I am at the end of my testimony to you and I want to quickly recap the main points made today. They are:

First. Recognition and consideration of our land claim by our trustee, the United States of America.

Second. Elimination of the conflict of interest within the Department of the Interior regarding Indian affairs.

Third. Nonacceptance of the National Water Commission Report, chapter 14, and Indian input into the rewriting of it.

Fourth. Retrocession of Public Law 280 is vitally necessary for the proper development of Indian reservations.

I will add one more point and ask that Indian opinion be serious considered on all legislation that affects Indian Tribes.

The United States prides itself in living up to its international agreements. I challenge them not to honor their agreements made with the first Americans. Gentlemen, your country's pride, honor, and integrity is at stake.

That is the extent of my testimony, the most important being the land claims which we have received no satisfaction for 8 years.

Senator ABOUREZK. Is that before the Indian Claims Commission and is the case pending now?

Mr. SIMPSON. The situation of the case, Senator, is that the attorney who represented the Quechan before I became their attorney, who is now deceased, had filed a claim that the land had been illegally taken from them in violation of the fifth amendment. That case had been tried on the liability side but before the decision was rendered the research that was done by the Department of Interior and presented to the tribe led the tribe to conclude that they didn't want to be paid for that land because the conclusion was it really hadn't been taken. That there had been a fraudulent agreement. They knew as a matter of law that they couldn't do anything about that other than to get Congress to set it aside. But they found that a theory evolved which you as a lawyer can appreciate and which Mr. Savilla already alluded to, which brings me to the answer to your question, the theory is this. This particular 1893 agreement, when ratified by Congress, required that the company involved would construct a canal. That that canal would provide water to these Indians free of charge in perpetuity. It was to be done in 3 years. This never happened. The results of it was that even the Department of Interior said the 1894 reservation remains intact, then, and all of these documents Mr. Savilla offered spell out a pattern of recognition by the Department of Interior.

But they did run into a problem in 1936 of the type that would be familiar to you. They called upon the solicitor to help them out of a problem they really painted themselves into. They built the All American Canal going through the Yuma Reservation. They suddenly said, now, look, if this is Indian land, this land belongs to them, we have been recognizing it despite the 1893 agreement, how can we justify permitting that canal to be built without getting the consent of the Indians? Solicitor Margo came back with an opinion in which he said in 1936, look, even though you recognized, Congress ratified the 1893 agreement. Even though you recognize this is the Indian land, Congress doesn't and it really isn't. Since Congress ratified the agreement it meant that the Indians lost that land so you didn't need the consent of the Indians. That seemed to get everybody out of the embarrassing

situation and the Department went right on continuing to recognize this as the Yuma Reservation.

All of the official maps put out by BLM, USGS, all of them recognize this as the Yuma Reservation. But they don't feel they have to deal with this problem. So when the case was filed with the Indian Claims Commission, at that time the attorney said we want money for the land that was improperly or illegally taken from us. That is Docket No. 320 before the Indian Claims Commission.

When I came into the picture I was presented first of all with something that I would like you to have as part of the record in this hearing and it is a memorandum from Mr. William Veeder to Mr. Wadley, who at the time was the area director in Phoenix, having jurisdiction over the Quechans. This is an exhaustive memo which describes all of these documents and which tells what really happened here and it concludes that the Indians should, instead of seeking money from the Indian Claims Commission, should have their case dismissed and that the Secretary of Interior should by a declaration acknowledging that the land is theirs take steps to make sure they get the land.

With this in mind they told me about it and I presented it to the Indian Claims Commission with a motion to dismiss. What is pending before the Indian Claims Commission is a motion to dismiss so that the Secretary of Interior can take steps to see that they get their land. This is what Mr. Savilla was really urging when he made his last visit to Washington. He went there to get the Secretary to recognize his agents had done the work and the land belongs to them.

The Indian Claims Commission said, Mr. Simpson, we don't want to grant a motion to dismiss unless we know they are going to get the land. We believe sincerely something has to be done. I have a copy of a letter here which the tribe directed me to write to Mr. Meades as chairman of the Indian Subcommittee, your counterpart in Washington. I think it possibly should be made part of the record, too, if I may. But we face the situation where the Indian Claims Commission, Senator, with docket No. 320 before it, is saying to Ray Simpson, let's try the case, get on with it or dismiss it.

Over a year ago we made the motion and they held it in suspense because they said if the Secretary will recognize that the land belongs to these Indians and will simply file an official declaration to that effect, we will grant the motion to dismiss and they will have their land, there is no reason for the case to be before us.

