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CREDIT CERTAIN INDIAN TRIBES WITH SUMS HERETOFORE EXPENDED FROM TRIBAL FUNDS ON INDIAN IRRIGATION WORKS

APRIL 25, 1935.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. AYERS, from the Committee on Indian Affairs, submitted the

following

REPORT

[To accompany S. 1531]

The Committee on Indian Affairs, to whom was referred the bill (S. 1531) to credit certain tribes with sums heretofore expended from tribal funds on Indian irrigation works, having considered the same, report thereon with a recommendation that it do pass without amendments.

The Commissioner of Indian Affairs and the officials of the Bureau of Indian Affairs personally appeared before the committee and manifested their approval of this legislation.

This bill has the approval of the department as can be seen from the following letter from the Secretary of the Interior:

Hon. ELMER THOMAS,

INTERIOR DEPARTMENT,
Washington, March 5, 1935.

Chairman Committee on Indian Affairs, United States Senate.

MY DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: This is in further reference to your communication of January 31 requesting a report on S. 1531 relating to the repayment to the Fort Belknap Indian tribal fund of the amounts heretofore expended from that fund on irrigation works of the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, Mont.

This matter was given consideration by a committee appointed under the provisions of the act of July 1, 1932 (47 Stat. 564), which authorized the Secretary of the Interior to adjust or eliminate reimbursable charges of the Government existing as debts against individual Indians or tribes of Indians. The committee in its report on the Fort Belknap Reservation recommended that the tribal money used in the construction of that project be reimbursed to the tribe by an act of Congress. (See H. Doc. No. 501, 72d Cong., 2d sess., pp. 38 to 48.)

As a precedent for such act our attention is invited to the provision of the act of May 18, 1916 (39 Stat. 123-141) relating to the Blackfeet, Flathead, and Fort Peck Indian Reservations in Montana which act, reads in part as follows:

"That the tribal funds heretofore covered into the Treasury of the United States in partial reimbursement of appropriations made for constructing irriga

tion systems on said reservations shall be placed to the credit of the tribe and be available for such expenditure for the benefit of the tribe as Congress may hereafter direct."

Should this legislation be enacted it is estimated that the eventual charge against the Federal Treasury will approximate $107,760.

While I personally favor the legislation, the Acting Director of the Bureau of the Budget has advised that it would not be in accord with the financial program of the President.

Sincerely yours,

HAROLD L. ICKES,
Secretary of the Interior.

The Senate added sections 2, 3, 4, and 5 to this bill and passed it favorably April 9, 1935.

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FUNDS FOR COOPERATION WITH SCHOOL BOARD OF SHANNON COUNTY, S. DAK.

APRIL 25, 1935.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. WERNER, from the Committee on Indian Affairs, submitted the

following

REPORT

[To accompany S. 1537]

The Committee on Indian Affairs, to whom was referred the bill (S. 1537) to provide funds for cooperation with the school board of Shannon County, S. Dak., in the construction of a consolidated highschool building to be available to both white and Indian children, having considered the same, report thereon with a recommendation that it do pass without amendment.

This measure is in accord with the present Indian policy of developing Indian education locally wherever possible. The program of education on the Pine Ridge Reservation has developed to the point where a combined high school for both white and Indian children is highly desirable. Indian boys and girls of secondary school age hitherto sent away to nonreservation boarding schools are being retained on the reservation for practical training directly related to their own needs. This has increased the number of boys and girls available for high-school work to a considerable degree. There are now about 255 Indian children on the Pine Ridge Reservation enrolled in the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades and 295 in the 7th and 8th grades, making about 500 children in need of training at the highschool level. Local school authorities estimate that there are 50 white children who would attend the consolidated vocational high school. The educational situation at Pine Ridge is therefore overwhelmingly an Indian one. Moreover, all but a very small percentage of the land within the Pine Ridge Reservation is nontaxable Indian land. State resources are not available to finance construction. The measure proposed will make possible a better type of education for both whites. and Indians at a much lower cost than will be necessary to set up these facilities away from the reservation.

H. Repts., 74–1, vol. 2- -33

existing Air Corps stations and depots and the enlargement of the same when necessary, for the effective peace-time training of the General Headquarters Air Force and the Air Corps components of our overseas garrisons.

The bill further provides that in determining the locations of such new stations, consideration must be given to (1) the Atlantic Northeast, (2) the Atlantic Southeast and Caribbean areas, (3) the Southeastern States, (4) the Pacific Northwest, (5) Alaska, (6) the Rocky Mountain area, and (7) intermediate stations necessary for transcontinental movements in the maneuvers of the General Headquarters Air Force.

The committee is convinced that the maintenance of at least one station in each of the above-described areas is necessary for the following reasons:

First, it is difficult and impracticable to carry on substantial air maneuvers in an area which has no permanent Army station equipped to service aircraft and to provide offices and communications essential to setting up command posts, assembly rooms for conferences, messing facilities, hospitalization, and other similar requirements.

Second, to offer military air-force units full and adequate opportunity to operate in rotation in all parts of the Nation.

Third, the establishment and maintenance of close and permanent contact with civilian armies, including Reserve aviators, in order to make practical plans for the utilization of existing and the creation. of new and suitable ground installations in the event of war.

Fourth, to give additional facilities for the training of Reserve aviators affording them an opportunity to train at intervals with combat units through visits to each area of the various units.

Fifth, to give each area an operating nucleus, capable of immediate expansion in the event of war, for the servicing of aircraft and the supply of aviation material and equipment.

The location of an air base in each of the strategic areas specified in the bill will also give proper training to pilots under all climatic conditions and, by rotation in changes from one field to another, all pilots will become thoroughly familiar with the section of the country they may be called upon to defend. In fact they will know the country far better than any possible enemy.

In the passage of this bill we will show the world that we are prepared to defend ourselves against air attack and thus so discourage attack as to render it practically certain there will be no such attack. It is impossible to depict in language the destruction of life and property that might result from an air attack against this Nation unless we are fully prepared to defend ourselves.

All great nations now have huge airplane carriers, which are in fact floating landing fields, to enable them to carry aerial warfare to enemy shores. They also have floating seaplanes and mother ships.

We are advised that only 30 tons of explosives were dropped on London in the World War, resulting in the loss of 1,800 lives, while today planes are being constructed, any one of which will be able to drop 10 tons of explosives. This situation is well emphasized by Col. C. de F. Chandler, United States Army (retired), in an article in the November 1934 issue of the United States Air Services, where he says:

German seaplanes of existing types now alight on the South Atlantic Ocean between Africa and South America to moor astern of a station ship (S.S. Westphalian). This vessel is an ordinary merchant type, supplied with aviation fuel

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