JOHN comm AN‘D'THE AMERICAN INDIAN 19204945 Thesis for the Degree of P110. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSETY KENNETH ROY PHELP 1968 114(3):.31' 42:13,, Ni 3cm gran Static =~ ‘ llIlllflllllllz’lllllllllllllj“lllllzllllliIzlllllllllllllflllllll Lt“; 091; -~ we 3‘. This is to certify that the thesis entitled John Collier and The American Indian 1920-1945 presented by Kenneth R. Philp has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for MM Major piofessor Date JUly 9, 1968 0-169 I?!“ FEBlezgqug MAYoMmfi 4 0192 4 Rue?— 089 ’ ABSTRACT JOHN COLLIER AND THE AMERICAN INDIAN 1920—1945 ' by Kenneth R. Philp Under the leadership of men like John Collier, who became Indian Commissioner in the New Deal, and voluntary groups like the American Indian Defense Association that he founded, the nineteen twenties were a seedtime for Indian reform. They thwarted the efforts by Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall and others to take away In- dian lands and to destroy their culture. Their attempts to bring about a fundamental change in the Indian affairs system continued during the Coolidge administration. Collier and his associates protected Indian religious liberties, exposed the use of Indian tribal funds for white public improvements, and prevented the confis— cation of Indian oil and water power sites. They of- fered legislative alternatives which became the basis for reforms enacted during the New Deal. Aware of the criticism of the Indian Bureau.during the later Coolidge years, President Hoover hoped to extend his New Era to the American Indian. He appointed new‘ Commissioners who made enlightened educational and admin- istrative changes. But Hoover's failure to push funda- Kenneth R. Philp mental reform legislation through Congress resulted in an intensified attack by John Collier as well as the Senate Indian Investigating Committee upon the Indian Bureau and particularly upon its Special Commissioner to the Navajos, Herbert Hagerman. This study followed Collier‘s work chronologically, starting with his efforts to initiate Indian reform during the Harding years. Chapter two focused on the efforts by Collier's American Indian Defense Association to bring about a change in Indian policy between 1924 and 1928. The third chapter discussed Hoover's New Era along with the dissatis- faction of Collier and others with the limited nature of the President's reform program. The fourth chapter dealt with Commissioner Collier's efforts to implement his ideas in an Indian New Deal. The remaining chapters centered around the opposition of the Navajos, Pueblos, the American Indian Federation, and Congress to Collier‘s new policies and his increasing ineffectiveness as Commissioner to assist the Indians. They also discussed his interest in the revival of Indian nationalism throughout the Western Hemisphere and in the plight of the Japanese-Americans evacuated from the West Coast. The most significant manuscript materials used were the John Collier Papers in the Western Americana Collection at Yale University Library. The National Archives provided papers centering around the Office File of Commissioner Kenneth R. Philp Collier, records relating to the Wheeler-Howard Act, and the Private Papers of Herbert Hagerman. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library had a small but significant amount of material relating to the Indian New Deal. Published government documents and periodicals also yielded a great amount of information concerning Indian reform activities. The major finding of this study revealed that the Indian New Deal stemmed from the voluntary action progres- sivism which survived the decade of the twenties. It owed a profound debt to the American Indian Defense Association whose leaders pioneered new programs and kept alive the tradition of humane liberalism. From men like Collier the Indian New Deal drew both its methods of analysis and spiritual inspiration. Its legislative program and exec— utive reform was essentially the conclusion to efforts carried out for over a decade. Yet, the Indian New Deal was also a product of depression thinking, for it expressed the back—to-the—land philosophy found in such enterprises as Arthurdale and it represented a microcosm of the public relief programs during the thirties. JOHN COLLIER AND THE AMERICAN INDIAN 1920-l9u5 By Kenneth Roy Philp A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History 1968 Copyright by Kenneth R. Philp 1969 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS While accepting full responsibility for all errors it is my pleasure to gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the many persons who have made the task of writing this dissertation both a pleasure and a rewarding personal experience. To Professor Madison Kuhn my greatest debt is due. He directed the research and gave invaluable aid and constant encouragement. In addition,his willingness to read and reread the manuscript prevented many errors. I also wish to extend my appreciation to Professors Robert Brown and John Harrison, who served on my committee and read this manuscript. I am heavily indebted to Archibald Hanna and his excellent staff who graciously made available the excellent facilities of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at New Haven. My special thanks also go to Robert Kvasnicka who helped uncover materials at the National Archives I otherwise would have overlooked and to Elizabeth Drewry at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. Lastly, I wish to aknowledge my parents' faith in education and the encouragement of my wife, Marjory, whose patience and good humor improved my spirits on many occasions. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Chapter I. PROTEST FROM THE PUEBLOS II. A PROVISIONAL REVOLUTION III. THE NEW ERA-—A FALSE DAWN IV. THE INDIAN NEW DEAL. V. FRUSTRATION VI. BEYOND THE INDIAN NEW DEAL BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY iii Page ii MO 80 I22 186 225 2ND CHAPTER I PROTEST FROM THE PUEBLOS Historians have portrayed the decade before the New Deal less as an era of flappers, flivers and bathtub gin, than as one of normalcy: of reaction against idealism and reform. They have pointed to the conservatism of the courts that nullified child labor legislation, minimum wages for women, and the labor sections of the Clayton Act. In those decisions and in scandals such as the Tea— pot Dome they saw a resurgence of big business control of the government. They were shocked that the hatred generated by the First World War continued unabated in the Red Scare and prohibition, immigration restriction and the Klu Klux Klan, the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, and the epic court room scenes between William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow.l Recently, historians have enlarged more than revised this picture of the twenties. Clarke Chambers, for instance, has suggested that the period between 1920 and 1933 was a remarkably complex age. If normalcy and reaction char- acterized the twenties, this era also witnessed the 1The best survey of the twenties is William Leuchten- burg, The Perils of Prosperity 191u-1932 (Chicago: The Uni- versity of Chicago Press, 1958), pp. 1-313. l persistence and expansion of social welfare activity. To Chambers it was a period of seedtime, when voluntary associa— tions dedicated to social betterment laid the groundwork for the sweeping reforms that took place under the New Deal.2 Both tendencies appeared very clearly in the American Indian policies of the period. Interior Secretary Albert Fall and officials of the Indian Bureau promoted legisla- tion during the twenties designed to take away Indian lands, giving them to the whites-and to take away their religion and culture,replacing it with that of the whites. These efforts failed in large measure due to the activities of muckraking magazine articles and the work of voluntary Agroups~such as the American Indian Defense Association organized by John Collier in 1923. Born in Atlanta, in 188A, to a union of Southern and New England families, John'Collier devoted his career to experimenting, as a disciple of Lester Ward, with the benefits from the cross-fertilizing of cultures. His own education blended Columbia with the College de France. Shortly he was trying to plant European immigrants in the homogeneous old American South.~ Moving in 1907 to New York City, he attempted to regenerate local immigrant communities in order to preserve their culture for admix- ture into dominant American society. Seeing his work aClarke Chambers, Seedtime of Reform, American Social Service and Social Action 1918-1933 (Minneapolis: The Uni- versity of Minnesota Press, 1963), pp. 26H-65. negated by the Americanization drive of World War I, Collier moved to California in 1919 as director of Com— munity Organization. One year of that led to his resig— nation and a decision to study Mexico where native cul- tures were more persistent. But Mabel Luhan Dodge, whose pre-war New York salon he had visited, wrote from Taos inviting him to visit the Indian Pueblo there.3 Intermittently through the next two years Collier occupied a house in the art colony of Spanish-American Taos, two miles from the Indian Pueblo. Evening conversa- tions with artists and writers around the fireplace at Mabel Luhan Dodge's home soon enlisted Collier in the movement to revive and preserve the Indian's indigenous culture. So zealous did Collier become that his next- door neighbor, D. H. Lawrence, feared that he would destroy the Indians by "setting the claws of his own white egotistic benevolent volition into them."u While staying in Taos, Collier found answers to the questions that had pursued him in all his years of urban reform in New York and California. He saw that 3Laura Thompson, John Collier-Biographical Sketch, The John Collier Papers, Western Americana Collection, Yale University Library, Drawer l9. Hereafter the papers at Yale will be referred to as the Collier MSS; YUL. ”Diana Trilling, The Selected Letters of D. H. Law- rence (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Cudahy, Inc., 19587, p. 211, and Edward Nehls, D. H. Lawrence: A Composite Biography 1919-1925, Vol. I (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1958), pp. 197-199, A87. Pueblo culture must not be allowed to die not only in- Justice to the Indian but in service to the white. It held the secrets.to social education and to personality formation desperately needed by a more sophisticated civilization.. It possessed the lost gift of communal and cooperative experience, for the Indian had discovered a way to be both communists and individualists at the same time. And here in Anglo, Spanish,and Indian Taos was a sociological experiment to answer for the world whether people of different origins, mental foundations, and ideals could tolerate each other.5 Collier's committment at Taos to the preservation of Indian life is not surprising considering his social philosophy. The consequences of the industrial age especially concerned Collier. He was worried about how man might find an answer to the uprooting of populations, the disintegration of neighborhoods, the hostility to human diversity, the fanatical devotion to downgrading standardization, the isolation of individuals, the starva- tion of the soul, the end of home and handicrafts, the supremacy of machine over man, the immense impoverishment of relationships.between generations, and commercialized recreation, all of which stemmed from the industrial age. Collier also rejected certain values that seemed to 5John Collier, "The Red Atlantis," Survey, XLVIII (October 1, 1922), 16, John Collier, "The Pueblos Last Stand," Sunset, L (February, 1923), 19, and John Collier, "Plundering The Pueblo Indians," Sunset, L (January, 1923), 21. parallel industrialism. He disliked values which Justi- fied wealth as an end in itself and as a means to power. The economic and political presumptions of nineteenth century man seemed shallow. Collier revolted against the free market and laissez faire doctrines which portrayed the human world as an aggregation of persons controlled by universal economic laws.6 Beginning in 1907, Collier had spent a twelve year period of experimental work at the People's Institute among the million immigrants on Manhattan Island. He believed that charity and settlement houses were not the best way to work with immigrants and working people. Instead, Collier attempted to regenerate the local immi- grant communities. He sought to bring the common people of New York City into group rather than individual life. Collier believed that the answer to the dilemma of the industrial age rested in the recovery of the sense of dignity and power to the average man through community 7 action. In her memoirs,Mabe1 Luhan Dodge vividly 6John Collier, Indians of the Americas (abridged version, New York: The New American Library, l9U7), pp. 13-14. The best detailed account of Collier's social philosophy is John Collier, "Organized Laity and the Social Expert; the Meaning of Public Community Centers," National Conference on Social Work (1917), “65-469. 7John Collier, From Every Zenith, A Memoir (Denver: Sage Books, 1963), pp. 93-9A. described Collier's activities in New York City. She pictured him as "a small, blond Southerner, intense, pre- occupied, and always looking windblown on the quietest day. Because he could not seem to love his own kind of people, and as he was full of a reformer's enthusiasm P for humanity, he turned to other races and worked for them. He still had that Job of trying to preserve the flavors of other nationalities when they came to New ‘York."8 Dodge pointed out that Collier had attempted against tremendous odds to stem the tide of Americaniza- tion. He Struggled by means of "pageants, parades, and prizes to persuade Italians, Russians, Germans and all the others to keep their national dress, their customs, their diets, their religion, and all their folk ways."9 During his work at the People's Institute, Collier unknowingly formulated ideas which later proved crucial in dealing_with the Indian problem. One of his most important contributions revealed the . importance of primary or face to face social groups . in the regeneration of American society. Collier believed that the primary social group was essential for the fulfillment of human life. He insisted that 8Mabel Luhan Dodge, Movers and Shakers, Vol. III (New York: Harcourt and Brace, 1936), p. 323. 9Ibid. the primary group must be revitalized "because the future of leisure, of realized life, depends on the discovery of how to regenerate the primary social group and enrich it until it is adequate to human nature, and how to charge it with the burdens of work grievous and exciting enough to call the deeper energies to action."10 Collier thought that the deepest problem of sociology consisted of per— suading primary social groups to interact with one another and "to rise throughout the whole world as makers of a new life tide . . . and its full solution will not come in our lifetime."11 Within a few years Collier began to realize that the Indian would aid in this regeneration of the primary social group. At Taos Pueblo,Collier discovered a model for the social regeneration of American society. The Pueblos offered an example of the profound sense of living to be found in groups. Their civilization concerned itself very little with the material means toward life. Beauty, adventure, Joy, merriment, comradeship, and the rela- tionship of man with God were the ends visualized by Indian civilization. Collier suggested that "the Indian problem embodies a world wide problem, whether material civilization, machinery and the dictates of machinery, 10Laura Thompson, John Collier-Biographical Sketch, Collier MSS: YUL, Drawer 19. 11Ibid. and selfish individualism shall dominate man or whether man shall dominate them, subordinate them,and use them."12 Collier believed that the American Indian offered the alternative of a creative meaningful society to replace the atomized world created by the Industrial Revolution. He claimed that Indian societies demonstrated . . the truth which our age has lost: that societies are living things, sources of power and values of their members; that to be and to function in a consciously living, aspiring, striving society is to be personality filled, is to be energy de- livered into the communal joy, a partner once more in the cosmic life.1 The Indian could offer the present world "the lost rever— ence and passion for human personality, Joined with the ancient, lost reverence and passion for the earth and its web of life."lu The vision that Collier experienced at Taos in 1920 changed his life. In 1922 he severed all profes- sional connections and launched a reorganization of the Indian affairs system. With ingenuity and persistence, in the face of inertia and active resistance, he began a systematic attack upon the forces attempting to crush Indian life. Aware of the significance that the Indian l2John Collier, "Our Indian Policy," Sunset, L (March, 1923), 13. 13John Collier, Indians of the Americas (abridged version, New York: The New American Library, 19A7), p. 16. lL‘Ibid., p. 7. held for America, Collier soon became the center of Indian reform in the decade that preceded the New Deal. Collier joined forces with Stella M. Atwood of Riverside in Southern California to expose the policies of the Indian Bureau. Mrs. Atwood was chairman of the Indian Welfare Committee of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, which had a membership of two million women. She first came into contact with the Indians during World War I while serving on a draft board where she gained the confidence of several Indians. After listening to their complaints concerning the ineffectiveness of the Indian Bureau, she made her own investigation of the Indian country in California. This led her to request that the government send Indian agents to check condi— tions.15 Little progress was made, so, in 1921, Mrs. Atwood brought the Indian problem before the annual convention of the General Federation of Women's Clubs at Salt Lake City. In 1922 she appointed Collier Research Agent for the Indian Welfare Committee where he probed into the Indian affairs system.l6 Stella Atwood and John Collier were not the only individuals probing into the condition of the American Indian. Congressman Clyde Kelly from Pennsylvania, on December 27, 1922, attacked the Indian Bureau before ‘ 15Stella Atwood, "The Case for the Indian," Survey:,v XLIX (October, 1922), 7—11. l6Stella Atwood, American Indian Life (Octobenu 1928), Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. IO the House. In a lengthy tirade against the treatment of the Indian, Kelly claimed that the Indian Bureau had become a "Frankenstein monster."l7 Several muckraking magazine articles in the early twenties also exposed alleged corruption in the Indian Bureau. The most vehement periodical was the Sunset Magazine, which from November,l92g until June,l92%.pub- lished few issues without at least one leading article denouncing the Indian Bureau. Collier developed a close contact with Walter Woehlke, a member of the Magazine's staff. The two men used it to promote Indian reform, sending marked copies to government officials and to members of the House and Senate.18 Collier contributed five feature articles on injustices to the Pueblo Indians in hope of defeating government—sponsored programs detri- mental to the Indians. Several other authors, including Walter Woehlke, also supplied articles in their effort 19 to promote Indian reform. l7U.S., Congressional Record, 67th Cong., Ath Sess., 1922, LXIV, Part 1, 953. 18John Collier to Walter Woehlke, January 1, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l7. 19Almost every issue of the monthly western period- ical, Sunset, from November, 1922 through December, 1923, carried one or more articles by Collier and his associates on the plight of the Indian. Collier's titles were self explanatory: "Plundering the Pueblo Indians," "The Indians Last Stand," and Persecuting the Pueblos." 11 The liberal journal Survey was the other significant magazine promoting Indian reform in the early twenties. Under the leadership of Paul Kellogg, it had been explor- ing the condition of Russia after the revolution, minority problems, and industrial unrest. The Survey staff con- sisted of a small group of reformers who formed a volune tary association called the Survey Associates. Haven Emerson, an associate editor and Indian reformer, devel— Oped a close friendship with Collier and Mrs. Atwood. His influence helped orient the magazine toward the Indian problem. Collier provided three articles to the Survey between 1922 and 192U. Stella Atwood and others also wrote important articles about the plight of the Indian.20 As early as May, 1922, Collier had already formu- lated many of his future objectives concerning the Ameri— can Indian. He wanted to create a new public Opinion which would demand the preservation not the destruction of the cultural and human values of the Indian. Churches doing missionary work with the Indians should be forced to accord their practice with the realities of Indian life. The Indian Bureau ought to cooperate with the other Federal and state services, eXpecially in the 20The liberal Survey magazine carried several feature articles on the Indian between April, 1922 and January, 1924. Collier's contributions included "The Red Atlantis," "The American Congo," and "The Navajos." 12 areas of public health, education,and rural credit. The Department of Agriculture should help the Indians exploit the natural resources on their own lands. Collier sought a new system of accounting for funds in the Indian Bureau and believed that Congress ought to confer citi- zenship upon the Indians, while at the same time enabling them to hold their lands communally. This would mean the maintenance of a continued guardianship over the reservations. He thought that the exploitation of Indian lands through contracts and leases only had the result of robbing and then of pauperizing the Indians through doles. Instead, Collier hOped to establish education for rural living and for the conserving of natural resources through community effort. He wanted to orient the Indian school curriculum toward arts, crafts,and rural industry.21 Albert B. Fall, Secretary of Interior under Presi- dent Warren Harding, became the particular target of voluntary Indian rights groups such as the General Feder- ation of Women's Clubs-Indian Division, the New Mexico Association on Indian Affairs, the Eastern Association on Indian Affairs, and a group of artists and writers from New Mexico. Even the conservative Indian Rights Association opposed the appointment of Fall. It com- plained about the Secretary's ruling which decreed that 21John Collier to Dr. John Haynes, May 12, 1922, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 17. 13 Executive Order Reservations unlike Treaty Reservations were public lands only temporarily set aside for Indian use, and therefore did not belong to the Indians. This order placed in jeOpardy the Indian right to over 22 million acres of land.22 The Association also disapproved of Secretary Fall's issuing, without publicity, hundreds of permits to eXplore Executive Order Reservation lands for oil and other minerals. The editors of Indian Truth, an I.R.A. pub- lication, suggested that "It was an act in keeping with the Teapot Dome incident but on a larger scale."23 After much protest from the reformers, Attorney General Harlan Stone overruled Fall's decision concerning Executive Order Reservations. Henry Cabot Lodge, evidently under pressure from the Indian Rights Association, brought the matter to the attention of President Calvin Coolidge, who transferred the matter to the Attorney Genera1.2u The Bursum bill, sponsored by Albert Fall, released the most severe criticism against the Harding administra- tion and the Indian Bureau. This bill stemmed from the Sandoval decision by the Supreme Court in 1913, which had the effect of throwing the title to land owned by the Pueblo Indians and nearby settlers into dispute. 22Indian Truth (February, 192A), 2. 23Ibid. 2L‘Ihici. (June, 1924), 3. 1“ Many settlers had purchased or acquired lands under a series of decisions of the territorial Supreme Court of New Mexico beginning in 1859 and extending to 1908.25 The western half of the San Ildefonso Pueblo, for example, was occupied by American claimants, while Spanish-American settlers held part of the town of Cochiti and part of the valleys and fields of Picuris. The Sandoval case questioned their legality and sharpened the friction between the non-Indian claimants and the Pueblo Indians. Approximately 3,000 persons claimed land within the boundaries of the Pueblo grants.26 In order to adjudicate those claims in favor of the settlers, Senator Holm O. Bursum of New Mexico intro- duced what became known as the Bursum bill. He had been appointed to succeed Albert Fall when the latter became Secretary of the Interior. Introduced on July 20, 1922, at the request of Fall, it was referred to the Committee on Public Lands and Surveys, rather than to the Committee on Indian Affairs. The bill attempted to confirm squatter sovereignty on Pueblo lands by a statute of limitations. White settlers would receive title to Pueblo land if 25Felix Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law (Washington: Government Printing Office, l9h2), pp. 389~390. 26American Indian Defense Association, Legal Brief in the Matter of the New Mexico Pueblos, National Archives Record Group 316, The Private Papers of Herbert Hagerunan ' Series I, Item 76, Hagerman-Collier File. ’ 15 they could prove continuous possession of the land, with color of title, before or after 1848. It gave title to non-Indian claimants, without color of title, who proved continuous possession since June 20, 1900. Any settler who could not obtain land under these provisions could appeal to the courts and the Secretary of Interior to make a special finding in his favor. White settlers could use secondary evidence to substantiate their claims. The bill required the District Court to accept as Efilfli £2333 evidence the Joy Survey, made in 1913, which recorded against the Indians any claim that a person chose to make. The Indians were supposed to be compensated with adjacent public lands, which were in fact non-existent, or with cash for the lands they might lose. The Bursum bill would have deprived the Pueblos of at least 60,000 acres of land.27 Another provision attempted to destroy the Pueblo's self-government by throwing all questions of their internal self-government into the hands of the District Court.28 When the purpose of the Bursum bill became publicly known, voluntary associations interested in Indian affairs began to voice their protests. Soon the condemnation of the measure became nationwide, for many of Senator \ 27U. 8., Congress, Senate, Subcommittee on Public Lands and Surveys, Hearings on S. 3865 and S. A223, Pueblo Indian Lands, 67th Cong., ch Sess., 1923, p. 1A0. 28U. 8., Congressional Record, 67th Cong., 2nd Sess., 1922, LXII, Part 12, 1232HLI2325. l6 Bursum's constituents such as those in the artist colony among the Pueblo Indians, raised their voice against the bill. After World War I New Mexico had been discovered by intellectuals seeking the refreshment of primitive life and escape from American society. These nerve— wracked ascetics found contentment in the beauty and intensity of Pueblo life. Each artist chose a favorite Indian and Pueblo village. According to Erna Fergusson, It was obligatory to go to every Pueblo dance. Failure to appear on a sunny roof on every saints day marked one as soulless and without taste. Rallying to the slogan of "Let's save the Pueblos," Santa Fe's art colony proceeded to help destroy the Bursum bill.29 The artists and writers helped defeat the bill by adverse publicity. Resolutions and essays replaced poems and paintings. Alice Corbin Henderson and Elizabeth S. Sergeant submitted their writings to the New Republic. Witter Bynner wrote for the Outlook. Mary Austin con- 30 tributed an article in the Forum. The Theater Arts 29Erna Fergusson, "Crusade From Santa Fe," North Amer- ican Review, CCXLII (December, 1936), 377-378. 3OAlice Corbin, "Death of the Pueblos," New Republic, XXXIII (November 22, 1922), 11—13, Elizabeth S. Sergeant, "Plight of the Pueblos," New Republic, XXXVII (December, 1923), 121-122, Elizabeth S. Sergeant, "Red Man's Burden," New Republic, XXXVIII (January 16, 1924), 199-201, Witter Bynner, "From Him That Hath Not," Outlook, CXXXIII (January 17, 1923), 125—127, and Mary Austin, "Folly of the Offi— cials," Forum, LXXI (March, 1929), 281-288. 17 magazine and the Christian Science Monitor carried col- umns opposing the Bursum bill.31 The writers and artists also issued a proclamation to "The American Public" pro- testing against the destruction of Pueblo land rights. Such names as Vachel Lindsay, Edgar Lee Masters, Carl Sandburg, and William Allen White appeared on this proclamation.32 Several Indian rights groups, in a rare demonstra- tion of unity, opposed the Bursum bill. A member of the Indian Rights Association wrote a letter to the New York Times suggesting that the bill was framed with disregard to the land rights of the Pueblos. He called public attention to the bill and asked friends of the Indian to oppose it.33 A representative of the Eastern Association on Indian Affairs attacked the bill on November 19, 1922, in an article entitled "Robbing the Pueblo Indians." This article called the bill totally iniquitious because it took from the Indians the land they salvaged from the desert and gave the title to white trespassers upon the land that controlled the 34' Pueblo's water supply. The chairman of the New Mexico 31Erna Fergusson, "Crusade From Santa Fe," North American Review, CCXLII (December, 1936), 377—378. 3‘feProclamation to the American Public, Collier M33: YUL, Drawer l7. * 33New York Times, January 7, 1923, VIII, p. 6. 3"New York Times, November 19, 1922, II, p. 6. 18 Association on Indian Affairs joined the Opposition to the bill.35 This protest by the various groups inter- ested in Indian affairs prompted an investigation by Senator William Borah which resulted in a unanimous request from the Senate that the House return the Bursum bill for re-examination. Consequently, the bill was again referred to the Committee on Public Lands and Surveys for a hearing.36 Collier first heard about the Bursum bill while visiting the Northern Pueblos in 1922. Immediately he and Antonio Luhan, the Indian husband of Mabel Dodge Luhan, began informing all of the Pueblos about the threat to their land and tribal life. When they visited Cochiti Pueblo, in October 1922, the village decided to call an All Pueblo meeting. The requests for this meeting were signed by the Governor of Cochiti Pueblo. Father Fridolin Schuster, a Franciscan missionary, and Collier,as Research Agent for the General Federation of Women's Clubs, assisted in the preparation of the letters 37 to be mailed to the several Pueblo Governors. Francis Wilson, a Santa Fe attorney, and Collier also prepared 35Margaret McKittrick to John Collier, November 18, 1922, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 17. 36U.S., CongressiOnal Record, 67th Cong., Ath Sess., 1922, LXIV, Part 1, 809—810. 37John Collier to Irvine Lenroot, January 18, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l7° 19 a critical analysis of the bill, which was incorporated in a Blue Book published on October 16, 1922, under the auspices of the General Federation of Women's Clubs and the New Mexico Association on Indian Affairs. Stella Atwood's Indian Welfare Committee sent copies of the Blue Book to members of Congress and distributed it all over the country.38 The All Pueblo Council met at Santo Domingo on the morning of November 5, 1922, in order to discuss the Bursum bill. A number of guests were present during all or part of the two days the meeting lasted. They included John Collier, Margaret McKittrick, Elizabeth S. Sergeant, Francis Wilson, and a number of Franciscan Fathers led by Father Fridolin Schuster.39 The meeting drafted "An Appeal by the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico to the People of the United States," which suggested that the Bursum bill would destroy the Indians "common life and will rob us of everything which we hold dear-- "’40 our lands, our customs, our traditions. Collier, 38Erna Fergusson, "Crusade From Santa Fe," North American Review, CCXLII (December, 1936), 379. 39John Collier to Irvine Lenroot, January 18, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l7. “OU.S.,.Congress, Senate, Subcommittee on Public Lands and Surveys, Hearings, on S. 3865 and S. 4223, Pueblo Indian Lands, 67th Cong., Nth Sess., 1923, p. 77. 20 who typed this document, was very influential in helping organize the Pueblo protest.”1 The Santo Domingo meeting also decided to send a delegation to Washington D. C. Twelve Pueblo Indians left New Mexico at the beginning of January 1923, accom- panied by Stella Atwood, John Collier,and Father Schuster. Planning an appearance before the Senate Public Lands Committee, the delegation hoped to arouse public opinion against the Bursum bill and to promote the alternative Jones bill which would establish a court of claims to settle the Pueblo land controversy.“2 Led by Collier, the Pueblos stopped at Chicago and New York before reaching Washington to denounce the Indian Bureau in front of private organizations. In a meeting at New York's Town Hall, Collier charged the Indian Bureau with a plot to destroy the Indians because they would not become Americanized.)43 In Washington, Stella Atwood appeared with the delegation before the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Surveys to express the opposition of the Gen- eral Federation of Women's Clubs to the Bursum bill. ulJohn Collier to Irvine Lenroot, January 18, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l7. “2Ihid. “3Newspaper Clipping, New York Tribune, January 25, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l7. 21 She warned that the bill not only would legalize pre- 1900 claims to Indian lands, however established, but that under it a more recent trespasser could, by obtain— ing the consent of the Secretary of Interior, force the Pueblo to sell to him. Atwood cautioned that the passage of the bill would mean that the Pueblos could no longer hope for a tardy justice at the hands of the United States. Aside from its material effects, Mrs. Atwood suggested that it "would break their spirit and annihilate the hope that still burns in their souls, the hope that was kindled there when Abraham Lincoln gave them their treasured guarantees sixty years ago."uu Francis Wilson, whom the General Federation of Women's Clubs had employed as counsel for the Indians, also criticized the Bursum bill. He rejected the provision which gave the District Court control over the internal affairs of the Pueblos and expressed concern about a section which enabled the New Mexico State courts to have jurisdiction over much of the land in question. Wilson asked why secondary evidence should be admissible only in the Pueblo situation. He told the Senators that he doubted if there was a statute of limitations pro- vision that could be written which would be both uuU.S., Congress, Senate, Subcommittee on Pueblo Lands and Surveys, Hearings, on S. 3865 and S. A223, Pueblo Indian Lands, 67th Cong., Ath Sess., 1923, pp. llA-ll9. 22 favorable to the settlers and the Indians. The statute of limitations provision received the brunt of Wilson's attack. He pointed out that this section went much farther than giving title to white settlers who obtained land under the territorial decisions. The provision "without color of title" meant that a squatter could claim Pueblo land. Wilson indicated that this would result in the loss of 60,000 acres of land by the Indians. The provision for compensating the Pueblos with adjacent public lands or cash was "equally a joke," for Wilson demonstrated that public agricultural lands did not exist in the vicinity of the Pueblos. He also suggested that to give cash to landless Indians would be of little value and criticized the section of the bill which failed to offer the Indians any compensation for lost water rights. Wilson finally ridiculed the provision which accepted the Joy Survey as prima facie evidence of land boundaries. He stressed that the Department of Interior had made the Joy Survey in order to give the Indian Bureau data concerning all the claims against the Indians regardless of the validity of these claims. The Joy Survey did not recognize or establish right of occupancy or title. Its purpose should be to help the government defeat fradulent claims, not confirm them.l45 ‘_ u5Ibid., pp. 132—151. 23 Roberts Walker, a railroad lawyer and a representa- tive for the Eastern Association on Indian Affairs,fol- lowed. He questioned.the validity-of the compensation feature which promised the Pueblos non—existent adjacent public lands. Walker indicated that it was not the proper conduct of«a guardian to promote giving away the land of its ward. He.praised the unique self-government and culture of the Pueblos. The need for the preservation of this heritage motivated the many artists and scientists who had come to the aid of the Pueblos. Walker reminded the Senators that "artists and scientists have votes, and they are good American citizens, most of them as good as the rest of us, and they should be heard."146 He ended his testimony by suggesting that the Senators take up the "white man's burden" and be altruistic toward a weaker brother.