the opportunity for attending specialized Indian schools. Health care was also a serious worry for the Montana Indians. Constituting less than 3 percent of the State's population, the tribe had over a tenth of the State's infant deaths and almost a third of the tuberculosis deaths,63 The impact of the bill on Seminole education would be disastrous. Reservation schools would be closed in an area where some of the children were as far as 50 miles 64 from another school. Children at the public schools would no longer receive free lunches. "Our people," said one Seminole mother, "want 25 more years of extension of time because they know they can take care of themselves during that time after 25 years. *** I believe that all the women on the reservation think they will have their children educated by that time to take care of their own affairs.” 65 Perhaps the most universal objection to the legislation was that the tribal members were too inexperienced to assume responsibility in the short transition period allowed. "Another reason I am opposed to this bill," testified a member of the Klamath Tribe, "is that of all the 2,000 enrolled members, I don't think there are four people that have graduated from college, and I doubt if there are one-third of them that have finished high school. *** We would not be capable of a tremendously big job of incorporating our reservation in such a short period of time.66 They are not educated enough to handle their own affairs," said a man from another tribe. "It has to take a period of time to thoroughly absorb all of the various ways you white people have in transacting business." 67 Some argued that the provisions of the law would create almost irresistible pressure for immediate liquidation of the tribe's holdings by people who wanted cash and who would think in terms of the short run. "You are making it very difficult for them to keep that property." a Flathead argued. "The cards will be stacked against any in the group desiring to keep this intact and manage it. Because when you talk about $70 million here, $17,000 per family, the pressure to get that divided up is going to be awfully great, on the part of people who tomorrow, after they get it, may regret that kind of solution." 68 During the course of the hearings many delegates raised objections to the legislation on various "procedural" grounds, regarding both the procedures followed in developing the legislation and the method of implementation set forth in the bills. One of the most common remarks of the Indians was that consultation with the tribes had been only pro forma, and had often been a very hurried process. Some tribes received the final proposal only a few weeks before the hearings. One spokesman argued that the fundamental difficulty of the legislation was its complexity. If only the plan were "simple and direct and easy to understand, [it] would be accepted by most every group of southern California Indians." 69 Other Indians spoke of the difficulty in coming to a judgment on a highly technical piece of legisla 63 Ibid., p. 964. 84 Ibid., p. 1096. Ibid., p. 1121. 6 Ibid., p. 68A. 07 Ibid., p. 402. es Ibid., p. 915. Ibid., p. 548. tion in a tribal meeting. Some mentioned the impossibility of obtaining legal advice in the short period which was available to take action on the legislation. Other delegates were concerned with the procedure outlined in the bill for terminating tribal affairs. "This bill in its present form," one witnss testified, "would give the Secretary of the Interior almost unlimited discretionary authority." 70 Under the law there would be no appeal from the decision of the Secretary on the question of tribal membership or in the selection of a trustee to liquidate tribal property should the tribe fail to reach a decision within the allowed period. The method provided by the legislation for determining the disposition of tribal property also provoked objections. The bills provided for a referendum of all tribal members to determine the future of tribal holdings. In reservations where a larger percentage of the tribe had moved away, the future of those who still lived on the reservation could thus be determined by those with no such interest in the property. "Those who are living there, trying to make a living," said one witness, "ought to be favored." 71 In the many generations of living on the reservation, some groups had become deeply attached to their homelands. "There is a pretty deep sentimental feeling there among any Indians who claim that place for their home. All of our forefathers and relatives have our cemeteries there on this reservation. I think those should be considered also ***" 72 "If this Congress wants to do anything," said another witness, "just leave us alone. Leave those lands alone. Those lands are our home. We want them that way." 73 Local officials and private organizations.