OPA

Mr. Toastmaster, ladies and gentlemen:

It gives me great pleasure to come back to Oregon as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. This is the State where I began my professional interest in- the American Indian almost JO years ago. I was a graduate student in anthropology at that time and did my field work on the Klamath Reservation in the summer of 1934 and through the fall, winter and spring of 1935 and 19J6. The learning process is still going on--seven days a week, 365 days a year.

I am honored to be selected by the City Club of Portland as your guest speaker today. I welcome the opportunity of sharing with you some of the things I have learned about Indian affairs over the past three decades and of reporting to you, briefly, on the current status of our programs in the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Two years ago this month an important milestone was reached in the history of the Bureau. On July 10, 1961 a task force of four members, including myself, completed an intensive three-month study of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. We submitted a report of our findings and recommendations to the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Stewart L. Udall. The report was subsequently approved, in the main, by Secretary Udall, and it became the charter of our present-day policies and programs. The keynote recommendation was a call for much greater emphasis on Indian development--both the development of Indians as people and the economic development of Indian-owned resources on the reservations.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is one of the oldest agencies in our Federal Government. Our origins go back to the colonial period and we have been in continuous existence for 139 years. Over this period of nearly 14 decades Congress has from time to time redefined and expanded the work of the Bureau until today our organization bears little resemblance to the purely diplomatic and trade-regulating agency that was originally established in 1824.

At present about 380,000 people come within the scope of our programs. This includes not only the Indians living on reservations throughout the country (like Warm Springs and Umatilla here in Oregon) but also all the people in the native villages of Alaska--Indian, Eskimo and Aleut--and large numbers of Indians living on trust or restricted land in former reservation areas of Oklahoma.

­­­­The responsibilities that we have with respect to these people are essentially twofold. On the one hand, we provide them with a variety of services such as education, welfare aid, police protection and road construction and maintenance in locations where these services are not available from the usual State and local agencies serving non-Indian citizens. Secondly, we serve as trustees for about 50 million acres of land that belongs to the Indian people. This includes most of the land making up the reservations as well as a number of scattered tracts known as public domain allotments. Nearly four-fifths of the total acreage-- about 39 million acres altogether--consists of tribal land which is the property of a whole tribal group. The balance is made up of comparatively small tracts which were allotted by the Government many years ago to individual tribal members. Because of the processes of inheritance, the ownership of many of these allot­ments has become exceedingly complex and this "heirship problem", as we call it, is one of our most troublesome administrative responsibilities.

As trustees, we are responsible not only for protecting the Indian owners of this land, tribal or individual, from improvident disposition or leasing of the property. We also assist them to achieve the highest possible income from the lands and related resources that is consistent with sound conservation principles. And this gets us into a second group of programs, mainly technical in nature, in such fields as forestry, range management, irrigation, credit, and leasing for mineral development or for surface uses such as agriculture, grazing, or commercial and industrial development.

So much for the older program operations of the Bureau--those that go back 30 or 40 years or even back to our beginnings. In the last dozen years or so, the Bureau has launched a number of new programs aimed at quickening the pace of economic advancement for Indian people and helping them to higher standards of living.

One of these, for example, is a program of employment assistance. This involves vocational training and the relocation of wage-earners and their dependents to urban-industrial areas for direct employment.

Another is our industrial development operation. By this program we encour­age the establishment of manufacturing plants of the light-industry type on or near the reservations so as to provide more steady jobs for Indian workers.

Still another example is our work in the field of housing development those of you who have visited Indian country know that their housing is truly shocking. Our newest program is an effort to improve the situation by adapting the estab­lished programs of the Federal housing agencies to reservation needs.

This will, I hope, give you some idea of what we are doing in the Bureau. It is, as you can see, a highly complex and multifaceted operation.

Three main goals were recommended by the Task Force. They now provide the orientation of all our program activities. They are (1) maximum Indian economic self-sufficiency, (2) full participation of Indians in American life, and (3) equal citizenship privileges and responsibilities for Indians.

