Indian Giver

In 1868 when smoothing the way for the Union Pacific Railroad, the U. S. Government asked the friendly Shoshone Indian Tribes in Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming to swap their 44,672,000 miscellaneous acres for the choice, compact, well-watered 3,054,182 acres of what is now the Wind River Reservation southeast of Yellowstone National Park. The Indians agreed, moved and thereafter aided U. S. soldiers in campaigns against such hostile tribes as the Sioux, Arapahoes and Cheyennes. A few years later for reasons now unknown the conquered Arapahoes were given U. S. military escort to the Shoshone lands, protected in their occupancy of a million acres. In vain the Shoshones protested to the Great White Father at Washington.

In 1912 a young Omaha lawyer, George M. Tunison, 30, arrived on the Shoshone reservation to determine heirships of Indian lands in litigation. He opened a hornets' nest when he innocently asked tribal elders how Arapahoes happened to be sharing the reservation. Lawyer Tunison took the Shoshones' case. From 1912 to 1927 he labored to persuade Congress to permit the Shoshones to sue the Government. From 1927 to 1933 he organized the case, presented it to the United States Court of Claims, which granted the Shoshones $2,500,000 in 1935. The Indians appealed to the Supreme Court, which upheld their right to ''just compensation." Said Justice Cardozo, "The power to control and manage properly the property and affairs of the Indians in good faith for their betterment and welfare does not extend so far as to enable the Government to give tribal lands to others."

Last week the United States Court of Claims, revising its 1935 award, granted the Indians $4,408,444, approximately $1.50 per acre for the million acres given to the Arapahoes in 1878, with interest at 5% for 60 years minus the expenditures (about $1,600,000) the Government has made for Shoshone schools and roads in excess of treaty requirement. To Lawyer Tunison & associates are expected to go legal fees of $350,000 to $400,000.

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