Dr. JONES. Yes; we are very closely affiliated. In other words, Freedmen's Hospital furnishes practically all of the clinical facilities for the students of Howard University School of Medicine.

Mr. LAMBERTSON. Are you head of the nurses?

Miss MAY. Yes, sir; I am.

Mr. O'NEAL. How much permanent medical staff have you there? Dr. JONES. One hundred, approximately.

Mr. O'NEAL. Full-time doctors?

Dr. JONES. No, sir.

Mr. O'NEAL. I am speaking of doctors.

Dr. JONES. Doctors? What type of doctors?

Mr. O'NEAL. Yes. How many full-time doctors do you have, and how many part-time doctors?'

Dr. JONES. We have five full-time doctors.

Mr. O'NEAL. You have five full-time doctors?

Dr. JONES. Yes, sir; and they are known as the hospital administrative staff. Federal employees.

Mr. O'NEAL. How many internes?

Dr. JONES. We have 24 internes and 1 dental interne.

Mr. O'NEAL. How many doctors give part of their time to the hospital, but not all of their time?

Dr. JONES. May I make this observation? We have two types of staff. A visiting staff which gives its time as medical needs and student teaching may require. This is without cost to the Federal Government. Some of these doctors serve for the prestige and experience gained. That staff represents approximately 100 members. The hospital administrative staff consists of the five doctors previously mentioned. They are full time civil-service employees. In addition there are six other doctors, civil-service employees, of a professional character, not on the administrative staff, but on our professional staff.

Mr. O'NEAL. They give so much time a day to the hospital?

Dr. JONES. They give full time. For instance, the roentgenologist, pathologist, pathological laboratory technician, clinical director of outdoor medical department, pharmacist, and assistant pharmacist. Mr. O'NEAL. You have some doctors that are in there on a fee basis, too?

Dr. JONES. No; we do not.

Mr. O'NEAL. Some hospitals have that, where they give an hour or two a day to help carry the load.

Dr. JONES. No, sir; we do not have any of those.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. Doctor, what does your roentgenologist do? Does

he give expert interpretations of X-ray photographs?

Dr. JONES. Yes, sir; it is his business to interpret X-rays.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. Yes; an expert on interpretation?

Dr. JONES. As well as to give X-ray treatments.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. That is, as distinguished from a technician who

handles the apparatus?

Dr. JONES. Yes; that is true.

Mr. LAMBERTSON. What is the load each nurse carries?

Miss MAY. About 1 to 10 or 12.

Mr. LAMBERTSON. What is the standard?

Miss MAY. It should be 1 nurse to 4 or 5 patients for adults and 1 nurse to 3 for children. We have 1 night nurse for 25 patients in the

ward. She takes care of all of them, sometimes as many as 20 or 30, including private rooms.

Mr. O'NEAL. Very few hospitals have it down to 1 nurse to 3 or 4 patients.

Miss MAY. That may be true, but there are many who have much less than ours.

In addition, our nurses put in 52%1⁄2 hours a week a day, and 56 hours at night. They work more than the ordinary working person should work, and it should be no more than 48 hours a week. In addition to that, they carry 2 or 3 hours of class work, except on Saturdays and Sundays, so, it makes them work about 60 to 65 hours a week. We are so short of nurses that our registration is in jeopardy. The District has asked about the decrease in the registration of nurses. If we do not get more graduate nurses to supplement the nurse service, our school is in jeopardy.

Mr. LAMBERTSON. What do you mean by that? They will not be registered?

Miss MAY. Yes. Not in the District of Columbia, and many other States.

Mr. O'NEAL. The load of work is lighter in the summertime, is it not?

Miss MAY. No; not much, on account of vacation. They get 28 days vacation, and out of 100 nurses that will cut down the number available for service.

TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 1937.

BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS

STATEMENTS OF JOHN COLLIER, COMMISSIONER; WILLIAM ZIMMERMAN, JR., ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER; SAMUEL M. DODD FINANCE OFFICER; AND A. C. COOLEY, DIRECTOR OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION AND INDUSTRY DIVISION; JAMES M. STEWART, DIRECTOR OF LANDS; ROBERT MARSHALL, DIRECTOR OF FORESTRY; A. L. WATHEN, DIRECTOR OF IRRIGATION: W. W. BEATTY, DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION; P. L. FICKINGER. ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION D. E. THOMAS, ALASKA SECTION; DR. J. G. TOWNSEND, MEDICAL DIRECTOR; DR. L. W. WHITE, ASSISTANT MEDICAL DIRECTOR, and a. G. HARPER

GENERAL STATEMENT

Mr. JOHNSON. Gentlemen of the committee, the committee will come to order, and we will hear the Commissioner of Indian Affairs I suggest that the Commissioner make a general statement, and I would also suggest that we permit him to finish his general statement before we ask him any questions, in order to expedite the hearing. Mr. Commissioner.

Mr. COLLIER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I would prefer to make my statement, as far as possible, responsive to questions that may be in the minds particularly of members who are new on the committee.

Mr. JOHNSON. The committee will ask plenty of questions, if that is what you prefer.

Mr. COLLIER. That is what I would prefer. But if you desire a general statement, I shall be glad to make it, and I shall also be glad to answer any questions that are in the minds of the members of the committee.

Mr. JOHNSON. I suggest that you make such statements as you wish to make, and then the members of the committee will ask any questions they desire to ask. Your statements may raise questions in the minds of the members of the committee.

Mr. COLLIER. Yes. I would say, then, about the job of the Indian Service, that as the result of a long series of acts by the Government, going back more than 100 years-treaties, agreements, statutes, and decisions by the Supreme Court as a result of that long historical record the Government finds itself in an entirely peculiar relationship to the red Indians, who number, roughly, 350,000, of which number, roughly, about a quarter of a million have been under the jurisdiction of the Government. That peculiar relationship is one of guardianship over the person and trusteeship over property, the guardianship and trusteeship being lodged in Congress and through Congress, in the Interior Department. For one hundred years the formal description of the power of Congress over Indian matters has been given by the word "plenary", that is, unconditional, absolute. Congress delegated a portion of that power, first to the War Department and then to the Interior Department.

Two things happened down through the years. The first was that Congress, year after year, and in innumerable ways, legislated about Indian matters, often legislating about the minutial of Indian matters. So an enormous body of statute law grew up, four fat volumes containing the statute law dealing with the Indians. At the same time, the legislation of Congress was not comprehensive. There were enormous gaps left, which were filled in by the use of administrative discretion. Rules and regulations multiplied. The rules and regulations, insofar as they were not in conflict with statutes had the force and effect of statute law. This course of affairs had the inevitable effect of causing the Indians to look constantly toward Washington. Washington was omnipotent; it was the source of all hope and all fear in the Indian mind. It filled the Indian mind. Actually Washington did, through statute, or through rules and regulations, rule the life of these people with a completeness of paternalism that I do not think has ever been known in the world before.

The Indians in those years were not citizens. Some of them became citizens through receiving a patents in fee to allotted lands. Mr. JOHNSON. Many of such patents were forced upon them by the Indian Office.

Mr. COLLIER. Yes; many of which were forced upon them, and they usually lost the land, but they acquired citizenship. The courts promptly laid down the dictum that citizenship and wardship were not incompatible. Although a citizen, the Indian still was a ward in almost as complete a sense as he was before.

GRANTING OF CITIZENSHIP TO INDIANS

Then, in 1924, all Indians were made citizens by an Act of Congress, but with a reservation in the Congress of control over Indian property, which, of course, is the essence of all control; and again, control over the person was carried forward by virtue of the fact that the Indian

continued to live on Federal property, and ordinarily no State law or authority extends to the Federally controlled Indian land. There force, the control over the Indian's person continued to be congressional and departmental.

ABSOLUTE CONTROL OF GOVERNMENT OVER INDIANS

So we come right up to the present with this system of paternalistie and, largely, absolutist rule by the Federal Government over Indians scattered all over the United States, all the way from Florida and North Carolina to Canada, at one extreme, to Washington and Oregon, at the other. I believe the number of States containing ward Indians is around 25. They are widely scattered.

May I say to you that I am giving you this picture just to lead up to the budgetary problem. I am not giving it for any other purpose.