These are not novel goals. They are merely a statement with respect to Indians of what the rest of us seek for ourselves, the question is not whether they are desirable goals. I have yet to hear anyone disagree with them, the question is, "What are the best means by which these ends may be reached?"

There are two philosophies. One holds that the reservation system, with attendant trusteeship and the existence of the Bureau of Indian Affairs with its programs of property management and human betterment hold back individual Indians from reaching these desirable goals.

The other philosophy holds that the protection of property and the provision of special services is all that stands between Indian individuals and ultimate poverty, destitution, and dependency.

The truth, as usual, lies between the two extremes. Our present programs are designed to take into account the realities of Indian life as it is actually lived on and near the reservations, not as the ideologists of either extreme visualize it. The facts are that Indian people themselves place a high value on the Indian trusteeship. In the main they do not wish it to home to an end but regard it as a necessary and desirable relationship which is due them in return for lands needed and promises made long ago. Individually they chafe under its restrictions; collectively they resist efforts to end it.

Alongside this is the fact that most reservations are places of little opportunity. Life on a reservation can be grim and harsh. Al though many pros­perous and happy persons live on reservations and prefer it, they are the exception. Reservation life, for the bulk of Indian people, has meant an edu­cational level half that of the national average; an income one-fourth to one-third the national average; an unemployment rate six or seven times the national average; and age at death two-thirds the national average.

It has long been the objective of various Commissioners of Indian Affairs to bring these deplorable figures of human welfare closer to the American standard. As long as reservations exist, the trusteeship continues, and people live on reser­vations, it is the duty of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to devise programs and operate them so that these conditions of life will improve.

It was the opinion of the Task Force that the goals we described are attaina­ble, not a dream. Life on the reservations can be much better; while those who desire to leave the reservations and seek opportunity nearby or in metropolitan centers should be prepared and helped to succeed. The programs outlined by the Task Force now being placed in effect by the Bureau of Indian Affairs are programs of education and individual betterment both on and off the reservations; and of economic and community development on the reservations, looking toward a better life for all.

How much progress have we made in the two years since the Task Force Report was submitted? What remains to be done?

Let us look first at education, which is fundamental in any long-range program of human betterment. In the early part of 1961, even before the Task Force was appointed, President Kennedy urged the Congress to provide funds for an accelerated program of Indian school construction. The Indian school plant stretches from the Everglades of Florida to the Arctic Coast of Alaska. It includes nearly JOO separate installations, some old: some new, some large, some small. The older buildings are badly deteriorated and in urgent need of rehabil­itation or replacement. Furthermore, there have never been enough classroom seats, especially on the Navajo Reservation of the Southwest, and in Alaska, to accommodate the school-age population. The goal of President Kennedy's program in early 1961 was to provide facilities for all Indian children and to relieve overcrowding and hazardous conditions in obsolete boarding and day schools without delay.

Over the past two years Congress has responded generously. Enough funds "lave been provided to rehabilitate and modernize some of our worst "problem" structures. But the main effort has been to expand the capacity of the entire system by about 7,000 classroom seats and associated dormitory beds. Some of the projects made possible by these appropriations have now been completed.

Many more are under construction. The rest are in the design stage. In the meantime, of course, our school-age Indian population has been relentlessly increasing year by year along with the school-age population all over the country.

Aside from the construction aspect, we have made many other improvements in our education program over the past 24 months. Two-thirds of the Indian children go to public schools, but one-third of them live in isolated areas and are not served by public schools. Eighty percent of these children come from homes where English is not the household language. So we are giving much more attention to improving the techniques of English language instruction which I regard as crucially important.

In our boarding schools, where the children are our responsibility 24 hours a day and seven days a week throughout the academic year, we have substantially enlarged our staff of attendants and counsellors. We have upgraded the require­ments for many of these positions, and have increased their in-service training.