“7 The last person to testify was Secretary Albert Fall. Not about to.take up the white man's burden, he launched an aggressive counter attack against the criti- cism of Stella Atwood, Francis Wilson, and Roberts Walker. Fall termed false the statements concerning his attitude with regard to the Bursum bill. The Secretary of Interior claimed that propaganda had misled the public in the Pueblo controversy; Fall told the subcommittee I have long since learned to see the words I have uttered twisted by knaves to make a trap us __ Ibid., pp. 109-11A. ”71bid., p. 11A. 2A for fools.. Such propaganda as this, if allowed to go unchecked, will eventually break down this democratic government of ours: if we are to have a government by propaganda, and not by the three Departments of government. the present conditions in Soviet Russia would constitute a political paradige . . . compared to what we might have here. The Secretary insisted that behind all of the propaganda and opposition to the Bursum bill was an attempt to "kick the Indian Bureau out."149 Then Fall told the subcommittee that his effort to prosecute Francis Wilson on charges of conspiracy to defraud the government and the Indians out of their lands, when Wilson was employed as a Federal attorney for the Pueblos, had not been upheld by the Justice Department.50 He stated that a Pueblo lands court and irrigation system would be too expensive for the government. Francis Wilson tried to ask Fall a few questions but the.hearing ended when the Secretary of Interior refused.tobecross-examined.51 Even though Fall did not succeed in pushing the Bursum bill through Congress, he approved of the Indian Omnibus bill introduced by Congressman Homer Snyder of New York, which sought to individualize all tribal assets and to pay each individual Indian in cash the appraised value of his assets. Snyder favored the Omnibus bill because it "provided a means to assess the value of the u8l2i9°a PP- 254-255. ugIbid., p. 255. 501bid., pp. 278-279, 51Ibid., p. 183. 25 property of the individual member of a tribe, . . . to pay him off and get receipt in full, and be done with the Indian forever."52 The Omnibus bill empowered the Secre- tary of Interior to appoint three appraisers to evaluate all the property of each Indian tribe living on a reser- vation except those in Oklahoma and the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico. The appraisers would make a report not binding on the Secretary of Interior. The Secretary, using his own judgement, would be authorized to divide the total wealth of each tribe by the total number of Indians. In the process the Indian would surrender all partnership in the tribal estate. He would relinquish any unsettled claims against the government.53 This bill, like the Bursum bill and the Executive Order Reser- vation ruling, would have destroyed both Indian property and group life. The Indian Omnibus bill passed the House but was defeated in the Senate. Senator Robert La Fol- lette, who helped to defeat the bill in March 1923, claimed that it had to do with the "wrongfare" of the Indian.5u Albert Fall continued his attack against Indian reform by sending a letter to the New York Economic Club. This letter denounced Collier and protested against the 52U.S., Congressional Record, 67th Cong., Ath Sess., 1923, LXIV, Part 3, 2987. 53John Collier, "No Trespassing," Sunset, L (May, 1923)} 580 5uU.S., Congressional Record, 67th Cong., Ath Sess., 1923, LXIV, Part 6, 5389. 26 position of the Economic Club which defended the Pueblo Indians. Collier responded to Fall's accusation in a lengthy reply sent to the New York Economic Club dated February 16, 1923. He reiterated that the Bursum bill, an administration measure, compelled the District Court to give clear title to most claims against the Pueblos. He indicated his displeasure with Albert Fall's "Pueblo lands scheme," but added that he did not believe there has been any thought out conspiracy, but I do charge that the Department of Interior had exhibited an ineptitude, an incompetence and a lack of sensitiveness toward great and sacred national pledges.55 Collier ended the letter by asking the members of the Economic Club to join the Indian rights groups and to contribute money to the Indian cause. During January the White House announced that Albert Fall was resigning in order to devote more time to business affairs in the Southwest. Traditionally, the resignation of Fall has been explained by his involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal. Recently, in his revisionist study, Burl Noggle suggests that the oil inquiry concerning Teapot Dome may have had little influence upon Fall's decision to resign. Loss of influence in New Mexico politics, growing isolation from President Harding, and disappointment over his _¥ _ v—Vfi ‘ ‘r‘j W ‘..-V 55John Collier to Members of the New York Economic Club, February 16, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25. 27 relative unimportance in the Cabinet supposedly turned. Fall's thoughts toward resignation as early as February, 1922.56 The decision of Albert Fall to resign undoubtedly was a complex matter. Noggle's explanation, however, overlooks the important factor of the opposition that the Secretary encountered from Indian reformers. Espe- cially significant was the nationwide protest against the Fall inspired Bursum bill. The Nashville Tennessean indicated that it was the protestations of the two million members of the General Federation of Women's Clubs against the legislation sponsored by Secretary Fall of the Interior, that caused him much unhappiness and perhaps his ultimate decision to resign. Out of the winter's campaign against the Bursum bill, the Omnibus bill, and Secretary Fall grew the American Indian Defense Association. Formed in New York City in May, 1923, it has been neglected by historians.58 56Burl Noggle, Teapot Dome, Oil and Politics in the 1920's (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1965), p. 52. 57Newspaper Clipping, Nashville Tennessean, Jan- uary 16, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 17. 58Minutes of the First Meeting of the Board of Directors of The American Indian Defense Association, May 18, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25. Clarke Cham- bers in his excellent book, Seedtime Of-Reform, studies voluntary associations such as the National Child Labor Committee, the Woman's Trade Union League, the National Consumers League, the American Association for Labor: Legislation, the League for Women Voters, the Natior1a1 Federation of Settlements, and the American AssociaJ31on of Old Age Security. Unfortunately, he omits any refer- ence to the many Indian reform associations. 28 John Collier filled the very important position of Execu- tive Secretary and directed the Executive Committee which made the significant decisions. At first, the Associa- tion attempted to incorporate into its membership every- one crusading for Indian reform. The board of directors included such people and organizations as Stella Atwood, chairman of the Indian Welfare Committee of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, Margaret McKittrick, chair- man of the New Mexico Association of Indian Affairs, D. T. MacDougall, representative of the American Associa— tion for the Advancement of Science, Ralph Fletcher Seymour, secretary of the Chicago Indian Rights Associa- tion, and Elizabeth White, secretary of the Eastern Association of Indian Affairs. Other active reform- minded members of the Indian Defense Association were such people as John Haynes, Mary Austin, A. A. Berle, Jr., Robert E. Ely, Dr. Haven Emerson, Howard S. Gans, Elizabeth 8. Sergeant, Fred M. Stein, Kate Vosberg, J. P. Warbasse, and Walter Woehlke. Letterhead liberals in- cluded Charles W. Eliot,Harold Ickes, Hamiln Garland, Alton B.-Parker, and William Allen White.59 59Announcement of the Purposes of the American Indian Defense Association, Collier MSS: YUL, Drawer 25. The Defense Association also had headquarters at San Francisco, Pasadena, Los Angeles, and Albuquerque. Mrs. Mary Gibson, a progressive Californian from Los Angeles, arranged for Mrs. Kate Vosberg, from Azusa, California, to finance Collier's activities between 1921 and 1922. Dr. John Haynes, from Los Angeles, also contributed money to the efforts of Collier during the fight against the Bursum bill. Haynes donated over $A0,000 in legal costs to help the Pueblos save their land. 29 The Indian Defense Association particularly rejected the principles behind the Dawes Act of 1887. Introduced by a Congressman from Massachusetts, that Act had encour- aged the rapid assimilation of the Indian into American society. It individualized tribal properties by dividing reservations, allotting to each man, woman, and child a separate portion of land. Any surplus land existing on the reservation after this division could be sold to white settlers. The philosophy behind the Dawes Act had upehld the notion that by receiving a parcel of land in fee simple ownership, the Indian might gain his citi- zenship and throw off the shackles of government wardship. Individual ownership, however, was a difficult concept for the Indian to grasp with his collective traditions. The failure of the Dawes Act to provide agricultural credit also caused the Indian to sell or lease much of his land. Between 1887 and 1933 the Indians lost over 90 million acres of land through the allotment system and landless Indians increased from 5,000 to 100,000.60 Instead of individual land allotment, the Indian Defense Association recommended several alternatives. It proposed the entailing of Indian property. The Associa- tion suggested that the trust period be extended on all _.__ v“ 60John Collier, "America's Treatment of Her Indians," Current History, XVIII (August, 1923), 771-781, and U.S., Qpngressional Record, 73rd Cong., 2nd Sess., 193A, LXXVIII, Part 3, 11726;ll727. 3O allotted lands. It advocated a revision of the methods of leasing tribal lands and indicated that the mineral resources of the reservations should be placed in Indian hands, in order to make the tribes self—supporting, self- reliant,and prosperous.61 It further requested an investigation and reorganiza— tion of the Indian Bureau. The Association demanded the termination of the monopoly that the Bureau held over the personal and property affairs of the Indian. Instead, it prOposed to enlist cooperation and aid from other Federal and state agencies to bring to the Indians the remedial medical, educational and other resources already rendered to non-Indians. Medical responsibility, for example, should be transferred to the United States Public Health Service.62 The preservation of Indian civilization was another tenet held by the Indian Defense Association. It pro- posed that Indian education develop rather than supress group loyalties. The Association stressed that Indians should have religious and social freedom in all matters not directly contrary to public morals. It recommended that Congress pass a statute insuring religious liberty for Indians and advocated that churches have the 61 Announcement of the Purposes of the American Indian Defense Association, Collier MSS: YUL, Drawer 25. 62Ibid. 31 opportunity only to convert not coerce the Indians into accepting Christianity.63 But the new unity of the American Indian Defense Association was soon dissipated in disagreement over the Lenroot bill. On February 28, 1923, the Senate subcom- mittee on Public Lands and Surveys reported the Lenroot bill as a substitute for the Bursum bill. This bill made one concession to the Pueblos, for it proposed to establish a Presidential Commission to determine when the statute of limitations ran against the Indians. But the fact that it recognized the validity of the con- cept of a statute of limitations meant that the Pueblos would face confiscation of land which they had clear title to under Spanish grants. This substitute measure also offered the Indians no compensation for lands and water rights lost to settlers.6u The Lenroot bill resulted in a battle, for over a year, among the various Indian reformers and associations. It fragmented the broad based membership of the Indian Defense Association. The members of the New Mexico Association and the Eastern Association of Indian Affairs had not supported the Bursum bill because they did not want to see the Pueblos lose all of their land. But these associations were also concerned about the claims of the white settlers. 63Ibid. 6“U.S.,.Congressional Record, 67th Cong., Ath Sess., 32 They feared the position taken by the Indian Defense Association which stated that seventy-five per cent of the white claims were not based on legal title but on a statute of limitations. The Defense Association main- tained that a statute of limitations did not ordinarily run against Indian wards. Jealousy also developed among the reform associations over the influence of Collier among the Pueblos. A member of the Eastern Association accused Collier of organizing the Council of all New Mexico Pueblos as a "personal instrument for coercing the government."65 The first defection among the Indian welfare groups came when Francis Wilson, former attorney for the Pueblos and the General Federation of Women's Clubs, agreed to accept the Lenroot bill. The New Mexico Association of Indian Affairs sided with Wilson. Both were sympathetic to the white settlers who had taken possession of the Pueblo lands between 189A and 1913. During this period the Federal courts.had established the right of the Pueblo Indians to sell and to alienate their lands. Accord- ing to the territorial court decisions this involved the right of the settlers to acquire title by adverse possession under a statute of limitations. These decisions were reversed in 1913 by the Supreme Court in the Sandoval 65John Collier, To the Senate Indian Investigating Committee, 1932, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 18. 33 decision. Many people like Francis Wilson evidently felt that the settlers had moral rights to the land because they had acted in good faith under the terri- torial court decisions.66 Senators Andrieus Jones and Reed Smoot were told by Wilson that the Pueblos would not oppose the Lenroot bill. Consequently, the Senate passed the bill but the House failed to vote on it because unanimous consent was withheld.67 Collier immediately attacked the Lenroot bill and suggested that it did not have the support of the All Pueblo Council, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, or the American Indian Defense Association. He pointed out that the main feature of both the Bursum and Lenroot bills was the nullification of Pueblo land titles. In both cases the result was sought through a retroactive statute of limitations made to operate against the Pueblos. Collier indicated.that the Bursum bill had at least offered a fictitious compensation for nullified land claims.68 Then Collier attacked what he regarded as misrep- resentations and untruths promulgated by the Indian 66Newspaper Clippings, John Collier, "Lenroot bill Sentence of Death for Pueblos," Santa Fe New Mexican, September 22, 1923, and Francis Wilson, "Wilson's Reply to Collier," Santa Fe New Mexican, September, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l8. 67U.S., Congressional Record, 67th Cong., Ath Sess., 1923, LXIV, Part 5, A878. 68John Collier, Statement Concerning Misrepresenta- tions, March 8, 192A, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 18. 3A welfare groups in New York and New Mexico. He criti- cized two members of the Eastern Association on Indian Affairs, Miss A. E. White and Roberts Walker, for starting a campaign of rumor and suspicion in order to confuse the Pueblos about the true nature of the Lenroot bill. Collier accused Francis Wilson and Father Fridolin Schuster of reversing their previous stand with regard to confis- catory legislation. He questioned the motives of the New Mexico Association because it seemed to be only interested in the claims of the white settlers and not those of the Indians.69 After rejecting the position of the New York and New Mexico Associations, Collier indicated that the Pueblo Indians, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, and the American Indian Defense Association considered the Lenroot bill worse than the Bursum bill. All three groups,under the influence of Collier, rejected the notion that the white settlers had obtained title to Pueblo lands through merely occupying them. They believed that the statutes of limitation did not run against the Indians because they were wards of the government. The courts,not the legislature, must answer the controversy over Pueblo lands.7O 69John Collier to Mr. Paulin, September 9, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25. 70John Collier, Statement Concerning Misrepresenta- tions, March 8, 192A, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 18. 35 Collier was crucial in defeating the Lenroot bill. With the cooperation of Stella Atwood in July, 1923, he forced a showdown at the Atlanta meeting of the Gen- eral Federation of Women's Clubs. Under the threat that Atwood might join the League of Women Voters, a strong resolution passed demanding justice for the Pueblos. Next, on September 11, 1923, Collier wrote a letter to the Pueblo Governors and delegates to the All Pueblo Council, suggesting that the Indians reject the confusing advice of certain people from Santa Fe, especially Francis Wilson and Miss Margaret McKittrick. He indicated that Wilson's defense of the Lenroot bill was "a cruel and dreadful mockery of the Pueblos," and suggested that the New Mexico Association had betrayed the Indians. Finally, Collier warned the Pueblos to discard the advice of such writers as Witter Bynner who was urging them to accept the Lenroot bill.71 Collier did not stop with writing a letter to the Pueblos. He mobilized the All Pueblo Council to fight the Lenroot bill as it had the Bursum bill. On January 17, 192A, the All Pueblo Council met and instructed a delegation to proceed East to oppose the confiscation of their land.72 71Stella Atwood to E. 8. Sergeant, July 21, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25, and John Collier to the Gov- ernors and Councils and Delegates to the All Pueblo Coun- cil, September 11, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25. 72John Collier, Statement Concerning Misrepresenta- tions, March 8, 192A, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 18. 36 Angry at the defection of other reform groups, Collier attempted to purge the Indian Defense Associa- tion of members who supported the Lenroot bill. He indicated embarrassment over the membership of A. E. White, Secretary of the Eastern Association, and of Margaret McKittrick, chairman of the New Mexico Associa- tion.73 Collier suggested that since their groups lacked intellectual honesty and fair play,"any concession to get their help would be burning the house to roast the pig."7u In a letter to the board of directors of the Indian Defense Association,Collier outlined the tactics to follow regarding Indian reform. This letter marked the deep break that had occurred between Collier and many of the other Indian rights leaders. It also indicated his taking firm control over the machinery and policy of the Indian Defense Association. Collier told his colleagues that they must proceed positively in the matter of Indian reform. The Lenroot bill had to be defeated even at the risk of alienating Francis Wilson and the Executive Committee of the New Mexico Associa- tion. He prOposed that the Defense Association immee diately start preparing for the publicity which would ‘_ 73John Collier to the Board of Directors of the American Indian Defense Association, September 19, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25. 7“John Collier to Elizabeth S. Sergeant, January 1. 192A, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 15. 37 kill the Lenroot bill. Stella Atwood should continue to inform the women in all parts of the country about the Indian problem. Every member of the House and Senate must be reached and systematically warned against the Lenroot bill and the terrible condition of the Indian.75 Collier succeeded in this attempt to defeat the Lenroot bill, but his visionary goals for the Pueblos were only partially fulfilled. For on June 7, 192A, Congress passed a bill introduced by Holm Bursum commonly known as the Pueblo Lands Act. This Act provided a means for the solution of disputed lands. It estab- lished a Board consisting of the Secretary of Interior, the Attorney General, and a third member appointed by the President. It empowered this Lands Board to deter- mine the status and boundaries of all Pueblo lands and authorized the Attorney General to bring suit to quiet title to all Pueblo lands listed by the Board. The Pueblo Lands Act incorporated the controversial statute of limitations measure which provided that non-Indian claimants, to substantiate their claims, had to demonstrate either continuous adverse possession under color of title since January 6, 1902, supported by payment of taxes on the land, or continuous possession since March 16, 1889, supported by payment of taxes, but without color of title. 75John Collier to the Board of Directors of the American Indian Defense Association, September 19, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25. 38 It established the principle of compensation at fair market value for all lands and water rights found to have been lost by the Pueblos, which might have been recovered by seasonable prosecution on the part of the Government. The Lands Board undertook the investigation of lands and improvements of successful non-Indian claim- ants that might be purchased for the benefit of the Indians. The Act.also prohibited any future transfer of land by the Pueblos to the whites unless agreed to in advance by the Secretary of Interior.76 Collier withheld complete approval of the Pueblo Lands Act because he wanted the Federal Courts, not the legislature, to settle the dispute. He especially disliked the statute of limitations provision but was satisfied with the section of the Act which upheld the right of the Indians to compensation for relinquished land and water rights. Other desirable features of the Act imposed a penalty to prevent future seizures of land and eliminated interference by the New Mexico courts in the internal affairs of the‘Pueblos.77 The A11 Pueblo Council, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, and the American Indian Defense Associa- tion had been only partially successful in the Pueblo 76U.S., Statutes at Large, XLIII, Part 1, 636-6A1. 77Ibid. 39 land controversy. This did not dismay Collier who looked to the future. He told the board of directors of the Defense Association that whether in the future we take up the allotment question,, or the probate question or the sub- ject of heathen customs, or any basic issue, especially of an economic character, we shall have to deal with such devious and stubborn re- sistances as we are dealing with in this Pueblo matter.78 Collier insisted that a clear cut attack on the Indian affairs system would dispose "of the resistences and win the larger public."79 The tone was set for an assault on the Coolidge administration. Directed by Collier, the Defense Association would begin the crusade for Indian reform in earnest. 78John Collier to the Board of Directors of the American Indian Defense Association, September 19, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25. 79Ibid. CHAPTER II A PROVISIONAL REVOLUTION Efforts by reformers to bring about a fundamental change in the Indian affairs system continued during the Coolidge administration. Collier along with other members of the Indian Defense Association prevented the Indian Bureau, under the direction of Commissioner Burke, from attempting to suppress Indian religious dances and tribal self-government.. During the 1926-1928 legislative ses- sions voluntary associations,such as the General Federan tion of Women's Clubs, the National-Popular Government League, and the Indian Defense Association, combined their efforts to defeat legislation sponsored by the Bureau and the Department of Interior. They offered legislative alternatives which became the basis for reforms enacted during the New Deal. Several members of the House and Senate.aligned with these reform associae tions to prevent the confiscation of Indian oil and water power sites and the practice of using tribal monies for public imprbvement desired by white people. The- Senate also started an investigation which paved the way for later reforms. A0 A1 During the Warren Harding administration the attack against the Indians was not limited to attempts at taking their land. An onslaught against the religious tenets of the Indians paralled the Bursum bill. As early as April 26, 1921, while Albert Fall was Secretary of Inte- rior, Commissioner Charles Burke addressed circular 1665 to all Indian superintendents. This document proclaimed many Indian religious dances harmful. It listed as Indian offenses the Sun Dance and all other dances that involved the reckless.giving.away of property, prolonged periods of-celebration,.or excessive performances that promoted superstitious cruelty and.idleness. Burke warned that. punitive measures.wou1d ensue if the Indians did not stop these ceremonies.l The Bureau was justifiably concerned over the Sun Dance. This dance consisted of an attempt by the Plains Indians through self-torture to bring visions and well- being to the whole tribe. The procedure involved thrusting a sharpened stick through the skin, around which the Indian tied a cord. ,The end of-the line was then connected to a post and the participant proceeded to keep jerking against the skin until a strip tore out. The Sun Dance also licensed some sexual promiscuity and the Bureau had outlawed this Ceremony as early as 1910.2 L lJohn Collier, "Persecuting the Pueblos," Sunset, LIII (July, 192A), 50. 2Clark.Wissler,.Indians.Of.TheUnited States.(Garden> City: Doubleday and.Company, Inc., 1967), pp. 181-182, and Oliver La Farge, A Pictorial History of the American Indian (N.Y.: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1956), pp. 165-166. A2 Other dances that probably upset the Bureau although they did not injure the health of the Indians included the Hopi Snake Dance.and.the Zuni ceremonials. The Snake Dance, often performed before white tourists, consisted of a serious ritualistic act designed to induce super— natural powers to give the Indians rain and good crops. The Hopi dancer grasped rattlesnakes in his arms with one of them in his.mouth. It seems that the poison was squeezed out in secret before.the beginning of the dance. The snakes represented.lightning and were eventually released to carry.the prayers of the priest for rain and fertility up to heaven. The Zuni Indians also cen- tered much of their thought and endeavor around an ela-. borate series of rites to win divine blessings. Summer ceremonies concentrated.on bringing rain and rich har- vests, while winter rites focused on fertility, medicine, and war.3 The other Pueblos, under Spanish influence, had synthesized the Roman Catholic faith with their old pagan religion. Due to the forbidding of their ceremonies by the Spanish, the Pueblos made them secret so no white man could observe them. This native religion permeated all aspects of Pueblo life. An endless pageant of 3Robert Spender.and.Jesse Jennings, The Native Ameri- cans (N.Y.: Harper and Row, 1965), pp. 313-316, and Clark Wissler, Indians of the United States (Garden City: Double- day and Company, Inc., 1967), pp. 237-238. A3 ceremonials continued throughout the year to bring rain and to keep crops growing. One anthropologist has esti— mated that the Pueblo men devoted at least half their time to religious activities.” On February 2A, 1923, the Bureau strengthened cir- cular 1665 with a supplement containing a series of recommendations made at a conference of missionaries in 5 the Sioux country. These recommendations suggested that Indian dances be limited to one each month in the day-light hours of one day in the midweek at the center of each Indian district; except in the months of March, April, June, July, and August when the Bureau prohibited all dances. No Indian could be present or take part in the dances if he was under fifty years of age.6 This last provision was evidently intended to separate the children from the pagan ideas of their aged parents. This suppression of Indian dances by the Bureau is not surprising considering the philosophy of Commis- sioner Burke and Secretary of Interior Hubert Work. The Commissioner assumed that the Indians must assimilate into white society. He believed that the Bureau must do more for the Indians than perpetuating them "as weird “Robert Spencer and Jesse Jennings, The Native Ameri- cans (N.Y.: Harper and Row, 1965), p. 298. 5New York Times, May 8, 1923, p. 6. 6John Collier, "Persecuting the Pueblos," Sunset, LIII (July, 1924), 50. AA and picturesque spectacles for the study of artists or relief to the ennui of surfeited pleasure seekers."7 Burke followed these tenets by issuing regulations providing for the attendance of Indians at Sunday school and church. He told the superintendents to extend impar- tial privileges to all Christian denominations.8 Secre- tary Work agreed with Burke. He pointed out that the fundamental problem for the Indian Service consisted of encouraging "individual industry, thrift, and respon- sibility." The Secretary stated that the government approved of the Bureau's effort to modify the Indian religion into harmony with the forms of the Christian religion which civilization has approved, from which our rules of life are drafted and upon which our government is founded.9 The Indian Bureau started its campaign to educate public opinion against the Indian dances during the spring of 1923. It distributed, in cooperation with the missionary-oriented Indian Rights Association, secret documents which described the supposed immoral nature of the Pueblo dances. These secret exhibits, which were "a foot deep on the desk of Commissioner Burke's secretary," 7Charles Burke to Senator James Wadsworth, Jr., March 15, 192A, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 16. 8Charles Burke, "Indians Making Progress Learning the White Man's Way," School Life, IX (June, 192A), 2A1-2A2. 9Hubert Work, "Our American Indians," Saturday Even- ing Post, CIVC (May 31, 192A), 92. “5 consisted of affidavits and sworn testimony by mission- aries and others as to the revolting character of the secret Pueblo dances.lO Employees of the Bureau, mis- sionaries, and the executive branch of the Indian Rights Association gathered this material.11 F. W. Hodge, curator of the Museum of the American Indian, questioned the accuracy of the Bureau's state- ments concerning the indecent and immoral nature of the Pueblo dances. He claimed that "all such statements were "12 Hodge criticized based on the grossest misinformation. the "reams of affidavits" supplied by the Bureau to sub- stantiate its charges. He asked how the Bureau could have affidavits of "secret dances no white person has ever seen."13 This question was pertinent, for the Bureau evidently made a blanket accusation against all the Pueblo dances from the information gained at public spectacles such as the Hopi Snake Dance. The author has found no specific evidence to support the charge that the Pueblo dances were immoral and sexually degrading. William E. "Pussyfoot" Johnson, a former Bureau employee and director of the World League of Alcoholism, loJohn Collier to Mrs. John D. Sherman, September 16, 192A, Collier MSS: YUL, Drawer 15. 11New York Times, November 16, 192A, IX, p. 12. 12New York Times, December 20, 1963, p. 16. 13New York Times, October 26, 192A, VIII, p. 12 A6 wrote the most incriminating document distributed by the Indian Bureau. Johnson supported the Indian office in its attempt to eradicate secret Indian dances. He suggested that the Pueblo dances were hideous, obscene, and revolting. Johnson stated that the Pueblos partici- pated in rites that were much more degrading than the Phallic worship of the Ancient Greeks and Hindus. This document reached the apex of its accusation by condemning the Pueblos for attempting to withdraw their children from school in order to give them a two year course in sodomy under pagan instructors. Johnson concluded his statement with the names of the Indian Rights Associa- tion, the Bureau.of Catholic Missions, and "every known Protestant missionary.organization," as institutions giving active support for the movement to eliminate tribal dances.lu In a letter to Mrs. John Sherman, president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, Collier attacked the document circulated by Johnson. He suggested that the history of religious persecution held no more dis- graceful episode than the Bureau's attempt to prevent Pueblo boys from entering the priesthood. Collier rejected as monstrous a charge that Indian boys were given a two year course in sodomy. He indicated that Johnson's real 1”w. E. Pussyfoot Johnson (Pamphlet), 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l6. A7 motive did not concern Indian religion. Collier reminded Mrs. Sherman that Johnson had quoted Miss Clara D. True, whose record was well known as a promoter of legislation cancelling the Pueblo land titles.15 Collier's Opposition to the suppression of Indian dances stemmed from his disagreement with Commissioner Burke and Secretary Work over the future of the Pueblo Indian. He believed that the Indian could not be either saved or usefully assimilated by crushing his soul, by denaturing him, stripping him naked of his parental and racial memories and forcing him to become a pro-mature social half breed. Collier assumed that the Pueblos did not represent an inferior but only a different civilization. He pointed out that the Indian's civilization concerned itself with spiritual things while the white man's civilization valued power and material goods. This difference made it crucial for Collier to preserve these marvelous little nations with their self— government, their world-old democracy, their institutions for causing the human spirit to bloom with love and splendor. He proposed a policy of cultural pluralism rather than assimilation. Collier wanted the Indians to be permitted to live their own lives, forward into their own future, not apart from the Whigg man's world but cooperating with it. 15John Collier to Mrs. John D. Sherman, September 16, 192A, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 15. 16John Collier, "Our Indian Policy," Sunset, L (March, 1923), 93. .3 The Indian Rights Association vehemently supported the Indian Bureau and attacked Collier for leading "a revival of ancient pagan ideas of obsolete communal management."17 The secretary of the Association sug- gested that a description of the secret Pueblo dances would be too indecent to print or send through the mails. He favored the cause of the Progressive Christian Pueblos who sought real religious liberty from the "tyrannical and fanatical rule of the caciques or high priests."18 The Indian Bureau organized an All Pueblo Progres- sive Council to support its policy. Fifty Indians made up this Council from the predominately Christian pueblos of Santa Clara, San Juan,and Cochiti. A resolution made public by the Department of Interior and signed by the president and secretary of Santa Clara Pueblo declared that some of the Pueblo officials were cruel and tried to make slaves of the progressives because of their refusal to take part in "secret and unchristian dances."19 Certain priests in the Catholic Church also sup- ported the Indian Bureau. Father Fridolin Schuster, a Franciscan monk, campaigned against Indian dances and Father Hughes, director of the Bureau of Catholic Indian 17New York Times, October 19, 192A, II, p. 6. 18 New York Times, November 9, 192A, IX, p. 12. 19NewYork Times, June 19, 192A, p. 10. A9 education, circulated material syndicated through the Catholic press in defense of the Bureau.20 Miss Edith Manville Dabb, head of the Y.W.C.A. Indian department, stood solidly behind Commissioner Burke's attempt to abolish tribal dances. Miss Dabb lamented over the cruelty and ugliness found in these dances. She claimed that young Indian girls just beginning to enjoy a carefree girlhood were made to take part in ceremonial dances, which meant for them child marriage and usually motherhood.21 Miss Dabb offered no specific evidence to support her charge. The Bureau made its first attempt to enforce the 1921 and 1923 executive rulings on April 18, 192A. Com- missioner Burke came to Taos accompanied by Secretary Work and the superintendent from the Northern Pueblos. There, at a formal meeting of the tribal council, the Commissioner repeated verbally a previously written order which required that certain boys temporarily with- drawn from school for religious training should be returned to the Government school. There were two boys out of a school population of two hundred and such a withdrawal took place once in a lifetime.22 2OJohn Collier to Bishop Cantwell, November 18, 192A, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25. 21New York Times, December 2, 1923, IX, p. 8. 22John Collier, The Indian and His Religious Freedom (Pamphlet), July 2, 192A, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l5. 