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Show 118 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. It by no means follows that, because the Department has preaeribed regulations nuder ssotions 16 and 23 of said act for the selection and renting of prospective allotments by the members of the Choctaw and Chiekassw nation., the power of tamtion is thereby taken away from said nations. Indeed, on Janusry 18,1899, the Depsrtment recornended for .%pproval an sot of the speoial session of the council of the Chickasaw Nation, entitled, "An act to provide for 5 more eqnitable permit tax, and for other purposes." Said sot provides that each noncitizen should be required to pay an annual permit tax of $1 for residing within the limits of the Chiekassw Nation, and sn additional tax of 25 cents for eaoh horse, jaek, jennet, mole or bovine, and 5 oents per head for each sheep and goat, exoepthg therefrom certein animals speoified therein. Said act received a favorable recommendation by you and by tbe Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and it was approved by the President on the 19th of the same month. It has been the uniform ruling of the Department that the only royaltiea which the Secretary of the Interior is reonired to eouect snd disburse node1 the smement set out in eectiun 29 of' said art sm the rnyaltiee derived frortr the leasing of mineral Isods. The rhoctawsrtd Chickasaw nationsawehurrcd with thecollocriun of all the other taxes, inolnding the permit taxes required from noncitiesns deairing to reside or do bnainees in ssid nations. Bnainess Permits.-Another important decision has been rendered by the Department in connection with the matter of the wllection of taxes, which relates to the liability of lawyers located in the Creek Nation and practicing in the courts of the United States within the Indian Territory, to the tax of $26 prescribed by Greek laws. In a report dated July 1, 1899, the inspector for the Indian Territory submitted the question and stated that the attorneys in the Creek Nation, espe-cially those living in Muswgee, refused to pay the tax, basing their refusal on a number of grounds, among which were, &st, that the , attorneys are not licensed traders; second, that sections 406 and 430, at Mansfield's Digest of the Laws of Arkansas, in force in the Indian Ter-ritory, prescribed the exclusive rule by which lawyers can be deprived of their rights to practice in the United States courts in the Indian Territory; tbird, that lawyers are officers of the wnrts of the United States for the Indian Territory; fourth, that Muscogee being an incor-porated town, the lands are segregated from the Creek Nation, and the laws of that nation do not apply within its corporate limits; fifth, that the Curtis Act does not authorize the Secretary of the Interior to col-lect permit taxes; sixth, that the requirements as to licensed traders in the Creek Nation has been repealed by act of July 30,1882; seventh, that while the Interior Department may determine who are practicing attorneys and how long they have been practicing their profession in the Indian Territory, the question of whether or not the attorneys are liable to the tax is a judicial question, to be determined only by the court. The matter was submitted to the Department in a report dated July 7, 1899, in which the office took the position, answering speeifieally all of the grounds on which the attorneys based their contention, that said attorneys were liable to the tax, not as licensed traders, but as lawyers, the law of the Greek Nation prescribing a tax of $25 specifically |