We have greatly expanded the scope of our summer programs which involve student employment, outdoor sports, acceleration of academic work, pre-school classes for children, and organized trips to national or regional points of interest for the older students. In the summer of 1960 about 2,000 Indian students took part in these programs; last summer the number was nearly 13,000; and this year it will go still higher.

During this period we have also established a new school, the Institute of American Indian Arts, on the grounds of our old boarding school at Santa Fe, New Mexico. Our purpose here is to provide a first class residential high school plus two years of post-high school technical training. The students selected are Indian young people with special aptitudes in painting, sculpture, design, music, creative writing, ceramics, textiles and many other fine and applied arts. The school opened last fall on a partial basis with an enrollment of about 140 students from 74 tribes. This fall we are planning for a student body of approximately 250 in the arts courses. We will eventually reach 500.

Meanwhile we have expanded our adult education program on the reservations for the benefit of those adult Indians who went through childhood without suffi­cient schooling. We are now conducting adult education programs at 127 locations in Alaska and on Indian reservations here below. Two years ago the number was 97. Some of these are evening or day time classes to make up for lost schooling. Others are programs of community development,

In the field of higher education advances have also been made. Last year early 2,900 Indian young men and women were attending classes in colleges and universities, 724 of them with help from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Each year since the Task Force Report we have doubled the Federal money available for higher education grants and loans.

One program of the Bureau that especially impressed us on the Task Force during the course of our study was that of adult vocational training. This activity was started in 1958; by the spring of 1961 it had shown itself to be a highly successful operation. It was equipping Indians, generally in the age bracket from 18 to 35, with marketable skills, boosting their earning power, and was providing them with greater job security than they had formerly known as unskilled workers. The rate of employment for those who finished training compared very favorably with that of the GI training program of the Veterans Administration. The Indians themselves were highly enthusiastic about these opportunities.

In the original legislation authorizing this program the amount of annual appropriation was limited to $3,500,000. In 1962 Congress more than doubled this authorization, raising it to $7,500,000. As a result of the steady increase in the money available, we now have twice as many Indians enrolled in vocational schools as we had two years ago; more than 1,300 at the end of May. Over the whole five year period since 1958 more than 8,900 Indians have received training

ELECTRONICS COMPANY TO TRAIN CROW INDIANS

The newly established U. S. Automatics Corporation plant on the Crow Reservation in Montana has negotiated a $17,475 contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide on-the-job training for 35 Crow Indians. The company, which has home offices in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, manufactures electronic components, mainly timing and regulating devices.

BOAT BUILDER TO LOCATE IN PRYOR. OKLAHOMA

Classic Manufacturing Company, builder of fiberglass pleasure boats, has announced that it will open a branch plant in Pryor, Oklahoma, within two months. The company, which has home offices in Santa Ana, California, will lease an 18,000 square foot building from Pryor's Mid-American Industrial District.

Classic expects to negotiate an on-the-job training contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to train an initial group of 15 Cherokee Indians for jobs in the new plant. About 30 Indians will be employed when full operations begin.

LOS ANGELES COUNTY RENEWS TRAINING CONTRACT

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has renewed a $47,150.contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide on-the-job training for 155 Indian women. The trainees will work toward certificates as nurses' aides and surgical nursing technicians during the contract period from July 1, 1965 through June 30, 1966.

MORE INDIANS IN FORESTRY JOBS

Increasing numbers of Indian workers are employed in forest industries, according to employment surveys conducted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1964, Indians accounted for 2,300 of the total 12,900 permanent employees in logging and milling operations on or near reservations. An additional 1,000 or more Indians were employed in seasonal and short-term jobs connected with forestry operations.

In addition to those employed in commercial logging and wood processing operations, there are 110 Indians on the permanent forestry staff of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, comprising more than one-third of the staff.

