Congressional Record—Senate S362
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S362 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE February 2, 2004 of this property is distributed under the tified mail to the Federal Reserve Bank in garage sales, raffles and donations from fam- same program that dealt with Moses Bruno. Oklahoma City, Okla. The deposit sheet list- ily and friends, that he hopes will eventually Five years ago, his descendants began track- ed the source of each check, its amount and allow the family to pay for an organized ing their patrimony. Their experience shows the day’s total deposits. Daily entries were study of its Potawatomi culture and lan- how difficult it can be to prove past wrongs also made in the office’s cash-receipts jour- guage. He and his wife Veta attend the an- and have them redressed. nal, registering the payment to each indi- nual gatherings of the nine Potawatomi Family members say Moses Bruno was vidual Indian account on a ledger card. bands, now scattered over several states. never allowed to see his oil and gas account Sorting through those old documents, with Leon has gone through the training and fast- ledgers. It might not have done him much the lingering resentments the families have ing that are required of those chosen as the good if he had been, given that, like many toward the BIA, can be confusing. When tribe’s honored fire keepers. And he has built Indians of his generation, he had never Dana Dickson began comparing the amounts a roundhouse on his property in Tecumseh, learned to read and could write only his posted to her great grandfather’s ledger card OK, where family members gather four times name. When his eldest son Johnnie argued with the sums on the deposit sheets for the a year to light a sacred fire and pray for the that the government was robbing him blind, same days, she discovered that 10% was rou- memory of their ancestor Moses Bruno. the older man insisted that the Indian-agen- tinely funneled from the oil check to a spe- cy people would never cheat him. cial-deposit account. Dickson and her rel- f After World War II, Bruno’s children tried atives suspected that corrupt agents were HONORING MONROE SWEETLAND to sue the oil company for saltwater damage taking the money for themselves. But Ross Mr. REID. Mr. President, I would like to their soil caused by the pumping from the Swimmer, a Department of the Interior om- wells. ‘‘But even though my dad Johnnie budsman working on behalf of Indian-trust to say a few words about a citizen of took photos,’’ says Ruby Withrow, 69, ‘‘we beneficiaries, told TIME that the deduction, the great western part of America, couldn’t prove Moses had not allowed the which was not exclusively to Moses Bruno’s Monroe Sweetland. salty runoff. There was no paper trail at that account, was simply a fee that the BIA Monroe lives in Oregon, where he has time.’’ Nor was there money to pay for a law- charged for managing the oil and gas prop- enjoyed a wonderful life of public serv- yer. Over the years, family members looked erties held by the trust funds. ice. He has been a State Senator, a na- for documents that could prove the bureau Nearly two years after the elder Brunos tional leader of teachers, a journalist, had treated Moses Bruno badly. They went died in 1960, a Shawnee bureau agent sug- to the National Archives in Washington, vis- gested that the family sell its remaining 40 and the publisher of a number of small ited historical societies in Oklahoma and re- acres, along with the property’s mineral newspapers. quested records from BIA offices in Shawnee rights. ‘‘[The minerals have only a] nominal He served in the Pacific with the Red and nearby Anadarko, Okla. Always they value,’’ the agent wrote in a letter to the re- Cross during World War II. After re- were told that few records were available. gional BIA office in Anadarko. The family turning home he became the political The Cobell case reassured the Brunos that signed off on the sale, netting a $3,022.50. In director for the National Education As- others had had similarly unhappy experi- 1982 a new oil well was drilled on that land sociation in the western States. ences with their BIA trust funds and moti- and is still pumping. He was a confidant of Eleanor Roo- vated them to dig deeper for documents to The Bruno family acknowledges the pres- sevelt and an ally of President Harry support their complaints. Finally, after a 16- sure the BIA was under during the oil-boom hour marathon on the Internet in the fall of years. In the 1935 annual report of the Shaw- Truman. 