50 The Taos Pueblo rebuffed the Bureau's effort to interfere in its religious life. In a letter dated May 7, 192A, the Governor and Council of Taos Pueblo replied to Commissioner Burke that they wished to have their boys take full advantage of the government school and had urged that any boys withdrawn temporarily from school for religious training make up for the lost time. How— .ever, they refused to obey the Commissioner's order because it was nothing less than a command to suspend the 5,000 year old religious customs of the tribe.23 Rallying to the defense of the Pueblos, Collier told the board of directors of the Indian Defense Associa- tion that the religious issue was more fundamental than the land issue. He pointed out that the tribal and per- sonal life of the Indian revolved around his religion; to tear it out would destroy him as a social group and as a race. Collier urged members to strike before the coming election, warning that the Indian Bureau would compromise until after the election and then "laugh in spite of thunder."2u Collier started the fight against the Bureau in two letters to the New York Times. In the first letter 23The Governor and His Council of the Pueblo and Tribe of Taos to Commissioner Charles H. Burke, May 7, 192A, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25. 2”John Collier to the Members of the Board of Direc- tors, May 22, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25. 51 he rejected the notion of Miss Dabb, head of the Indian department of the Y.W.C.A., that "the Indian must be swiftly denatured, stripped naked of his personality 25 and turned into an Anglo Saxon." His second letter rejected a statement by a member of the Indian Rights Association that the Pueblo Indian religions were immoral and that the non-Christian Pueblo Indians were engaged in the persecution of Christian Pueblo Indians. Collier indignantly pointed out that the government's campaign of injury against the Indian race, with the aid of mis- sionary and certain Indian welfare agents, was "unpre— cedented in the long history of struggles for the eman- cipation of subject peOples and the establishment of liberties."26 Countering Collier's attacks, the Indian Rights Association insisted that his group wanted to perpetuate an obsolete type of civilization under the plea of religious liberty.27 Collier also wrote a letter to Bishop Cantwell criticizing Catholic support of the Indian Bureau's infringement of Indian religious liberty. He attacked the priests who defended the ban on Indian dances. Collier admitted to the Bishop that he knew the Bureau held the missionaries under duress and obligations so 25New York Times, December 16, 1923, VIII, p. 6. 26 New York Times, November 16, 192A, IX, p. 12. 27Indian Truth (November, 192A), 3. 52 that they were not free agents. He understood that the Catholic schools were receiving $191,000 a year out of tribal funds without the consent of the Indians. He realized that land from the reservations was patented to the various mission groups without compensation to the Indians. He knew that the activity of the mission- aries on the reservations could be terminated by the Bureau at will. Collier suggested that while it was not practical for the missionaries to initiate reforms in the Indian service,"they at least might be silent and not appear as open and wholesale advocates of a state of affairs that was truly indefensible."28 In Christian Century, Collier warned that the country owed an old debt to the Indian, who was at the present going through the agony of a physical and spir- itual slaughter of a whole branch of the human race. He suggested that the Christian churches were partly responsible for the preservation of the precious Indian values such as the "beauties of art, secrets of moral education, profound values of comparative religion, and open secrets of the-cooperative way of living."29 He then reminded his readers that the importance of 28John Collier to Bishop Cantwell, November 18, 192A, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25. 29John Collier, "Do Indians Have Rights of Con- science," Christian Century, XLII (March 13, 1925), 3146-3149. 53 institutions was measured hardly at all by the numbers of individuals living in them. He told the churches to look to the past and their suffering as tiny minor- ities. They ought.to be sensitive and understand the Pueblo religious persecution. The most devastating attack against the Indian Bureau came in an Indian Defense Association pamphlet written by Collier titled "The Indian and Religious Freedom." In tracing the history of the Bureau's reli- gious "inquisition," he suggested that the property motive was behind its attack on the Taos and Zuni Pueblos. The proscription of Indian religions was the entering wedge of a campaign to destroy the whole Pueblo system and to drag from under the Indians the last acre of their land. Collier indicated that the All Pueblo Pro- gressive Council, a puppet of the Bureau, had the assis- tance of Mrs. Nina Otero Warren, inspector of Indian affairs during.the Secretaryship of Albert Fall. This Council also had the help of A. B. Renehan, attorney for the white settlers occupying Pueblo land and seeking to stay there. It had the aid of Miss Clara True, who for two years had been active publicly in the struggle to deprive the Pueblos of their land titles.3O 3OJohn Collier, The Indian and Religious Freedom (Pamphlet), July 2, 192A, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 15. 5A In this pamphlet Collier stressed the importance of religion on the continuance of the Indian as a social group. United in the life of religion, the Indians could stand up together as men and cling to the remnants of their soil, resisting the efforts to turn them into drifting social half breeds. Sensing the universal significance of Indian life, he wanted to preserve "their treasure of the soul. which no man yet has known enough to be able to estimate."31 The conflict reached its zenith at Taos when offi- cers of the Pueblo disciplined two Indians for invading traditional religious ceremonies dressed in non-ceremonial costumes. The impostcrs had been given the choice of paying a two dollar fine or receiving a single stroke with a piece of leather delivered on the back through the blanket and clothes. The two Indians chose to receive the stroke. One publicly stated that he had made his choice in order to break up the government of the Pueblo.32 The Indian Bureau sided with the two Indians and against the officers of Taos. Having obtained authority from the Commissioner Burke, the superintendent of the Northern Pueblos caused the arrest of all but one member 31Ibid. 32From the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico; To the President of the United States; The Congress; And Our Friends the American People, August 31, 1925, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 10. 55 of the governing body of Taos Pueblo. Charged with assault and battery, nine officials were taken under armed guard to Santa Fe and held under $500 bail for each man. None of the prisoners had an annual income amounting to one third that sum_ The imprisonment, delayed for several months and then carried out with no warning, was timed to come immediately before the most sacred and mandatory of the year's religious cere- monies. The Indians finally secured their release when a judge ruled that.he had no jurisdiction because it was the will and law of Congress that the Pueblos should govern their own internal affairs according to their customs.33 The Pueblos responded to the Bureau's imprisonment of the Taos officials by calling a meeting of the All Pueblo Council at Santo Domingo on August 31, 1925. This meeting under the influence of Collier was similar to the one called to oppose the Bursum bill. The seventy- seven delegates from fifteen Pueblos issued an appeal to "The President of the United States, the Congress, and Our Friends the American People." They denounced the effort by the Bureau to destroy Pueblo self—government through the imprisonment of the Taos officials and thanked 33John Collier to the Pueblo Tribal Officials, November 22, 1927, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l6. white friends for employing lawyers to defend them. The appeal then criticized the reckless and hostile persons who circulated the "shameful documents" collected by the Indian Bureau attacking Pueblo religions, stating that these documents were "false in every part, and slanderous i and libelous."34 It asked the American people whether they would tolerate their continued circulation in an effort to destroy what the Indians held sacred. Under Collier's leadership, several Pueblo Indians visited California, at the invitation of local chapters of the Defense Association, to explain their plight and to raise money. Social leaders in the Bay area and in Santa Barbara Opened their homes to hear their appeals. The Commonwealth Club and others listened to their mes- sage.35 When they gathered over thirteen thousand dol— lars in a few weeks, officials in the Indian Bureau became aroused. An article covering the front page of the Albuquerque State Tribune suggested that the turmoil among the Pueblos stemmed from outside influence financed "36 by "money from Moscow. 3”From the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico; To the Presi— dent of the United States; The Congress; And Our Friends the American People, August 31, 1925, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 10. 35John Collier, American Indian Life (September- December, 1925), l-A. 36U.S., Congress, Senate, Subcommittee of the Com- mittee on Indian Affairs, Hearings on S. Resolution 3A1, 69th Cong., 2nd Sess., 1927, p. 69. 57 Under this storm of protest the Bureau cancelled its order preventing the religious training of boys at Taos and issued a news release praising the native reli— gions which conveyed an impression that the Secretary of Interior had.instructed or ordered the Indians to continue the religious education of their children.37 This reprieve from religious persecution by the Bureau did not last for long. On.March l, 1926, the superin- tendent of the.Northern Pueblos at Santa Fe wrote to the school principal at Taos instructing him to read a letter to the Pueblo officials. This letter stated that "in every case where a boy is taken out of school for any purpose and kept.out . . . I shall hold the parents respon- sible, and will cause the parents arrest."38 Collier.responded to this renewed threat by writing let- ters to Scott Leavitt and John Harreld, chairmen of the House and Senate.Indian Committees. He warned the two men that the issue squarely before the American people and Congress consisted of whether or not the Indian Bureau should be "permitted to invade the last sanctuary of dignity and.holiness in the life of the Indians," making it a crime to worship God.39 37John Collier to Scott Leavitt and John Harreld, Chairmen of the Committees on Indian Affairs, March 11, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 15. 38Ibid. 391bid. I 58 Congressman Scott Leavitt of Montana rejected Collier's appeal by reporting out of the House Committee on Indian Affairs a bill drafted by the Indian Bureau. The Leavitt bill conferred on Indian superintendents the power to throw any reservation Indian into jail for six months without trial or court review under regu— lations drawn up by the Bureau. Aimed chiefly at the Pueblo and Navajo tribes, it sought Congressional sanction for the previous practice at Taos of arresting and impris- oning Indians without legal process. It would have reversed a Congressional policy, as construed by the Supreme Court, which permitted Indian tribes to govern their internal affairs in their own manner.“O Collier, and his Indian Defense Association, spear- headed the attack against the Leavitt bill. In Montana's Great Falls Tribune, he charged that Leavitt, as chairman of the House Indian Affairs Committee, had acted as a tool of the Indian Bureau and against the Indians. Calling him a "careless, ignorant, and obedient representative," Collier accused him of maneuvering through committee a bill which was "a measure of absolute ruthless, even A1 fantastic, oppression and enslavement." Confessing that he wanted to see some other man made chairman of quohn Collier, American Indian Life (July-September, 1926), 1-A. ulNewspaper Clipping, The Great Falls Tribune (Mon- tana), October 9, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1A. 59 the House Indian Affairs Committee, he asked for a chair— man who was not "a.tool of the Indian Bureau bureaucracy and of the predatory interests which that bureaucracy serves.”2 Eighteen Pueblos sent representatives to an All Pueblo Council meeting on November 28, 1926, in order to discuss the Leavitt bill. There Collier warned that the bill would demand that Indian marriages be made according to state law instead of tribal law. He explained the alternate Frear-LaFollette bill which proposed to extend the citizenship rights of Indians in civil and criminal matters. Collier told the assembled Pueblos that they had been led into a trap at an earlier Bureau sponsored meeting which had met in Santa Fe, where Herbert Hagerman, Special Commissioner to the Navajos and a mem- ber of the Pueblos Land Board, had attempted to induce the Indians to form a United States Pueblo Council. He saw this as an obvious effort by the Bureau to undercut his influence through the All Pueblo Council, which had become a power center for the reformers and a serious nuisance to the Bureau since the struggle in 1922 against the Bursum bill. As usual, the All Pueblo Council fol— lowed Collier's advice by endorsing the Frear-LaFollette bill, protesting the Leavitt bill, and asserting its u2Ibid. 6O wish to retain the All Pueblo Council rather than parti- cipate in Hagerman's United States Pueblo Council.)43 Protest against the Leavitt bill led to its amend- ment in a series of prolonged hearings. The Indian .Bureau modified its demand for the imprisonment of Indians without trial or court review, but still insisted that its rules and regulations should govern the process of law. It also pressed for government control over the internal affairs of the tribes.uu Collier criticized even the amended bill as the Bureau's intense wish to avert public indignation while maintaining the kind of situation that would be satisfac- tory to "pirates, exploiters of the Belgian Congo, or.a legally empowered bureaucracy of hooded gentlemen."l‘l5 In consequence of the opposition that he and the Indian Defense Association had aroused, the Leavitt bill did not emerge from committee. Thus ended the last major threat against Indian civil rights during the Coolidge administration. Collier and his associates had pre- vented religious persecution but they had failed to secure the desired bills to protect Indian civil rights. u3Newspaper Clipping, The New Mexico Tribune, Decem- ber 11, 1936, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1A. ouohn Collier, American Indian Defense Associa- tion Legislative Bulletin, June 9, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25. uSIbid. P.’ 61 The defeat of the Leavitt bill and of the Indian Bureau's religious policy was only part of a larger legislative struggle being carried on in the later years of the Coolidge administration. The American Indian Defense Association, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, and.the National Popular Government League com- bined efforts to expose and defeat legislation sponsored by the Department.of Interior and its Indian Bureau. Several members of the House and Senate aligned with the reform associations and became staunch friends of their Indian.policy. In the House, James A. Frear of Wisconsin, in close cooperation with John Collier, attacked almost every aspect of the Federal Indian pro- gram. In the Senate one of the great groupings in American political history joined the crusade for Indian reform. They included such Senators as John Blaine of Wisconsin, Smith Brookhart of Iowa, Ralph Cameron of Arizona, Royal Copeland of New York, Charles Curtis of Kansas, Lynn Frazier of North Dakota, Hiram Johnson of California, William King of Utah, Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin, and Burton K. Wheeler of Montana. They made those years a seedtime of reform. Spurred by Collier they initiated and pushed such measures as the Frear-LaFollette bills which proposed.to extend the citizenship rights of Indians in civil and.criminal matters, and the Wheeler-Frear bills which proposed to extend court review and protection to Indian prpperty. The Indian Defense Associations of 62 Central and Northern California, in cooperation with the Commonwealth Club, drafted the Johnson-Swing and COOper- LaFollette bills which planned Federal-state COOperation in Indian health, education, and welfare. These bills did not pass but.laid the foundation for reforms ini— tiated during the NewDeal.“6 Those Progressives in Congress, however, were successful in other endeavors. They prevented the con— fiscation of Indian oil reserves on unallotted lands and established the Indians' legal title to Executive Order Reservations. Congress exposed the practice of using Indian tribal monies for public improvements needed by white people. It preserved Indian water power sites and established the principle that in paying for irriga- tion projects the Indians should be on parity with the whites. The Senate also started an investigation of Indian affairs which laid the groundwork for the reform programs enacted during the New Deal. The outstanding victory for the reformers during the 1926—1927 session consisted of a successful fight against the Indian Oil bill. Introduced by Congressman Carl Hayden of Arizona, it received the endorsement of the Secretary of Interior and the Indian Bureau. Commis- sioner Burke supported the Hayden bill throughout the “6Stella Atwood, Report of the General Federation of Women's Clubs Legislative Committee, 1926-1928, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. 63 controversy, explaining that the bill placed the leasing of Indian lands under the jurisdiction of the Indian Bureau. He indicated that he would "compromise" on other measures to obtain that control over leasing]47 The Indian Oil bill attempted to achieve through an act of Congress what Albert Fall had tried with an executive order in 1922. It must be remembered that Fall made a distinction between Executive and Treaty Reserva- tions. He arbitrarily ruled that Executive Order lands and their mineral values were public domain and subject to the general leasing law for public lands. Consequently, the oil wealth of the Executive Order Reservations belonged exclusively to the United States. Treaty Reservations were not affected by this ruling. Under the terms of the general leasing law the mineral wealth on public domain land was divided between the Federal government and the states. The Indians under Fall's ruling would have received.nothing. Fall received over A00 applica- tions for leases, and he granted twenty applications before Attorney General Harlan Stone overruled the order.”8 The Indian Oil bill of 1926 allowed the development of oil fields in Executive Order Reservations on a basis similar to that proposed by Albert Fall, for it gave u7U.S., Congress, House, Hearings on H R. 9133, 69th Cong., lst Sess., 1926, p. 23. uaClippings from the Congressional Record, March 26, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. ht.» v. no \ O 6A 37 1/2% of the Indians' oil royalties to the states to be expended in some way that would benefit the Indian. It would exempt oil operators from a production tax and voided any Indian claim to vested rights in unallotted lands on Executive Order Reservations. It also proposed to give the Secretary of Interior an uncontrolled discre- tion either to confirm or to disallow the A00 applications made while Fall was Secretary of Interior, applications which had been overruled by Attorney General Stone. Hayden's bill would have affected 23 million acres of land in 10 Western states?9 Collier and his fellow reformers criticized the Indian Oil bill because they believed that it implied that Executive Order Reservations were on the same legal basis as ordinary public lands, and that the Indians possessed no vested interest in these lands. According to Collier, the Indians then would simply be.recipients of a bounty from Congress and be allowed to keep 62 1/2% of their oil royalties at the expense of having . . . their sacred right of occupancy and use torn up as a scrap of paper. In a letter to the New York World he suggested that the Oil bill "would carry to completion the biggest scheme ugJohn Collier, American Indian Defense Association Legislative Bulletin 5-A, The Albert Fall Indian Title Cancellation Scheme Revised, March 1, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l6. 50Clipping from the Congressional Record, March 26,, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. n3 l‘. - R\ :H I bu in V V. nu 65 attempted by Albert Fall when Secretary of Interior."51 Similar protests appeared in other papers, in the Defense Association legislative bulletins, and at Senate hearings. Legislative bulletins written by Collier and dis- tributed to members of Congress caustically attacked this oil proposal of the Coolidge administration, warning that it would validate all the leasing permits issued by Albert.Fall.52 Congressman James A. Frear used Col- lier's legislative circulars to denounce the bill in the House.53 .Senator Burton K. Wheeler inserted in the Congressional Record a lengthy article by the Indian Defense Association and General Federation of Women's Clubs attacking the Oil bill.5u The National Popular Government League under the direction of Judson King, which had opposed the Bursum 51John Collier to the editor of the New York World, March 31, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1A. 52Consult the following legislative bulletins: John Collier, A.I.D.A. Legislative Bulletin 5—A, The Albert Fall Indian Title Cancellation Scheme Revived, March 1, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 16, John Collier, A.I.D.A. Legislative Bulletin, The Pima Tragedy and the Oil Leasing Scandal, April 16, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25, and John Collier, A.I.D.A. Legislative Bulletin 22, The Renewed Attack Against Indian Ownership of Executive Order Reservations, February 2, 1928, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l5. 53U.S., Congressional Record, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., March 23, 1926, LXVII, Part 6, 6108-6118. 5uU.S., Congressional Record, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., May 26, 1926, LXVII, Part 9, 10092-10096. 66 bill in 1922, came to Collier's aid. King provided the Defense Association with office Space rent free, contact with publicity sources, contact with members of Congress, advice on political strategy, and consultation on tech- nical matters.55 At a Washington hotel forum sponsored by the League, Speakers charged the Indian Bureau with "a gigantic conspiracy" to deprive the Indians of their oil, coal, and gas lands. Attending this meeting and attacking the Bureau were Senators Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, Lynn Frazier of North Dakota, and Congressman James A. Frear of Wisconsin.56 . The House and Senate repudiated the Coolidge adminis- tration by enacting a substitute oil bill introduced ‘by Senator Ralph Cameron of Arizona.57 It provided that 'vested rights should be considered identical on Execu— ‘tive and Treaty Reservation lands. It also endorsed (311 leasing under competitive bidding and taxed the oil Exroduced on Indian lands. It validated only those Fall Enermuts under which the permittee had already made a S ubstantial investment . 58 ‘ 55John Collier, American Indian Defense Association Legislative Bulletin, June 9, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Pawer 25. 1. 56Newspaper Clipping, Washington Star, February 27, 926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1A. 4T 57U.S., Congressional Record, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., une 8, 1926, LXVII, Part 10, 10911-10913. freak) 58U’.S., Congressional Record, 69th Cong., 2nd Sess., 35*uary 2, 1927, LXVIII, Part 3, 279A. (‘71 v a: a any put 3‘ A: A /~ Cad .1 a 67 The House and Senate passed the Cameron bill in the spring of 1926 but President Coolidge vetoed it on the ground that the applicants and permittees who had competed for leases under Albert Fall had not been treated alike.59 During February, 1927, the bill was amended to meet the President's objections, re-enacted by Con— gress, and signed by Coolidge. It guaranteed to the Indian tribes the whole proceeds of their royalty from gas and oil and also established tribal ownership over Executive Order Reservations. It ended a legislative declaration that the Indians were only the tenants of the land surface of their reservation, subject to evic- tion when the Secretary of Interior might so decree. Collier summed up the satisfaction of his company of reformers when he stated that "this victory is the largest gain for the Indians in our generation."60 On another issue Collier lost in that spring of 1926 but not until a new principle had been thoroughly aired. Disturbed by the Bureau's practice of using Indian tribal funds for public roads, Collier chose the Lee's Ferry bridge as a test case.61 The Interior Department had asked an appropriation of $100,000 out of the Navajo tribal fund to construct a bridge over the Colorado 59John Collier, American Indian Life (April-June, 1926), 1-2. 60 Ibid. 61John Collier, American Indian Defense Association Legislative Bulletin, June 9, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25. fill V u I“. Q». 2‘ Nu. x ts Ni. 68 River on the Navajo Reservation in Northern Arizona. The proposed bridge cost $200,000 of which Arizona was to pay fifty per cent and the Navajos the other half. The $100,000 was to be paid to the government from Navajo. funds obtained from the sale of oil, timber.and coal.62 Collier questioned the wisdom of creating a lien against tribal property when many of the Navajos lacked adequate schooling and suffered from trachoma and tuber- culosis. He claimed that the Lee's Ferry bridge consisted of a scheme to build a tourist bridge over the North end of the Grand.Canyon. When he and Congressman James A. Frear visited the.Site of the bridge they found that it would not be vital to Navajo economic life. In approach- ing the bridge from the North, they discovered just one hogan in fifty-six miles and at the South side of the site they encountered the first Navajo habitation at the thirty-sixth mile.63 In the House, Congressman Frear was Collier's most dependable ally. Complying with a request from Collier, the Republican from northern Wisconsin attacked the Lee's Ferry bridge and all debts at Indian expense in several speeches before the House.6u (In the Senate, Collier 62John Collier, letter to the editor of the Great Falls Tribune, October 9, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25. 63Ibid. 6uU.S., Congressional Record, 69th Cong., lst Sess., February A, 1926: LXVII, Part 3, 3330-3331. “A thU '1 ”t (‘v V. A ‘u 6.4 A ‘V 69 received the active support against the Lee's Ferry bridge measure from Senators Ralph Cameron, Charles Curtis, William King, Robert LaFollette, Jr., and Burton K. Wheeler.65 The Indian Bureau.replied by inserting in the Congressional Record a lengthy speech given by Assistant Commissioner Edgar Meritt. It defended the Bureau's record concerning Indian affairs, and blamed Collier and Frear for causing the Indians to lose confidence in the government. It justified the Lee's Ferry bridge appro- priation on the grounds that the Indians did not pay taxes on their land and that the bridge would help develop the resources of the Navajo Reservation.66 Secretary Work added that "the bridge will furnish an important outlet for the Navajo.Indians, facilitating their communication with the whites and assisting them in their progress toward a more advancedcivilization."67 Haven Emerson, president of the Indian Defense Association, rejected Work's reasoning. He pointed out that the bridge.lay to the North of the Navajos while their trade flowed Southward, and that the bridge provided 65U.S., Congressional Record, 69th Cong., lst Sess., lHarch l, 1926, LXVII, Part 5, A7A7-A7A9. 66U.S., Congressional Record, 69th Cong., 2nd Sess., January 11, 1927, LXVII, Part 2, lA3A—1A35. 67Haven Emerson, letter to the editor of the New ‘York:Times, January 15, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer lA. 70 no trading advantage. As for the civilizing contact with the white people across the bridge in southern Utah, Emerson demonstrated that they were negligible in number and hostile in attitude. Emerson agreed that the bridge would aid tourists, and the state parks system, and rail- road interests, but he insisted that it should not be paid for out of the Navajo tribal funds.68 Although Collier lost that fight, he consoled him- self on the bill's passage with the hope that Congress had been alerted to the misuse of Indian funds. The protest aroused inside and outside of Congress would mark a.turning point in the controversy. Any future proposal to build public facilities with Indian royalties should encounter crystallized opposition.69 The struggle by George Norris to prevent the trans- fer of the Wilson Dam at Muscle Shoals to private hands was matched by the controversy over the Flathead and Apache water power sites. The Federal Water Power Act of 1920 had guaranteed to the Indian tribes all revenues from their water power locations but the Indian Bureau ignored it in a 1927 meeting with the Montana Power Company and some white land owners. The Indians were neither noti- fied of this meeting nor told what was under discussion. 681bid. 69John Collier, American Indian Defense Association Legislative Bulletin, June 9, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 25. 7L8 Av , 'v if“ I_\ .VI 71 A "gentleman's agreement," drawn up at this meeting, provided that.the revenues from the Flathead River site should be divided with about 30% of the revenues going to the Flathead Indians, a part of the money going to the government, and a larger part going to the white irrigation district which would receive power at cost.70 Shortly thereafter the Interior Department endorsed an emergency appropriation clause that sanctioned the "gentleman's agreement," and also denied to the San Carlos Apache tribe of Arizona its ownership of a power site that had been developed incidentally for the purpose of building the Coolidge Dam. Apache earnings from the power location would have been diverted to pay the debts of an irrigation.district fifty per cent of whose mem- bers were non-Indian. The balance of the earnings would have gone to the Indians of another tribe.71 Prohibi- tionist Louis Cramton of Michigan, chairman of the sub- committee on Interior Department appropriations, fostered this attempt to deny Indian.ownership of water power sites. He favored the Montana Power Company proposal because it promised to reimburse the government for an unsuccessful white irrigation project he had sponsored during 1925.72 7OJohn Collier to the Pueblo Tribal Officials, Mr. Meritt's Promises and What They Mean, November 22, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l6. 71Stella AtwOod, Report of the General Federation of Women's Clubs Legislative Committee, 1926-1928, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. 72U.S., COhgresSional Record, 71st Cong., 2nd Sess., February 18, 1930, LXXII, Part A, 3896. . . f... u ‘\V n y \l d 72 From February until December 1927, Collier led the struggle against the agreement made between the Montana Power Company and the Interior Department. He believed that the Flathead power plan was "worthy of the great days of Albert Fall."73 Collier favored public ownership of the Flathead power site but doubted the possibility of public ownership given the climate of opinion in Washington. So, he worked for the immediate issue of securing for the Flatheads their vested right to the water power property, by sending to members of Congress several lengthy Indian Defense Association legislative bulletins.7u Support for Indian water power rights came from senators such as Lynn Frazier, Robert LaFollette, and Burton K. Wheeler, who worked successfully to prevent the grant of a preliminary permit or exclusive option to the Montana Power Company based on the "gentleman's agreement."75 Adding to his other messages, Collier wrote two letters to President Coolidge asking the President to preserve the Indian right to all proceeds from their water power sites. In an open letter of February 1927, 73John Collier to Stella Atwood, February 8, 1929, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. ' . ~ . 7“John Collier to Lewis Gannett (Nation), February 10, 1928, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 17. 75John Collier, Manuscript on the Flathead Power Site, 1927-1928, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l7, and U.S., Congressional Record, 70th Cong., lst Sess., February 1-23, 1928, LXIX, Part 3, 3329-33A0. 73 he asked for intervention by the Department of Justice on behalf of the Indians and in a second and more lengthy one in July, he warned that the Indian water power con- troversy "threatened a scandal that will be of national interest and consequence."76 Although President Coolidge neither answered his letters nor intervened in the controversy, Congress repudiated the Montana Power Company agreement when it passed legislation in February 1928, which not only left the Federal Power Commission free to make the Flat- head lease unhampered by any previous commitment of the Interior Department, but confirmed Indian ownership of all rentals from the Flathead power lease. Congress also instructed the Federal Power Commission to report the compensation due to the San Carlos Apaches.77 During the Spring of 1928 several Senators, assisted by John Collier, established the principle that in paying for irrigation projects the Pueblo Indians should be on a parity with the whites. The conflict arose over a Senate bill which authorized $1,6A3,000 to be spent for the reclamation of the lands of six Pueblo tribes in New Mexico. The bill made the entire sum a 76John Collier to Calvin Coolidge, February 1A, 1927, and John.Collier to Calvin Coolidge, July 25, 1927, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l7. 77Stella Atwood, Report of the General Federation of Women's Clubs Legislative Committee, 1926-1928, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. 7A debt against the Indians, to be repaid from the increased yield of their lands. Originally passed by the Senate, the bill had been sent to the House where amendments detrimental to the Pueblos were made by Congressman Louis Cramton. Charges in Collier's legislative bulle- tins concerning the unjust nature of the amended bill resulted in its being Called for a second consideration in the Senate.78 Lively opposition came from Senators such as John Blaine, Royal Copeland, Charles Curtis, Lynn Frazier, William King, and Robert LaFollette who doubted the wisdom of the Pueblo Conservancy Bill.79 The House amendment assessed on the lands of the six Pueblo tribes a crop lien of $1A9 an acre as com- pared with one of $77 an acre on the adjacent lands of white farmers receiving identical reclamation benefits. The bill assessed an additional lien on Indian land but not on that of the whites. Believing that this lien represented the first step toward individual allotment and the consequent alienation of Pueblo lands to pay for the excessive reclamation debt, Collier visualized 78John Collier, American Indian Defense Association Legislative Bulletin 26, The President's Veto has been Asked for the Pueblo Conservancy Bill, March 6, 1928, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 15 and Newspaper Clipping, Santa Fe New Mexican, March 7, 1928, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l7. 79U.S., Congressional Record, 70th Cong., lst Sess., February 2A-March 3, 1928, LXIX, Part A, 3836-3853, 3856- 3860. 75 the Conservancy bill as inaugurating "a new era of con- fiscation and dispossession for all Indians, whose lands were held in trust by the United States."80 Congressman Cramton, upset over Collier's inter- ference in his assistance to white irrigationists, vio— lently attacked Collier on the floor of the House. He designated the Indian Defense Association as a destructive group whose members allowed their names to be "exploited in a mistaken cause, playing into the hands of the secre— tary of the association, one John Collier," whom he labelled as "as one of those who is always sure the government of the United States is wrong and is doing wrong."81 Pointing to Collier's recent pamphlet entitled The Sacco and Vanzetti Horror, Cramton warned that even it was "less destructive than this constant parading of propaganda.in order to bring the government into disfavor and disrepute in the handling of Indian affairs."82 Cramton won in the end, preserving his amendments and earning President Coolidge's signature of the bill, despite Collier's letter requesting a veto.83 Collier 80John Collier, American Indian Defense Association Legislative Bulletin 26, The President's Veto has been Asked for the Pueblo Conservancy Bill, March 6, 1928, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 15. 81U.S.,.Congressional Record, 70th Cong., 1st Sess., January 12, 1928, LXIX, Part 2, 1393. 82Ibid° 83John Collier, American Indian Defense Association Legislative Bulletin 26, The President's Veto has been Asked for the Pueblo Conservancy Bill, March 6, 1928, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 15. 