74TH CONGRESS 1st Session SENATE { REPORT No. 430 ROUND VALLEY, CALIF., IN COOPERATION WITH PUBLICSCHOOL BOARD AT COVELO MARCH 13 (calendar day, APRIL 5), 1935.-Ordered to be printed Mr. THOMAS of Oklahoma, from the Committee on Indian Affairs, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany S. 1536] The Committee on Indian Affairs, to whom was referred the bill (S. 1536) to provide funds for cooperation with public-school board at Covelo, Calif., in the construction of public-school buildings to be available to both Indian and white children, having considered the same, report thereon with a recommendation that it do pass without amendment. This is in accord with the present Indian education policy of cooperation wherever feasible, with local public-school authorities in the schooling of Indian children. The Round Valley Union High School District embraces in part the former Round Valley Reservation. There are no Government Indian schools on the reservation and the children are attending the public school or Government nonreservation boarding schools. In all, there are 164 or possibly more Indian children in the district. The bill proposes assistance which will make possible construction of buildings needed for a junior-senior high school of the vocational type. This kind of instruction is particularly valuable for Indian children. The district is unable to finance the new buildings but has voted to raise $20,000 by means of a bond issue if the Government provides $50,000 as its share of the cost. In this district there are 86,910 acres of nontaxable Indian land and 159,977 acres of national forest land. The present building which houses the grammar school is old and dilapidated and too small to accommodate the children of the locality. It is poorly lighted and heated and ventilated, and is considered a fire and earthquake menace. There is apprehension that the building will be condemned. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs and other officials of the Bureau of Indian Affairs personally appeared before the committee and manifested their approval of this legislation. The Secretary of the Interior personally favors this proposed legislation but he states that the Director of the Budget advises that it would not be in accord with the financial program of the President. The Secretary of the Interior's letter dated April 2, 1935, is appended hereto and made a part of this report as follows: Hon. ELMER THOMAS, Chairman Committee on Indian Affairs, INTERIOR Department, United States Senate. MY DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: Further reference is made to your letter of January 31, transmitting S-1536, which proposes to authorize an appropriation of $50,000 for cooperating with the public-school board at Covelo, Calif., in the construction of a new public-school plant at Covelo, Calif. This public-school district embraces, in part, territory formerly of the Round Valley Indian Reservation. The district has reported 282,772 acres of taxable land, having an assessed valuation of $1,248,056. The district has also advised that there are nontaxable lands which are now or were of the former Indian reservation, totaling 86,910 acres, the estimated valuation of which is $203,250. There have also been reported 159,977 acres of national forest land, the estimated value of which was $239,986. Within the school district are 164 or more Indian children, some of whom are now placed in distant nonreservation schools. Under the plan proposed by the school district, it will have a junior-senior high school of vocational type, which will include approximately 100 white students and 70 Indian. It appears from the information furnished that the enrollment of Indian children will be later increased, if space be available. This will afford an opportunity for Indian boys and girls now in the seventh and eighth grades at the public school within the reservation to attend at Covelo and secure instruction in shop work and home economics on a junior high-school basis. It would increase the vocational and home-economics facilities for those who are now attending high school and would enable the Indian Service to return students who are now in the Sherman, Phoenix, and Salem nonreservation schools. A good union high school at Covelo would make it possible to offer a program sufficiently modern and varied so that Indian students of the school district could be retained for junior-senior high-school instruction in the home school at Covelo. The present grammar-school building is old and dilapidated, too small to accommodate all who should attend, is poorly lighted, heated, and ventilated, and is reported to be a fire and earthquake menace. By reason of adverse comment by the State department of education there is some ground for apprehension that the building will be condemned by the State. The district cannot finance the new building or buildings required but it voted to raise $20,000 by means of a bond issue provided Government assistance can be secured. While I personally favor enactment of S. 1536, the Acting Director of the Bureau of the Budget, under date of March 18, 1935, advised that the proposed legislation would not be in accord with the financial program of the President. Sincerely yours, HAROLD L. ICKES, O MARCH 13 (calendar day, APRIL 8), 1935.-Ordered to be printed Mr. ASHURST, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany S. 1932] The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the bill (S. 1932) for the relief of the State of California, beg to submit the following report: The object of this bill is to reimburse the State of California for moneys actually advanced or expended in aid of the National Government during the years 1863-65 as reported by the Comptroller General of the United States and embodied in Senate Document No. 220, Seventy-first Congress, third session; such reimbursement being broadly and firmly grounded upon legal, equitable, and moral considerations. The past history in this body of measures providing for the reimbursement of California is wholly favorable to such reimbursement, as exhibited by bills consecutively introduced, favorably reported, and passed for that purpose in the Seventy-first, Seventy-second, and Seventy-third Congresses, in addition to the five times such a bill has passed the Senate in previous Congresses. Consequently it would appear that the Senate, after hearings and mature deliberations, is committed to the reimbursement of the State of California as a just and meritorious measure. In the House of Representatives extensive hearings were held by the Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary in the Seventy-second and Seventy-third Congresses, which subcommittee on February 22, 1933, favorably reported the Senate bill to the full committee as follows: Your Subcommittee No. II, to whom was referred the bill (S. 1317) for the relief of the State of California, after consideration of the official reports and documents quoted and referred to in Senate Report No. 351 (72d Cong., 1st sess.) and the facts and arguments presented to the subcommittee at a hearing held February 22, 1933, on said bill, beg leave to report back the bill to the full committee with 1 the unanimous recommendation that