the policy of
allotment is put into force the compensation for the unused lands should
certainly go to the occupying tribe, which in the case supposed had paid
a full consideration for the whole reservation.

It will hardly be contended that in such case this Government should
pay twice for the lands. In the appropriation under discussion this
principle is in part recognized, for no claim is made by the Choctaws
and Chickasaws for the lands allotted to the Cheyennes and Arapahoes.
The claim is for unallotted or surplus lands. The case of the Cheyennes
and Arapahoes is this: In consideration of other lands the Government
gave them a treaty reservation in the Cherokee Outlet, but never
perfected it by paying the Cherokees the stipulated price and placing
these Indians upon it. The Cheyennes and Arapahoes declined to go upon
the strip and located themselves farther south, where they now are. The
Government subsequently recognized their right to remain there, and set
apart the lands now being allotted to members of that tribe and the
lands for which payment is now claimed by the Choctaws and Chickasaws as
the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Reservation. I think the United States must be
held to have assented to the substitution of these lands for the treaty
lands in the Cherokee Strip, and that being true, when the reservation
is broken up, as now, by allotments, it would seem that the Cheyennes
and Arapahoes were entitled to be compensated for these surplus lands.
In fact, a commission which has been dealing with the tribes in the
Indian Territory has concluded an arrangement with them by which the
Government pays $1,500,000 for these surplus lands and for the release
of any claim to the Cherokee Strip, so that in fact in this agreement
with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes the Government has paid for the lands
for which payment is now claimed by the Choctaws and Chickasaws.

It should not be forgotten also that the allotment to the Cheyennes and
Arapahoes is still incomplete. The method of calculation which resulted
in stating the claim of the Choctaws and Chickasaws at $2,991,450 is
explained by a letter of Mr. J.S. Standley, one of the Choctaw
delegates, dated April 6, 1891. The agent for the Cheyennes and
Arapahoes wrote Mr. Standley that there were 600 Indians residing upon
the lands south of the Canadian River, and who it was supposed would
take allotments there, and upon this statement the legislation was
based. Now it must be b