76 then threatened to appeal the question to the Federal Courts in order to prevent the administration or enact- ment of the bill unless the contracts, agreements, and regulations entered into between the Interior Department and the conservancy district met with the approval of the Defense Association. Although Louis Marshall, a prominent attorney from New York, offered free legal action on behalf of the Pueblos, no progress had been made when Coolidge left the White House a year later.8u Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the later Coolidge years was the enactment of the King Resolution calling upon the Senate to make a general survey of the condition of the American Indian and to recommend the correction of any abuses. It passed after an important series of hearings held from February 23, 1927 until January 13, 1928, where Collier's testimony proved cru— cial. Appearing before the Senate subcommittee on Indian affairs, Collier called for an investigation to fix responsibility for past scandals and to expose the mishandling of Indian property by the Bureau.85 He reminded the Senators that Congress could not pass fundamental reform legislation until it conducted 8“Newspaper Clipping, Albuquerque Journal, March 25, 1928, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 17. 85U.S., Congress, Senate Subcommittee of the Committee On Indian Affairs, Hearings, on S. Resolution 3A1, 69th Cong., 2nd Sess., 1927, pp. 37-39. 77 its own investigation to lay the foundation for a new legislative program. He suggested that Congress needed to obtain a totally new view of the allotment law. By padding the total.of alleged Indian wealth, the Bureau had misled.Congress and the public by creating a false belief that Indian wealth.was increasing at a rapid rate, when actually land allotment.had only resulted in the accelerated impoverishment of the tribes. During the last four years alone, Indian allotted land held in trust ‘had diminished.l6% while the total Indian estate had. decreased A%. Collier estimated that this meant that the Indians would be disinherited from their wealth in twenty-five years. .He proposed that Congress remedy this situation by ending the forced loans to Indians, pro- viding them with rural credit, and equipping them with the instruments of modern business life.86 Next Collier told the Senators that several emer- gency reasons made an investigation necessary. Partly because of their impoverished condition and partly because of Bureau neglect, Indian health was a reproach to society. Their death rate from tuberculosis was six times that among whites and trachoma threatened the eyesight of a fifth of the people. But all of this had been hidden by the Bureau which had omitted mortality tables from its reports since Albert Fall took office and had withheld 86Ibid., pp. 37-uu. $1) “A ("I .A (I) 78 a Red Cross Report that was critical of the Indian medical service. Its boarding schools, filled to 38% beyond their physical capacity, were unhygenically crowded. And then it had the effrontery to accuse the Indians of moral lapses, circulating in 192A "a shameful volume of unprintable pornographic gossip, slandering Indian reli- . . 8 gions and Indians as a race." 7 Commissioner Burke followed Collier as a witness and suggested that he had been placed in a false light. He indicated that Collier's call for an investigation 'was superfluous because one had already been underway .for over a year, under the direction of the Institute 88 Ifor Government.Research. The Senate did not pay much attention to Commis- Sixoner Burke, for it started an investigation of Indian afifairs. Members of the investigating committee included SEinators Lynn Frazier, Robert LaFollette, W. B. Pine, Elmer Thomas, and Burton K. Wheeler. The subcommittee Orl Indian Affairs chose for its attorney and chief of Silaff Lewis R. Glavis, well known for his advancement (DI‘ the conservation cause in the Ballinger affair dealing VVith Alaskan coal fields.89 (Their investigation proved \ 87Ibido. pp. 52-53. 88Ibid., pp. 91-9A. (D 8gstella Atwood, Report of the General Federation ‘f‘ Women's Clubs Legislative Committee, 1926-1928, Collier SS; YUL, Drawer 9. A ~ \- .\.K N \n‘ ~ 4 79 crucial in paving the way for a fundamental reorganization of Indian affairs during the New Deal. The years between 1923 and 1928 were certainly a seedtime of Indian reform. Congressman James A. Frear believed that "no more important or humanitarian service liad ever been undertaken or accomplished during my sixteen :years in Congress."90 Collier thought that the Indian IDefense Association had brought about a "provisional :revolution" in the Indian situation during this period. fie gave credit to Congress and to voluntary associations :such as the General Federation of Women's Clubs and the Dhational Popular Government League. But he insisted "the main initiative and burden of detailed work "91 triat hais.rested on the American Indian Defense Association. Tkris was a correct analysis, for the Defense Association 'kLaxj protected Indian religious liberties, exposed using iIrlciian tribal funds for white public improvement and Eflrfevented confiscation of Indian oil and water power sites. C 90James A. Frear to John Collier, May 6, 1929, Ollier MSS; YUL, Drawer 18. 91John Collier, American Indian Defense Association Igiggislative Bulletin 9, The Proof that Indian Welfare fort Succeeds, January 14, 1928, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 15. l~. (It CHAPTER III THE NEW ERA - A FALSE DAWN Aware of the criticism of the Indian Bureau during the Coolidge administration, President Hoover attempted to extend his New Era to the American Indian. He appointed new Commissioners who made enlightened educational and administrative changes, cancelled the policy of reserva- tion financed public works, and greatly increased appro- priations for the Indian Service. But the failure of the Hoover administration to push fundamental reform legislation through Congress brought an intensified attack upon the Bureau from John Collier and the Senate Indian Investigating Committee. Collier criticized the Hoover Indian policies through his American Indian Defense Association bulletins and cooperated with the Senate COn'unittee in exposing the public record of Herbert Hager- The man who was Special Commissioner to the Navajos. errlOtions stirred up by the Hagerman episode halted all effOr'ts to alter the Indian affairs system until the adVent of the New Deal. The reluctance of the Coolidge administration to aCCept his Indian reform led John Collier to favor Alfred E“ SInith in the presidential campaign of 1928. His 80 Defense Association distributed a pamphlet listing Smith's pledges for Indian reform and asking for the vote of all persons interested in the plight of the Indian.1 Despite his disappointment in the election, Collier looped that President Hoover would inaugurate a New Era :for the American Indian- The first intimation of the Iiew President‘s interest came with the nomination of Ray lLyrmn Wilbur, the President of Stanford University, as Seacretary of Interior. Wilbur for many years had sup- pcyrted the Indian Rights Association and the California bléanch of Collier's American Indian Defense Association. .chover also accepted the resignation of Coolidge men anti in their place appointed Charles Rhoads as Indian (homunissioner and J. Henry Scattergood as Assistant Com- missioner. Both men were Quakers, members of the mis- SiJDIaary oriented Indian Rights Association, and known fVJr' their humanitarian work during and after World War 22 I- Speaking for the Indian Defense Association, Collier welcomed the new officials, confident that "every con- dit:fi.on favorable to a large reorganization of Indian affairs now exists."3 __~___ _ P 1AmericanIndian Defense Association pamphlet, For PEPSHIdent; Vote for Governor Alfred E. Smith, Collier MSS; YUIJ, Drawer 1?. 2Indian Truth (May, 1929), 1-3. 3John Collier, American Indian Life (May, 1929), l. 82 Collier hoped to prod the Hoover administration into reorganizing the Indian Bureau by mobilizing the women of America. In close cooperation with Vera Connally, he helped to write a series of three articles for Good .Housekeeping which, during the winter and spring of 1929, summarized the Indian scandals during the Harding 21nd Coolidge years and traced the efforts of the General Ifederation of Women's Clubs and the Indian Defense Asso- ciiation to inaugurate Indian reform. The final article Lxrged women to write their Senators, Congressmen, and Puresident Hoover about the need for a reorganization iri Indian affairs. The "righteous wrath of American ‘chnanhood, of home women, consecrated women, aroused tO deep indignation and banded together in a crusade tND obtain Justice for the oppressed," it promised, "5 "C<>uld rescue the American Indian. Between March 1929 and February 1930 a honeymoon p531fiiod.existed between the Indian Bureau and reform groups such as the women's Federation and the Defense Association. They made daily contacts with the Indian Ofofiice, Interior Department, and the Senate Indian “Vera Connally to John Collier, January 23, 1929, CC>1LLier MSS; YUL, Drawer 7. 5Vera Connally's articles included "Cry of a Broken §§<3pflle," Good Housekeeping, LXXXVIII (February, 1929), ‘fi3ZL, "We Still Get Robbed," Good Housekeeping, LXXXVIII égarch, 1929), 314-35, and "End of the Road," Good House- -5§£1éggg, LXXXVIII (May, 1929), uu—us. 83 Investigating Committee. The Defense Association, under the initiative of Collier, proposed several new legis- lative programs which received the endorsement of the Indian Bureau, including the California Indian Plan or Johnson-Swing Bill which called for transferring to the states the full responsibility for the education, health, and general welfare of their Indians. Commissioner Rhoads also accepted the proposal, devised by James Young, a member f the House Committee on the Judiciary. A bill emerged Ifirom the committee but died on the floor because of Opposition from the Department ofJustice and Bureau <31? the Budget, for being in conflict with the President's economy program. Similarly, Wilbur's proposal to transfer reservation irrigation to the General Reclamation Service died when the House Appropriations Committee, under the leadership ofMichiganRepublican Louis Cramton, illsserted a provision forbidding it in the Interior \ I) 8U.S.,Congressional Record, 7lst Cong., 2nd Sess., Hecember 21, 1929, LXXII, Part I, 1051-1053. The Wheeler OWE-1rd Act of 19314 stemmed from these proposals. 85 appropriation. On a third Collier proposal, Wilbur was partly successful; Congress refused to cancel a great mass of reservation indebtedness for public works but it did relieve the Gila Indians of a $1.37 million debt 9 incurred for irrigation work in Arizona. Although economy frustrated many reforms, the Hoover administration doubled appropriations for the Indian service from fifteen million dollars in 1928 to twenty—eight million dollars in 1931. Notable in that was an increase of $1.5 million in 1931 to be used imme- diately to improve the diet and clothing of children in laoarding schools.10 The Wilbur-Rhoads-Scattergood administration took (Jther steps besides legislative ones to humanize the Ididian service. In March, 1931, Wilbur reorganized the- Ehlreau into five divisions: health, education, agricul— tlaral extension, forestry, and irrigation, with a tech- nical or professional director at the head of each division. fie? then eliminated district superintendents to insure a Inore direct relation between the reservation superinten- dents and Washington . ll Quite naturally, Secretary Wilbur, as a former IDIMesident of Stanford University, made educational reform \ 9U.S., Congressional Record, 72nd Cong., lst Sess., March 10, 1932, LXXV, Part 5, 5677-5678. 10Indian Truth (March 10, 1931), 1. 11New York Times, March 30, 1931, p. 3. 86 the essence of the New Era for the American Indian.12 In this he was responding to suggestions of Lewis Meriam's Institute for.Government Research that Indian reform had failed in the past because of the lack of a sound educa— tional program. He appointed Dr. W. Carson Ryan, Jr., a professor of education at Swarthmore College, as Direc- tor of Indian Education.13 Ryan introduced progressive education, replacing the obsolete "Uniform Course of Study," with one stressing practical education and voca— tional work.. He formed a Guidance and Placement Divi— sion to help promising Indian students find Jobs and to assist exceptionally intelligent Indian children in obtaining a college education. Converting many of the boarding schools into day schools, he added a high school program to others., And he abolished the positions of Girlie Matron and Disciplinarian for boys and reduced to a minimum such so-called vocational work as the scrubbing of school floors.lu l 12The most extensive and perceptive analysis of the new spirit in Indian education is W. Carson Ryan and Rose Brant, "Indian Education Today," Progressive Education Ma azine, IX (February, 1932), 82-182. Lewis Meriam,“ "Indian Education Moves Ahead," Survey, LXVI (June 1, 1931), 253-257, describes favorably the educational prog— ress made during.the Hoover administration. Other valua- ble accounts of Indian education are located in the issues of School and Society from January 19, 1929 to December 17, 1932. l3U.S., Congressionaltfiecord, 7lst Cong., 3rd Sess., March 2, 1931, LXXIV, Part 7, 6861-6802. l“Indian Truth (March 10, 1931), 2-3. 8.7 To improve economic conditions the Bureau created a Division of Agricultural.Extension and Industry to assist the Indians in utilizing to the fullest the natural resources of the reservations. By adding twenty agricul- tural extension agents and eight home demonstration agents to the Indian Service, it improved gardens and dairy production.15 Even though the Hoover administration achieved rnany humanitarian improvements, the unity of the Defense Iissociation and the Indian Bureau had started to disin- tmegrate by February, 1930. Part of the problem stemmed ffirom the failure of the Wilbur-Rhoads-Scattergood regime tco actively support legislation needed to end the allot- Ineqit law. But more fundamental was the ideological dif— fexbence between Wilbur and Collier. Secretary Wilbur believed that all reform efforts otught to be directed toward assimilating the Indians into tiles mainstream of American life. Since they had failed alt farming, their future lay in finding a place in the i-1'1c1ustrial life of the nation. Those who remained on tlleé reservations should increase their contact with white he'ighbors. Continued allotment of Indian lands would 13r¥3ak down the Indian's isolation and give them an \ 15Ibid., p. 7. s. VPV 88 opportunity to be absorbed into white civilization.l6 In twenty-five years the Indian Bureau could cease to exist. "The red man's civilization must inevitably be replaced by the white man's," he wrote, and the Indian must give up his role as a member of the race that holds aloof, while all other races enter into our melting pot and emerge as units of a great new purpose.1 In opposition, Collier favored a policy of cultural gpluralism that would not turn the Indian into a white nuan, but rather let him contribute elements of his cul- tlire to white civilization. He dreamed of preserving tkie institutional life of the Southwestern Indians because thuey provided.a social alternative to "the troubled, fruistrated but struggling Aryan individualized conscious- ness"18 Collier wanted to develop and conserve Indian lifts through government—assisted self-activity on the pairt of the Indians themselves. Inspired by Aldous Ifiixlxey, Lester Ward, and the Mexican agrarian revolution Of‘ l£910, he believed that the Indian as a member of a .P . l6Ray Lyman Wilbur, "Uncle Sam has a New Indian {all-057," Saturday Evening Post, CCXXII (May-June, 1929), (es l7Edgar Eugene Robinson and Paul Carroll Edwards :513C1°) 3 The Memoirs of Ray Lyman Wilbur, 1875-1949 (Stan- rm: IJniversity Press, 1960), pp. D79_480, t,631? 18John Collier to the Guggenheim Foundation, Decem- 1, 1932, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 8. I .. . .r- u. .:\ Cy Cs \ \.\\flv . . 89 "commune" or corporation could be satisfied and productive. His social frictions would disappear and he could develop a community union and theater; with his school as a community center. A cooperative society could develop that was nei- ther acquisitive nor clearly communist, one that would com- bine individual initiative with an even distribution of ‘wealth. finch a society could escape the doctrinal contro- ‘versies and social upheavals that plagued other parts of ‘the world. This island society, busy equipping itself vvith the modern technique of cooperative group action, 19 cxould serve as a model to a harried America. The first break between Collier and the Indian BLireau resulted less from a difference in philosophy trian in a matter of expediency involving the food allow- arrces for the twenty—two thousand Indian boarding school CIIiJIdren. A special committee of experts, appointed by Séicxretary Wilbur,had.reported the necessity for a minimum fVDCNi allowance of 37.8 cents a day as against the 20 CeI’lts a day then provided for Indian children. On Decem- b€3r‘ A, 1929, President Hoover sent to Congress a special meSsage supporting a $0.8 million request for an emer- geflficzy appropriation for food, clothing, and other neces- siitILes for Indian children. It would have increased the fCNDCi allowance to 37.8 cents and the clothing allowance \ Eci 19John Collier, "Mexico: A Challenge," Progressive Coxucation Magazine. IX (February, 1932), 95-98, and John 'lllier, American Indian Life (July, 1931), 32-34. 90 from $22.26 per child per year to a minimum of $A2.26 for the balance of the school year of 1930 with a provision for a later appropriation to maintain the same standards through 1931.20 Thus far Collier was satisfied but he was shocked when Louis Cramton, Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee, announced hearings on the President's food and clothing request with a warning that he would "not allow himself to be stampeded by talk of starving Indian "21 Since he had become subcommittee chairman children. in 1921, he had controlled the purse strings of the Indian Bureau. The allotments for food and clothing for Indian children had decreased to 20 cents a day. Presumably he was proud of that record of economy in an era of Coolidge- Mellon balanced budgets and was not about to double appropriations without a struggle. The beginnings of the depression probably made him increasingly adamant. Although Rhoads and Scattergood appeared before the Cramton subcommittee and detailed the dire needs of the children, they agreed to reduce the President's food request by about 75% and his clothing request by 88%. Directing some of the money into machinery, furniture, v wrv 2OJohn Collier, A.I.D.A. Legislative Bulletin, Cramton Defies the President and Indian Children are Doomed to Dis- ease and Death from Undernourishment and Privation Unless the Senate Saves Them, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 8. 21For a portrayal of Cramton consult Ruby A. Black, "New Deal for the Red Man," Nation, CXXX (April 2, 1930), 1“. 91 livestock, and additional Bureau salaries, Cramton granted the Indian service only $135,000 for food and $30,000 for clothing. Compounding that offense, Scattergood asked the Senate Indian Affairs Committee not to disturb the Cramton food and clothing allocations.22 In private discussions Collier attempted unsuccess- fully to persuade Rhoads and.Scattergood not to surrender to the Cramton request. As Collier related the conversa- tion, Scattergood lost his temper, told him that outside people should leave discussions to the men who had to live with the situation, and asked him to be content with "the Quaker way of doing business."23 They would consider any action by Collier raising the-issue in any adverse way to be "an unfriendly act and parting of the ways."2u Collier.believed that their attitude was unrealistic and impractical. ,In a Defense Association legislative bulletin he lamented the "melancholy spectacle" of Rhoads and Scattergood surrendering to Congressman Cramton and pointed out that "to those who hailed their appointment as the dawn of a new era for the Indians this was the 22John Collier, A.I.D.A. Legislative Bulletin, Cramton Defies the President and Indian Children are Doomed to Disease and Death from Undernourishment and Privation Unless the Senate Saves Them, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 8. 23JohnCollier to Charles de Y. Elkus, May 1, 1930, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 8. 2”John Collier to Charles de Y. Elkus, May 2, 1930, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 8. 1. . 4 ~16 \yo T. 92 culminating disappointment."25 Cramton and the Commis— sioners had betrayed Indian Children by fixing appropria- tions for food and clothing that would spell only "slower starvation and a prolongation of the agony."26 In a public statement to the press, Collier castigated Cramton for administering a "great rebuff to President Hoover" and asked whether the Senate was going to be a party to the outrage of starving children "shivering in humilia- ting rags."27 The pressure of Collier's attack, however, probably forced Cramton and the House Appropriations Subcommittee to approve funds for the adequate food and clothing of lhidian children in boarding schools. The appropriation trill for the fiscal year starting July 1, 1930, provided tflie minimum allowance for food, 37.8 cents per day, and aPjproximately $A0 per year for clothing.28 The renewal by the Indian Bureau of its corporal Jplxnishment regulation on March 20, 1930, in a circular ¥ 25John Collier, A.I.D.A. Legislative Bulletin, Cramton Defies the President and Indian Children are DOomed to Disease and Death from Undernourishment and PPiivation Unless the Senate Saves Them, Collier MSS; UL , Drawer 8 . 26Ibid. 1 27New York Times, February 28, 1930, p. 10, ngton Post, March 26, 1930. 28 _ M. Roos, "The New Indian Administration," Survey, £XIV (June 15: 1930), 258-269, and G. E. Anderson, Under- aeeding the Indian," Commonwealth, XII (May 1’4, 1930), l3~2uh and Wash- (7' 93 called "Student Control," accelerated the break between Collier and Commissioner Rhoads.29 This was a sensitive matter because testimony before the Senate Indian Inves- tigating Committee had revealed the floggings of Indian boys and girls during the Coolidge years. Employees of the Indian Bureau.testified.that Indian Children had been whipped with leather straps and knocked down for sarcasm to the disciplinarian. Children had been struck with fists and hard objects until they were covered with blood from their face to their knees. Girls eleven and twelve years old who had escaped one boarding school had been forced to walk around the school yard for an afternoon with heavy cordwood packs on their shoulders while being beaten with a club. At other schools when the children entered their dormitory for the night they were chained to their beds in order to prevent their running away again. Runaway children were also marched to their meals.with chains fastened to their necks.30 This testimony had motivated Commissioner Burke on Jan- uary 10, 1929, to forbid corporal punishment in any ‘boarding school and to abolish the school Jails.31 29John Collier, A.I.D.A. Legislative Bulletin, Auth- ority to Flog Indian Boarding School Children is Re-estab- lished by Commissioner Rhoads, April 21, 1931, Collier MSS; ‘YUL, Drawer 8.» 30John Collier, "Senators and Indians," Survengraphic, .LXI (January 1, 1929), A25-A26. 31JohnCollier, A.I.D.A. Legislative Bulletin, Auth- ority to Flog Indian Boarding School Children is Re-estab- .lished by Commissioner Rhoads, April 21, 1931, Collier MSS; YUI” Drawer 8. 94 But a year later Commissioner Rhoads modified those orders, in his 1930 circular on "Student Control," because the ending of corporal punishment had apparently caused discipline to disintegrate in the boarding schools. Instead of the jails formerly maintained by some boarding schools, Rhoads ordered that a "quietroom" not accessible to other students.or employees should be provided to. restore discipline. If this method failed to bring about satisfactory results, he authorized the superintendents "to adopt emergency measures as may in their Judgement be thought necessary."32 Although detailed reports had to be submitted to the Bureau, Collier visualized the threatened return of Jails and corporal punishment. He issued a Defense Association legislative bulletin attacking Rhoads and Scattergood for not ending the cases of extreme abuse by reservation superintendents and school principals.33 And in a hearing granted by Lynn Frazier before the Senate ' Indian Investigating Committee, Collier submitted a list of cases of.alleged.misconduct on the part of the authori- ties at the Phoenix Boarding School, including the flogging and beating of Indian children.314 32Ibid. 33Ibid. 3“New York Times, May 23, 1930, p. 16, and May 24, 1930, p. 19’ 95 Commissioner Rhoads did not withdraw the circular but responded that he wanted all the facts about the Phoenix case, warning that there would be no dismissal of a man charged with brutality to Indian children without facts proving such brutality, nor an official alleged to be unfit until I have3§ better man for the Job with whom to replace him. The final break between Collier and Secretary Wilbur grew out of a controversy over the development of the val— ‘uable Flathead Indian power site in Montana. The Montana l?ower Company had applied.for a license to develop one (if the five sites, where it proposed to generate 68,000 huorsepower and to.pay the Indians $68,000 a year rental, a. proposal which the Indian Bureau and Wilbur favored.36 (3cnigressman Cramton also approved the Montana Power Com- Fuaxiy proposal because it promised to reimburse the Govern- Hkarit for an unsuccessful white irrigation tunnel project WT11.ch he sponsored during 1925.37 Collier disliked the proposal because it would Stlrwengthen the Montana Power Company as an interlocking chentical-fertilizen-metallurgical power monopoly, which was related to the Anaconda Copper Company and the American \ . 35New York Times, May 23, 1930, p. 16 36John Collier, "Monopoly in Montana," The New Elisssilsan (May 3, 19309, 1. 37U.S., Congressional Record, 71st Cong., 2nd Sess., F 53t31?11ary 18, 1930, LXXII, Part A, 38960 96 Power and Light Holding Company. Collier wanted to estab- lish competition, ideally through government ownership but that being politically impossible, through a rival bidder, Walter Wheeler, from Minneapolis, who proposed to develop three times as much power by using all five iFlathead power sites. Wheeler offered the Indians a srearly rental of $2A0,000, a prospective gain of 280%.38 Collier issued several Defense Association legisla- tzive bulletins attacking the Indian Bureau for supporting 13he Montana Power Company and criticizing Scattergood t)oth for secretly negotiating with the Montana Power Chompany and for suggesting to Walter Wheeler that he eZLiminate himSelf as.a competitor.39 Criticizing the .Iridian Bureau's "picnic of lavish spending" on the Flat- lfleead irrigation project, with which Cramton was closely Iicientified, he charged that they wanted the Montana POwer Company to rescue it.“0 The opposition of Collier and of Senators such as Lynn Frazier and George Norris did not prevent a \ 38John Collier, "Monopoly in Montana," The New Free- Iflészi (May 3, 1930), 1. 39John Collier, A.I.D.A. Legislative Bulletin, The lFILEithead Power Site Decision at the Verge of Irreparable InJury to the Public and the Indians, April A, 1930, Col— atj—efir MSS; YUL, Drawer 16, and John Collier, "The Flathead aterPower Lease," New Republic, LXIV (August 20, 1930), 0-2L quohn Collier, A.I.D.A. Legislative Bulletin, The gongressman Cramton Mystery, A Partial Explanation of His latihead Power Site Conduct, February 20, 1930, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 18. 97 license from being granted to the Montana Power Company 1930, but it did help to secure one that was Although the on May 23, more advantageous.than the original offer. company agreed to pay only $60,000 annually during the first five years for an estimated 50,000 horsepower, the. :rate would rise to $125,000, $150,000, $160,000, $175,000 :in the subsequent five year periods. 'The rate could be ire-adjusted after this twenty year period. In addition, ishe Montana Power Company agreed to supply up to 15,000 riorsepower for pumping on the Flathead irrigation project 21nd to reimburse the government for a partially constructed igrrigation tunne1.Lll Collier had helped bring about a Ewartial victory for the Flathead Indians, but at the expense CDI‘ further destroying any lines of cooperation between him- Seelf and the Indian Bureau. As early as February 1930, Collier had intimated 11'1 a confidential letter to Haven Emerson that the Hoover {axinflmflstration.would have.to take certain steps to avoid ‘tlles permanent hostility of the Defense Association. The In<>sst significant step would consist of a swift movement tOvvard promoting and incorporating into legislation the prOgram which Secretary Wilbur had laid before Congress 2111 1929 in the form of four letters written to Senator Fr'Ei.zier. If Swift action and pressure did not come from ___~___¥ ulU.S., Congressional Record, 72nd Cong., lst Sess., March 10, 1932, LXXV, Part 5, 5679- 98 Wilbur it would come in any case through criticism in Congress and a steadily growing critical and muckraking publicity. The injurious effects of such a method would be incal- culable, but no other method would remain possible unless there was voluntary action compelled by Secretary Wilbur or by President Hoover. 2 By the spring of 1930 Collier had given up hope of working constructively with the Hoover regime. He cited the reasons for the Defense Association's disenchantment in a lengthy letter sent to Secretary Wilbur. First of all, the Indian Bureau had abandoned the President's emergency request for food and clothing. It had surrendered to reactionary powers by restoring the authority to administer floggings to Indian children and had acquiesced in the ‘brutalization of the children at the Phoenix Boarding .School. ”Collier accused the Commissioners of a persistent «and cumulative effort to destroy the tribal organization (of the Flathead.tribe through a superintendent acting in czollusion with the Montana Power Company. He suggested 13hat the Defense Association could not accept the main- 13enance of discredited inspectors, superintendents, and central office employees, along with the toleration of ‘43 al>uses at the Klamath and Menominee reservations. ‘ ”2John Collier to Haven Emerson, February 4, 1930, CC>llier MSS; YUL, Crawer 18. w “3John Collier to Secretary Wilbur, May 27, 1930, CClllier MSS; YUL, Drawer 8. t) 99 Other problems not mentioned in the letter to ‘Wilbur also caused Collier to become disillusioned with the Hoover administration. The Indian Bureau had aban- doned its attempts to pass the Indian Arts and Crafts toill, sponsored by James Young, because of the opposition c>f an influential group of artists who belonged to the ZIndian Art Fund located at the Laboratory Museum in Santa Ire, New Mexico..LM Led by Mary Austin, those artists opposed the Indian Itrts and Crafts bill for several reasons. First, they irisisted that the Indians did not need an expanded market fkor'their arts. More important than establishing a wide Instrket was developing a method of persuading the Indians 'tco produce art. It would be folly to spend money com- IDefilling Indians to a quantity production on something 'trney did not know how to make. The artists' position Stxressed that the.Arts and Crafts bill proposed to meet a Situation which did not exist.“5 Collier wrote a letter to Mary Austin suggesting tnjaJZ the Arts and Crafts bill, contrary to her belief, ‘Vollldd promote efforts to develop the skills of Indian Crwif”tsmen. He did not visualize how the artist group \ A uuMary Austin to the editor of the Saturday Review, ugust 15, 1931, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 8. CC) l‘SMary Austin to John Collier, April 27, 1930, J~1d1er MSS; YUL, Drawer 7. 100 could disregard the subject of an expanded market.“6 Austin replied to Collier by suggesting that he should have paid more attention to the advice of the highly specialized group of people at Santa Fe when planning for legislation to benefit the Indian arts. She warned him that if he refused "to avail himself of this advice, he Inust expect to meet with a good many defeats in the future."“7 He was also upset by the failure of the Indian E3ureau to obtain the enactment of the Swing-Johnson t3ill, which would have authorized the Secretary of Inter- i.or to arrange with the states for the education, health, sand relief of poverty—ridden Indians. Both the American 31ndian Defense Association and the Indian Bureau approved c>f this bill. It passed the Senate but was killed in ‘bloe House by the opposition of Louis Cramton who rejected ‘tlie notion that the states should become responsible for ‘tfle»health and.education of the Indians.L48 Warning that 15b. would make "only very limited provision for their 1163611th or education," he predicted that if the Federal GOvernmentfurnished the money to the states for aiding t3flea Indians the country would "speedily have a demoralized C3 u6John Collier to Mary Austin, April 18, 1930, C>1Llier MSS; YUL, Drawer 7. £3 u7Mary Austin to John Collier, April 27: 1930’ >C>lelier MSS; YUL, Drawer 7. u8New York Times, December 15, 1929, p. 5. 101 system with politics running riot, extravagance encouraged, and the interests of the Indians suffering accordingly."u9 Collier's support of the Swing-Johnson bill did not stem from a desire to turn reservation schools over to the states, perhaps with some of the results that Cramton predicted. Instead, he wanted to re—establish Federal responsibility for thousands of scattered Indians out of reach of Federal agencies.50 The defeat of Louis Cramton in 1930 resulted in a change of strategy by Collier. Commissioner Rhoads told him that Congressman Scott Leavitt had warned of the danger that if the bill was brought to a vote, Cramton's :probable onslaught would result in adverse action by the IHbuse. Consequently, they decided to wait until his .absence in the spring of 1932 to bring the bill to a ‘vote.51 The hurried events of the last days of the Iioover administration resulted in the measure never being aacted upon, but it would pass quickly with the advent of ‘the New Deal. The stalling of the Hoover Indian legislative pro- gram brought about an intensified attack upon the adminis— tration from the Senate Indian Investigating Committee and ‘ ugNewspaper Clipping, Washington Post, December 8, 1929, Collier MSS; YUL, DrawerfiiB. 50New York Times, April 27, 1930, III, p. 5. 51John Collier to Charles de Y. Elkus, January 9, 15931, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 8. 102 John Collier. This attack took the form of exposing the public record of Herbert J. Hagerman, a former governor of New Mexico, who was an appointee of Albert Fall and still employed by the Indian Bureau as Special Commissioner to the Navajos. Like the Coolidge administration the Hoover Administration never completely rid itself of the heritage of Albert Fall. Hagerman became a symbol for all the evils that existed in the Indian Bureau and for the limitations of the reform efforts of the Wilbur- IRhoads-Scattergood regime. The Senate Indian Investigating Committee, under ‘the leadership of Lynn Frazier, inaugurated the campaign ‘to have Hagerman removed from the Government payroll, £3enator Frazier asked Collier to prepare documents and ‘to present the evidence before the Senate Committee to ciemonstrate.the nature of Hagerman's record.52 Collier's rnotive was to expose the policies which had long charac- tserized the Indian Bureau, but Senators Lynn Frazier, I3urton K. Wheeler, and W. B. Pine were probably as inter- éested.in embarrassing the Hoover'administration for poli- t31cal reasons as they were to reform Indian affairs. The first charge before the Senate Indian Investi- SErting Committee concerned Hagerman's relation to the E’ueblo Lands Act, passed in 1924, to compensate the \ 52John Collier to Charles Fahy, February 6, 1931, CC>llier MSS; YUL, Drawer 18. Di. 0 . n?