a favorable report on said bill be sub mitted to the House of Representatives. A full and complete statement of the history, merits, and justice of the reimbursement of the State of California is contained in your committee's report submitted in the Seventy-third Congress on S. 2731, being Senate Report No. 320, which your committee adopts. and makes a part of this report. In an Appendix to this report, marked "D" (p. 58), is included, for the enlightenment of the Senate, extracts from the hearings held May 9, 1934, by the Judiciary Committee of the House of Repre sentatives on S. 2731. Your committee desires to repeat what it stated in its report on a similar bill in the last Congress, that one of the outstanding facts in this case is that the State of California is today paying interest on $840,000 of the $2,800,000 of bonds which the State in 1863 and 1864 issued and sold, in good faith upon the promise of reimbursement, to raise the money the State expended in aid of the Federal Government at that Government's urgent requests. In addition, the State has during the depression been compelled to issue extremely large amounts of bonds for relief and unemployment purposes, the Governor reporting to the legislature that the State's general fund will have a deficit as of January 1, 1935, of approximately $29,000,000, and that the revenues provided by existing law will be more than $124,000,000 short of meeting minimum requirements; and further, that at least $47,000,000 additional to finance unemployment relief is mandatory. Under these circumstances reimbursement at this time of the money found due and unpaid the State would be a tardy recognition on the part of the Federal Government of the sacrifices the State of California and its pioneer people made on behalf of the Union when substantial help was most needed. To supply an omission in printing your committee has amended the bill in line 3, after the word "Secretary", by adding the words "of the Treasury", and as so amended reports the bill favorably with the recommendation that it do pass. Senate Report No. 320, Seventy-third Congress, first session, is as follows: Senate Report No. 320, Seventy-third Congress, second session The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the bill (S. 2731) for the relief of the State of California, beg to submit the following report: The reimbursement of the State of California is based upon legal, equitable, and moral grounds for moneys actually expended in aid of the Federal Government during the years 1863-65 as reported by the Comptroller General of the United States and set forth in Senate Document No. 220, Seventy-first Congress, third session. An identical bill (S. 5080), after full hearing and careful consideration, was favorably reported by your committee in the Seventy-first Congress (S. Rept. No. 1834), and same passed the Senate on March 2, 1931. Again a similar bill (S. 1317) was favorably reported, after additional hearing, in the Seventy-second Congress, which passed the Senate unanimously on March 14, 1932. On this bill the Sub committee of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, after full hearing and consideration, submitted the following report to the full committee on February 27, 1933: Your Subcommittee No. 2, to whom was referred the bill (S. 1317) for the relief of the State of California, after consideration of the official reports and documents quoted and referred to in Senate Report No. 351 Seventy-second Congress, first session, and the facts and arguments presented to the subcommittee at a hearing held February 22, 1933, on said bill, beg leave to report back the bill to the full committee with the unanimous recommendation that a favorable report on said bill be submitted to the House of Representatives. The passage by the Senate of said bills in the Seventy-first and Seventy-second Congresses, together with similar bills which had previously passed the Senate, makes seven times such bills were given approval by this body. It would, therefore, appear that the Senate is committed to the reimbursement of California as a just and meritorious measure from legal, equitable, and moral standpoints. A statement of facts in the case is concisely set forth in the memorial passed by the Legislature of California appealing to Congress to do justice to the State, and for the information of the Senate your committee quotes said memorial as follows: Whereas the State of California has not been reimbursed for moneys actually expended by the State for costs, charges, and expenses incurred in enrolling, equipping, transporting, and paying its volunteer troops during the War between the States in response to the urgent calls of and under proper requisitions made by the commanding general of the military department of the Pacific under direct authority of the President and the Secretary of War, upon the understanding that all such costs, charges, and expenses actually incurred in raising troops for the United States would be reimbursed to the State, as shown by the letter from the Secretary of State. Hon. William H. Seward, addressed to the Governor of California, dated October 14, 1861, wherein he stated: "The President has directed me to invite your consideration to the subject of the improvement and perfection of the defenses of the State over which you preside and to ask you to submit the subject to the consideration of the legislature when it shall have assembled. Such proceedings by the State would require only a temporary use of its means. The expenditures ought to be made the subject of conference with the Federal authorities. Being thus made with the concurrence of the Government for general defense, there is every reason to believe that Congress would sanction what the State should do and would provide for its reimbursement"; and Whereas the record shows that the expenditures by the State of California on behalf of the United States were made with the knowledge, cooperation, and approval of the commanding general of the Department of the Pacific representing the Federal authorities; and Whereas the expenditures made by the State of California for and on account of the United States and at its most urgent calls, are set forth by the Comptroller General of the United States under date of August 14, 1930, in pursuance of a resolution of the Senate passed May 28, 1930, as follows: Grand total sum actually expended by and not repaid to the State of California on July 1, 1889, stated in the account set forth in the report of the Secretary of War made in pursuance of resolution of the Senate of Feb. 27, 1889, printed in S. Ex. Doc. No. 11, 51st Cong., 1st sess.. Plus interest certified by the treasurer of the State of California as actually paid by said State on the sums so advanced and expended from July 1, 1889, to Dec. 31, 1929, $541,104.17 interest on moneys borrowed through the sale of State bonds issued under authority of the act of the Legislature of the State of California of Apr. 27, 1863; and $1,470,150 interest on moneys similarly borrowed to carry out the provisions of the act of the legislature of said State of Apr. 4, 1864. Balance due the State of California. (S. Doc. No. 220, 71st Cong., 3d sess.) $4, 420, 891. 16 2, 041, 254. 17 6, 462, 145. 35 |