OCR Text |
Show In our former report we recommended a fixed charge be for made7 sheep and cattle crossing the grazing lands of the Indians. This recommendation has not been adopted, and we understand the Department of Agriculture regards It as objectionable, because the Indians graze, free of charge, twelve hundred head of stock on the national Forest. We have expressed our belief that the Indians, as a matter of law, are entitled to the benefioial use of all forest lands formerly within their reservation, but If we are wrong, and the Indians have neither legal nor equitable rights to free grazing privileges on the national Forest, we still assert there is no sufficient compensation to the tribe for permitting free ingress and egress to the national Forest over reserved Indian pastures by the stock of permittees of the Forest Service. If individual Indian owners of stock find it necessary or convenient to make use of the national Forest, charge them for it; but do not oharge it to those members of the Tribe who desire to use the grazing lands set aside for their exclusive benefit. If the grazing lands that have been set aside for the Indians are insufficient for their needs, and it is necessary for them to make use of any part of their former reservation that is now a part of the national Forest, restore It to them* |