THREE ACTIONS BY THE INDIAN CLAIMS COMMISSION

Winnebago

The Indian Claims Commission has issued an interlocutory order in a case (Dockets 243, 244, and 245) involving claims by the Winnebago Tribe for compensation for lands in Wisconsin and Illinois that were ceded to the United States under three treaties during the past century. The Commission's order stated the following values for the three parcels of land at the time they were ceded:

2,702,444 acres, ceded under the treaty of January 2, 1830, had a value of $2,025,000;

2,101,455 acres, ceded under the treaty of February 13, 1833, then worth $1,575,000; and 2,981,303 acres, of land ceded under the treaty of June 15, 1838, worth $1,500,000 when ceded.

With issuance of this order, determination of the remaining issues in the case will now proceed.

Cheyenne-Arapaho of Oklahoma

The Indian Claims Commission has approved a compromise settlement of $15 million for claims of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma (Docket Nos. 329-A and 329-B). The amount represents additional payment for their one-half interest in 51,210,000 acres ceded to the United States by the Indians under various treaties and for 4,608,878 acres of their reservation taken under the Agreement of 1890. The lands concerned are located in the present States of Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, South Dakota, and Oklahoma. The funds have been deposited in the Treasury, where they are drawing interest at four percent per annum.

Northern Paiute

The Indian Claims Commission has entered final judgment in the case of the Northern Paiute Indians, Docket No. 87, granting an award of $935,000 as payment for 3,118,000 acres of land in Nevada and California identified as Area I or the Bono Tract; and an award of $15,790,000 as payment for 11,614,726 acres of land in Nevada and California. The lands in California were taken in 1853 and those in Nevada in 1862 and 1863. Previously an award of $3,650,000 had been granted as payment for 11,500,000 acres in Nevada and Oregon identified as Area III or the Snake Tract taken in 1872. The total Paiute judgment is the largest so far to a single tribe. The “Indians of California" -- a group composed of many tribes-- received a previous award of $29.1 million.

COMMISSIONER NASH ADDRESSED NCAl

Commissioner Philleo Nash of the Bureau of Indian Affairs recently urged American Indians to plead their common cause as Indians, not only as tribal representatives. Speaking at Scottsdale, Arizona, before the Annual Conference of the National Congress of American Indians, Commissioner Nash said, "It is my greatest hope that this organization will one day--and soon--become a major focal point for Indian self-expression. I hope that it will grow in wealth and membership to a stature that will make it a mighty force in Indian affairs--a force through which a half million Americans can speak with united purpose.“

Appointment of Don Y. Jensen to the post of superintendent of the Cherokee Indian Agency, Cherokee, North Carolina, effective August 3, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Jensen, superintendent of the Northern Cheyenne Agency, Lame Deer, Mont., for the past six years, succeeds Darrell T. Fleming, who is transferring to the Gallup area office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs as assistant area director. A successor for Jensen at Lame Deer has not yet been selected.

A native of Castle Dale, Utah, Jensen joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1947 as a soil conservationist at Crow Agency in Montana, simultaneously serving the Northern Cheyenne Agency in the same capacity. In 1955 he transferred to the Blackfeet Agency, Montana, as soil conservationist and a year later was made land operations officer at the Standing Rock Agency in North Dakota.

Jensen is a graduate of Utah State College and had 4 years of service in the Army during World War II.

The way has been cleared for construction of a $50-million dam and reservoir on Cochiti Pueblo in New Mexico with approval of an easement agreement by the Pueblos, the Army's Corps of Engineers and the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The agreement covers 4,000 acres of Cochiti Pueblo land, for which the Pueblo will receive a settlement of $145,200, plus all right to develop recreation facilities in the area.

The dam, a major Rio Grande flood prevention project, will create a permanent 1,200-surface-acre lake on pueblo lands approximately 50 miles north of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Slated for completion in 1970, the new facility promises to become a major recreation resource for the people of northern New Mexico.

