INDIAN APPROPRIATION BILL. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Monday, December 8, 1919. The committee this day met, Hon. Homer P. Snyder (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. Now, gentlemen, we will come to order, and the clerk will read the resolution under which we are to proceed to investigate the Indian appropriation bill. Whereupon, the clerk read as follows: It was moved and carried that the Chair appoint a committee of five, with the remaining members of the committee privileged to sit with this subcommittee from time to time during its deliberations. The Chair named the following as the subcommittee: Messrs. Snyder, Elston, Rhodes, Carter, and Hayden. The CHAIRMAN. Now, the Chair will state that it is his understanding of the meaning of that resolution that we can proceed with the investigation with a majority of the subcommittee present and that those members of the committee who sit with us from time to time have the privilege of asking questions or making any investigation or examination of witnesses they see fit, but on a vote in the preparation of the bill the vote will be by the subcommittee in making its recommendations to the full committee. I would like to know if that is the understanding of the other members of the committee present? Mr. RHODES. That was mine. The CHAIRMAN. Do you so understand, Mr. Hayden? The CHAIRMAN. Do you, Mr. Hastings? Mr. HASTINGS. Well, that wasn't exactly my understanding. I understood that five members were to compose the subcommittee, but I understood that the other members being present took part in the deliberations of the committee the same as the members appointed members of the subcommittee. That is the way we did last year and the year before. However, I have no objections to that course. The CHAIRMAN. That would be all right, provided we intended to hand the bill back to the full committee to determine the action of the subcommittee. Now, if it is our understanding that we are to finish the bill and not go over it again as a general committee, why, then, your understanding, it seems to me, would be all right. But it seems to me that we ought to proceed as I suggested at first and then have the whole committee go over the bill and make such corrections or alterations as it desired to make on the work of the subcommittee. 3 |