1998, Dana Dickson, Ruby Withrow’s daugh- nee agency, the superintendent called his of- His home in Milwaukie, OR, which ter, discovered on an obscure Indian arts- fice ‘‘woefully undermanned,’’ handling 1,500 was built in 1878, is a historic land- and-crafts site a link to Oklahoma Indian— Indian money accounts with only one clerk, mark. That isn’t just because it is an agency files located at the regional National who had no modern account machines. old house, but also because of the many Archives in Fort Worth, Texas. A family del- ‘‘Maybe there were some mistakes made,’’ important people who visited him egation immediately made the trip. ‘‘I’ll says Leon Bruno. ‘‘[But] a lot of what went there. never forget the first time we went down on was deliberate.’’ The family estimates The most famous visitor was Presi- there,’’ says Dickson’s cousin Johnnie that Moses Bruno earned a total of $35,000 dent John Kennedy. In fact, I have Flynn. ‘‘Dana and I were pulling file after from his oil and gas leases. The production file. One of them was Moses Bruno’s. It was figures the descendants unearthed, on just been told that Monroe’s wife Lillie was three inches thick. I stopped and looked over one well on the land that was sold in 1993, the person who suggested to JFK that at my mother and my Aunt Ruby. There amount to almost $70 million. a rocking chair would ease the pain in were tears streaming down their faces.’’ It is not clear whether the family will ever his back. They found grocery receipts and bills from receive compensation for any miscalcula- Others who visited Monroe and Lillie JCPenney for socks at 15[cents] a pair and a tions that may have been made on their land included Vice President Hubert Hum- coat for $14.66. The purchase order from the sales and oil leases. Elouise Cobell’s class ac- phrey, Ambassador John Kenneth Indian agency for Moses’ first car was there, tion has stalled in the face of the Depart- Gailbraith, and Senators Wayne Morse, as were numerous voucher slips endorsed ment of the Interior’s estimate that it would with his tentative, spidery signature. Most take five years and $335 million just to ac- ‘‘Scoop’’ Jackson and Estes Kefauver. important, there were pages of ledger sheets count for the money from land and mineral Monroe recently turned 94 years old. detailing his individual BIA money account. leases covering a period of more than 100 Although he has been legally blind for More than half a dozen visits later, Moses’ years. And Congress is balking at the ex- several years, he is fond of saying that grandson Leon Bruno has accumulated pense—even though its committees have he has lost his sight, but not his vision. enough photocopies of documents to fill 19 issued more than one report over the years As a former newsman, he still enjoys loose-leaf notebooks. Papers show that about gross mismanagement of Native Amer- having the paper read to him by visi- Moses’ entire 80-acre allotment first came ican trust funds. In December the Bruno de- tors. under an oil lease in 1923. Six years later, ac- scendants decided to withdraw from the He has been called the father of the cording to BIA documents, 20 of those acres Cobell suit and hired a lawyer to pursue were sold to two local white men for $1,311, their own. modern Democratic Party in Oregon, or $65.55 an acre. The family has found con- ‘‘It’s not about the money,’’ says Moses’ and a founding father of Portland State tradicting government estimates of the granddaughter Ruby Withrow, a nurse who University. land’s royalty value at the time, ranging administers a diabetes program for the Ab- He is also responsible, more than any from $50 to $400 an acre. And documents are sentee Shawnee tribe. ‘‘I want some justice other person, for a very important unclear about whether Moses Bruno under- for a man who trusted the United States and piece of Federal legislation—the Bilin- stood before the transaction was completed was betrayed.’’ The BIA has looked into the gual Education Act of 1968. that the land was being sold. A well was family’s claims and says that while the That law opened the doors of edu- drilled on these 20 acres in 1933 and still records for Moses Bruno’s account may not pumps to this day. be complete, ‘‘no instance of malfeasance cation and opportunity to young people In 1931 Bruno got permission from the BIA was found in the records that we examined.’’ in the West and other parts of the to withdraw 20 separate acres of his allot- In a fax to TIME, the agency stated that country who are native speakers of ment from the trust, and he began selling ‘‘understandably, the family did not review Spanish.