¢¢ C.» IN. 103 Indians for lands.lost to white neighbors through the application of a statute of limitations.53 A Pueblo Lands Board, one of whose three members was Hagerman, appointed appraisers to assess the value of all land lost. They estimated that the unimproved value of the three thousand Pueblo claims with their water rights were worth almost two million dollars. At first, in the case of IPicuris Pueblo, the Lands Board awarded the Indians the :full compensation value which the appraisers had found. :for the lands and.water rights lost by that pueblo. IImmediately thereafter, at Nambe Pueblo, in 1926, the ILands Board cut the compensation figure of its own apprais- eers by two-thirds. Succeeding awards adhered to this I>recedent.. In addition, the Board extinguished title to 219,000 acres of Pueblo land in which it made no compensa-. tzion. Not one.acre of land was purchased for the Pueblos aas stipulated by the Pueblo Lands Act. According to Iiagerman's own testimony before the Federal District (30urt in New Mexico, the fellow members of the Board lleft the confirmation of compensation awards to him. Hagerman explained the .low awards by pointing out that he: had estimated the value of Pueblo lands as of forty years ago. The result of this procedure, which ' \ 53John Collier, Manuscript on Hagerman, Collier MSS; YUL , Drawer 18 ._ Sulbid. {—3 W C10 10A disregarded the findings of the Land Board's own appriasers, was to slash Indian compensation awards from $1.8 million to .8 million.55 Acting with the advice of Senators Robert La Follette, Jr., Lynn Frazier, and Sam Bratton, Collier attempted to. readjust Hagerman's awards by having Defense Association attorneys file independent.suits of ejectment against the Inhite settlers.. Denying the right of any white settler ‘to acquire title under the Act, they asserted the Pueblo's Iorimary unextinguished title to the disputed lands. (Dollier thought this action necessary because the Department (of Interior, under the leadership of Hagerman, was attempting "to accomplish what Fall and Daugherty had tried in 1922 vvith the promotion of the Bursum bill."56 To explore this controversy, Lynn Frazier and the ESenate Indian Investigating Committee held hearings at Vdashington and.New.Mexico. Collier testified at great ZLength about Hagerman's refusal to assure the Pueblos éidequate compensation for lands lost to white settlers Ludder the Pueblo Lands Act.57 He told the Senators that- \ 55John Collier, A.I.D.A. Legislative Bulletin, JENnuary 30, 1932, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 17. 56John Collier to John Haynes, December 18, 1939, ch1lier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1?. 57John Collier, Highlights of the Case for Removing Hagerman from the Government Payroll, February 29, 1932, Ccfillier MSS; YUL, Drawer l8. .AU \J. 105 like an indestructible fog, it seems to roll on-- that policy and purpose which Secretary Fall first created, which crept on, billowed on, through his Indian Commissioners who served him . . . and which today threatens to roll over the Pueblo tribes as the result of . . . Mr. Hagerman, Falé's appointee as chief superintendent of the Navajos.5 The Senate Indian Investigating Committee sustained Col- lier's contention and recommended an increased award in the amount of about $750,000.59 Soon after this recommendation, the New Mexico delegation of Senators Bronson Cutting and Sam Bratton, along with Congressman Dennis Chavez, submitted similar bills to remedy the situation. The Bratton-Cutting bill compensated both the Indians and whites for land lost through the Pueblo Lands Board, adding $779,636 compen- sation for the seventeen Pueblos involved and $232,068 for the white.settlers. It authorized the Pueblos to~ use their compensation to purchase needed land and per- rnitted each Pueblo, if it so desired, to set aside 10% 17 approximately.u,500 Arizona Navajos in return for which the remaining Navajos Indians would be deprived \ ” H 65John Collier, Highlights of the Case for Removing Cagerman From the Government Payroll, February 29, 1932, Ollier MSS; YUL, Drawer l8. 108 of their existing legal title to the public domain on which they lived.66 Objecting to the bill, Collier appeared before the Indian Affairs Committee and urged the Senators to delay action until the Senate Indian Investigating Committee could inquire into the subject. He believed that delay was necessary because Hagerman had not presented the pending bill to the Navajo Tribal Council and because the Indian Bureau had given conflicting information before the Senate.and.House with regard to the number of Indians qualified for allotment on the public domain.67 As a result of Collier's advice, the bill was blocked and three thousand Navajos were protected from injustice; in the meantime forty-five hundred had to wait longer for their allotments. The Senate Indian Investigating Committee also listened to charges by Collier that Hagerman had tolerated Inany abuses on the Navajo reservation. Collier claimed ‘that Navajo.boarding school conditions were incredibly bend and competent employees had been "hounded Out" of tune service for having reported the existence of those Ccuiditions. Espionage was used against the Indians, 66Ibid. 67John Collier, The Indian Bureau Charged With De<3eption.or With Being the Victim of Deception in the gatVter of Navajo Land Adjustments, February 26, 1931, Olfilier MSS; YUL, Drawer l6. 109 and their children were "kidnapped" and forcibly confined in the schools.68 The greatest effort by Collier to embarrass the Hoover administration consisted of his exposure of the Hagerman oil leasing record on the Navajo reservation. In 1923 Hagerman had been brought out of retirement by Secretary Fall and appointed Special Commissioner to the Navajos for the purpose of negotiating leases of their large oil properties that were being opened at this time. Under the laws governing leases for oil and gas mining on Indian reservations, and by treaty with the Navajo tribe, their consent was necessary.69 Fall had told Hagerman that he anticipated oil devel- Opment of the Navajo reservation with both pipeline and rail- road construction to follow. He then suggested that he re— alized that the $3,600 salary "was no inducement" for the position.70 There is no evidence to suggest why Hagerman axzcepted this appointment. But, as president of the New Akaxico Taxpayer's Association, he must have favored a (Ravelopment that would bring property such as oil, rail— Poeuds, and pipeline construction on to the taxrolls of the state. ‘ 68John Collier, Highlights of the Case for Removing Hagfirman from the Government Payroll, February 29, 1932, COlJLier MSS; YUL, Drawer 18. 69Ibid. 1 70Albert Fall to Governor Herbert Hagerman, January 2, 9233, Western Union Telegram, NA, RG 316, The Private 110 Coinciding with Hagerman's appointment, Secretary Fall had issued regulations abolishing the then existing Navajo tribal organization. In its place he created a new tribal council under the control of the Secretary of Interior. The regulations for the new council provided that in the event of the refusal of the Navajos to abolish their old council the Secretary of Interior would appoint delegates to act for them. The regulations also directed that the new council should only meet upon the request and in the presence of Commissioner Hagerman.71 This order probably stemmed from the reluctance of the San Juan Council to approve oil leases. On August 13, 1921, Superintendent Evan Estep, of the San Juan district, had called a council meeting to discuss the approval of a proposed oil lease by the Midwest Refining Company. Estep consulted only the San Juan Indians because "they were the only ones who had any interest in the matter."72 The Superintendent believed that "the Indians of the other jurisdictions were of the same opinion for ‘ 1Papers of Herbert Hagerman, File on the Correspondence with Albert Fall, 1923 . ~ 71John Collier, Highlights of the Case for Removing HEigerman From the Government Payroll, February 29, 1932, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 18. This order probably stemmed f1?om.the fear that Collier might take.over the Navajo Tribal Council as he had the All Pueblo Council. 72Evan Estep to Herbert Hagerman, March 18, 1931, NA, f“3 316, The Private Papers of Herbert Hagerman, File on the CCKiller-Frazier Inquisition, Series I, Item 25, Part I, 1931- 111 they took no interest at all in the Councils."73 The San Juan Navajos agreed to give a lease to the Midwest Refining Company but turned down the applications of other oil companies because they believed that they might make a better deal if oil was discovered at a later date. In October 1922, the Midwest Refining Com- pany discovered oil and the other petroleum companies rushed to obtain leases on the reservation.7u Early in 1923 Hagerman called the five Navajo Superintendents to Albuquerque to discuss tribal matters. He advised these men that the Department of Interior had decided that all the Navajos had an interest in oil and mineral leasing. Hagerman then established a tribal council with members from each jurisdiction to approve of oil leases. Superintendent Estep of the San Juan district agreed to his proposal.75 On July 7, 1923, at Toadlena, New Mexico, Hagerman net with this enlarged council and obtained unlimited authority to sign in behalf.of the Navajo tribe all oil 21nd gas mining leases.76 During August, 1923, the Interior Ekepartment repudiated all previous equities and priorities EI-Cquired by oil companies through exploration or invest- ernt on the treaty area of the Navajo reservation. This 73Ibid. 71‘F. S. Donnell to the editor of Collier's, February 253, 193A, NA, RG 316, The Private Papers of Herbert Hager- mafl, File on the Wheeler Howard bill, Series I, Item 49. 76 75Ibid. Ibid. 112 was done even though the San Juan Council, with the approval of Superintendent Estep, had executed oil rights with the Midwest Company. Two months later, on October 15, 1923, twenty-two oil tracts were auctioned under the supervision of Hagerman and Commissioner Charles Burke. The leading oil companies such as Metropolitan Oil, Standard Oil, Ohio Midwest, Gulf Oil, and Gypsy Oil attended this meeting.77 The Tocito structure was sold to the Gypsy Oil Company for a $A6,000 bonus, the Table Mesa structure to A. E. Carlton for a bonus of $17,500, and others for $500 to $6,500.78 One of the structures called Rattlesnake Dome con- sisted of A,080 acres. It was sold for $1,000 bonus to the Metropolitan Oil Company represented by S. C. Munoz and Neil B. Field. Both of these men were friends of Hagerman. In less than one year after the validation of this lease, a half interest in 200 acres of the Rattle- snake Dome structure was sold for $300,000 to the Contin- ental Oil Company. Within three years after the auction, a half interest in the entire Rattlesnake Dome structure ¥ . 77John Collier, The Case Against Herbert Hagerman (Df the Indian.Bureau as Established to Date, February 5, 31931, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l6, and Newspaper Clipping, Illbu uer ue New Mexican Herald, October 15, 1923, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 173. 78F. S. Donnell to the editor of Collier's, February 28, 193A, NA, RG 316, The Private Papers of Herbert Hager- man, File on the Wheeler Howard bill, Series I, Item 49. 113 was sold to the Continental Oil Company for approximately $u,750,000.79 Collier attacked this oil leasing record before the Senate Indian Investigating Committee. He told the Sena- tors that the low bidding on the Rattlesnake Dome structure was due, not to geological uncertainties as Hagerman claimed, but to the existing over-production and depressed oil values. It had been absurd to auction the Navajo structures at such a period. Further, he argued that the particular kind of lease excluded the independents such as Midwest and delivered the Rattlesnake Dome structure to the large companies or speculators acting on behalf of the large companies. The result was a phenomenal profit for the Continental Oil Company and the neglect of Indian interests.80 The Navajo "rubber stamp" tribal council had been compelled to accept this unjust scheme because the regulations drawn up by Albert Fall decreed that if they did not accept it, the Secretary of Interior would arbitrarily name new tribal council delegates.81 79John Collier, Highlights of the Case for Removing Hagerman From the Government Payroll, February 29, 1932, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 18. 80John Collier, Rebuttal Testimony on the Navajo Oil Leasing Record of Herbert Hagerman, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer l6. 81JohnCollier, Manuscript on Herbert Hagerman, Col- lier MSS; YUL, Drawer 16. Lawrence Kelly, in The Navajg Indians.andeeder 1 Indian Policy, 1900-1935 (Tuscon: The University.of Arizona Press, 1968), gives a generally cri- tical assessment of Collier's indictment against Hagerman. .Kelly suggests that the abolishment of the San Juan Council 11A Collier told the Senators that his charges against Hagerman did not prove premeditated corruption, but they did imply "ruthlessness, maladministration, inconsistency, incompetency, and a betrayal of guardianship obligation."82 The Senate Indian Investigating Committee agreed with this indictment. It submitted a report to the Senate signed by Lynn Frazier, Burton K. Wheeler, and Elmer Thomas recom- mending the abolition of Hagerman's office. During 1932, the Senate removed Hagerman from the Government payroll. 3 Hagerman certainly was not a corrupt individual, but he became the symbol for all the evils that Collier disliked about the Indian Bureau. That is one reason why Hagerman received the support of the New Mexico and 84 Eastern Association on Indian Affairs. But he followed a philosophy which set him worlds apart from men such as was not a regressive measure depriving the Navajos of their rights, but a progressive one which, for the first time, bound all the Navajos together in one body. However, Kelly fails to discuss adequately the fact that Fall probably abol- ished the San Juan Council because these Indians were reluc- tant to approve oil leases such as the Rattlesnake Dome, which later proVed to be detrimental to their interests. 82John Collier, Rebuttal Testimony on the Navajo (311 Leasing Record of Herbert Hagerman, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 16 . 83Lynn Frazier, Elmer Thomas, Burton K. Wheeler, Iieport on the Charges of the Misconduct of Herbert Hager- rnan,.Special Commissioner to Negotiate with the Indians 51nd a Member of the Pueblo Lands Board, February 16, 1932, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 18. 8“John Collier, Manuscript to the Senate Investi- gating Committee, 1932, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 18, and tlle New York Times, January 28, 1931, p. 20. 115 Collier. A letter from Kenneth Roberts, a writer for the Saturday Evening_Post, to Hagerman partially illustrates the philosophical difference between reformers such as Collier and the men associated with Hagerman. Roberts told Hagerman that by the time you get this, Mr. Coolidge should have been re-elected. If he is, I would like to bet that the country will get a radical president, in 1928, so whatever wood you propose to saw, you'd better saw before then. They are an unbalanced bunch, most of them, bad hearts and.livers, undependable, they argue and talk like the Wild Irish. If you get good and mad, subscribe to the-American Mercu;y.8 Essentially an aspiring entreprenuer, Hagerman's primary interest concerned the economic development of the Southwest. As president of the New Mexico Taxpayer's Association, he was as interested in the rights of white taxpayers in New Mexico as he was in Indian problems. Hagerman tried to work out a compromise between the interests of the two groups. He revealed his position shortly after the beginning of the New Deal, when he told representatives of the Indian Rights Association: what I am afraid of is, from the standpoint of a resident and taxpayer of New Mexico, that the present trend and tendency to hand out so much in the way of money and aid and offers of independence unaccompanied by the burdens and duties of citizen- ship will.cause a violent reaction amont th§ non- Indian populations of these Western states. 6 85KennethRoberts to Herbert Hagerman, NA, RG.316, The Private Papers.of Herbert Hagerman, File on the Corres- Pcndence with Kenneth Roberts of the Saturdgy Evening Post, 1924-1928. 86Herbert Hagerman to the Gentlemen of the Indian Righms Association, March 28, 1934, NA, RG 316, The Private 116 When Hagerman left Washington to return to New Mexico, he received support from the artists and writers residing at Santa Fe. A noisy motorcade of admirers escorted him from the train at Lamy to Santa Fe. One artist rode on top of Hagerman's car dressed like an Indian and beating a tombe. A coupe in this retinue carried a lifesized puppet of John Collier. Erna Fer- gusson recalled later that Witter Bynner, writer and "playboy extraordinary," had chanted what he termed Col- lier's doxology; Praise God from whom all blessings flow; praise him for the Indians below; no matter who may pay the cost, without the Indians I'd be lost; whoever really helps the tribes receives my curses and my jibes; and there, for Mr. Hagerman, I say to hurt you all I can, if there were many more like you, I should have nothing left to do; love for the Indian is my boast; and yet I love John Collier the most. Hagerman escaped this escort as soon as he arrived in Santa Fe. The demonstration ended by hanging Collier in effigy from a cottonwood tree in front of the old Palace of Governors on the Santa Fe Plaza.87 The support for Hagerman and opposition to Collier at Santa Fe stemmed from many reasons. Writers such as Witter Bynner, who worked closely with the New Mexico ‘ Papers of Herbert Hagerman, File on the Wheeler-Howard bill, Series I, Item 49. 87Erna Fergusson, "Crusade from Santa Fe," North Armican Review, CCXII (December, 1936), 385-386. 117 Association on Indian Affairs, disliked Collier because he made the Pueblos "distrustful of all assistance except 88 that which comes from himself." He criticized him for attempting "to steamroll their meetings and prevent them if possible from meeting with even the best intentioned representatives of the Indian Bureau."89 Bynner believed that Collier's general influence among the Pueblos "was to alienate them from their Mexican neighbors, with whom they have been friends for years."90 This analysis touched upon the essence of the resent- ment of many people in New Mexico against Collier. The passage of the Pueblo Lands Act had caused a great amount of dissatisfaction from both the white and Mexican settlers, who had lost land and improvements inherited from their forefathers. These settlers had been forced to spend their savings in paying for attorneys to defend the titles to their lands. They supported Hagerman's low awards to the Indians. Collier's attempt to re-adjust what they considered to be the already generous awards of the Pueblo Lands Board only inflamed.a tense situation. Real estate Owners at Taos became enraged against the ejection suits. instigated by Collier against their remaining land, 88WitterBynnerto the editor of the Nation, Feb- ruazw'2u, 1931, NA, RG 316, The Private Papers of Herbert Iilagerman, File on the Collier-Frazier Inquisition, Part a 1931. .. 89Ibid. 90Ibid. 118 suits which had paralyzed the traffic of selling, purchas- ing, and improving property.91 The Hagerman episode destroyed all semblance of cooperation between Collier and the Indian Bureau. On March 9, 1932, Senator William King presented a petition before the Senate signed by several Indians and important members of the Indian Defense Association. Prepared by Collier, this petition accused the Indian Bureau of aban- doning the legislative program it had pledged to support in 1929. Instead of enacting far reaching reforms, it had forsaken existing programs, broken promises, and established new evils.92 The Department of Interior attempted to refute the charges of the.Collier petition in a lengthy article inserted in the Congressional Record of March 10, 1932. 'Ln this statement Secretary Wilbur pointed out that the. legislation endorsed by his department in 1929, in the form of letters to Senator Frazier, was not the respon- sibility of the Secretary of Interior or Commissioner of Jkudian affairs. They had made no pledge to secure this ¥ 91Newspaper Clipping, Joe Sena, "Collier and the IHdians," La Revista de Taos, NA, RG 316, The Private Papers of Herbert Hagerman, File on the Collier-Frazier Inquisition, Part I, 1931- .92U.S., Congressional Record, 72nd Cong., lst Sess., March 9, 1932, Lxxv, Part 5, 55117-55119. For a detailed aCcc>unt of Collier's.dissatisfaction with the Hoover Adrd;nistration consult John Collier, "The Indian Bureau's Record," Nation, cxxxv (October 5, 1932), 303-305. 119 legislation. Responsibility for Indian reform rested in the hands of Congress. Calling Collier's accusations "a series of misrepresentations almost approaching black- mail," Wilbur found the major obstacle to Indian reform, not the inadequacies of the Indian Bureau, but in "the interference with tribal affairs by self-appointed groups "93 making a profession of exploiting Indian grievances. The self-appointed group that Wilbur referred to was the American Indian Defense Association, a nation- wide organization by 1932, with a membership of 1,700 persons. It spent about $22,000 a year for legal aid services and had branches with local boards in a number of cities.9u This lack of executive energy made the Hoover Eidministration an ad interim regime committed to Indian 'reform, but not dynamic enough to provide leadership ‘- 93Ibid., March 10, 1932, 5677. 9”Ibid., The leaders of these local boards included Charles de Y. Elkus,.at San Francisco, Dr. John R. Haynes, at Santa Barbara, Reverend O. H. Bronson and Mrs. James ffl>gle at Salt Lake City. Active prominent members on the. National Board included John Collier, executive secretary, Ih’. Haven Emerson, President, Mrs. Stella Atwood, legis- lative advisor, and Fred Stein, treasurer. Other active Peeple included Colonel George Ahern, former Secretary of the War College and Secretary of the Interior for the Phillipines, Robert.E. Ely, director of the Town Hall at ARMY York City, Dr. Ernst Huber, Professor of Anatomy at JcDths Hopkins, Dr. Jay B. Nash, head of the School of Phy:sical Education at New York University, Lester Scott, natclonal executive of the Camp Fire Girls, James Young, PI'Ofessor of Business at the University of Chicago, and IFVing Bacheller, a popular writer. 120 necessary to push basic legislation through Congress. The result was a false dawn for the American Indian.. Yet. by March 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt became President, the basic changes needed in.Indian policy had been elabor- ated by the Indians and.their friends.95 The Hoover administration had contributed to this reform effort. It greatly increased the appropriations for the Indian Service and had made substantial educa- tional reforms. Secretary Wilbur had inaugurated a reorganization of the Indian Bureau and endorsed bills which would later become the basic program of the New Deal. Between 1929 and 1932 the American Indian Defense Association, under the leadership of John Collier, had inaugurated a complete legislative program to deal with the Indian problem. The Swing-Johnson bill and the Indian Arts and Crafts bill would become a crucial part of the Indian New Deal. The four letters composed by Collier, M. K. Sniffen, Louis Meriam, and endorsed by Secretary Wilbur described the evils of land allotment. They pro- posed tribal incorporation and self-government as an answer. The Senate Indian Investigating Committee with the help of Collier also contributed decisively to the 95John Collier, From Every Zenith (Denver: Sage Books, 1963), p. 148. 121 reform impulses which flourished during the Hoover adminis- tration. By exposing the Hagerman record they helped formulate basic legislative remedies to problems such as the Pueblo and Navajo land questions. The Indian New Deal stemmed from the voluntary action progressivism which survived the decade of the twenties. It owed a profound debt to the American Indian Defense Association whose welfare leaders pioneered new programs and kept alive the tradition of humane liberalism. From men like Collier the New Deal would draw both its methods of analy- sis and spiritual inspiration. CHAPTER IV THE INDIAN NEW DEAL The Indian New Deal stemmed from the reform activi- ties during the twenties. Its legislative program was essentially the successful conclusion to efforts carried out by John Collier and others for over a decade. Execu- tive reform inaugurated by Collier represented an effort to implement part of the program of the Indian Defense Association. Yet, the Indian New Deal was also a product of depression thinking, for it expressed the back-to-the— land philosophy found in such enterprises as Arthurdale and it represented a microcosm of the public relief prog- rams during the thirties. John Collier had favored the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 because Roosevelt was "a liberal in thought and in heart . . . and a believer in scientific government." His administration promised the "last chance" for the Indians, who had lost over 90 million acres of land through the land allotment system initiated by the Dawes Act.l v—7 1,. 1,. lJohn Collier, American Indian Life (January, 1933), 1-5. 122 123 Following the election, Collier set forth the basic policies which ought to guide any reorganization program for Indian affairs. Believing that land allotment must be stopped in order to implement collective and corporate use of Indian pGCerty, he suggested that the government provide financial credit for allotted and unallotted reservations. He proposed that the Bureau replace boarding schools with day schools and enlist the aid of the Depart- ment of Agriculture to help the Indians. It should also employ more Indians and repeal the archaic espionage laws that dealt with Indian affairs.2 While Collier searched for "a safe and politically stronger" candidate for Indian Commissioner, than he thought himself to be, other pressure groups made a strong bid for their candidates.3 The Indian Rights Association favored the continuance of the present Commissioners Charles Rhoads and Henry Scattergood.“ Senator Joseph Robinson of Arkansas supported Edgar Meritt, a native son from Fayetteville, who had been Assistant Commissioner during the Harding and Coolidge administrations.5 Collier _,_ 2Ibid. 3John Collier to Judge Hanna, December 26, 1932, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1?. ”John Collier to the Governor and the Pueblos of Santo Domingo, December 31, 1932, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 17. 5New York Times, April 15, 1933, p. 3. 12A believed that Sam Bratton and Burton K. Wheeler had pro- posed a trade by which Bratton would promote Wheeler's man for Commissioner if Wheeler would advance Bratton's man for Assistant Commissioner.6 All were associated with the previous Republican administrations and extremely distasteful to Collier. In order to assure the election of a reform Commis- sioner, he agreed to a plan with Lewis Meriam, director of the staff of the Institute for Government Research, and Nathan Margold, a New York lawyer, who had served as legal advisor to the Pueblos. This plan proposed that if Roosevelt favored one of the three men, the other two should close ranks to insure his victory. Collier then sent an open letter to his personal friends asking them to actively support Lewis Meriam, Nathan Margold, or himself for the office. He told his friends that recommendations should be sent immediately to president- elect Roosevelt, to his advisors, and to the Senators of the candidates"states “urging whichever of the three men they might prefer.7 Collier also sent letters to the Governors of the various Pueblos asking them to assist in the selection 6John Collier to Charles de Y Elkus, January A, 1933, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 8. 7John Collier, An Open Letter Sent to a Number of Limited Friends, January 1, 1933, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1?. 125 of a reform Commissioner. He suggested that it "might be extremely useful if’a delegation from the All Pueblo Council would come to the East, and talk with Governor 8 Roosevelt and with Mrs. Roosevelt." This delegation might also stop at Washington and impress on Congress the need for adopting the Pueblo Relief bill. Collier then asked the Pueblos to support either himself, Lewis Meriam, or Nathan Margold for Commissioner.9 The All Pueblo Council responded to Collier's plea at a meeting held in Santo Domingo on January 12, 1933. They adopted a resolution addressed to President Roosevelt favoring the appointment of Collier for Commissioner. If this proved impossible, they suggested the appointment of Lewis Meriam or Nathan Margold.10 On February 24, 1933, the Board of Directors of the American Indian Defense Association issued the most persuasive statement endorsing Collier for Commissioner. 'This statement reviewed and praised Collier's legislative and legal struggle for Indian rights during the past (decade, a struggle that had preserved Pueblo land titles, tolocked the effort to destroy the Indian title to Executive #1 8John Collier to the Governor and the Pueblos of gianto Domingo, December 31, 1932, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 7. 91bid. loJohn Collier, American Indian Life (January, L933). 32. 126 Order Reservations, prevented the confiscation of the Flathead power site, and worked to establish religious freedom for the Indians. According to the Defense Asso— ciation, Collier had "altered the whole perspective of Indian affairs and given to the Indians themselves a new and realistic hope."11 Roosevelt referred the subject of Indian Bureau appointments to Professor Raymond Moley from Columbia University.12 On the request of Senator Bronson Cutting, the President also asked Felix Frankfurter to examine the Indian situation and make recommendations. Cutting favored Collier but Frankfurter leaned toward Nathan Margold. Collier, Meriam, and Margold met with Moley to discuss the appointment and came to the conclusion that a final decision depended upon the‘appointment of ‘the Secretary of Interior.l3‘ Roosevelt offered the latter office first to Senator Bronson Cutting and then 11A Statement in Support of the Resolution of the Board of Directors of the American Indian Defense Asso- ciation, Endorsing John Collier for Appointment as Com- missioner of Indian Affairs, February 2A, 1933, National Archives, Record Group 75, Office File of-Commissioner John Collier, 1933—19A5, Chronological File of Letters Sent, Envelope III. Since the bulk of this documenta- tion is taken from the National Archives, Record Group ‘ 75, subsequent citations to this source will be abbre- viated to include only the title of the record division ‘within the Record Group. 12John Collier-to Dr. John Haynes, January 30, 1933, (Zollier MSS; YUL, Drawer 8. 13John Collier to Charles de Y Elkus, January 31, 11933, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 8. 127 to Hiram Johnson. Both men refused the position but Johnson suggested Harold Ickes, a former Bull Moose Pro- I“ gressive. The appointment of Ickes as Secretary of the Interior marked the beginning of the Indian New Deal. Both he and his wife were deeply interested in the Indian welfare cause. Their summer home at Coolidge, Arizona, was loca- ted near several Indian reservations.15 Among the first members to Join the Indian Defense Association, during 1923, Ickes had suggested in a Journal article that there consisted of no more shameful page in our whole history than our treatment of the American Indians, . . . no more blush-raising record on this shameful page than the administration of the Bureau of Indian Affairs by Messrs. Burke and Meritt."l6 Anna W. Ickes demonstrated even more-interest in the Indian than her husband.~ She spoke Navajo fluently and her book, Mesa Land, The History and Romance of the Southwest, made her a recognized authority in the life and history of the Indians in the Southwest.17 7“? 1“John Franklin Carter, The New Dealers (New York: .Simon and Schuster, 1934), p. 186. 15Berton Staples to Henry A. Wallace, June 15, .193u, NA, RG 16, Records of the Office of the Secretary (of Agriculture. l6Harold Ickes, "The Federal Senate and Indian Afoairs," Illinois Law Review, XXIV (January, 1930), 5377. 17Newspaper Clipping, Washington Post, September 1., 1935, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. 128 At 5:30 P.M. on April 11, 1933, Ickes went to the White House to discuss the post of Indian Commissioner with the President. He discovered that Senator Joseph Robinson had preceded him to support a.brother-in-1aw, Edgar Merrit, for the position. Roosevelt started the conversation by stating that he had received many pro- tests against the appointment of Meritt. Senator Robin- son made a short statement on behalf of Meritt and then the President asked Ickes for his opinion. The Secretary reported that he had documentary proof which showed that Meritt was totally unqualified for the Job. After Ickes finished his statement, Roosevelt turned to Robinson and said "well, Joe, you see what I am up against. Every highbrow organization in the country is opposed to Meritt, and Secretary Ickes, under whom he would have to work doesn't want him."18 Ten days later Ickes appointed Collier as the new Indian Commissioner, believing him to be "the best equipped "19 than who ever occupied the office. Ickes also assigned ‘three attorneys, who had aided the Pueblos during the Lbast decade, to positions in the Interior Department. bqathan Margold became Solictor, Charles Fahy and Felix CIOhen were selected as Assistant Solicitors. Louis Glavis, ¥ 18The Secret Diary of Harold Ickes, The First Hund- r‘ed.Days 1933-1936 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 19537, p . 19. 19New York Times, April 16, 1933, p. 10. 129 former investigator for the Senate Indian Investigating Committee, headed up the Department's new division of inspection.20 One of the most colorful of the New Dealers, Collier was a small stooped—shouldered man with glasses, who wore his blond hair "long and unbrushed." At the office he smoked a corncob pipe which he kept in an empty water glass on his desk. Instead of wearing a suit, Collier came to work in a "baggy old long-sleeved green sweater." One observer thought "he looked like a country store— keeper closing out the weeks accounts."‘ Gossips in Wash— ington also rumored that the Commissioner sometimes carried a pet frog in his pocket.21 During a talk to the Navajo students at Fort Win- gate in July, Collier expressed the purpose of the Indian New Deal. He suggested that his policy thrust out in two directions. First of all, the government had the duty to bring education and modern scientific conveniences within the reach of every Indian. Yet, at the same time the government must re—awaken in the soul of the Indian, not only pride in being an Indian, but hope for his future 2OJohn Collier to Dr. John Haynes, April 10, 1933, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. 21The following articles give a description of Col- .lier. Anonymous, "Indian Fighter," Time, XLV (February 19, 1945), 18-19, and Anonymous, "People in the Limelight," kfigv Republic, CXII (March 5, 1945), 319. .. 130 as an Indian. It had the obligation to preserve the Indian's love and ardor toward the rich values of Indian life as expressedjxltheir arts,ritua1s,and.cooperative institutions. Should they turn away in scorn and shame fkmml this heritage, they would not only throw away the part of their being which made them powerful and inter- esting as individuals, but they would be canceling great spiritual contributions required in the future by Ameri- can civilization.22 The initial piece of reform legislation enacted during the first year of the Indian New Deal was essen- tially the re-affirmation and successful conclusion to efforts which Collier and the Defense Association had carried out for over a decade. The Pueblo Relief bill, with the active support of Collier, became law on May 31, 1933. It made an additional appropriation of $761,954 to the various Pueblos which had been awarded inadequate compensation by the Pueblo Lands Board under the 1924 Act. They also received a veto over the use of their own funds and were authorized, if they so desired, to pay in attorney's fees any amount up to ten per cent of the increased compensation provided for in the Act. This last provision pleased Collier because it enabled the 22John Collier, Talk to the Returned Students of the Navajos at Fort Wingate, New Mexico, July 7, 1933, NA, RG 316, The Private Papers of Herbert Hagerman, Series I, Item 49, File on the Wheeler-Howard bill. 131 Pueblos to pay for legal services that Defense Associa- tion lawyers had performed between 1922 and 1932.23 Several reforms during the first year of the Indian New Deal were inaugurated by executive order,not by legislative action. They represented an effort by Col- lier and Ickes to implement the program of the Indian Defense Association. On May 25, 1933, Secretary Ickes abolished the Board of Indian Commissioners because it had dragged its feet on reform efforts during the twen- ties. Ickes wanted to replace the Board with "a small advisory committee of outstanding men and women who were really intelligently interested in the Indians and knew "2“ Collier rejected the Secre- something about them. tary's notion of creating a formal advisory committee. He felt that any committee with functions identical to those of the Board of Indian Commissioners might result in increased antagonism on the part of the former Board members and be "of doubtful wisdom politically speaking."25 Instead, Collier recommended, and Ickes accepted, the principle that consultant groups be formed of people who were enlightened on the subject of Indian affairs. They 23John Collier, Annual Report of the Department of Interior, Report of the CommiSsioner of Indian Affairs (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933), p. 101. 2“Harold Ickes, Memorandum for Commissioner Collier, July 29, 1933, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1. New York Times, May 26, 1933, p. 2. 