With letters received from Mr. Frizzell after more than 2 hours in conference with him was supposed to be a letter we could send to the Indian Claims Commission saying, look, all of the work has been done, we are merely awaiting a decision by the Secretary. The letter wasn't long enough, it didn't say very much and doesn't help very much.

I would say with the Quechans appearing before you, I would think of the little boy that the whole Nation was paying attention to here just a couple of weeks ago crying for help over in New Mexico and they kept trying to locate him. Finally they decided that perhaps it was a hoax.

The big thing here is when the Quechans were crying for help it was not a hoax. They have been crying for help for over 80 years in this matter. They need the Secretary of Interior to move off his rear

end and give them some kind of declaration that this land belongs to them.

Senator ABOUREZK. The first step we can take is that I will instruct the staff right now to prepare a first step, that is a letter to the Secretary requesting and urging him to do just that, and we will send you a copy of the letter.

Second, let me ask you a question. Does the Indian Claims Committee have jurisdiction so it can make the declaration? Do they only have jurisdiction to pay monetary damages?

Mr. SIMPSON. Unfortunately, yes. The Yakimas up in the State of Washington face the type of situation that we are talking about here. They tried their case and the Indian Claims Commission finally decided that the land had not been taken. That the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Interior were having a battle and they were running the show, but they said the land still belongs to the Yakimas. So the Indian Claims Commission dismissed the case on the ground that they didn't have jurisdiction. What the Department of Interior did in that instance was work out an agreement with the Department of Agriculture to receive what was tantamount to a quitclaim deed and the Yakimas got the land.

Here we submit it is a simpler situation. The Bureau of Reclamation and Land Management are both within the Department of Interior and all the Secretary has to do is give legal force and effect to the pattern of conduct followed for 80 years and say this land belongs to the Quechans. This is all we need.

There are, Senator, the two other tribes that I mentioned who had a problem and it falls in the same category as what we are talking about here. Inaction or lack of satisfaction then they are crying for .help.

Because time seems to-well, we lawyers use the phrase that justice delayed is justice denied. With the Indians I think this is the case. I think for all of the Abakoli (phonetic) Indians who have a particular problem in that their water was being diverted in the area known as Banning. About 10,000 acre feet a year is being diverted right now. It is being diverted under a license by the Federal Power Commission, licensed Project No. 344. The Indians didn't know anything about it, which is a customary posture for this thing to take. One day they got notice that the license was going to be renewed. They directed me to file a petition on their behalf so they could oppose the renewal. When that water is diverted it never gets back into the watershed. The San Bagonian (phonetic) Fault is like a big fall. When you push it over the bank it stays there.

The Abacoli water table dropped over 70 feet in the last 20 years. Now, 10,000 acre feet being diverted annually becomes extremely significant to them. So they had me file this petition to intervene and present evidence. We called upon the Department of the Interior to aid them in this. The Department of Interior said, we don't see any real harm in studying this matter for a year or two. The Indians said, when you divert 10,000 acre feet of water you are diverting about $1 million a year of our water. We would like that stopped. The petition to intervene was granted so they could have a hearing.

The Secretary of Interior, in fact at that time it was the Assistant Secretary, Mr. Harrison Loesch, wrote to the FPC and said, I

don't think we even need a hearing because we are going to study the matter and we will let you know. That was 2 years ago. Under the law the licensing under the Federal Power Commission Act is automatic for each year and it continues until there is a hearing that results in a denial.

The Indians feel they have been denied due process of law by being denied a hearing. They have called upon the Secretary to help, just as the Quechans did on their matter pertaining to their land claim. No help has been forthcoming.

I add as a last point that the Fort Mojave Tribe over on the Colorado River and very active in that same river with the Quechans. They, too, ask for some type of fire to be built by this committee to get action out of the Secretary.

Six years ago they got into a lawsuit. The State of California filed a land patent application. They had been awarded 1,500 acres of the Fort Mojave Reservation by the Secretary of Interior. That land belonging to the tribe was considered to be land about which there was some dispute. There never had been, according to directives. We fought for 2 years just to get the right in that case to intervene.

When we got the right, then we tried the case and after all of this time have won the case. We won it a little over a year ago.

All we need now is to have the Secretary of the Interior abide by the decision of the appeal board he designated and declare this to be land of the Fort Mojave Reservation. To date we cannot get any action. We do not know why.

So this tribe speaks up and asks you please do something and all of them have commented on Senate Joint Resolution 133. They have said they liked the general concept. They would like to feel, though, because they are real gun shy at this case, they would like to feel some teeth could be given to it. They have received more letters from the Secretary of the Interior saying we will review it, study it, and let you know. In Senate Joint Resolution 133, we would like to feel that Congress has the right to build the fire we are talking about?

