White House Press Release, Message of President Harry S. Truman to the United States House of Representatives

50 HOLD FOR RELEASE HOLD FOR RELEASE HOLD FOR RELEASE FEBRUARY 10, 1948 CONFIDENTIAL: To be held in STRICT CONFIDENCE and no portion, synopsis or intimation to be given out our pub- lished until the READING of the President's Message has begun in the House of Representatives. Extreme care must therefore be exercised to avoid premature publica. tion. CHARLES G. ROSS Secretary to the President A TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I return herewith without my approval H. R. 3153, To provide for the sale or other disposal of certain submarginal lands located within the boundaries of Indian reservations in the States of Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. " During the drought period of 1932 to 1938 the United States acquired in the drought areas, out of funds appropriated under the statutes referred to in H. R. 31535 approximately 10,000,000 acres of submarginal lands, much of which is suited only for carefully limited and controlled grazing use, Of the submarginal lands BO acquired in the States of Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota, approximately 245,000 acres were in 1938 and 1939 placed by Execu- tive Order under the administrative jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior in order to facilitate their use for the benefit of the Indian tribes occupying reservations in the same localities. The NARA underlying purpose of H. R. 3153 appears to be that of making pro- vision by law for the permanent disposition of these lands, through the transfer to Indian tribal ownership of those lands needed for and adapted to Indian grazing use, through the transfer to individual Indians of those lands needed for and adapted to Indian agricultural use, and through the transfer to individual veterans of the other agricultural or grazing lands upon appropriate conditions as to price and future use. While this underlying purpose is sound, the manner in which the bill attempts to provide for its accomplishment seems to me to be altogether unsound from several aspects. First, the bill would grant to local disposal committees absolute authority, not merely to determine factual matters, but also to decide the entire policy question of how these submarginal lands should be disposed of, without any effective guidance in the form of statutory standards to channel and control the discretion of their members. Nor does the bill provide any means whereby the decisions of the local disposal committees may be reviewed. on the contrary, it expressly directs the Secretary of the Interior to make such transfers of title as shall carry out the recommendations of the com- mittee. I cannot consider this a sound method of legislation. Local boards, having no real responsibility to either the legislative or the executive branch of the Government, should not be granted the authority to dispose of large tracts of land belonging to the United States, merely in accordance with their own opinions as to what would be the best manner of disposing of these lands. Yet this is what the bill would do. Local committees may serve a helpful purpose in the clas- sification of lands for disposal, but certainly adequate standards to govern their actions should be prescribed by law, and adequate means for the review of their determinations should be provided. Yet this is what the bill does not do. Such broad policy issues as whether in a semi-arid country grazing land should be disposed of in the same manner as agricultural land, or whether individual applicants for grants of land should be required to pay or not to pay for the lands they receive, ought not to be left to the untrammeled and unreviewable judgment of local boards. Under the bill it would be possible for each (OVER)