25John Collier, Memorandum for Secretary Ickes, Sep- tember 21 and 22, 1933, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1. Two 132 should be experts on matters concerning Indian arts and crafts, cultural anthropology, education, the use of natural resources, regional planning, health, or Indian 26 law. By executive action Collier stopped the sale of allotted lands and cancelled debts charged by the gov— ernment against individual Indians or tribes. In a "Letter to all Indian Superintendents," dated August 12, 1933, the Commissioner declared that because of the depression and the very poor market for Indian—owned restricted land, it was "ordered until further notice that no more trust or restricted Indian lands, allotted or inherited, shall be offered for sale . . . except in members of the Board of Indian Commissioners proved to be violent critics of the Indian New Deal. They were Flora Warren Seymour, from Chicago, and G. E. E. Lind- quist, from Lawrence, Kansas. Both strongly favored the Dawes Act and efforts to Christianize the Indians. 26Applying the emphasis of the New Deal upon the desirability of bringing government and science together, the Indian Bureau formed its own brain trust. Oliver La Farge, in the Changing Indian, gives an account of the intellectuals who served the Bureau. The following men, in part, constituted the Indian brain trust: John Collier, Indian Commissioner, Robert Marshall, Director Of Indian Forestry, Ward Shepard, Principle Planning Specialist, H. L. Shapiro, Assistant Curator at the Museum of Natural History, J; G. Townsend, Chief of the Development of Industrial Hygiene at the Public ”Health Service, Ralph Linton, Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, Edward Kinnard, Specialist on Indian Languages, Louis Glavis, Conservationist, Jay Nash, IEnmrgency Unemployment, and Willard Beatty, Director of ILndian Education. Crucial men in the Solicitor's office ilucluded Nathon Margold, Felix Cohen, and Charles Fahy. 133 cases of great distress."27 Collier also eliminated over $3,000,000 of Indian debts for rOads, bridges, tribal herds, and irrigation projects. Part of this cancella- tion included the $100,000 charge to the Navajos for the Lee's Ferry bridge. By 1936, over $12,000,000 in debts had been cancelled by the‘Collieradministration.28 Indian education and health facilities improved significantly under the direction of Collier. His new Director of Indian Education,Willard Beatty, carried out far reaching alterations in the methods and objec- tives started during the Hoover administration and accele- rated the policy of replacing boarding schools with day schools.29 In the field of health, the Bureau expanded its staff of doctors and nurses. Trachoma cases dimin- ished significantly as a result of sulfanilamide medi- cation. The Indian death rate decreased fifty-three percent during the decade of the thirties.30 The episode focusing around the Canton Insane Asylum for Indians in South Dakota offers an example 27Annual Report of the Secretary‘of Interior, 1933, pp. 100, 103. 28John Collier to Chester Hanson, October 1“, 1936, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 2. 29The best account of Indian education during the Ivew Deal is Evelyn Adams, American”Indian Education (Morn— :ingside Heightsz' King Crown Press, 19H6), and Willard IBeatty, Selected Articles From Indian Education, 1936- 19U3 (Washington: ‘Publication of the Indian Service, 194“). 30Annual Report of'the Secretary of Interior, 1935, p. 136, Ibid., 1938, p. 242, and Ibid., 1939, p. 363. 13“ of the Commissioner's concern for Indian health problems. While visiting Santa Clara Pueblo during the summer of 1933, Collier had promised the wife of an inmate at Can- ton that he would investigate the possibility of securing the release of her husband. When the Commissioner looked into the matter he found that the Bureau was conducting what he called "an institution so outrageously cruel and injurious that we would deserve to be blown out of the water if we continued it."31 A full investigation made in 1929, by a Medical Officer at Saint Elizabeth's Hos- pital in Washington, D. C., exposing intolerable condi- tions such as a patient locked in a straight jacket for three years and urinals that did not flush, had received no action during the Hoover'administration.32 This was probably due to the pressure from citizens of Canton who were more eager to preserve their $40,000 annual revenue from the institution than to benefit the Indians.33 On June 8, 1933, Collier sent an investigator to Canton and found conditions unchanged since 1929. He immediately recommended to Secretary Ickes that the Canton Asylum be abolished and its personnel discharged. ¥ 31John Collier to Harold Ickes, AUSUSt “a 19333 IJA, RG “8, Office File of Harold Ickes, Part I, 1933-1945, Daiscellaneous Correspondence Relating to the Indian Cfoice. 32Ibid. 33New York Times, November 12, 1933, IV, p. 7. 135 He also suggested that Public Works Administration funds be used to build an extension on Saint Elizabeth's Hos- pital, in order to facilitate a transfer of the Canton Indians. The Secretary-agreed with these prOposals.3u Consequently, Collier wrote a lengthy letter to Dr. Harry Hummer, Superintendent of the Asylum, explain- ing his discharge from the Indian Service, not because of failure due to limitations in plant and equipment, but because he had permitted "acts of needless cruelty" such as the chaining of Indians to beds and waterpipes and the locking of Indians for periods of time within rooms and dormitories with no attendant at hand. Those Indians were doomed to extermination in case of fire. He criti- cized Dr. Hummer for extreme neglect of sanitation, clini- cal attention, and carelessness in keeping complete case records, and reminded him of his responsibility for the imprisonment, in more than ten cases, of Indians not suf- fering from psychoses." He saw in this a picture of "mis- feasance and malfeasance of an extreme character, of acts of cruelty . . . and of practically complete failure of Inedical administration."35 E 314John Collier to Harold Ickes, August A, 1933, NA, FRG M8, Office File of Harold Ickes, Part I, 1933-19A5, ”Tiscellaneous Correspondence Relating to the Indian Office. 35John Collier to Dr. Harry Hummer, October 5, 1933, Ccollier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1. 136 The most controversial executive reforms instigated by Collier consisted of two departmental orders. The first, dated January 3, 193A, and entitled "Indian Reli- gious Freedom and Indian Culture," demanded that "the fullest constitutional liberty, in all matters affecting religion, conscience and culture, is insisted on for all Indians. In addition, an appropriate attitude toward Indian cultural values is desired in the Indian Service." The second order dated January 15, 193A, dealt with the missionary activity at Indian schools, as paraphrased 36 below: (1) The controlling principles respecting sec- tarian or religious activity in the Indian schools were identical with the controlling principles respecting identical matters in the non-Indian schools. (2) As a privilege but.not as a right, any deno— mination or missionary, including any representative of a native Indian religion, could be granted the use of rooms or other conveniences in boarding schools, on the condition that there were children who by personal or parental choice sought the services of missionaries. (3) *Where parents, appearing in person before ‘the Superintendent of the agency or the Principal of 1:he boarding school in which their children resided, R 36John Collier, Regulations for Religious Worship 61nd Instruction, January 30, 193“, NA, RG 75, File on fieligious Freedom. 137 knowingly and voluntarily in writing registered their preference for the work of a missionary or denomination, such preference should be made known to the missionary or a denomination. The missionary or denomination should then be invited and enabled to make contact with the Indian child at such times and places not conflicting with the requirements of classroom work or group activ- ities assigned by the school. (A) In no case should compulsion be used, except by the parent or natural guardian in person, to require any child to attend religious services. (5) Non—sectarian Sunday school exercises might be conducted on Sunday mornings by the employees of the boarding school, but compulsion should not be used upon the employees to teach at Sunday school or upon the children to attend classes. (6) Intentional proselytizing in the Indian boarding schools was prohibited. ' (7) No religious exercise should be held in the premises of the day schools, but any child upon written request of his parents, knowingly.and voluntarily given, might be excused for religious instruction, including instruction in the native Indian religion, for not more than one hour each week. Day school buildings could 'be loaned for the use of denomination bodies at times riot in conflict with the use of the facilities by the IIndian Service or community. 138 (8) Nothing contained above should be interpreted as an instruction forbidding the use of mails in sending religious literature to any child or interpreted as a prohibition or advice against the fullest participation by missionaries and ministers in the secular activities of the school, such as in the case.of Boy and Girl Scouts, Camp Fire Girl activities, and adult educational programs. These two resolutions struck at the heart of the missionary work among the Indians.37 Between 1934 and 1945 missionaries became extremely antagonistic to Col- lier and the New Deal.' Activities in Oklahoma give an example of the anxieties experienced by many clergyman. Fearing that their religious work might be prohibited among the Indians, two missionaries called a protest meet- ing of all Indian missions at Oklahoma City. On November 1, 1934, over twenty Indian missionaries representing twelve denominations assembled at'the capital of Okla- homa. They adopted a resolution suggesting that Collier "should study the pagan religions" to which he was encour- aging the Indians to return'in his executive order on 37Consult the following periodicals for information concerning the conflict between the missionaries and Collier. Missionary Review of the World, LVII (April, 1934), 182-184 (June, 1934), 261—262 (September, 1934), 389—390 LVIII (September, 1935), 397-400, Christian Centur , LI (August 8,1934), 1016-1020,(August 22, 1934), 1073,(October 31, 1934), 1379-1380 (November 14, 1934), 1459-1460, LII (June 5, 1935), 767, LXI (March 29, 1944), 397-398, International Review of Missions, XXXII (April, 1943), 141—155, Scribner's Commentator, XI (November, 1941), 77-82. 139 "38 "Indian Religious Freedom. In a separate statement the Baptist General Convention, which represented 185,000 white and Indian Baptists, criticized any policy that would interfere with their work in the government schools and "encourage the revival of such demoralizing ceremonial expressions as the use of peyote" by the Native American Church.39 In an interview reported by the Associated Press, Collier criticized the "small minority" among the mis- sionaries who were continuing to agitate'for the denial of liberty of conscience to Indians. 'He rejected the missionaries' demand that the Indian Bureau use official coercion to force Indian-children’into denominational classes even though their parents belonged to other faiths. He called this policy "an outrage upon human nature as well as an express violation of the constitu- tion."uO Rejecting the accusation that he was an "infidel and atheist," hostile to the Christian religion, he reminded the missionaries in a lengthy letter sent to the Oklahoma Tushkahomman, that liberty of conscience in America was never meant to be liberty for only those 38John Collier, Memorandum for Secretary Ickes, November 2, 1934, NA, RG 75,'File on Adverse Propaganda. 39E. C. Routh to John Collier, November 21, 1934, NA, RG 75, File on Religious Freedom. uOJohn Collier, Interview Given to the Associated Press Representative, November 2, 1934, NA, RG 75, File on Adverse Propaganda. 140 who professed Christianity. Collier pointed out that the Bureau favored a protective attitude toward native religions because they "had been forged out through thousands of years of striving and endurance, and search for truth, and contained deep beauty, spiritual guidance, consolation, and disciplinary power.“1 The missionaries who opposed the Indian New Deal were misinformed because they thought Collier was anti- religious. The essence of the Indian New Deal consisted not only of economic recovery but the spiritual rejuvena- tion of America. Collier told the Christianized Indian students at Bacone College that the light which streams from 2,000 years ago, from the impenetrable, awful mystery hidden by the remote historical veil .‘. . was now kindled for them as well as for'many other Americans. He warned the students that "religiousamindedness," one of the most universal’and emphasized traits of the Indian race, was needed by Christianity and the"present day American world because "religion has come to run thin in our general white and American life." 'Collier called upon the Indians to bring their "native endowment to 42 the renewal of religion" in America. ulJohn Collier to Ben Dwight, February 19, 1936, NA, RG 75, File on Religious Freedom. “2John Collier, Talk to the Students of Bacone College, March 22, 1934, NA, RG 16, Records of the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture. 141 The Commissioner followed his departmental orders on "Indian Religious Freedom" with a successful attempt to secure the enactment of several important pieces of legislation. In January 1934, he transmitted to Burton K. Wheeler the draft of a bill to repeal various archaic espionage and gag rules affecting Indians.”3 Becoming law in May, it abolished twelve statutes limiting the freedom of speech of Indians and of persons communicating with the Indians. It canceled the-power of the Commissioner to remove from a reservation any person whose presence he considered detrimental. Parallel with this measure were new regulations approved by Secretary Ickes, pro- hibiting Indian officials from obstructing, interfering with, or controlling the functions of Indian courts.uu Secretary Ickes also set in motion the codification of Indian law. This action resulted in Felix Cohen's defi— nitive Handbook of Indian Law.“5 The Commissioner then threw "wholehearted adminis- tration support" behind the Johnson-O'Malley bill, which was substantially identical with the Swing-Johnson bill of u3John Collier to Burton K. Wheeler, January 31, 1934, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1. ouay B. Nash, The New Day for the Indians, A Sur- Key of the Working of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (N.Y.C.: Academy Press, 1938), pp. 26-27. uSFelix Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law (Wash- ington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1942), 1-162. 142 previous years. Enacted during April, 1934, it estab- lished cooperative relations between the Federal Govern- ment and the states in matters of Indian health, education and general welfare.“6 In June the Navajo Arizona Boundry Extension bill became law, completing plans formulated under the Hoover administration for rounding out the Navajo Reservation.“7 . The backbone of the Indian New Deal, the Wheeler- Howard bill, became law in June 1934. 'No sudden product of a New Dealer's fancy, a full decade had gone into its preparation. As early as 1926 Collier had proposed an alternative to the land allotment system.l48 Solutions to the problem of land allotment had been expressed in 1930 through a series of letters addressed to Congress by the Hoover administration.’ An immense body of factual material had been assembled by the American Indian Defense Association, the Institute for Government Research, and the Senate Indian Investigating Committee. ’But what was never recognized and‘acted‘upon,'until"l933, was the necessity for completely altering the basic Indian law as embodied in the Dawes Act of 1887. u6John Collier to Hiram Johnson, January 31, 1934, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1. u7Annua1Report of the Secretary of Interior, 1936, p. 196. uBJohn Collier to James A. Frear, The Allotment Law: Considerations About its Amendment, January 23, 1926, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 18. 143 One of the first actions taken by Commissioner Collier consisted of sending a "Questionnaire" to Indian Superintendents and anthrOpologists, inaugurating a cri- tical survey of the effect of the government's policy of land allotment upon the economic and political life of the tribal communities. Collier used the information from this survey to formulate his legislative program to replace the Dawes Act.”9 Collier's use of anthropological knowledge marked a radical departure. For many years the missionaries had largely influenced Indian affairs. Their emphasis upon Christianizing the*Indian and turning him into a white man fit in nicely with the aims of the Dawes Act. The Board of Indian Commissioners, under the dominance of such people as G. E. E. Lindquist and Flora Warren Seymour, reflected missionary'philosophy. *The Republican administrations worked closely with Christian-oriented Indian welfare groups and gave them free reign in the Bureau schools. Mrs; Warren Harding, Mrs. Calvin Cool- idge, and Mrs. Herbert Hoover were honorary Vice Presi- dents of the National Indian Association, which claimed that the most vital thing in Indian affairs consisted of "the development of Christian Character" and bringing ugJohn Collier, Questionnaire Sent to Superintendents, November 20, 1933, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the Wheeler-Howard Act, Part 10-A. 144 to the Red Man "the Gospel of Christ."50 President Hoover, a Quaker, had worked very closely with the reli— gious-oriented Indian Rights Association.- He appointed two of its members as Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner. During the New Deal anthropologists replaced the missionaries as the dominant influence upon the Indian Bureau. Collier and Ickes abolished the Board of Indian Commissioners for an advisory committee of social scien- tists. They limited the influence of missionaries in Indian education. Since Collier disliked the goals of the Dawes Act, he turned to the anthropologists to help in the preservation of native values. ’As a meeting in Pittsburgh, during 1934, anthropologists from all over the United States pledged'assistance to the Commissioner in the task of rehabilitating Indian communities and developing a program directly related.to the life and needs of the Indian people: 'The Bureau of Ethnology loaned the Indian Office'the:service3'of Dr. Duncan Strong to help make studies of how to use tribal communities 51 as vehicles for social change. 50Annual Report of the National Indian Association, 1921 (N. Y. C. Published by order of the Executive Board), SP 9 51Anonymous, "Anthropologists and the Federal Indian ZProgram," Science, LXXXI (February 15, 1935), 170-171, IFelix Cohen, "Anthropology and the Problems of Indian JQdministration," Southwest Social Science Quarterly, XVIII (:September, 1937), 171- 180. Refer to the following issues <>f Indians at Work: (January 1,1934), 8 (January 15, 1934), 335-45, and (July 1, 1934), 12. 145 On January 7, 1934, Collier called a conference at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D. C., in order to unite the various Indian welfare groups behind a program of legislation to replace the Dawes Act. Reaching a "unani- mous conclusion" as to what reforms ought to be intro- duced in Congress, the conference proposed to return the Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma to Federal responsi- bility, to repeal the provisions of the allotment system, to consolidate Indian trust lands into areas suitable for economic use by Indians, to modify heirship laws to prevent the breaking up of Indian lands into parcels unsuitable for economic use, to promote community owner- ship for Indian lands, to acquire additional land for landless Indians, to establish a system of Indian credit for agricultural and industrial development, to recognize autonomous Indian communities, and to settle Indian claims.52 Ward Shepard, chief conservationist of the Indian Service, urged Collier to unite all of these legislative proposals into an omnibus bill. Collier agreed to this suggestion and ordered the Solicitor's office to draw 52Indian Truth (January, 1934), 3-4. Indian wel— fare groups attending this conference represented many philosophies on how to deal with the Indian.' They included the American Indian Defense Association, the Indian Rights Association, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Asso- ciation of Indian Affairs, and’the National Council of .American Indians. 146 up a single bill incorporating a new Indian'policy.53 A fifty two page document containing six major sections, this bill proposed that Congress recognize and empower Indian societies to undertake political, administrative and economic self-government, to abolish the allotment policy and purchase new lands for landless Indians, to consolidate and merge allotted lands into the tribal estate, to establish an Indian agricultural and credit system, to create a network of Indian courts untimately responsi- ble to the federal court*jurisdiction, and to make pro- vision for a special Indian civilservice.5u In mid-February Congressman Edgar Howard of Nebraska and Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana introduced a bill that Collier hailed as an "Indian Bill of Rights" that embodied the most far reaching measure of legislation in the whole history of American dealings with the Indians. Insisting that the Wheeler—Howard bill "was not radical legislation; on the contrary, it was conservative," he prom- ised that it only soughtftO'stop“the shocking waste of Indian lands and to give the Red Man the simple right 53Allan Harper, symposium on Indian Affairs and the Indian Reorganisation Act, June 18, 1954, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 22. The authors of the Wheeler-Howard bill included John Collier, Nathan Margold, Felix Cohen, Charles Fahy, 'Walter Woehlke, Ward Shepard, and Robert Marshall. 5L‘John Collier, Indians of the Americas (New York: TFhe New American Library, 1961), pp. 264-265. 147 to establish an elementary form of self-government.55 As this lengthy bill passed through Congress, the House and Senate Indian Committees deleted many of its provisions. The main opposition to the bill centered in the House around the proposals for separate Indian courts and the powerful self-governing communities which were empowered to make their own laws, make contracts with the Federal and state governments, to hire their own employees, to condemn land, and to compel the removal of undesirable government employees. After extended hearings, the House eliminated everything after the first section of the bill which prohibited further allotment. It sub- stituted its own ten page version, which omitted the Indian courts and deleted or amended the specific powers 56 of the self-governing communities. ‘Edgar Howard, chair- man of the House Indian Affairs Committee, with the full support of Secretary Ickes and Commissioner Collier, also proposed an amendment which stipulated that the provisions of the pending bill would not become operative until the Indians had an opportunity to vote on it.57 55Department of Interior, Memorandum for the Press, February 13, 1934, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 4. 56John Collier, Explanation and Interpretation of the WheeleréHoward bill as Modified, Amended and Passed by Congress, NA, RG'75, Records Concerning the Wheeler- Howard Act, Part 8. 57Newspaper Clipping, "Indians Vote on Accepting Latest Bill," NA, RG'75,'Records Concerning the Wheeler- Howard Act, Part 9. 148 Because of the Howard provision for a referendum, Collier called a series of Indian Congresses during March, 1934, to discuss the nature of the Wheeler-Howard bill.58 The Plains Indians and the Oklahoma Indians demonstrated the most hostility to the measure but opposition also arose from Indian welfare associations and from several missionaries. When the Plains Indian Congress met at Rapid City, South Dakota, Collier spoke before 300 representatives of 60,000 tribesmen of the Blackfoot, Crow, Sioux, Chip- pewa, Shoshone, and Flathead Indians. fiHe told them that the bill's main purpose was to retrieve lost land holdings and set up systems of selfégovernment within the Indian communities. His listeners greeted Collier's attack upon the allotment system with "grunts of approval," but many feared that the measure was a "back to the blanket movement."59 The Blackfoot, Sioux and Crow Indians had serious qualms about the Wheeler=Howard bill and particularly a section that provided for—the return of the land titles of allotted Indians to the*tribal community. Members of 58Indian Congresses were held at Rapid City, South Dakota, March 2-6, 1934, Chemawa, Oregon, March 8-9, Fort Defiance, Arizona, March'l2—13, Santo Domingo, New Mexico, IMarch 15, Phoenix, Arizona, March‘lSel6, Riverside, Califor- nia, March 17—18, and Muskogee, Oklahoma, March 22—23. 59NewspaperClipping,'"Collier Goes Slowly on his Indian Plans," March 3, 1934, NA, RG 75, Records Concern- ing the WheelereHoward Act, Part 9. 149 the Montana Crow delegation rejected community ownership and suggested that they were happy with "individualism "60 The Blackfeet Indians in Montana and land allotment. feared they would have to share their.holdings with land- less Indians. They did not favor Collier's order on religious freedom which they falsely connected with the bill.61 Apparently the Sioux Indians in South Dakota made the same mistake because 962'parents at the Pine Ridge Reservation sent a protest to Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt criticizing Collier's plan for discontinuing missionary boarding schools for day schools.62 Roman Catholic Jesuits and Franciscan Sisters in South Dakota stirred up much confusion among the Sioux Indians. The Catholic clergy evidently was upset by Collier's testimony before the House Appropriations Committee during December 1933. Due to a treaty between the Sioux and the United States, the Catholic educational institutions had acquired an eighty per cent monopoly of the total government grant for religious schools. 6OMr. Max Big Man to John Collier, March 5, 1934, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the WheelereHoward Act, Part 3-B. 61Forrest Stone, Superintendent of the Blackfeet Agency to John Collier, February 8, 1934, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the Wheeler-Howard Act, Part l-A. The Blackfeet later supported an amended version of the bill. 62Newspaper Clipping, Rapid City Daily Journal, April 23, 1934, NA, RG 75s’Record3“Concerning the Wheeler— Howard Act, Part 9. 150 Because the treaty had lapsed, Collier took the position at these hearings that the government should pay for only the physical maintenance, not the religious training, of Indian children attending sectarian institutions. He proposed to use the money saved by providing only physical maintenance at Catholic schools, and to pay for the physical care of Indian children attending other religious schools in all parts of the country. This would have greatly aided'Protestant'establishments.63 Resentment turned into a‘defamatory campaign against Collier and the Wheeler-Howard bill, in the form of chain letters and attacks in the Catholic press.” The Catholic Daily Tribune mistakenly warned its readers that the status of Indian schools was endangered by the bill and suggested that Collier did not "believe in religious "64 influences. The Little Bronzed Angel, a Catholic periodical published by Fathers at'Marty, South Dakota, also carried this type of innuendo.6S The Northwest and Southwest Indians expressed vary- ing shades of opinion toward the bill. ‘E. A. Towner, an Indian leader from Portland, Oregon, told Collier 63John Collier, Memorandum for Secretary Ickes, April 18, 1934, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the Wheeler— Howard Act, Part 6-BB. 6i‘John Collier to the editor of the Catholic Daily Tribune, April 18, 1934, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the Wheeler-Howard Act, Part 6-BB. 65John Collier, Memorandum for Secretary Ickes, April 18, 1934, Collier MSS;“YUL, Drawer 1. 151 that he expressed the View of "my people" stated at the Congress of Northwest Indians held at Chemawa, Oregon. He suggested that they did not favor the self—government plan because they felt it was "too communistic and would not develop initiative, ambition and'independence."66 The Pueblo Indians supported Collier as long as the Wheeler-Howard bill did not threaten their traditional 67 .The Navajos, however, were form of self-government. divided over the proposal. Hostility to the measure stemmed from a group of missionaries who feared a "revival of tribalism." These missionaries suggested that the Navajo "must be saved by a process of Christian assimila- tion of American life, not by carefully guarded and sub— 68 They believed that the Wheeler- sidized segregation." Howard bill would put back the clock of Indian progress at least fifty years. . 66E. A. Towner to John Collier, March 14, 1934, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the WheeleréHoward Act, Part lO-A. Towner's hostility to the bill may also be found in the Oregonian Portland, April 8, 1934, News— paper Clipping, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the Wheeler- Howard Act, Part 6-B. 67Caipio Martinez to John Collier, February 10, 1934, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the Wheeler-Howard Act. 68The Missionaries View on the Wheeler-Howard bill, Resolutions Adopted by a Group ovaissionaries at Fort Defiance, Arizona, March 15, 1934, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the'WheelereHoward Act, Part 6+BB. The greatest opposition stemmed from the Christian Reformed Church, Presbyterian Church, Baptist Church,'and an Independent Hopi Mission. 152 The center of opposition to Collier's new program came from Muskogee, Oklahoma. As early as November 1933, the hostile Muskogee Daily Phoenix criticized Collier's "theoretical" plans to end the allotment system and to go back to communal living." It reminded readers that the Oklahoma Indian did not want to return "to a hunting and fishing economy." Collier was letting "his romantic ideas" get the better of his business judgment. The Commissioner's big mistake consisted of attempting to "Indianize the Indian . .‘. by yanking him out of his present mode of life and throwing him back on a reser- vation." This hostile editorial ended by suggesting to Collier that he read the Mother Goose story which pro— phesized that "All the King's horses and all the King's men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again."69 In March, 1934, Collier met with over 2,000 members of the Five Civilized Tribes at Muskogee to discuss the administration's new reform program; 'According to one sympathetic reporter, he was asked "a thousand and one questions but answered them'to the satisfaction of practically all present." Although "Iron Man Collier" underwent a withering barrage of critical comment, "he went away a hero."70 69Newspaper Clipping, Muskogee Daily Phoenix, Nov- ember 16, 1933, NA, RG 75, File on the Muskogee Daily Phoenix. 7ONewspaper Clipping, The Morning Examiner (Bartles- ville, Oklahoma), NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the Wheeler-Howard Act, Part 5-A. 153 A correspondent for the Muskogee Associated Press offered a different account of the meeting.' He released a statement that Collier had announced the exclusion of all Oklahoma Indians from the bill and drafted a special section providing for land purchase without "forcing the Indians into cooperative communities."71 The New York Herald—Tribune, on May 23, 1934, printed these mis- representations in an article entitled "Commissioner of Indian Affairs Urges Tribesmen of Oklahoma to Accept "72-. Soviet Type of Rule. ‘The*Arizona'Republican,on April 22, 1934, offered a similar article called "Sovietization of the Indians."73 Collier responded by wiring the New York Associated Press for an immediate retraction of the "deliberately lying'propaganda" disseminated by the Muskogee affiliatejl4 Another center of opposition'existed in Sapulpa, Oklahoma,where Joseph Bruner, President of the National Indian Confederacy, attacked Collier for trying to annul 71John Collier to the editor of the Oklahoma City News, March 23, 1934, and John Collier to Harold Ickes, March 23, 1934, NA, RG 75, File on the Muskogee Daily Phoenix. ‘ ' 72Department of Interior, Memorandum for the Press, May 24, 1934, Collier MSS;'YUL, Drawer 4. 73Newspaper Clipping,'Arizona Republican, April 22, 1934, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the‘Wheeler-Howard Act, Part 9. 7“John Collier tO'Harold Ickes, March 23, 1934, NA, RG 75, File on the Muskogee Daily Phoenix. 154 the 1887 allotment act. Demanding the Commissioner's resignation, he reaffirmed the program of the National Indian Confederacy which included amalgamation of the 75 Indian into white society. Collier answered Bruner's criticism in a letter to the'Tulsa Daily_World in which he called Bruner "an interesting human and social type . whose seeming passion was to impede the opportunity of his own people."76 The unity demonstrated by the Indian welfare asso- ciations at the Cosmos Club in January disintegrated over the controversy concerning the Wheeler-Howard bill. The New Mexico Association on Indian Affairs, under the influence of Herbert Hagerman, broke sharply with Collier over the measure. Hagerman disliked the bill because he viewed it "from the standpoint of the taxpayers" of New Mexico and Arizona.77 He believed that novelist Oliver La Farge, President of the National Association of Indian, Affairs, supported the bill because he had an attack of 75Newspaper Clipping, Tulsa Daily World, May 3, 1934, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the Wheeler-Howard Act, Part 5-B. Joseph Bruner to John Collier, May 28, 1934. 76Newspaper Clipping, Tulsa Daily World, May 13, 1934, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the Wheeler-Howard Act, Part 5-B. 77Herbert Hagerman to Carl Hayden, March 15, 1934, NA, RG 316, Private Papers of Herbert Hagerman, Series I, Item 49, File on the Wheeler-Howard bill. 155 "78 The New Mexico Association criticized "Collieritis. the bill for not being clearly thought out and well drafted. There was too much overlapping and contradiction between its various sections. The bill forced the Indians to decide upon ratification within too short a period of time and made no provision for the Indians to reconsider their decision at a later date.79 The Indian Rights Association became the most important welfare group to reject the Wheeler-Howard bill. By the spring of 1934, it had ended its honeymoon with the Collier administration because of philosophical disagreements over the future of the Indian. It believed that the bill proposed a revolutionary departure in Indian policy which would perpetuate‘segregation under the guise of self-government and reverse "the incentive which the authors of the allotment act had in mind for individual ownership of property leading toward citizenship."80 Specifically the Association suggested several changes in the bill.‘ Rejecting the ideal of permanent 78Herbert Hagerman to Charles Rhoads, March 22, 1934, NA, RG 316, Series I, Item 49, File on the Wheeler-Howard bill. The National'Association of Indian Affairs, led by Oliver La Farge,'and'the American Indian Defense Asso- ciation, directed by Allan Harper, and the American Civil Liberties Union, under the guidance of Roger Baldwin, supported the Wheeler-Howard bill with only minor reser— vations. 79Wheaton Augur to Oliver La Farge, May 8, 1934, NA, RG 316, Series I, Item 49, File on the WheelereHoward bill. 80Indian Truth (March, 1934), 1+3, and (May, 1934), 2- 156 Indian freedom from taxation, it suggested that credit not be confined only to the chartered communities. The self-government provision was impractical because too many allotted reservations were interspersed among white landholdings. It thought the separate Indian court sys- tem undesirable and suggested that provisions for taking Indian appointments out from under civil service require- ments would be a backward step. Finally it urged four or five bills in preference to the lengthy Wheeler-Howard measure.81 The hostile attitude of the Indian Rights Associa- tion so upset Collier that he wrote to its president, Jonathan:fieere, after returning to Washington from the Indian Congresses. He was, he wrote, "momentarily bewild- ered" to find a denunciation of the very program they had agreed to at the Cosmos Club on January 7, 1934.82 More than thirty amendments to the Wheeler-Howard bill were prepared as a result of suggestions emanating from members of the House and Senate, the Indian Con- gresses, and the welfare groups. The three most important amendments prevented the Secretary of the Interior from transferring the title of allotted land into communal ownership without the Indian's consent, eliminated the 81 82John Collier to Jonathan Steere, March 30, 1934, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the Wheeler-Howard Act, Part 6-BB. Ibid. (May, 1934), 2-8. 157 separate Indian courts, and continued the system of partitioning Indian farm lands among heirs upon the death of the owner.83 Collier wanted the original bill passed in its entirety, but supported this amended bill because he did "not want to sink the entire measure because of controversies over some sections."814 In order to insure passage of the amended bill, Collier needed White House support. The President favored the bill, noting on a memo from Collier to Ickes that 85 the Wheeler-Howard bill was "great stuff." Ickes promised Collier that since the President was interested in the Indian program, he would attempt to get a formal endorsement from the White House.86 .Roosevelt cooperated by openly endorsing the'bill in letters sent on March 12, 1934, to Congressman Edgar Howard and Senator Burton K. 87 Wheeler. 