role of protective guardianship is by far the oldest of these responsibilities. Every colony, without exception, I believe, had a provision of law guaranteeing the Indians protection in their holdings and usually providing in addition that land might be purchased from the Indians only through the Governor of the Colony and the recognized leaders of the Indian tribes.