Page:LewisMeriam-TheProblemOfIndianAdministration.djvu/74

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Findings and Recommendations
47

respect to this authority should be given full publicity by suitable proclamation, orders, or regulations.

The officer with final authority to promulgate the decisions should be either the Secretary of the Interior or the President of the United States. The detailed study and the recommendation should originate in the Indian Service. The perfecting of this system should be one of the major projects of the Division of Planning and Development.

The details of this recommendation and the supporting arguments will be found in the section on legal aspects, pages 779 to 787.

Protection of the Property Rights of Indians. No evidence warrants a conclusion that the government of the United States can at any time in the near future relinquish its guardianship over the property of restricted Indians, secured to the Indians by government action. The legal staff of the Indian Service charged with the duty of protecting Indian rights should be materially strengthened and should be authorized to act more directly. The Service should have one high position for a general counsel or solicitor, who should be directly in charge of the legal work of the Service under the general direction of the Commissioner. It should have a number of either full or part time attorneys in the field, in close touch with the several jurisdictions, who may give prompt and energetic attention to matters involving Indian rights. Although the United States District Attorneys will doubtless have still to be generally responsible for the actual conduct of cases involving Indian rights, they should be assisted by these local attorneys of the Indian Service, who should be held primarily responsible for the full and detailed preparation of the case.

In cases where the Indian is poor and unable to pay court costs and attorneys’ fees, he should be aided by these attorneys, and money should be made available to meet the costs.

The attitude of the Indian Service as a whole, and especially of its legal department, should invariably be that its duty is to protect to the utmost the rights and interest of the Indians. Even if some of the officers believe that the Indian’s opponent has in some respects a meritorious case, the Service itself should be extremely slow in effecting any compromise. As a guardian or trustee its compromise should properly be acceptable to the court and subject

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