83Department of the Interior, Memorandum for the Press, April 15, 1934, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 4. 8“Newspaper Clipping, "Collier-to Drop Part of Bill," May 9, 1934, NA, RG 316, Series I, Item 49, File on the Wheeler-Howard bill. 85John Collier, Memorandum for Secretary.Ickes, February 21, 1934, National Archives and Record Service, FDRL, File No. 6—C. 86Harold Ickes to John Collier, February 22, 1934, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning‘the Wheeler-Howard Act, Part II—C, Section 4. 87Franklin D. Roosevelt to Edgar Howard and Burton K. Wheeler, March 12, 1934, FDRL, File No. 6-C, and Burton K. Wheeler to Franklin D. Roosevelt, FDRL, File No. PPF723. Senator Wheeler had not yet turned against the New Deal. He wrote the President on March 15, 1934, that he was 158 The President, however, had not put the bill on the administration's priority list. Both Ickes and Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace, at the instigation of Col- lier, spoke to Roosevelt about this matter. After meeting with the President, they assured Collier that the bill would be given preferred status.88 'Collier then submitted a statement to Secretary Ickes, which was to be presented to the President as a suggestion of what might be said in a communication to Congress about passage of the bill.89 Roosevelt again came to Collier's defense by addressing identical letters to Howard and Wheeler on April 28, 1934, stating his approval of the measure and expressing the hope that it might be passed at the present session 90 of Congress. "deeply affected to receive the kind and gracious little letter commending me for my bill to be presented in behalf of the Indians." 'Wheeler continued, "A friend of mine said the other day, the smile of Franklin Roose- velt is one of the most precious assets the American people have. When I know that a multitude of duties are pressing in upon you from all parts of the world, and yet you find time to send’such'a'courteouS'and friendly note, I can only say that"if my friend had enlarged his statement to include all your superb qualities, it would have been an understatement." 88Henry A. Wallace to John Collier, April 20, 1934, NA, RG 16, Records of the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture. 89John Collier, Memorandum for Secretary Ickes, April 23, 1934, FDRL, File No. 6-C. 90Franklin Roosevelt to Edgar Howard and Burton K. Wheeler, April 28, 1934, FDRL, File No. 6-C. 159 Secretary Ickes assisted Collier by attempting to stifle criticism of the bill. He sent a lengthy memo, on April 30, 1934, to "All the Employees of the Indian Service," pointing out that it was not expected that employees of the Bureau would deliberately attempt to obstruct the new Indian program. Ickes ridiculed the "subtle, misleading prOpaganda against the new Indian program emanating from a minority of employees within the Indian Service." He warned the Indian Bureau staff that any person engaged "in this scheme to defeat our program . . . will be under penalty of dismissal."91 This action seemed reminiscent of the arbitrary decrees issued by the Bureau during the twenties.' Collier tried to insure passage of the bill by impugning the motiveS'of the groups who opposed the measure in the Washington Daily News. He classified cat- tlemen, job seekers, real estate interests, attorneys and missionaries as the chief objectors to the reform program. The cattle interests opposed the bill, he argued, because they would gradually lose control of millions of acres in grazing lands rented to them by the Indians. Some missionaries embittered the Indians against the measure on account of their belief that the bill would "return them to the blanket." 'The Commissioner then 91Harold Ickes, To all Employees of the Indian Service, April 30, 1934, NA, RG‘75, Records Concerning the Wheeler-Howard Act, Part 7. 160 accused a group of Oklahoma attorneys of discrediting the bill for the reason that they might lose Indians as clients in land litigation. He pointed out that about 7,000 Indian Service job-holders opposed'the reform be- cause they feared losing their positions. He urged passage of the bill because it would return self-govern— ment to the Indians and "end depredations by selfish white interests."92 The Commissioner followed this assault with two feature articles, on May 6, 1934, in the Washington Post and New York Times demonstrating the evil of the allotment system and explaining the reforms proposed by the New Deal.93 They were followed by a lengthy letter to the editor of the NEW'YOPR Times emphasizing the urgent 94 need for the Indian legislation pending in Congress. The most important action taken by"Collier to arouse public opinion in favor of the'Wheeler—Howard bill con— sisted of his collaboration with Vera Connolly on an article for Good Housekeeping that appealed to the middle class women of America to help him end the allotment system and bring about basic land reform on the reser— vations. Connolly reminded her readers that in 1929 92Newspaper Clipping, Washington Daily News, April 20, 1934, NA, RG 74, Records Concerning the Wheeler- Howard Act, Part 6-B. 93Washington Post, May 6, 1934, Magazine Section, pp. 8—9, and New York Times, May 6, 1934, VI, p. 10. guJohn Collier to the editor, New York Times, June 10, 1934, IV, p. 5. 161 the "great tidal wave of righteous woman anger had per- formed a miracle." The thousands of letters sent by women to their representatives had resulted in the resig— nation of Commissioner Charles Burke, who was succeeded by Charles Rhoads, a humanitarian from Philadelphia. Rhoads built up the personnel and spirit of the Indian Bureau, but the land allotment system remained unaltered. She appealed to the women to "hurl yourselves once more into the battle for Indian rights . . . to mass your- selves behind Commissioner Collier and his new daring program of legislation which is now before Congress."95 The author has found no evidence of the response to that appeal. Collier also used his influence to end the resis- tance of reluctant members in Congress. He asked Con— gressman James Frear, a former Indian crusader during the twenties, to show the House membership "the false— ness and absurdity of the arguments which various lobby- .96 ists were using to defeat the bill.‘ In a memo to Secretary Ickes, Collier requested that the White House 95Vera Connolly, "End of a Long Trail," Good House- keeping, IIC (April, 1934), p. 50. Two similar articles written with the collaboration of the Commissioner to help secure the passage of the Wheeler-Howard bill were pub— lished in Collier's; Owen P. White, "Scalping the Indian)‘ VIIIC (March 3, 1934), pp. 10-11, and Ibid., "Red Men and White" (March 17, 1934), pp. 10-11. 96John Collier to James A. Frear, June 15, 1934, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the Wheeler-Howard Act, Part II-C, Section 4. 162 apply pressure to get the bill out of committee. Ickes responded by writing to Presidential aide Marvin McIntyre asking his influence to have Roosevelt request that Speaker Henry T. Rainey, along with'Congressmen Joseph Byrns and William Bankhead, confer with Edgar Howard in order to do what was necessary to have the bill reported out of com- mittee.97 Roosevelt acted upon this request by phoning Joseph Byrns.98 Stephen Early, Assistant Secretary to the President, communicated to Bankhead the President's interest in the bill, suggesting that he obtain special rule for its consideration.99 This pressure from Collier and other members of the Roosevelt team helped secure the passage of the Wheeler- Howard bill on June 18, 1934. "Despite the many amend- ments attached to the measure, the Indian Reorganization Act, as it was officially called, established a turning point in Indian history.” It.rejected the'traditional policy of assimilation and Americanization of the Indian for a policy of cultural pluralism. Implicit in the Act was the belief that each group of people in society could only fulfill their potential if allowed cultural autonomy. They could contribute to American society only ‘ 97Harold Ickes, Memorandum for Colonel Marvin McIn— tire, May 4, 1934, FDRL, File No. 6-C. 98Memorandum that*the‘President phoned Joseph Byrns at the same time he spoke to him"about a communications bill, FDRL, File 6-C. 99StephenEarly,'Memorandum'for Marvin McIntyre, June 1, 1934, FDRL, File 6—C. 163 as an autonomous group running their own affairs and dev- eloping their own culture. Instead of a melting pot, America ought to represent a great pageant of peoples.100 Fundamentally, the Indian Reorganization Act consisted of a declaration by the government that the Indian as a racial group must have the opportunity to enrich American culture. Even though the Act had its origin in the twenties, it was partially the product of depression'thinking.101 Collier believed that even if the Indian could be absorbed into an urban and industrial society, the industrial depression has taught us that we already have far too many industrial workers. And the agricultural depression has taught us that we have a great surplus of farm land. Through subsistence farming and animal husbandry, the Indian could become'selfésupporting'without'competing "with white industrial labor . . . or with white commer- “102 The Indian New Deal took for granted cial agriculture. the notion that the economic future of the Indian was that of a subsistence farmer whose economic security rested with his tribe. 100Laura Thompson, Culture in Crisis: A Study of the Hopi Indians (N. Y.: Harper, 1950), pp. 147—151. 101Elizabeth S. Sergeant, "New Deal for the Indians," New Republic (June 15, 1938), 151-154. 102 p. 109. Annual Report of the Secretary of Interior, 1933, 164 The Indian Reorganization Act fitted in nicely with the back-to-the-land movement during the New Deal. Presi— dent Roosevelt exemplified the New Dealers common love for the earth. He thought that democracy must be revitalized through the balance of urban and rural life. Subsistence homesteads, the community of Arthurdale, and the Green- 103 It belt towns resulted from this type of thinking. does not seem surprising that the President favored the Wheeler-Howard Act which provided for the restoration and preservation of Indian lands, the rebirth of local democracy, and the introduction of modern business methods to provide a meaningful society.for the Indians. The Indians offered a perfect example of the self—sufficient yeoman farmer hugging the soil and excelling in small handicraft industry. The spiritual and economic rehabilitation of the Indian made up the essence of the Indian Reorganization Act. 'Attempting'to*bring‘alive again the“whole range of native values centering around'collective ownership of the land, it abandoned land"allotment, restored to tribal ownership the surplus lands created by the Dawes Act, and prohibited the sale of Indian lands to non—Indians. It empowered the Secretary of Interior to initiate con- servation measures on Indian land and to establish an 103Arthur Schlesinger, The Coming of the New Deal (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1965), pp. 361-368. 165 annual appropriation of two million dollars for the con- solidation and acquisition'of‘land'at several reservations. It also set up a revolving ten million dollar credit fund to supply capital for making the Indian a self—supporting 10“ Other provisions minority group in his rural pursuits. encouraged Indian self—respect and responsibility. Special civil service requirements allowed the Indian to hold more positions in the Bureau. An annual appropriation of $250,000 provided tuition and scholarships for promising young Indians.105 Parallel with the restoration of land was the pro- vision for the renewal of Indian political and social structures destroyed by the Dawes Act. ’The'Reorganization Act utilized tribal societies as vehicles for economic and political progress by setting up a system of home rule similar to municipal government. ‘l ‘permitted tribal incorporation and empowered tribes to operate property of everydescription.106 The principle of Indian self—government was carried to a new phase when the'Indians voted on whether or not the Indian Reorganization Act should apply to their reservation. One hundred and seventy-two tribes with a population of 132,426 accepted the Act while seventy—three lDuds pp. 984-988. ., Statutes at Large, XLVIII, June 18, 1934, lOSIbid. 106Ibid. 166 tribes with a population of 63,467, including the import- ant Navajo Tribe, rejected the measure.107 The Indian Reorganization Act did much to aid the Indian. Between March 1933 and December 1937 the total of Indian land holdings increased by approximately three million acres. This was due to funds appropriated during the four years following the passage of the Act and the authority conferred upon the Secretary of the Interior to restore surplus lands to the Indians.108 A sum of over $4 million was loaned to corporations and individuals from the revolving credit fund between 1934 and 1938. Prosperous Indian enterprises indicated the success of this fund. A salmon cannery was built in Alaska, tourist cabins were operated by Indians in Wisconsin, a commercial dairy was established in California, and an oyster cul- ture project developed in Washington.109"The Jicarilla Apaches reported sales of over $135,000 from their tribal trading post between November 1, 1937, and December 31, 1938.110 lumber mill at a profit of“$50JMM)during the calendar year The Menominee Indians managed to operate their 107Annual Report of the Secretary of Interior, 1935, p- 115- 108Felix Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942), p. 86. 109Annual Report of the Secretary of Interior, 1938: p. 250. 110 New York Times, December 5, 1939, p. 6. 167 of 1937.111 Indian cooperatives also marketed wild rice, 112 Under the’special civil berries, maple sugar and fur. service requirements specifiediby the'Act,‘the employment of Indians in permanent positions of‘the Indian Service increased from 1,785 on June 30, 1934, to over 5,000 by October 1940. This made up approximately sixty per cent of the total of regular employees.113 The Flathead Indians, whose cause Collier had championed since the Coolidge administration, also bene— fited from the Indian Reorganization Act. Back in 1930, the right to develop the Flathead power site had been contracted by the Interior Department to the Montana Power Company. 'Because of the depression, construction of the site was abandoned*during;l932,'and'the company proposed to pay the IndianS‘a'minimal rental to keep 11" “The Justice Department the site under its control. took no action on thiscmatter between 1933 and 1936. In the meantime, Collier obtained an interview with Attorney General Cummings and demanded action. After an investigation the Attorney General cancelled the lease 111New York Times, April 25, 1937, IV, p. 8. 112New York Times, January 28, 1934, IV, p. 7. 113Annual‘Report'of’the‘SecretaryOf Interior, 1941, p. 439. 11“J. B. Nash,'The New Day for the Indian, A Survey of the Working of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, (N.Y.C.: Academy Press, 1938), 19-20. 168 of the Montana Power Company. At this juncture the Com- missioner evidently pushed for public ownership but received a negative response from the Federal Power Com- mission, which pointed out that the Flathead site existed in the midst of a primitive'wilderness. The Commission also took the position that"the administration had already committed itself to the Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dam projects without assurance of creating enough purchasers for the power.115 Collier failed on the question of public ownership but did obtain substantial benefits for the Flatheads. On April 22, 1936, under the terms of the Indian Reorgani- zation Act, the Flathead tribe ratified a charter of incorporation which gave them the right to bring law suits and to make contracts on their own initiative. Under Collier's direction, they drew plans to bring a seven million dollar law suit against the Montana Power Company. Facing this prospect, the Company agreed to go back to work in the dam within thirty days and to pay the Indians the amount in rentals they would have received if the construction had been completed on time together with interest on the delayed payment. It further agreed to assume liability for paying directly to the incorporated tribe up to one million dollars in liquidated damages 115Anonymous, "Washington Notes: Senator Wheeler Turns Conservative," New Republic, XC (April 7, 1937), 261-262. 169 in the event of further delay, and finally to give the members of the tribe preference in employment on the entire job.116 The Indian Bureau supplemented'the Indian Reorgani- zation Act with other reforms to revitalize the spiri- tual life of the Indian. ‘Collier described this program as an effort to "plow up the’Indian soul, to make the Indian again the master of his own mind."ll'7 Under his direCtion, the Bureau encouraged the revival of ancient dances that had remained in"disuse for over fifty years. Older men and women of the tribes started teaching once 'more the art of pottery making and'weaving to the younger children. During 1936, an Indian Arts and Crafts Board was established underithe*jurisdiction'of‘the"Department of Interior.118 Its purpose included the enlargement of the market for Indian arts and crafts, the improve- ment of methods of production,'and'the protection of Indian arts and crafts from spurious imitation through 116J. B. Nash, The New Day for the Indians, 19-20. 117New York Times, July.l4, 1935, VIII, p. 10. 118U.S. Congress, Senate Report.900 From the Com- mittee on Indian Affairs, 74th Cong., lst’Sess., 1936, pp. 1-6. Other relevant articles include, John Col- lier, "DoeS'the"Government“Welcome’the=Indian Arts," American Magazine of Art (Supplement), XXVII (Sep- tember, 1934), 10-11, and Anonymous, "The Development of Indian Arts and Crafts,"‘Monthly Labor Review , XLVI (March, 1938), 655—658. 170 the use of a government trademark on official Indian goods.119 Collier re-affirmed the Indians'close spiritual bond with the land by issuing an order in 1937 estab- lishing on Indian reservations twelve roadless areas consisting of 4,475,000 acres and four wild areas aggre- gating 84,000 acres. He pointed out that "almost every— where they go the Indians encounter the competition and disturbance of the white race. 'Most of them desire some place which is all their own." ‘The roadless and wilder- ness areas would enable "these tribes to maintain a retreat where they might escape from the constant con- tact with white men."120 In much the same spirit, the Commissioner helped Robert Yellowtail, Superintendent of the Crow reserva- tion in Montana,obtain seventyeseven buffalo from Yellow- stone National Park. The Sioux Indians received fifty— four buffalo.121 Superintendent Yellowtail suggested that the aim behind this wildlife program consisted of preserving the buffalo from extinction, turning the reservation into a Sportsman's paradise, and providing 119New York Times, August 17, 1941, p. 8. The Indian arts and crafts enterprise increased from $1,000 a year in 1936 to $8,000 a year during 1940. 120U.S., Department of Interior, Forest Conserva- tion on Lands Administered by the Department of Interior, Part II, Forestry on Indian Lands-(Washington: Govern- lnent Printing Office, 1940), pp. 84-85. 121 New York Times, May 26, 1935, VII, p. 10. 171 22' Although it the tribe with an adequate meat supply.1 was estimated that 400 bison would supply meat for 3,000 persons, Collier supported*the'program'more'because it re-affirmed hiS’policy which'assumedrthat'the Indian possessed a valuable‘culturelof his own.123 The Wheeler-Howard Act established a new economic, political, and social framework to enable the Indian to work out his own salvation. 'The New Deal, however, assisted the Red Man more concretely in the area of Federal relief programs. Commissioner Collier played an important role in this effort which allocated approx- imately seventy million dollars for the Indians between 6.124 1933 and 193 "He edited a series of pamphlets, entitled Indians At Work, which discussed the whole program of Indian relief.125 The Indian New Deal was a microcosm of the regular New Deal in the area of public relief. Separated from the rest of American society, the Indians received separate 122Indians at Work (May 15, 1936), 28—30. 123New York Times, May 26, 1936, VII, p. 10. 12“Bureau of the Budget, Memorandum for the Presi- dent, December 16, 1935, FDRL, File No. 6—C. 125Indians at Work consisted of twelve volumes of pamphlets issued by the Indian Bureau during the New Deal. Anthropologists, conservationists, lawyers and Indian Service personnel contributed feature articles. These pamphlets are difficult reading but contain val- uable information on all aspects of the Indian New Deal. Pictures located throughout the volumeS‘enrich the narra- tive. 172 but equal treatment in matters of government welfare. The Indian relief programs made the Wheeler-Howard Act successful for more than a decade. As the‘regular Indian Service appropriations continually decreased, federal welfare funds and interdepartmental cooperation came to play an essential role in the accomplishments of the Collier adminiStration.126 Under the leadership of Henry Wallace and Rexford Tugwell, the Department of Agriculture used its services 127. to help the Indians whenever possible. Wallace spent many hours at the Cosmos Club, in Washington, D.C., discussing the Indian problem with Commissioner Collier and visited the Pueblos and Navajos, during the spring of 1934, in order to find some way to obtain sub-marginal 128 'He believed that the Indians were 129 "our true subsistence farmers." Assistant Secretary land for them. Tugwell, who appointed a former student to represent him in matters connected with the Indian Bureau, told Collier that he would appreciate your letting me know whenever the Department of Agriculture can be of any assistance in solving 126Bureau of the Budget, Memorandum for the Presi- dent, December 16, 1935, FDRL, File No. 6-C. 127John Collier to Henry A. Wallace, January 6, 1934, NA, RG 16, Records of the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture. 128John Collier to C.E. Faris, May 14. 193“, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1. 129Henry Wallace to John Collier, September 26, 1933, NA, RG 16, Records of the Secretary of Agriculture. a1 F- 173 those questions of Indian development and progress in which we are both SO'interested.13O The Department of Agriculture.aided the Indians on several occasions. The Agricultural Adjustment Adminis- tration gave the Indian cattle industry an impetus through the allocation of $800,000“for the purchase of pure- bred cattle.131 These animals were obtained from white ranchers in drought areas to establish foundation herds 132 on the reservations. In order to reduce the problem of overgrazing on Indian lands, the AAA purchased surplus goats and sheep from the Navajos.133 Experts at the Bureau of Animal Husbandry organized a sheep breeding station in Fort Wingate, New Mexico, to assist the Navajos in obtaining the right kind of wool for their blankets 134 and rugs. The Indians also continued to benefit from the efforts of the Soil Erosion Service after it was 130Rexford Tugwell to John Collier, September 29, 1933, NA, RG 16, Records of the Secretary of Agriculture. 131Annual Report of'the'Secretary‘Of‘AgriCUlture: 1935: p' 119' 132Ibid., 1940, p. 375. The New Deal fostered a great expansion of the Indian beef cattle industry even though it reduced Indian sheep and goats. 'Between 1933 and 1939 the number of Indians owning cattle increased from 8,627 to 16,624, the'size of the herds jumped from 167,373 to 267,551, the money income derived from these cattle expanded from $263,095 to $3,125,326, and the in- come from all Indian livestock jumped from $2,087,000 tc> $5,859,000. 133New York Times, November 11, 1934, IV, p. 6. 13“New York Times, December 15, 1936, p. 27- 174 transferred from the Interior to the Department of Agri- 135 culture. Collier suggested that this interdepartmental cooperation was "epoch making, for many tribes, and of practical help to IndianS’everywhere."136 The Indians received their first chance to partici- pate in the public relief program of the New Deal when 1 Collier persuaded Robert Fechner to include them in the Civilian Conservation Corps.137 On June 20, 1933, $5,875,000 .md‘m": was assigned to the Indian Service for conservation relief at seventy-two Indian work camps spread over fifteen states. On the reservations this relief agency became known as the Indian Emergency Conservation Work. It was Similar to the CCC, but run by the Indian Service. The three types of camps'established for the Indians included a permanent camp for single men, a camp where Indians lived in their homes, and.a family camp where workers brought in their families and lived.as they did in their summer hogans. The benefits obtained from the IECW con— Sisted of erosion and rodent control, the construction of fire trails, fences, reservoirs, wells and dams. Indians were given preference in filling all jobs. Week- end leadership conferences helped the Indians learn skills such as the running”of'mechanized equipment and 135Harold Ickes to Rexford Tugwell, June 22, 1934, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1. 136Indians at Work (October 15, 1935), 1-6. 137Ibid. (June 15, 1936), 22. 175 the principles of land management. About 77,000 Indians gained employment, between 1933 and 1939, at a salary of thirty dollars a month.138 'The massive amount of conservation work accomplished by the IECW paralleled the back—to—the—land movement initiated by the Wheeler- Howard Act. Collier believed that the Indians had become "trail blazers and banner bearers in the nationwide conservation movement."139 On May 12, 1933, Congress authorized a half-billion dollars in relief money to be channeled by the Federal government through state and local agencies. Harry Hop- kins, director of the Federal Emergency Relief Adminis- tration, addressed a letter on November 7, 1934, to all state relief administrators with orders that "the Indians should be eligible on the same basis aS‘whites for any "lLiO phase of your program. Oklahoma Indians paid by FERA built road and bridge projects.lul Other Indians made surveys of their land.142 138J.P. Kinney, "I.E.C.W. On Indian Reservations," Journal of Forestgy, XXXI (December, 1933), 911-913, Anony- mous, "C.C.C. Activities for Indians," Monthly Labor Review, IXL (July, 1939), 94-95, and Anonymous, "Indians in C.C.C. Camps," Missionary Review of the World, LVI (December, 1933), 611. For an average day at camp consult L.C. Schroeder, "Indian Conservation Camps,"'Recreation, XXVIII (August, 1934), 249-252. 139Indians at Work (April, 1939), 2-3- 140 Ibid. (November 15, 1934), 35. lulNew York Times, November 28, 1933, p. 2. lLI2U.S., Treasury Department, Combined Statement of Receipts and Expenditures, 1934, 110. 176 In addition to state and local relief, FERA developed new programs of its own. One such experiment was the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation which purchased surplus commodities to meet relief needs. Hopkins reluctantly included the Navajos in this program after receiving a protest letter'from Collier stressing the feasibility of using surplus Navajo goats and sheep for relief pur- poses.lu3 The Commissioner then made‘arrangements with the Navajo Tribal Council to sell 49,052 sheep and 147,787 goats to the FSRC for $250,000. Collier explained to the Navajos that the loss of income incurred by this reduction would be relieved by wage work provided by relief agencies such as the Civilian.Conservation Corps. The meat was distributed to needy Indians in the Northern Plains states.1M This purchase greatly assisted the erosion control program by reducing overgrazing. The FSRC also made arrangements whereby cattle were turned over to the Indians for the purpose of establishing foundation herds.lu5 The Indians received salaries from the Federal jpayroll when President Roosevelt authorized Harry Hopkins, lL‘3John Collier to Harry Hopkins, June 16, 1934, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1. 1““Annual Report‘ofthe‘SeCI‘GtEEY0f Interior, 1935, pp. 124-125. lL‘SIbid. 177 on November 23, 1933, to establish the Civil Works Admin- istration, which employed 4,423 Indian men and women through the winter of 1934.1”6 They repaired government and tribal buildings, improved Indian homes, dug wells, built roads, evaluated the economic and social conditions on the reservations, helped in clerical work, and made 147 clothes for members of the tribe. During January 1934, CWA hired fifteen Indian artists to paint murals on government buildings and twenty five craftsmen to manufacture rugs, pottery and jewelry to be placed at Indian Service buildings as a stimulant to native cultural“8 The Public Works Administration established in June 1933, with an appropriation of $3.3 billion, under Title II of the National Industrial Recovery Act, proved to be extremely valuable in improving the physical conditions on the reservations. Directed by Harold Ickes, it built new day schools, roads, irrigation projects, and sewer 149 systems for the Indians. Plans were drawn for the PWA to construct thirteen new hospitals and to remodel seven old hospitals in order to check the spread of tubercu— 150 10515 and trachoma. This recovery agency stimulated lu6lndians at Work (December 15, 1933), 3-4. lu7lbido (February 15, 193M), EUd (December 15, 1933)) 3-4. lu8New York Times, January 21, 1934, IV, p. 6. luglndians at Work (June 15, 1935), 8- 150 New York Times, September 23, 1934, XII, p. 9. 178 arts and crafts by building several museums for the demon- 151 stration and marketing of Indian products. Native artists, employed by PWA, painted murals on Indian Service 152 Ickes engaged the services of the archi- buildings. tectural firm of Mayers, Murray, and Phillip from New York to construct buildings in the Pueblo and Mission styles of the Southwest. One.example consisted of an adobe type community center which made up part of the new Navajo capital under construction at Window Rock, Arizona.153 Funds provided under Title II of the NIRA also enabled Ickes to set up a Subsistence Homestead Division in the Department of Interior. He earmarked over $400,000 for five subsistence Indian homesteads at the request of 15" These villages were established the Indian Bureau. for landless Indians living on the outskirts of small towns, such as the Hill Indians, who formerly worked in the smelters at Great Falls, Montana, but who since 151New York Times, August 17, 1941, X, p. 8. 152Indians at Work (February 15, 1934), 31-32. 153Department of Interior, Press Release, August 22, 1933, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 1, and Newspaper Clipping, "Window Rick Site for the Navajo Capitol," NA, RG 316, Series I, Item 49, File on the Wheeler-Howard bill. 15”Indians at Work (November 15, 1934), 37-38. The five homesteads were located in Burns, Oregon, Great Falls, Montana, Chilocco, Oklahoma, Rosebud,South Dakota, and Northern California. Ibid. (December 15, 1933), 7-8. 179 the depression had lived on the verge of starvation in huts of poles and flattened tin cans.155 During the Spring of 1935, Congress authorized the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act. 'This law per- mitted the President to Spend nearly five billion dollars at his own discretion. Over $1.4 billion was released to the Works Progress Administration and over $800 million to the Department of‘Agriculture.156 After negotiations with Harry Hopkins and Rexford Tugwell, in June 1935, Commissioner Collier submitted to the Emergency Relief Council a.request for fifteen million dollars for Indian rehabilitation. ‘Negotiations with the WPA and Resettlement Administration led to the understanding that the funds, when granted, would relieve the WPA of responsibility for providing work relief for Federal ward Indians. Instead, the RA would cooperate with the Indian Office in carrying out the rehabilitation program. During-July 1935; Collier reformulated his relief request at the suggestion.of Tugwell. He increased the amount of money needed to $16.5 million, in order to cover an.administrativerexpense-approved-by the Reset— tlement Administration. The delay due to this re-allocation of work relief appropriations deprived Collier of the 155New York Times, July 15, 1934, IV, p.2. 156Willian E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin Roosevelt and.the New Deal (N.Y.: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 130. 180 opportunity to present the project before the Emergency Relief Council. As a result, the Indians received no appropriations.157 The Commissioner attempted to remedy this situation by sending letters of protest to Harold Ickes, Henry A. Wallace, Rexford Tugwell, and Harry Hopkins. He sug— gested that the denial of Indian rehabilitation funds would "immediately lead to the most acute hardship among the Indians . . . and to political repercussions that might be disasterous to the whole Indian program."158 Collier then proposed that there beza conference between a representative of the Resettlement Administration and Works Progress Administration looking toward some solu- tion to the dilemma. This intervention by Collier enabled the Indians to share in some of the relief benefits inaugurated by the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act. The WPA hired Indians on projects near the reservations and employed about 2,500 Indians annually.159 Maps and documents, 157John Collier to Henry Wallace, September 18, 1935, NA, RG 16, Office File of the Secretary of Agricul- ture. 158Ibid., and John Collier to Harry Hopkins and Rexford Tugwell, September 18, 1935, NA, RG 16, Office File of the Secretary of Agriculture. 159Donald Howard,'The‘W.P.A. and Federal Relief Polic ‘(N.Y.: The Russel Sage Foundation, 1942), pp. 297— 29 , and the Annual Report'of-the Secretary of Interior, 1936, p. 186. 181 dealing with Indian affairs, were indexed, filed,and recorded.160 As an expression of thanks for relief aid, the Swinomish Indians, in Washington, used WPA funds to carve the portrait of President Roosevelt on a Totem Pole. Young Indians who participated in the National Youth Administration were allowed six dollars a month to help provide for clothing, school supplies and lunches at Indian day schools.162 In New York, the NYA trained Ononadaga Indians to act as counselors for city children during summer vacation. ‘One hundred and seventy men and women received training under this program to bring Indian culture to Children at summer camps.163 The Rehabilitation Division of the Resettlement Administration assisted the Indians in many ways. Rex- ford Tugwell, after negotiations with the Indian Service, agreed to open the Resettlement Administration's program of crop loans, drought relief, and subsistence grants to the Indians.l6u Learning during his tour through the drought country, in 1936, that Indians had started 160Annual Report of the Secretary Of Interior, 1939, pp,’62_6u° 161New York Times, August 22, 19385 p. 15' 162Annual Report of the Secretary of Interior, 1939, pp. 62-64. 163New York Times, April 24, 1938, II, p. 4. 164 Indians at Work (August 15, 1936), 5. 182 to drink from green stagnant pools left in river beds, he ordered RA funds released for the purpose of digging new wells on reservations in North and South Dakota.165 The RA also took over the land purchase program of FERA. By 1937, it had purchased 993,673 acres of land 66 Part of for the Indians at a cost of $2,655,145.1 this purchase included 867,552 acres of grazing land for the Pueblo and Navajo Indians on the Rio Grande 167 watershed in New Mexico. During September 1935, the President allotted $1,738,660 for thirty-eight rehabilitation projects on Indian reservations.l68' In February 1936, the RA appro- priated $1,396,750 more to finance the rehabilitation of many Indians through grants for selfehelp projects. Some of these projects included the development of can- ning kitchens, root cellars, sewing centers, and the construction of barns, community centers,and low—cost 169 housing. Particular emphasis was placed on the 165New York Times, July 18, 1936, p. l, and New York Times, August 5, 1936, p. 1. 166Annual Report of the Secretary of Interior, 19373 p' 205' 167 168 New York Times, February 27, 1936, p. l. New York Times, September 25, 1935, p. 5. 169Aubrey Williams to Franklin Roosevelt, November 4, 1936, FDRL, File No. 6—C. Indian home extension products increased rapidly under the RA program. Between 1936 and 1937 the number of units of fruits, vegetables, and meats canned increased from 765,051 to 1,898,579. The number of pieces of clothing made under the auspices 183 development of a number of communities similar to pre- vious subsistence homestead plans. Compact groups of houses,with the garden tracts communally cultivated, were set up on reservations in California, North and South Dakota, Washington, Oklahoma,and Arizona. In order to complete this program, $1,055,000 was secured in 1938 from the Farm Security.Administration.170 Secretary Ickes and Commissioner Collier were proud of the accomplishments of the Indian New Deal in the area of conservation and public relief. Collier believed that it was the Indians "who have best proved "171 Sec— the efficacy of public works in a depression. retary Ickes expressed the sentiment of the Department of Interior, on December 19, 1935, in a letter to the President. Ickes told Roosevelt.that he had been "a real White Father to the Indians and they appreciated "172 it deeply. .The Secretary prophesized that "your administration will go.down in history as the most humane and far seeing with respect to the Indians that this country has ever had."173 of the home extension groups jumped from 142,710 to 182,415. Annual Report of the Secretary of Interior, 1936, pp. 184—185, Ibid., 1939, P. 33. 