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Show REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN A F F ~ S . 83 he department returned the claim to this office, with these instructions : The proof submitted in support of this claim i s considered unsatisfactory, being unable to determine what loss, if any, was sustained by the claimant. Your findings are approved, and yon are directed to submit the matter to the accounting officers of the Treasury Department for such action as they map deem proper. The auditor also disallowed the claim on the ground that the evi-dence was not satisfactory. On appeal, the comptroller overruled the disallowance of the auditor and held that the recommeudation of this office allowing the Gilchrist claim in the sum of $300, was adopted by the Secretary as his findings when he transmitted the claim to the Congress on January 12, 1882, and that "neither the present Commissioner of Indian Affairs nor the Secretary of the In-terior had a right, in the absence of the production of new and material evidence or some error in calculation, to review the decision of their predecessors in allowing the claim against the Kiowas and Coman-ches, and in favor of Wyatt Gilchrist." He was also of opinion that the action taken on this claim by this office in 1881 and by the department in 1882 was not subject to review by the accounting officers. There are about 85 of the Choctaw and Chickasaw claims and sev, era1 thousand other depredation claims, in favor of both citizens and non-citizens, now on file in this office, and they have been pending so long that many of the claimants are dead and can be represented only by heirs or administrators; but attorneys make frequent in-quiry concerning such claims, and many bills are introduced in each Congress to pay those which are barred'by law. Reports on the bills, and the large, miscellaneous correspondence involved, require a great deal of searching of old records in order to.obtain all the facts. For several years a bill has been introduced in each Congress to amend the act of iMarch 3, 1891, so as to make it apply to claims of both citizens and persons who had declared their intention to be-come citizens; also .to strike out the amity clause, which would make the Government liable even though the Indians were on the warpath when the depredations were committed. During the last session of Congress four such bills were introduced in the House and two of them also in the Senate, the most radical being H. R. 11316, which is identical with H. R. 17797 and S. 4440. The purpose of these bills is to amend the first section of paragraph 1 of the act of March 3, 1891, so as to make it read: A11 claims for property of citizens of the United States, or inhabitants thereof who have slow become, or shall hereafter become, or whose heirs are or shall hereafter become, citizens of the United States, taken or destroyed within the. limits of the United States by Indians belonging to any tribe or nation subject |