We would like to think, and respectfully suggest, that thought be given to the idea in this particular resolution to imposing perhaps some powers to get a response within a given time, and to be specific. And this is my last comment. For a long time if you tried to develop Indian land through a leasehold procedure, you find it takes 1 or 2 or even 3 years just to get a lease approved. Sometimes the opposition was not valid opposition. It was a conflict of interest. Somebody didn't want that land to be leased. They didn't want the water to be used, or whatever it might be. Finally, we got to the point where the Indians made enough noise that built into the regulations we did have the requirement that if the Secretary or his representative did not. approve it within a given time, it was deemed approved.

With attorney's contracts. You have attorneys going out to fight the bureaucracy, the establishment and couldn't get their contracts approved. Now they must disapprove them and give reasons or with the passage of a certain amount of time they are approved.

The Indians, in other words, may act. I feel something in terms of saying response can be built in. The Indians ask your help. They believe with your experience at Wounded Knee, they believe with historically the Boston Tea Party concept, that what they want is to do it in the law and order way. They state unequivocally, though, that

they are prepared to demonstrate in any constructive way necessary, if they keep getting a deaf ear from the Federal Government.

Senator ABOUREZK. We will include these other matters in the same letter and use that as a starting point. I think that is an adequate starting place.

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you.

[The letter to Representative Meeds submitted by Mr. Simpson follows:]

Re the Quechan Land Claims.
Hon. LLOYD MEEDS,

RAYMOND C. SIMPSON Long Beach, Calif., August 22, 1973

Chairman of the Indian Sub-Committee of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN MEEDS: The Quechan Indians, sometimes called the Yuma Indians, have recently experienced so much frustration in their effort to resolve certain land claims they have asserted that a call for your help appears to be mandatory.

The Quechan Reservation was established in the year 1884 by virtue of an Executive Order. About eight years later a strong desire developed on the part of special economic interests to construct a canal through this Reservation. As a consequence, interested parties contacted the Commissioner of Indian Affairs who in turn appointed a special commission of three people who were thereafter sent out to Yuma to negotiate with the Indians. From these commissioners the Indians received an explanation regarding the great benefits which would be conferred upon them if they would cede most of the reservation which had been created for them by virtue of said 1884 Executive Order. Essentially the Indians were promised an allotment of land with water in perpetuity which would be free to them. The leadership of these Indians strongly opposed such a proposal, and as a consequence several of them were thereafter incarcerated and taken to Los Angeles. Two of these leaders were later beaten to death.

The record is repleat with evidence regarding the subsequent fraud, forgery and duress used in obtaining a so-called agreement in 1893. This was later presented to the Congress of the United States for ratification. Of course, Congress did not know about the fraud or forgery which had been perpetrated in this instance, so they proceeded to ratify the agreement. In so doing they did add certain conditions as to what the irrigation company would have to do, and they made these conditions precedent to the transfer of the Quechan lands. In substance, these conditions required that the irrigation canal would have to be built within three years and that water therefrom would thereafter be supplied to the Quechan Indians in perpetuity at no charge whatsoever to the Indians.

History shows that the canal was never built and that the Indians never received the promised water. In fact, this amounted to such an obvious failure of consideration that the Department of Interior refused to recognize that the land in question had been transferred. Furthermore, this is evidenced by the fact that: (1) all of the maps that were made thereafter continued to show this as the "Fort Yuma Reservation; (2) permits that were granted consistently carried the requirement that the Tribe had to consent thereto; and, (3) money from all leases went into the Treasury of the United States to the credit of the Tribe. The collected records show over 100 documents evidencing the fact that the Secretary of the Interior as the Agent of the United States repeatedly recognized this land as still belonging to the Quechan Indians up until 1936. However, at that time a problem arose by reason of the fact that the All American Canal had been constructed through the reservation without obtaining the consent of the Quechan Indians. The Secretary of the Interior therefore asked the Soliciter for his Department what could be done to make this a legal act. In response, Mr. Margold, the Soliciter for the Department of Interior, in late 1936 wrote an opinion stating that inasmuch as Congress had ratified the agreement between the Indians and the United States in 1893, that the land did not belong to the Indians and that their consent was therefore unnecessary.

Despite the fact the Margold Opinion temporarily took care of the embarrassment faced by the United States, the Department of Interior continued the patern of recognizing these lands as land which still belonged to the Quechan Indians. This attitude, however, didn't seem to help the Indians a great deal; so