170Ibid., 193?. pp. 220-221, 1938, p. 230. 171Indians at Work (June 15, 1935), p. 2. 172Harold Ickes to Franklin Roosevelt, December 19, 1935, FDRL, File No. 6-C. 173Ibid. 184 Intermeshed with the positive Side of the conserva— tion and public relief program were many shortcomings and failures. Jacob Morgan, a member of the Navajo Tribal Council, pointed out that large doses of public work grants only resulted in a serious detriment to the health of the Indians. He complained that since the money has begun to flow into the hands of the Navajo working class . . . bootlegging and other forms of crime were on the increase and groups of men have formed the habit of going Into Gallup and other towns to buy booze.l7 A newspaper criticized the IECW camps for wasting on unnecessary personnel and useless equipment, money which was due to the Indians for their labors.175 An article in Collier's Indians at Work suggested that, except for a few reservations in the Southwest, land conservation was generally spotty and had reached little more than the planning stage.176 Some relief agencies achieved only mixed success in helping the Indian.' The W.P.A. and N.Y.A. programs were beneficial but pitifully inadequate. Charles Young, Supervisor of Indian Rehabilitation, concluded that the Resettlement Administration had enabled over 900 Indian families to construct new homes and farm buildings on l7”John Collier to Thomas Dodge, February 4, 1935, NA, RG 75, File on J. C. Morgan. 175Newspaper Clipping, "Indians Get Small Part of Conservation Cash in the Southwest," NA, RG 316, Series I, Item 49, File on the Wheeler—Howard bill. 176Indians at Work (September-October, 1944), p. 13° 185 unimproved land previously leased to whites. Yet, the home improvement program was inadequate, for on many reservations Indians still lived in tents and shacks. Young estimated that 73% of the Indian families needed 177 new or improved housing. But these setbacks were minor considering the frustration Collier would face in the future. 177Ibid. (May—June, 1945), pp. 18-20. CHAPTER V FRUSTRATION Although the Indian New Deal brought many advan- tages to the Indians, their response thwarted many of John Collier's goals. The Navajos, upset over administra- tive changes and stock reduction, refused to ratify the Wheeler-Howard Act that was the keystone of his program. Mabel Dodge Luhan stirred Taos Pueblo into open resistance over the appointment of a woman superintendent. Nation- ally the conservative American Indian Federation was gaining support for its demands that Collier resign and the Indian Bureau die. As for the whole New Deal, 1937 was a disasterous year for Collier. Mounting opposition to his reforms gained adherents among opponents of Roosevelt's court- packing proposal when Collier was so indiscreet as to support it publicly. Senator Burton K. Wheeler, who broke with Roosevelt over the court issue, joined with Senator Lynn Frazier in demanding repeal of his Wheeler- Howard Act. Their move failed.but Indian reform lost momentum rapidly until, in 1941, it was possible to transfer the Bureau to Chicago on the claim that its office space was needed for activities more vital to defense. 186 187 One of the leaders of social change during the New Deal, Collier personally rejected what he termed "the shallow and unsophisticated individualism‘. . . which was the View and ambition of the Babbits of twenty years ."1 Instead, he supported the introduction of con- ago scious planning in order to start the economic and spiri- tual rebirth of the country. Convinced that the reser- vations offered an excellent testing ground for programs such as the prevention of soil erosion, subsistence farm- ing, and planned community living, Collier believed that the Indians and their lands could become "pioneers and laboratories in this supreme new American adventure now being tried under the leadership of the President."2 One of the Commissioner's first actions to promote conservation consisted of introducing grazing control and land management on the reservations. 'In 1933, he sent a joint committee headed by Hugh Bennet, director of the Bureau of Chemistry and Soil for the Department of Agriculture, to study conditions on the Navajo reser- vation. This committee submitted a report which supplied the first area plan for the prevention of soil erosion on Indian land. It also laid one of the foundations for 1Indians at Work (December 1, 1934), 36. 2Indians at Work (September 15, 1933), 1-5. 188 for the nationwide conservation movement which culminated in the Soil Conservation Service.3 The National Resources Board, established on June 30, 1934, paralled the efforts of the Soil Conservation Service. An Indian unit of the NRB reported, in a series of surveys on land improvement and relief, the inade- quacies of Indian land resources. It estimated how much more land and equipment the various reservations needed in order to enable the Indians to maintain a decent standard of living. Collier believed that the method of the NRB was more important than the information it compiled because this method drove home the reality that America must order her future and provided the "technician a tremendous opportunity for . . . enormous improvement through prac- tical perservering economic and social planning."u Collier's awareness of the concept of technicians running American society supports Richard Hofstader's thesis that the New Deal marked a new departure in Ameri- can politics which attempted to achieve a managerial 5 reorganization of society. Yet, Hofstader makes too clear a distinction between the moralistic mentality of the Progressive period and the pragmatic temper of the 3Indians at Work (May 15, 1936), 3. ”Annual Report of the Secretary of Interior, 1935, pp. 141-144, and Indians at Work (January 1, 1934), 1—3. 5Richard Hofstader, The Age of Reform (New York: Random House, 1955), pp. 302-328. 189 thirties. Collier is a good example of a person who was both a sentimental idealist and a social planner. The New Deal was saturated with more moral fervor than most historians have assumed. Hugh Bennet found that conditions on the Navajo reservation threatened the surrounding white community. About Sixty percent of the silt deposited in the Colorado River eroded from the Navajo land. This silt load threat- ened the usefulness of Boulder Dam and consequently the whole economy of Southern California. After studying the Bennet report, Collier warned the Navajo Tribal Council, at its annual meeting during July 1933, that if its range was to be saved from further erosion, it must cut down sharply the number of sheep, goats, and horses. In addition, the Navajos must redis- tribute range privileges, fence off grazing areas for soil experimentation, and start an intensive revival of subsistence irrigation farming.7 The Tribal Council adopted this program, but Collier's conservation effort caused a great amount of friction in a tribe that measured social 6John Collier, Memorandum for Secretary Ickes, May 7, 1936, National Archives, Record Group 75, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Envelope III. Subsequent situations from the National Archives will be abbreviated with the letters NA, RG, and the title of the file of the record group. 7John Collier, "Indians at Work," Survey Graphic, XXIII (June, 1934), 260-265, and The Progress of Indian Affairs, 1933-1936 (Washington: Mimeographed, 1937), pp. 57-58. 190 status in terms of domestic stock. Conflict and turmoil became the normal situation on the reservation for the next twelve years. Four months later, on October 30, 1933, Collier submitted a Specific program to the Tribal Council which called for a proposed reduction of 400,000 sheep and goats. He told the Navajos that the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation had allotted about $250,000 for the immediate purchase of 150,000 goats and that the loss of income incurred by this reduction would be relieved by wage work provided by relief agencies. The Tribal Council promised to discuss the program with the people. Unfortunately, Collier, by handling rather badly this first attempt at stock reduction, only convinced the Indians of the validity of their distrust of Wash- ington. By reducing the Navajo stock on a flat rather than a graduated scale, he ignored the minimum number of animals needed by a family for subsistence. While the wealthy Navajos culled their herds and'eliminated worthless stock, many small owners found their herds completely inadequate. A similar reduction in the goat population deprived families of an indispensable source of milk.9 81bid. 9Alden Stevens, "Once They were Nomads," Survey Graphic, XXX (February, 1941), 64-67. 191 In March 1934, the Bureau again brought the problem of sheep reduction before the Tribal Council. Collier and James Steward, chief of the Indian Office-Land Divi- sion, promised the Council delegates that the speedy stock reduction of 150,000 goats would insure the passage of the Navajo Boundary bill which called for the exten- sion of Navajo lands in New Mexico and Arizona. Early in April, the delegates adopted this reduction plan but insisted that families with herds of less than 100 sheep or goats be omitted from the program. After this meeting Chee Dodge, an important Navajo leader, wrote to Harold Ickes asking how Collier could promise passage of the Navajo Boundary bill when such an event depended on the action of Congress. Dodge warned the Secretary that "such promises made and failure to keep them tends to break down the confidence of the Indians and arouse sus- picion against the government."10 Between the spring of 1934 and 1935 the Bureau eliminated 212,000 sheep and goats while Congress defeated the Navajo Boundary extension bill promised by Collier and Steward at the March, 1934 Council meeting. Unfor- tunately, these developments and the discussion at the same time of the Wheeler—Howard Act, caused a great deal of bewilderment among the Navajos.ll lOChee Dodge to Harold Ickes, April 26, 1935, NA, RG 75, Records Concerning the Wheeler-Howard Act. llJohn Collier, Memorandum for Secretary Ickes, June 6, 1936, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. The Navajo 192 Under the terms of the Wheeler-Howard Act, Indian tribes had to decide by a referendum whether they wanted to come under the provisions of the measure. Jacob Morgan, an Indian missionary to the Northern Navajos, provoked suspicion against the Wheeler-Howard Act on the Navajo reservation. Extremely upset over the Commissioner's policy of religious tolerance and his recognition of Indian religions, Morgan traveled the reservation falsely telling the Navajos thata vote against the Act would prevent any further reduction in their flocks.l2 On June 16, 1935, the Navajos defeated the Wheeler- Howard Act by a vote of 8,214 to 7,795. ”Roman Hubbell, a Navajo trader, explained to Collier some of the reasons for the defeat of the bill. The Northern and Eastern Navajos opposed the measure because they were misinformed by missionaries who told them that more livestock reduc- tion would come only if they voted for the Act. Hubbell believed that the Western Navajos voted for the measure because of their isolation from white interference. This analysis was partly correct, for the Northern Navajo .jurisdiction had voted against the Act because it came IBoundary bill passed the Senate on May 28, 1935, but was :restored to the calendar at the request of Senator Chavez (Hi the grounds that he have an opportunity to familiar- ize himself with its contents. Chavez had just replaced Iaronson Cutting who favored the passage of the bill. Cut- ‘ting;died in an airplane crash on May 10, 1935. 12Memorandum, J. C. Morgan, Farmington, New Mexico, 1937} NA, RG 75, File on Morgan and Palmer. 193 13 under the sway of Jacob Morgan and white missionaries. But Hubbell failed to point out that the Eastern juris- diction opposed the measure because it was the area most affected by the failure of the Navajo Boundary extension bill. Many Indians were resentful of Collier because he had failed to live up to his promise of extending the boundary of the reservation if they reduced their herds. The Navajo rejection of the Wheeler-Howard Act disappointed Collier. He sent a message to them on July 21, 1935, regretting the fact that so many had voted against the reform to avoid further stock reduc- tion, but promising that the tribe's action with respect to the Act would not deter the government from helping the Navajos in every possible way. Yet their action, he warned, would deprive them of an important source of income. Adoption of the Act would have entitled the tribe during the 1936 fiscal year to a million dollars in grants and loans: $648,000 from the revolving credit fund, $37,770 for tribal organization, $259,200 from the land purchase fund, and $49,050 from the student loan fund.lu Conservation efforts continued even though the Navajos rejected the Wheeler-Howard Act. Within the l3Roman Hubbel to John Collier, June 16, 1935, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. 1“John Collier, A Message to the Navajo People, .Iune 21, 1935, NA, RG 75, Navajo Documents from Commis- sioner Collier's File, No. 14-27. 194 reservation, Collier created land management districts with authority to set the maximum carrying capacity for livestock. This order ended by warning the Navajos that if after a reasonable time the tribe failed to reduce herds sufficiently to end the overgrazing of the tribal range, the Commissioner "would take such action as he may deem necessary to bring about such a reduction or to establish such management plan in order to protect the interests of the Navajo people."15 Conflicting with Collier's pronouncement that compulsion would not be used to recast the economic and social life of the Navajos, it resembled the arbitrary orders given by the Bureau during the twenties. The antagonism aroused by the stock reduction program never completely subsided during the New Deal. When the Fruitland irrigation project was started east of Shiprock in 1933, a representative of the Bureau told the Navajos that each family would receive twenty acres of land. Many Indians readily agreed to the suggestion that they donate one day of free labor each week until the completion of the project. .But on April 15, 1936, at a meeting near Shiprock, Superintendent E. R. Fryer told the Navajos that new orders from Collier called l5John Collier, Regulations Affecting the Carrying Capacity and Management of the Navajo Range, November 5, 1935, NA, RG 75, Navajo Documents from Commissioner Collier's File, No. 14-27. 195 for the allotment of only ten acres instead of twenty, and anyone accepting the ten acres must dispose of his sheep and goats.16 The Indian Bureau had changed its position because the extreme shortage of irrigated land on the reservation made it unjustifiable to supply a few Indians with large tracts for commercial farming while leaving hundreds of Navajos without land.17 No matter what the justification, many Indians were incensed over what they considered to be the failure of Collier to keep faith with them about the promised twenty acres. The efforts by a white attorney Paul B. Palmer, a Republican County Committee Chairman who had affilia- tions with the San Juan Stock Growers Association, and Jacob Morgan, an Indian missionary, against the stock reduction program continued to keep the Navajo reserva- tion in a state of turmoil.18 During 1937, Morgan and Palmer led a group of Navajos before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs where they demanded the removal of Collier.19 Both men also attempted to dissuade the 16J. C. Morgan to Harold Ickes, May 15, 1936, NA, RG 75, File on J. C. Morgan. 17Harold Ickes to J. C. Morgan, June 1, 1936, NA, RG 75, File on J. C. Morgan. 18Newspaper Clipping, Times Hustler, August 20, 1937, LNA, RG 75, File on Morgan and Palmer,.and John Collier to Iiarold Ickes, May 9, 1939, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 2. In 1939, Palmer was accused of fraudulent use of the town funds zit Farmington, New Mexico, and fired from his position of town clerk. 19Newspaper Clipping, Washington Post, June 18, 1937, IJA, RG 75, File on J. C. Morgan-stock reduction. 196 Navajos from dipping their sheep to remove scabies. This led to the unpopular arrest of three Indians by the Bureau. More unrest stemmed from an order by the Tribal Coun- cil, during 1938, directing that the tribe reduce its horse population from 70,000 to 30,000, in order to make room for more sheep on the range. Collier did not help matters by suggesting that horse reduction would not "injure the economic royalists of the tribe but it will "21 benefit greatly the Navajos as a whole. Confusion and resistance to stock reduction by Navajo livestock owners grew to such proportions by 1941 that Secretary Ickes asked the President to intervene in the crisis. Roosevelt warned the Navajos that in order to prevent soil erosion they must make the necessary sacrifices to reduce their sheep, goats, and horses. The President suggested that the Indians cooperate with the government and abide by the laws and regulations passed by the Tribal 22 Council. This intervention calmed the unrest on the reservation, but Collier's success with the Navajo tribe 20E. R. Fryer to the Commissioner, Western Union .Night Letter, August 8, 1937, NA, RG 75, File on Morgan and Palmer. leewspaper Clipping, Santa Fe New Mexican, February 19, 1938, NA, RG 75, File on Mrogan and Palmer. 22Franklin Roosevelt to the Navajo People, June 19, 1941, FDRL, File No. 296. Eleanor Roosevelt also tried to help the Navajos by discussing their dilemma in her column "My Day," Newspaper Clippings, Washington Daily News, NA, RG 75, File on Navajo Stock Reduction. 197 during the New Deal was minimal because the struggle over stock reduction dwarfed all other issues. The Navajos were not Collier's only problem: he also faced frustration among the Pueblos. The center of opposition stemmed from Taos Pueblo under the influence of Mabel Dodge Luhan, a close friend of the Commissioner for over twenty-five years. It is difficult to explain Mrs. Luhan's motives for turning against Collier. Part of the problem revolved around the use of peyote at Taos and the appointment of a woman as superintendent of the newly formed United Pueblos Agency. But Collier believed that the struggle over land monopolization by certain families made up the essence of the conflict, not the use of peyote. In 1934, some Indians at Taos had received land parcelled out within the Tenorio Tract. Most of this land had already passed into the control of the Luhan family. This development irritated Collier and he issued an order stopping government irrigation work on the Tenorio Tract until the Taos officers agreed to an equitable distribution of land use rights for land— ‘poor Indians. The confiscation of irrigated land in the peyote matter was probably retaliation by the Taos offi— 23 cers against Collier's order. 23John Collier, Manuscript on the Pueblos, May 22, 1936, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. 198 The first manifestation of unrest occured at Taos over the use of peyote by the Native American Church. Embittered hostility toward the peyote group existed on the part of the Antonio Luhan and Antonio Mirabal families. Antonio Luhan was the Indian husband of Mabel Dodge Luhan, who had urged Collier to visit Taos pueblo in 1920. Throughout the peyote episode Antonio Mirabal received advice and cooperation from the Luhan family. The crisis started in 1936 when Antonio Mirabal,displaying his Federal law-enforcement badge and his gun, entered a house where a peyote ceremony was about to start. Mirabal placed his gun at the chest of John Reynal, the cere- monial leader, and confiscated the supply of peyote. The men participating in the religious rite were then arrested and confined in the Taos community jail. This action was illegal because no Federal law prohibited the use of peyote.2u A trial was held at a council meeting directed by the Mirabal and Luhan families. Mirabal acted as prose— cutor and fined the peyote cultists $100 each. Because they did not have the money, Mirabal confiscated approxi- mately 300 acres of their irrigated land. He also added a charge of witchcraft because the peyote men could not 2“John Collier, Memorandum for Secretary Ickes, June 1, 1936, MSS; YUL, Drawer 2. 199 "un-witch" a psychotic named Alvino Montoya. This meant that the peyote men faced re-imprisonment.25 Collier became extremely upset over this turmoil and traveled to Taos in order to restore the "status quo gage." In June the Commissioner met with the Governor and council at Taos to explain that freedom of conscience must be respected. He proposed a compromise between the 130 members of the Native American Church and the 630 other Indians which would re—affirm religious liberty but set certain limitations on the activities of the peyote—using sect. For example, they must conduct ser- vices at a remote location from the village and eschew all proselytizing. Collier left Taos under the assump- tion that both sides had accepted his formula for a res- toration of peace.26 The Commissioner was badly mistaken, for the Taos officers refused to cease their opposition to the peyote group. On September 18, 1936, Collier sent a letter to Secretary Ickes recommending drastic action against the Taos officers. He suggested that Ickes should inform the Governor that if the confiscated lands were not returned to the peyote group, Section 17 of the Pueblo Lands Act, of June 7, 1924, would be used to prohibit 25Ibid. 26John Collier, Memorandum for Secretary Ickes, June 24, 1936, NA, RG 75, File on Taos-Peyote Warfare. 200 the transfers of land. Collier also advised the Secre- tary to warn Taos that if the persecution of the Native American Church continued, the resources of the Depart- ment of Interior would be used to defend the oppressed minority. Secretary Ickes agreed with the'Commissioner. In September he sent a letter advising the Taos Governor to end all religious persecution and return the confis- cated land.27 In a telegram to Ickes, the Governor of Taos, San- tano Sandoval, pointed out that the officers of Taos could not subscribe to Collier's compromise formula without violating the New Mexico law which prohibited the use of peyote.28 Ickes reacted swiftly to this rebuff by using Section 17 of the Pueblo Lands Act to declare the land transfers void. He ordered the officers of the pueblo to return the confiscated land to the peyote users and to make compensation for any damage or losses caused by the seizure of the land.29 This episode was unfor- tunate for Collier and Ickes because it forced them 27John Collier, Memorandum of Action on the Native American Church Matter at Taos Pueblo, September 18, 1936, NA, RG 75, File on the Navajo-Pueblo Boundary Hearings, and Department of the Interior, Memorandum for the Press, October 25, 1936, NA, RG 75, File on the Navajo-Pueblo Hearings. 28Santano Sandoval to Harold Ickes, Western Union Day Letter, October 21, 1936, NA, RG 75, File on Navajo— Pueblo Boundary Hearings. 29Department of the Interior, Memorandum for the Press, October 25, 1936, NA, RG 75, File on the Navajo- Pueblo Boundary Hearings. 201 to use the arbitrary methods that they had deplored during the Coolidge administration. The peyote controversy made up only part of the turmoil at Taos. During the summer of 1935, the Commis- sioner announced an administrative reorganization of all the pueblos. He consolidated the three existing jurisdic- tions comprising the Northern, Southern, and Zuni Pueblos into a United Pueblo Agency with headquarters in Albu- querque. In place of the three superintendents, Collier appointed Dr. Sophie Aberle as General Superintendent of the United Pueblos. She was well qualified for the position, having lived among the Pueblos for seven years conducting medical and anthropological studies. She was the second woman appointed as a superintendent, the other being Miss Alida Bowler, head of the Western Nevada jurisdiction.30 This appointment irritated Mabel Dodge Luhan, who attempted through her husband to persuade the pueblos that they ought to demand the resignation of their new woman superintendent. The first major attack against Superintendent Aberle came on April 6, 1936, at an All Pueblo Council meeting. The Indians called this meeting in order to discuss the Wheeler-Howard Act, livestock 30Department of the Interior Press Release, May, 1935, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. 202 problems, and soil erosion control. Collier Spoke most 31 of the morning about the above matters. Later in the afternoon two delegates from Taos.requested time to register their complaints about the administration of Superintendent Aberle. Antonio Luhan claimed that the new Taos Day School was empty of furniture and teaching equipment. He objected to the care the older children were receiving at the boarding school in Santa Fe and regretted the fact that several of the girls had returned from the school pregnant. Antonio Mirabal, the other Taos representative, followed Luhan. He remarked that his companion meant that it was very hard to criticize or oppose a woman, "that if they had complaints to make or felt they had to fight, it was impossible to fight a woman."32 After this episode several delegates from other Pueblos claimed satisfaction with the present superintendent. A few days after this event, Collier removed Antonio Mirabal from employment with the Bureau. The Commissioner told Mirabal that what he did as a member of Taos Pueblo was his own concern, "but I don't see how an Agency employee 31Newspaper Clipping, the Santa Fe New Mexican, May 11, 1936, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. 32Mabel Dodge Luhan, letter to the editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican, April 30, 1936, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. 203 can be continued if he is stubbornly opposed to the Superintendent and to Washington‘policies."33 The dismissal of Mirabal only deepened the crisis among the Pueblos. Mrs. Luhan, on May 5, 1936, sent a lengthy letter to the editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican suggesting that the Indians' real motive for calling the April 6 meeting was to complain about the consolidation of the Pueblos under the direction of "an inexperienced wo- man."3u Luhan implied that some of the Indians had testi- fied in favor of Superintendent Aberle because they received money from the government payroll. She ended the letter by indicating that Collier and Aberle had resorted to "po- litical blackmail" by removing Mirabal from government 35 employment . Collier responded to Luhan's attacks in an inter— view with an Associated Press reporter. He claimed that Mrs. Luhan's statements were false because the govern- ment employed only three of the seventeen representatives to the A11 Pueblo Council and two of those received sal- aries only as interpreters. He suggested that Luhan's criticism stemmed from the fact that she‘had expected 'to have a great influence in Pueblo affairs when he 33John Collier to Antonio Mirabal, April 21, 1936, (Hallier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. 3“Mabel Dodge Luhan, letter to the editor of the Seulta Fe New Mexican, May 5, 1936, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9- 35Ibid. 204 36 became Commissioner. Collier believed that Luhan wanted to run the show, and not from behind the curtains, until that point was reached where we had to tell her we couldn't let ha? run the Show, least of all at Taos Pueblo. Luhan's attack in the Santa Fe New Mexican came while seventeen representatives of the All Pueblo Council were visiting Washington. Nine leaders of this dele- gation replied to Luhan's accusations by signing a state- ment supporting Superintendent Aberle. They also rejected "the insulting statement that the delegates and officers were influenced by government money."38 Not all of the Pueblos supported Collier. The Tribal Council at Zuni joined Taos in its opposition to Superintendent Aberle because it was upset over being included in the consolidated Pueblo Agency. Before the New Deal they had had a Superintendent of their own. Stock reduction and range control also upset many Zunis.39 On May 11, 1936, Mrs. Luhan continued her assault against the Collier administration by demanding that 36Statement by Commissioner Collier to the Associated Press Reporter in an Interview, May 12, 1936, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. 37John Collier to Joe, May 15, 1936, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 2. 38Newspaper Clipping, the Santa Fe New Mexican, May 11, 1936, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. 39Newspaper Clipping, the Albuquerque Journal, May 13, 1936, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9, and Statement to the Associated Press by Commissioner Collier, May 13, 1936, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. 205 Secretary Ickes investigate conditions in New Mexico. She suggested that Collier was "enslaving the Indians in a wage system," and that Dr. Aberle had instituted "a spy system and Indian employees were in a state of tension, fearing that they will.1ose their jobs."140 Mrs. Luhan then sent a list of grievances to Senator Elmer Thomas, chairman of the subcommittee on Indian Affairs.L41 Thomas called a hearing at Santa Fe in August at which Antonio Mirabal and Albert Martinez explained that the Indians at Taos resisted Superintendent Aberle because she was a woman. They disliked Collier's attempts to prevent the suppression of peyote at the Pueblo. Dissatisfaction also existed.over the lack of furniture and adequate teaching material in theinew day school. Indian girls were becoming pregnant at the unsupervised Santa Fe Boarding School.142 Collier appeared before the subcommittee and refuted most of the charges of the two Taos Indians. He told the Senators that he intervened in the.peyote matter, not to coerce the Indians, but to help them settle their differences. Seven of the eight pregnancies at the Santa Fe Boarding School originated during vacation uoNewspaper Clipping, the Albuquerque Tribune, May 11, 1936, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. ulMabel Dodge Luhan to Senator Elmer Thomas, May 22, 1936, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. uzNewspaper Clipping, the Santa Fe New Mexican, Aug— ust 21, 1936, Collier MSS; YUL, Drawer 9. 206 when the girls were at home. The Commissioner admitted that the Taos Day School, built with PWA funds, lacked the necessary equipment and teachers. Appropriations lagged behind construction and even the Indian Service at Washington "had no instant power to speed up either equipment or teacher supply.“43 ‘Collier also defended Superintendent Aberle by stressing that all the Pueblos except Taos and Zuni, which objected to the administra- tive consolidation program, had supported Aberle at the All Pueblo Council meetings. The whole Luhan episode proved abortive for Col- lier. It threatened to ruin his relationship with the Pueblos. Antonio Mirabal and Antonio Luhan, two of his staunch supporters during the twenties, became opponents. The Commissioner failed to use much political discretion when he fired Mirabal for opposing his policies on peyote. The appointment of a woman superintendent over the juris- diction where Mabel Dodge Luhan resided also created need- less hurdles. The most vocal opposition to Collier emanated from the American Indian Federation, which organized on August 27, 1934, at Gallup, New Mexico, to institute "a great Indian justice movement."uu Indians from all parts of the u3Statement by Commissioner Collier, August 24, 1936, NA, RG 75, File on Taos-Peyote Warfare. uuNewspaper Clipping, Southwest Tourist News, Septem- ‘ber 12, 1934, NA, RG 75, File on Alice Lee Jemison. 207 country hostile to Collier's reforms joined this Federa— tion, which had headquarters in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. Its three major Indian leaders included Joseph Bruner, Presi- dent, Alice Lee Jemison, New York District President, and O. K. Chandler, Chairman of the National Committee on Americanism.“5 Chandler, not Bruner,was the real driving force behind the Federation. He had been dismissed at an earlier date from the Indian Service for illegal trade with the Indians while Superintendent of the Quapaw Agency in Oklahoma. When Collier refused to reinstate him, Chandler turned his full venom against the Indian New Deal.”6 In December the Federation set forth many of its primary goals in a "Memorial by American Indians to the President and Congress of the United States." This "Memorial" criticized the Wheeler-Howard Act, requested that Collier be removed from office, and denounced the Commissioner for attempting "to segregate the Indian, keep him an Indian, not an American citizen." The uSThe 1936 Convention of the American Indian Federa- tion, NA, RG 75, File on the American Indian Federation, 1933-1937. J. C. Morgan, an Indian missionary of the Navajo tribe, became the First Vice President of the Federation. Thomas Dodge, chairman of the Navajo Tribal Council, repudiated his activities. Dodge told Collier that Morgan had received no authority to speak for or represent the Navajo tribe. ”6Floyd W. La Rouche, American Indian Federation Holds an Annual Convention, NA, RG 75, File on the Ameri- can Indian Federation, Convention at Salt Lake City, Utah, 1936. 208 Federation also claimed that the self—government provi- sions contained in the Wheeler—Howard Act would make the Indian Bureau "the dispenser of Russian communistic life in the United States."u7 Collier refuted this "Memorial" in a lengthy letter sent to Will Rogers, chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs. He called the Federation a "fake organi— zation which did not speak for or represent the American Indians." .The Commissioner suggested that the real motive behind the Federation's attack was a desire to prevent the re-establishment of protections which "would safe- guard Indian lands and funds against the onslaught of white exploiters."u8 The mentality of the Federation became clear at an annual convention held on July 23-25, 1936, at Salt Lake City. This convention devoted all of its time to matters such as the dangers of Communism, the decline of Chris- tianity, and attacks against Collier. There were approxi- mately one hundred pamphlets spread on two large tables at the convention. Only a few of these publications dealt with Indian matters. One pamphlet contained a speech by Paul Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Party Chieftain, u70nward to Greater Things, The American Indian Federation, Sapulpa, Oklahoma, A Memorial by American Indians to the President and Congress of the United States, December 21, 1934, NA, RG 75, File on J. C. Morgan. “8John Collier to Will Rogers, February 5, 1935, NA, RG 75, File on J. C. Morgan. 209 called "Communism with the Mask Off." Others included a Federation publication "Now Who's Un-American, An Expose of Communism in the United States Government, " and an article by William Henry Chamberlin entitled "Coddling Communism."u9 At first, the Federation was essentially a paper organization with little Indian support. Thirty people attended the 1936 convention in'a hall equipped to seat five hundred persons. Only two of the seven district presidents carried on the rolls of the Federation were present at thisconvention.50 However, after 1938, the Federation gained a great deal of support'by sponsoring a cash claims bill in which Indians would collect $3,000 in final settlement of all prior and future claims against the United States Government. Over 4,600 Indians paid the Federation one dollar to promote this bill. This money only financed a small portion of the Federation's program but the Bureau never discovered its other sources 51 of income. ugList of Books, Pamphlets and Handouts on Display at the Annual Convention-of'the American"Indian‘Fed- eration, Chamber of Commerce Building, Salt Lake City, July 23- -25, 1936, NA, RG 75, File on the American Indian Federation, 1933-1937. 50The 1936 Convention of the American Indian Fed- eration, NA, RG 75, File on the American Indian Federa- tion, 1933-1937- 51Manuscript on the American Indian Federation, NA, RG 75, File on the Silvershirts of America. 210 The American Indian Federation proved to be an effective lobby even though it was directed by a handful of individuals. The House Indian Affairs subcommittee, under the direction'of Congressman Abe“Murdock of Utah, used the testimony of the'Federation to discredit the Collier administration. Members of this subcommittee preferred the abolition of‘the Indian Bureau and rapid assimilation of the Indian into the white community.52 They made it possible for'the Federation to obtain hear- ings which became the forum for'a series of emotional charges against the Commissioner.“The