-Fewer than half the termination bills brought local officials to Washington to testify. In each case where an official did appear, the reservation was either a wealthy one important to the local economy or one with extremely poor resources, threatening a serious drain on State and local resources in the provision of education, welfare, and other forms of community services. Local officials were subject to cross pressures, and their responses varied widely. Many looked with some favor on the general idea of transferring authority for local matters from Washington to the local government. This response generally prevailed in States in which the Indian groups were small or relatively self-sufficient. Conflicting with the desire for local authority, however, was the realization that the local government lacked the financial resources to assume major new responsibilities. The localities surrounding the poor reservations often possessed an inadequate tax base and were barely able to finance their present governmental services. The testimony of local officials from Montana, California, North Dakota, and Nevada, was uniformly in opposition and clearly made an impression on the committee. Local citizens or representatives of local organizations took part in several of the hearings. In only one case, that of the Florida Seminoles, were they well organized and genuinely effective. Local citizens, and particularly members of Florida's women's organizations, did an 70 Ibid., p. 432. Ibid., p. 913. 72 Ibid., p. 1401. 73 Ibid., p. 477. effective job of gathering and presenting the facts about an Indian population which was largely illiterate, still living in extremely primitive conditions, and occupying potentially valuable land. While the State government was indifferent, the local organizations did an important service for the Seminoles. One incongruous result of this activity was the endorsement by several DAR chapters of a resolution favoring continued Federal responsibility and supervision. Academic experts.-The massive record of testimony on the termination bills is perhaps most surprising for what it fails to contain. In more than 1,700 pages of testimony there is no statement by a sociologist, an anthropologist, a social worker, or anyone else trained in the social sciences. Although most reservations have been studied by social scientists concerned with Indian acculturation, the only evidence presented to the committee was a letter from an economics student who had spent a summer on one reservation. Academics failed to either participate in the hearings or to submit written statements for the record. Members of the joint subcommittee.-The disputes which raged among the witnesses were in sharp contrast to the agreement which prevailed among members of the subcommittee. There was no real controversy throughout the hearings. With the exception of Senator Smathers, who attended a single hearing, no member made a statement in clear opposition to any of the bills. Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, the whole committee appeared to take a very similar view of the problems. The subcommittee hearings occupied 18 days between February 15 and March 12. Meetings generally began at 10 a.m. and lasted until late afternoon or early evening. Hearings were held throughout the week and on Saturdays. It was an extremely demanding schedule and only the two subcommittee chairmen regularly participated. In spite of conflicting demands, Watkins took part in every Washington hearing, maintaining firm control over the proceedings. "Many times," former Representative Miller wrote, "the hearings seem to be pro forma, just going through the motions, with the key decisions already made. They resemble a large verbal orchestration, as a 'record' is carefully shaped under the vigilant gavel of the chairman." 74 The one central impression emerging from the mass of testimony of the termination hearings is the domination of the Senator from Utah. Both in terms of information and in terms of a coherent philosophy of Indian policy, Senator Watkins was without challenge. A conservative Republican from a conservative State, Watkins had a rather confined notion about the proper functions of government. "Personally," he said at one point, "I am in favor of taking away as many subsidies as we can ***. Here we have a group of people who have innate ability just the same as other people, when they get stimulated with a little ambition and a little necessity. You know, necessity is said to be the mother of invention. It is the spur to drive all of us to do things we don't think we can do. And if there isn't that necessity there, we just don't move. If you get to the point where you are really dissatisfied, you do something about it." 75 74 Clem Miller, "Member of the House" (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1962), p. 8. 75 Joint hearings, p. 678. Speaking of the Flathead Tribe, Watkins praised those members who had successfully left the reservation. "Now," he said, "we have been watching this tribe of Indians for quite a long time ***. And I believe they have made progress to the point where we should give serious consideration now to giving them further liberty. We are not trying to take anything from them ***. We want to give them the liberty to handle their property as they would like to, as we would like to handle our property. And we would like to give that to them, that right, when they are able to handle that responsibility."76 Watkins was convinced that keeping Indian lands in Federal trust was the fundamental reason for the slow rate of progress. "As it stands," he said, "many of these Indians are in the depths of poverty, largely because they have not been able to use any of the assets in a businesslike way. They are in trust and they cannot do anything about it.""Speaking of the western Oregon tribes, he said, "I heard recently that one of the reasons why those Indians are pretty much independent is that they were given their property, most of them, years ago. Some of them sold it, some of them kept it. Probably most of them sold it. But they are quite independent now, able to take care of themselves." 