1940: Indians, American

Indian Reorganization Act.

An outstanding grievance of the Indians of the United States is the failure of Congress to authorize a settlement of Indian claims growing out of alleged disregard of treaties in the disposition of Indian lands. However, the Court of Claims has recently made an award to two tribes and Congress appropriated $4,599,987.02 to the Shoshone of the Wind River reservation in Wyoming, and $5,598,635.43 to the Klamath of Oregon. Per capita distribution of these amounts was arranged under restrictions agreed to by the tribe, limiting the use of the funds to economic reconstruction in the form of land purchases, home building, and similar forms of permanent investment.

Two hundred fifty of the tribes or groups eligible to organize under the Indian Reorganization Act, and its Alaska and Oklahoma supplements, have voted to accept the Act, and 132 of these have received charters giving them corporate status and making them eligible for loans under the credit provisions of the Act and to receive other benefits. Numerous suggestions for changes in the Act were aired before Congress, but none was approved.

An item in the President's third reorganization plan transferred from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of the Interior soil conservation activities on Indian reservations which will hereafter be administered by the Indian Service. In view of the serious nature of the soil depletion and overgrazing of Indian-owned land, this may be most significant.

Conference on Indian Life.

The First Inter-American Conference on Indian Life assembled in Patzcuaro, Mexico, on April 24, 1940, involving representatives of 19 American republics. Haiti, which has no Indians, was not invited, Paraguay was not able to be represented, Canada abstained from participation. Official delegates and representatives of the Indian population were both in attendance. The social, political, educational, and physical welfare of the 30,000,000 Indian inhabitants of the three Americas was for the first time considered. The Congress voted the establishment, subject to ratification by five governments, of a permanent agency for inter-American cooperation on behalf of Indians.

Health.

The incidence of trachoma among the Indian population is far greater than among the white population, ranging from four or five per cent in some areas, to as high as forty per cent in others. In 1938 the Medical Division of the Office of Indian Affairs announced that its research had finally established that trachoma is a virus disease. Since that time experimentation with sulfanilamide and neopontosil give evidence that these drugs may prove a specific for the arrestment or cure of trachoma.

Compendium of Laws.

A compendium of Federal laws and treaties relating to Indians, in 46 volumes, was completed by the Solicitor's Office of the Department of the Interior during the year.

Registration under Selective Service.

It is estimated that 99 per cent of eligibles among the Indian tribes of the United States registered under the Selective Service Act on Oct. 16, 1940. In view of the fact that large numbers of the more isolated members of some of the Southwest tribes do not speak English, and that a few tribes are technically still at war with the United States, the response was considered exceedingly gratifying. Indians generally were not subject to draft in 1917, but because of the Act of 1924 extending full citizenship to all Indians, they were included in 1940.