Klamath, Modoc & Snake

In 1626, Manhattan, which is now worth roughly $8,000,000,000 in real estate, was purchased from the Indians for $24 worth of beads and trinkets. In 1803, France's Louisiana Territory (827,987 sq. mi.) cost a monstrous $15,000,000. Last week the U. S. Supreme Court awarded Oregon's Klamath and Modoc Indians and the Yahooshin band of Snakes $5,313,347 for an area one six-thousandth the size of the Louisiana Territory, inhabited by one one-thousandth as many people as Manhattan now holds. Reason:

In 1864 the Oregon Central Military Road Co. received a land grant for one of its roads, the building of which was accomplished "simply by driving an ox-cart over the country while two men trudged along behind with shovels on their shoulders." The grant, by an oversight, included 111,385 acres reserved to the Indians by a treaty of the same year. In 1906 the U. S. Government made partial compensation (24,000 acres) for this mistake, was last week ordered to pay cash for the rest. The Klamath Indian Reservation, potentially the richest community in the world --each brave, squaw, and papoose is worth $28,000, mostly in standing timber-- nevertheless did not turn down last week's windfall.

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