INDIAN CLAIMS

May I state at this point, that at an early date the principle was established that while the Indians had in practice no appeal to the courts against the plenary authority of Congress, yet they could be permitted by Congress to bring claims for damages against the Government for violations of legal or equitable rights - contractual rights. They could go into the Court of Claims when permitted to do so by Congress. Actually they have gone into the Court of Claims with a total of claims exceeding $1,600,000,000 to date, which is only a fraction of the claims that may be expected to come in before we have liquidated our obligations to the Indians.

Mr. RICH. May I ask a question at this point? You say that the claims have been filed amounting to $1,600,000,000?

Mr. COLLIER. That is the total amount of the claims filed to date. Mr. RICH. And it is only a small portion of the claim-?

Mr. COLLIER. I think there will be a whole lot more. They are coming in every year.

Mr. JOHNSON. Are they valid claims?

Mr. COLLIER Yes; many of them are valid claims. A large num ber of them are not valid claims in equity or in law, but they present an almost irresistible moral appeal. However, they have not recovered much on those claims. Since 1871 the total net recoveries have amounted to a total of a little over $18,000,000.

Mr. RICH Where did this $1,600,000,000 come from?

Mr COLLIER. $1,600,000,000 is the amount of claims they have filed, and $18,000,000 is the amount they recovered through obtaining judgment on those claims

Mr RICH You have paid out only $18,000,000 in claims

Mr COLLIER Yes. We have paid out only $18,000,000 on claims Mr RICH There were more claims than that before the House during the last session of Congress

Mr COLLIER. That is right.

DISPOSITION OF INDIAN CLAIMS

What happens is this: In the first place, many of these claim suits, after being authorized by Congress, are thrown out by the Court of Claims for want of jurisdiction, due to some defect in the language of the jurisdictional act or some erroneous presumption built into the

jurisdictional act. Then, the Government sets up its counterclaims. Those counterclaims often approximate the amount of the award, and sometimes exceed it, so that it has happened that after winning their suits, Indians have come out in debt to the Government.

Mr. RICH. When they do, do they drop the claim and call it square? Mr. COLLIER. They generally assert a new claim, or assert a wider claim. At the present time these claims rarely are finally settled. The Indian nearly always wants to come back, and he generally does come back. I might call your attention to the fact that there is pending now a bill which would set up a commission which would be an instrumentality of Congress. The job of that commission would be to ascertain all the facts about all the claims, and report to Congress, so that Congress could have a consistent policy and could bring this prosecution of immeasurable claims to an end.

Mr. RICH. Are those bills that are put before Congress on these claims all referred to your Department?

Mr. COLLIER. They are all referred to the Department for report. Sometimes the report is favorable, sometimes it is adverse, and sometimes we make suggestions as to changes in language.

Mr. RICH. Have you checked over the claims that are before Congress now at this session?

Mr. COLLIER. No; I do not know that all of them have been checked over, but we have made many reports on them.

Mr. RICH. To whom do you make the reports?

Mr. COLLIER. To the Indian committees in charge of the bill. Mr. LEAVY. But, Mr. Collier, those bills do nothing more than just merely grant the right to institute an action.

Mr. COLLIER. That is correct.

Mr. LEAVY. And they do not pretend to pass upon the merits of the claim?

Mr. COLLIER. No; usually they do not.

Mr. RICH. During the last session we had many bills authorizing appropriations. I know we had letters that came from your Department, where it was shown that they were not recommended by your Department. Congressman Jack Cochran was handling a lot of those. Mr. COLLIER. After a judgment is rendered, an appropriation pursuant to the judgment is asked, and it would always have the endorsement of the Department, because it is nothing but the fulfillment of an authorization. I don't want to divert too far beyond pointing out that these suits go on and on, and that they multiply.

Mr. RICH. This is a very important question here in trying to solve this problem and have an answer to it. They have been putting in claims since 1871, and those claims amount to the enormous total of $1,600,000,000, and we have paid out only $18,000,000 to date. Is there not some way by which this commission that is to be established could get a final settlement once and for all?

Mr. COLLIER. We think so. At least, that is what the commission's object would be. It would be directed to go on the ground and round up the claims and dig into them, either superficially or profoundly according to the needs of the case. A lot of the claims are obviously fantastical dreams.

Mr. RICH. They are obviously what?

Mr. COLLIER. Fantastical. They are not based on any grounds or facts.

Mr. RICH. They have no grounds?