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Evening Session, Monday, September 24, 1956


Helen Peterson:  Earlier in the day President Garry talked about the great amount of work that went into the extension of the Indians Claims Commission Act without amendment. It is awfully hard to describe here the report to you, the fears and long drawn out work that went into that. We sent you some offset copies of newspaper stories that carried statements by Assistant Attorney General Harry Martin. This was an attempt and an appeal to the public to make it look as though the prosecution of the remaining Indian claims would bankrupt the nation. This is an example of what releases to the public and getting public support behind a particular idea can be done against Indians. It is an example of the kind of thing that you can do as an organizational group to support your position for the things you want to do. This press release based on the Annual Report and these statements appearing all over the country were the beginning point of a campaign to throw out all original Indian title claims. They started in January and it went on until the bill was actually passed without amendment. For a while there was going to be a five year extension and it was talked down to a two year extension. And this is almost not even worth getting, you know that. About 850 claims were filed 10 uears ago and only about 100 of them have been adjudicated. Most of the remaining 750 claims would have been thrown out if original Indian title claims had been eliminated, or if the Claims Commission had been prevented from hearing them. For months we worked with your attorneys for the most part all over the country. Then where were two or three provisions in the bill which were extremely unfair and difficult to understand provisions. One was that hearing examiners would not come under the provisions of administrative procedures act. That doesn't sound very serious, but other commissions in government are entitled to certain protections under that act and one kind of bill had an amendment in it that would have said that indian claims did not have to come under that protective provision. These are only some of the things. When we came to the point of Senate action at the request of Senator Watkins the bill was tabled for awhile. And

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