Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma Author:United States. Dept. of the Interior Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: notice to the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Interior, and that the procedure as to notice and taking of depositions shall be as in ordinary cases bef... more »ore the United States courts. If this section should be enacted, it would be absolutely impossible for the representatives of the tribes to be represented at all hearings, and to subject the witnesses to cross-examination and furnish the rebuttal evidence which would be necessary to a proper examination of the cases. The latter part of section 7 provides that the expense of taking depositions on the part of claimants shall be paid by the applicants in the first instance, but shall be taxed as costs in each case where the applicant is successful and said costs shall be charged to the funds of said tribe in the United States Treasury. If this clause be enacted, a burden will be placed upon the tribes not imposed upon them with respect to many thousands of unsuccessful applicants heretofore denied enrollment. Section 8 provides a time limit of six months for the submission of applications. If the bill be enacted, some such provision as this should be included therein, although it is questionable whether Indians of the full blood as well as those of mixed blood whose habits, customs, and language are substantially those of the full bloods should be so limited without any provision whatever for some one to act as their representative under authority of the Government. Section 9 of the bill provides that the tribal organization of the Choctaw-Chickasaw Tribe shall be abolished and the title to all tribal lands and moneys yet undistributed be vested in the United States as trustee. This provision is not necessarily a part of an enrollment bill, and should, in my opinion, be made the subject of a separate measure, providi...« less