78 Watkins frequently invoked the "unanimous" passage of Resolution 108, explaining that the subcommittee was only executing the declared will of Congress. "We are acting under the direction of Congress, passed unanimously," he told one group, "to move in this direction whether we wanted to or not, if we wanted to discharge this duty. I mean, whether we had any personal aims to solve or to further or not, we at least have a duty to perform in accordance with the resolution adopted by the Congress."79 Watkins was profoundly discouraged by the record of Federal trusteeship. "I think," he said, "we have been operating now in many cases over 150 years as guardians of some of these Indians, and I do not think we can point with any degree of pride to what we have accomplished." 80 Progress could come only by total removal of Federal supervision. "We do not want the Government still in the business by any implication whatsoever," he told a BIA official. "If we have severed the cord which binds us to the Indians or the Indians to us, we want it completely severed, and not just a little strand left." 81 Watkins had little patience with the concern for Indian treaties. When another subcommittee member suggested that a bill might violate treaty rights, Watkins answered: "It is like the treaties with Europe. They can be renounced at any time." 82 I would like to comment. *** We have arrived at the point where we do not recognize now within the confines of the United States any foreign nations. You now have become citizens of the one nation. Ordinarily the United States does not enter into treaties * **between any of its citizens and the Federal Government. *** So it is doubtful now that from here on treaties are going to be recognized where the In 78 Ibid., p. 819. dians themselves have gone to the point where they have ac cepted citizenship in the United States and have taken advantage of its opportunities. So that that question of treaties, I think, is going to largely disappear." 83 The fact of Indian citizenship not only served to deal with the issue of treaties, but also explained the necessity of ending tax exemp tions for Indians. "Well," Watkins asked, "most of them vote on this Flathead Reservation, don't they? They have accepted citizenship." "Did they put any limitations on their acceptance and say, 'We expect to be just second-class citizens or citizens with special rights over and above all the rest?' " 84 The Indians, he held, were being essentially selfish. "They want all the benefits of the things we have, highways, schools, hospitals, everything that civilization furnishes, but they don't want to help pay their share of it." 85 "Since I have been chairman of the Indian committees twice, I have never heard of any objection by an Indian about being an American citizen except in two or three cases.” “ Watkins believed that the basic reason for Indian opposition to the legislation was the desire to avoid their fair share of taxation. He demanded that the Indians accept the burden as well as the rights of citizenship. The Senator was sharply critical of the proposition that the Indians were not prepared to assume responsibility over their property. "*** nobody can walk for you. You have to do your own walking. And the only way you can walk is to use your own limbs. And you are doing that well. The United States, this guardian of yours, says you ought to go on with the job. He says you ought to go on with the job. He says you have now arrived at the point where you can do it yourselves. Aren't you going to honor that decision? You are setting your judgment against the President, the Secretary, the Indian Commissioner, and all the people who have studied this." 87 "We do not want to take anything away from you," he told a Klamath Indian. "We want to take off the shackles and make you freemen, free to make a mistake or two if you want to, if that is the way it has to be done. That is the way most of us learned, by making a few mistakes. That is what we are trying to do for you, take the shackles off. We pay you a great compliment when we say we are sure you can do a good job. In fact, we think you will do a better job than we have for 135 years." ss "I cannot be a party, personally, to seeing the United States go on and deprive the people, the citizens, who are able to take care of themselves, of the right to make their own decisions, and have the United States go on and make those decisions for them. That is a right you are entitled to have." 89 88 Senator Watkins desired to enact legislation and to set a prece dent, thus establishing a policy which could result in termination of many tribes. "I think," he said, "if there is one thing this Con |