Cochiti Pueblo will celebrate the long-awaited signing of the agreement at a ceremony on Sunday, December 12.

Planners forecast a total of 800,000 recreation visits to the site the first year of operation, with visits increasing each year. The area will play a vital role in the State's new comprehensive recreation plan, according to officials of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Indians plan to invest their easement funds in commercial and recreational facilities in the lake area to provide income and employment opportunities for members of the pueblo. They also are planning to lease sites to private investors for commercial development, providing still more employment for the Pueblos.

Most of the dam and reservoir will be located on the original Spanish land grant received by Cochiti Pueblo from the king of Spain on September 25, 1689. Congress confirmed the grant by the Act of December 22, 1858, and a patent covering the grant was issued by President Lincoln on November 1, 1864.

The Cochiti Pueblo consists of 26,500 acres of desert and mountainous forest land some 30 miles southwest of Santa Fe. Until now, its income has been derived principally from 900 acres of farmlands and some 27,000 acres of rangelands, together with small timber and mineral holdings. Some of the Indians have found jobs in the surrounding area. Makers of excellent pottery, the Cochitis also are famous for their drums made of hollowed cottonwood logs.

Award of a $126,550 contract for the construction of a municipal center at Lame Deer, Montana, on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The new center, when complete, will provide space for tribal meetings and activities. It will also furnish a replacement for the old tribal jail building.

The successful bidder was Thrif-T Const. Co., Miles City, Montana. Seven higher bids, ranging from $126,600 to $199,000, were received.

A White Mountain Apache tribal delegation from Arizona will arrive in Washington Saturday, December 11, poised for a full week of activities prior to the official Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony slated for next Friday.

The five-member delegation, representing the Tribe which donated the Nation's Christmas tree this year, will be composed of: Lester Oliver, Tribal Chairman; Fred Banashley, Vice-Chairman; Mary Enfield; Mary V. Riley; and Nelson Lupe, Sr.

Activities will include a visit to Children's Hospital, the German School in McLean, Virginia and the Catoctin Job Corps Camp at Catoctin, Maryland. They will also attend the United National Concert at Constitution Hall on Sunday, December 12, where they are slated to present a gift from the Tribe to Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs will honor the delegation at a reception in the BIA Auditorium, 1951 Constitution Avenue NW., on Thursday, December 16, at 2 p.m.

The tree, Which arrived by flat car in Washington December 2, stood 101 feet tall on its mountain perch. Even when pruned down so that it could be eased out of its hideaway, it reaches 85 feet skyward on the White House lawn. An Apache crane operator guided the steel claws that eased the tree from its native place, and Apache timber men helped trim and tie its giant branches and wrap the tree in plastic sheeting for its journey.

When the switch is flipped on December 17, lighting the 1,000 colored bulbs to signal the beginning of the 1965 Pageant for Peace, Tribal Council Chairman 1liver will be on the platform.

Back on the reservation, some 4,000 members of the Tribe have seen to it that their Christmas tree gift will be remembered for many a year. Where once it stood in lonely splendor on a remote mountainside, its site will be marked with a plaque. The trail that leads there from the Apache capital of Whiteriver will be smoothed into a road that tourists can travel.

Just before the bend in the trail where the tree stood there will be a new lake. Fed by the water of two Creeks, Sun and Moon, which once nourished the tree, the lake will be 41 acres in surface area. It has been created for protection and propagation of a species of trout, the Salmo Gila, that is found only on the White Mountain Reservation. Some of these fish have already been captured in the high mountain streams and transplanted into the creeks. The floodgates were held shut until the Christmas tree had been removed November 15, and now the waters are beginning to flow into the new recreation area. Although originally to be called Sun-Moon Lake, the Tribe is now thinking about changing the name to Christmas Tree Lake.

There is another manmade recreational water area, Hawley Lake, on the White Mountain Apache Reservation, built about ten years ago. It has provided considerable income to the Tribe, whose means of livelihood are limited by the mountainous terrain and isolation of their reservation.

