PRIVATE SIGNALS AT SEA. MAY 7, 1908.-Ordered to be printed. Mr. FRYE, from the Committee on Commerce, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany S. 6958.] The Committee on Commerce, to whom was referred the bill (S. 6958) to provide for private signals at sea, having considered the same, report thereon with a recommendation that it pass with an amendment. The bill has the approval of the Department of Commerce and Labor, as will appear by the following letter, which sufficiently presents the facts: DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, SIR: The Department has received your letter of the 5th instant, inclosing a copy of S. 6958, a bill to provide for private signals at sea. Complying with your request that I furnish the committee with such suggestions as I may deem proper touching the merits of the bill and the propriety of its passage I have to say: The International Signal Code provides the means of indicating from a distance at sea the names of vessels. The letters to which these signal flags correspond are awarded officially by the Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce and Labor. Certain lights are provided by the Rules for Preventing Collisions, and "no other lights which may be mistaken for the prescribed lights shall be exhibited." As a further means of recognition at sea vessels have "house flags" and "funnel marks," indicating the lines or owners that they belong to. They also have special parti-colored rockets for the same purpose. These devices are recognized by law in other countries and are desirable. In October, 1883, the Secretary of the Treasury allowed these house flags, funnel marks, and rocket signals to be registered, and for eighteen years they have been so registered in the Bureau of Navigation. This registry is without authority of Congress, is of no validity, and a short time ago the Commissioner of Navigation decided to stop this informal procedure which could serve effectively no good purpose unless approved by Congress. This bill will legalize such registration and give these special signals the same recognition by law which they have under British law. The Department is aware of no objection to the bill and considers that it would serve a useful purpose. Very respectfully, yours, OSCAR S. STRAUS, Secretary. CONFERRING JURISDICTION ON THE COURT OF CLAIMS TO ADJUDICATE THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WHO FORMERLY HELD TOWN LOTS IN THE CITY OF SULPHUR, IN THE CHICKASAW NATION, INDIAN TERRITORY. MAY 7, 1908.-Ordered to be printed. Mr. DIXON, from the Committee on Indian Affairs, submitted the following ADVERSE REPORT. [To accompany 8. 6471.] The Committee on Indian Affairs, having had under consideration Senate bill 6471, beg leave to report the same adversely with the recommendation that it do not pass, for the reasons set forth in the accompanying letter from the honorable Secretary of the Interior hereto attached and made part of this report. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, SIR: The Department has received by your reference of April 17, 1908, for report, S. 6471, entitled "A bill conferring jurisdiction on the Court of Claims to adjudicate the rights of persons who formerly held town lots in the city of Sulphur, in the Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory, which have been taken for a United States reservation, and for other purposes. An amendment was proposed to H. R. 15331, Fifty-ninth Congress (the Indian appropriation bill), and the Department forwarded to your committee adverse report of April 4, 1906, from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The amendment proposed at that time was in substantially the same language as the bill under consideration. This claim arises from the creation of the reservation at Sulphur Springs, Chickasaw Nation, which was provided for by the supplemental agreement between the United States and the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes of Indians, approved July 1, 1904 (32 Stat. L., 641). Section 64 of the agreement provides: * "The two tribes hereby absolutely and unqualifiedly relinquish, cede, and convey unto the United States a tract or tracts of land at or in the vicinity of the village of Sulphur, in the Chickasaw Nation, of not exceeding 640 acres, to be selected under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, and to embrace all the natural springs in and about said village, and so much of Sulphur Creek, Rock Creek, Buckhorn Creek, and the lands adjacent to said natural springs and creeks as may be deemed necessary by the Secretary of the Interior for the proper utilization and control of said springs and the waters of said creeks, which lands shall be so selected as to cause the least interference with the contemplated town site at that place, consistent with the purposes for which said cession is made. * "All improvements upon the lands so selected, which were lawfully there at the time of the ratification of this agreement by Congress, shall be appraised, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, at the true value thereof at the time of the selection of said lands, and shall be paid for by warrants drawn by the Secretary of the Interior upon the Treasurer of the United States." At the time of the approval of the agreement the town of Sulphur had been in existence for a number of years. There was no law of the Chickasaw Nation or of the United States providing for the laying out and sale of lots in towns in the Chickasaw Nation prior to the act of June 21, 1898 (30 Stat. L., 495), and the village of Sulphur was platted by private parties under a mere occupancy right. People who erected improvements in the town obtained their lots through the parties who platted the tract, and necessarily obtained no greater title than the parties from whom they purchased. However, as the town grew in size, the prices paid for lots increased until it is possible that they nearly approximated what would be paid for lots in another town of similar size where the people had fee simple titles; but neither the United States nor the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations can equitably be held to be accountable to the holders of lots for the amounts they may have paid for their occupancy rights. They knew at all times that the title to the land was in the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, and that ultimately they must buy from those nations if they would obtain real ownership of the lots. When the reservation was segregated by the Department under the provisions of the supplemental agreement, the chief business district of the town was taken within the reservation. The owners of buildings and other improvements were compensated for them under the provisions of the agreement. Afterwards it was reported to the Department that the land taken under the agreement was not sufficient to protect the mineral springs, and Congress, at the instance of the Department, inserted a provision in the Indian appropriation act, approved April 21, 1904 (31 Stat. L., 189), for increasing the area, and under this provision 216.68 acres were added to the reservation. This second segregation took a part of the new business district that had been created subsequently to the original segregation. The legislation provided that "The Secretary of the Interior is hereby directed to appraise, at their actual value at the time of such appraisement, all town lots held by citizens of the United States within the limits of the tract of land ceded to the United States by the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, at or near Sulphur Springs, in the Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory, and pay for the same to such lot holders severally, or to their legal representatives, the appraised value of such lots by warrants drawn by the Secretary of the Interior upon the Treasurer of the United States." * * * In accordance with this provision the Secretary of the Interior paid for lots taken $150,881. The total amount disbursed for lots and improvements in the town was $444,793.55. The lots in the town were appraised by the town-site commission, and the aggregate of the appraisements of all the lots is $73,893.40, which is the amount, less the deductions on account of improved lots, that the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations are entitled to receive for the entire town site. In other words, there was paid out of the Choctaw and Chickasaw funds for lots and improvements taken in Sulphur $370,900.15 more than the appraisement of the entire town site. * * The original agreement between the United States and the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, which was incorporated in “An act for the protection of the people of the Indian Territory, and for other purposes," approved June 28, 1898 (30 Stat. L., 495505), provided for the creation of a town-site commission in each nation, who "shall lay out town sites, to be restricted as far as possible to their present limits, where towns are now located, in the nation for which said commission is appointed. When such towns are so laid out, each lot * ** shall be valued *** at the price a fee-simple title to the same would bring in the market at the time the valuation is made. *** * The owner of the improvements on each lot shall have the right to buy one residence and one business lot at fifty per centum of the appraised value of such improved property, and the remainder of such improved property at sixty-two and one-half per centum of the said market value." Under this language every holder of town lots in the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations became vested with an equitable interest in each improved lot held by him. As to one business and one residence lot, his equitable interest was 50 per cent of the appraised value; but in any additional lots held by him it was 374 per cent. Town sites were segregated and surveyed throughout the two nations, and the lots were appraised and sold in accordance with the provision from which the foregoing quotation is taken. Those parts of the town that were not taken within the reservation were surveyed and the lots sold to the persons who had improvements on them |