Although the White Mountain Apaches (one of four Apache groups in the southwest) live in relative isolation, they are trying to make the most of their resources. Some families still live in the traditional straw huts called wickiups, but others are living in new low-cost public housing which they have bought with "sweat equity," substituting their labor for cash down payments under a special arrangement with the Public Housing Administration.

The tribal population has doubled since the turn of the century. Some of the children attend school in a former army headquarters building and play on the troop parade ground. But more children are attending a new, modern, well-staffed public elementary and secondary school at Whiteriver. Tribal elders feel that the new school broadens horizons for their children--and they will need educated Apaches if they try to expand their forestry and ranching industries and tourist facilities.

For these reasons, the visiting Apache delegation will confer with Indian Commissioner Philleo Nash on further plans for economic development of the White Mountain Reservation during the coming week. The Bureau of Indian Affairs provides loans and technical aid for economic improvement of Indian properties.

Award of a $1,543,500 contract for the construction of school facilities that will provide for 150 additional students at Lukachukai, Arizona on the Navajo Indian Reservation was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The contract calls for the construction of a 7-classroom addition to an existing school building, a l60-pupil dormitory, a 480-pupil kitchen and dining room, and employees' quarters and garage facilities. In addition to the building construction, a 75,000-gallon elevated water tank, a new sewage lagoon, curbs and gutters, street paving, walks and other site improvements are included in the contract.

The work, when complete, will serve 150 pupils in addition to the present enrollment of 297 pupils. It will also provide safe and sanitary school facilities for 60 children who are presently housed in old and obsolete buildings.

The successful bidder was Flaugh-Slavens Co., Box 700, Cortez, Colorado. Six higher bids, ranging from $1,566,710 to $1,667,441, were received.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced the appointment of E. B. Maytubby, Muskogee, Okla., to fill out the unexpired term of his late nephew, Floyd Maytubby, as Governor of the Chickasaw Indian Nation and the designation of Overton James, Oklahoma City, to serve a two-year term as Governor starting with expiration of the Maytubby term on October 18, 1963.

Under a 1906 law the President was empowered to appoint principal chiefs or “governors periodically for each of the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" of Oklahoma - Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. In 1951 this appointing authority was delegated to the Secretary of the Interior. The late Governor Maytubby died last February after serving in the office continuously since 1939

Award of a $12,500 contract to study the economic feasibility of manufacturing a wide variety of building materials on or near the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The study will be conducted by the Armour Research Foundation of Chicago, Ill., and is, in effect, an expansion of a study initiated last December. Under the first contract, which was for $15,700, the Foundation was to study the feasibility of manufacturing concrete blocks and was required to submit a report in four months. Under the new contract, the study will be broadened to include other building materials such as cement, ready mixed concrete, brick, structural clay tile, gypsum products, concrete pipe, concrete beams, and stone facing. The completion date has been extended for five months from May 16.

The study is one of 39 which the Bureau of Indian Affairs has initiated under contract during the past 10 months to explore the feasibility of various types of economic developments on or near Indian reservations. Forty-seven reservations in 19 States are involved in these studies. Nine of the studies have been completed and are now under review.

Award of a $1,998,581 contract for the construction of school facilities to provide for 360 additional pupils at Aneth, Utah, on the Navajo Indian Reservation was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The contract calls for the construction of two 192-pupil dormitories, a 14-classroom instruction building, a kitchen and dining hall, a storage and maintenance building, employees living quarters and garages.

These facilities, when complete, will replace the existing school plant, built 25 years ago, and will expand the capacity of the school from 60 pupils to 420. The existing school facilities will be demolished when the new facilities are completed.

The successful bidder was B&E Constructors, Inc., of Albuquerque, N. Mex. Nine higher bids were received, ranging from $2,064,367 to $2,739,500.