OPA

In a resolution commending the Eisenhower Administration's program to provide school facilities for reservation children, the Navajo Tribal Council declared that for the "first time in American history since the Treaty of 1868 the Congress of the United States has taken effective action to provide adequate schools for Navajos."

The Navajo emergency education program, which is designed to put every Navajo child of school age in school within two years, has had the personal support of President Eisenhower and Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

Funds for the program, administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, were included in the regular appropriations and in supplemental acts approved by the President on August 26, 1954.

Since the beginning of the program, 8,276 additional Navajo children have been placed in school this year. When the program was drawn up last winter only 14,000 Navajo children out of a total school age population of 28,000 were able to attend school. The Bureau's goal for this year was to provide facilities for 7,000, and it is planned to accommodate the remainder by the fall of 1955.

As of December 16, there were 21,730 children enrolled in public, Federal and Mission schools on and off the reservation. Completion of a new reservation school at Kayenta, Arizona, in January will permit enrollment of 500 more children. New facilities at Crystal, Greasewood and Steamboat, Arizona boarding schools in Arizona, will take care of 500 more children and another school at Pinon when completed will take in 300 children.

The Council's resolution expressed appreciation for the cooperation of State and local school authorities in the border town dormitory program which placed 1,027 children in public schools. Continuance and enlargement of this program was requested by the Council.

"The Navajo people confirm and approve," the resolution states "the plans of Commissioner Glenn L. Emmons for providing schools for the Navajo children and deplore criticism by those who are not familiar with the facts, in respect to plans developed by the Commissioner and his staff by and with the collaboration, advice and approval of the Navajos."

The resolution points out that the Council has been fully advised as to the locations of schools and boarding houses on and off the reservation, and "appreciates fully that a great advantage is enjoyed by Navajo children, with the generous cooperation of state and local school authorities, by attending schools in such communities as Richfield, Utah; Aztec, Gallup, N. Mex.; Holbrook, Snowflake and Winslow, Arizona, where education in State schools gives Navajo children the advantage of learning English and with the same opportunities which non-Indian children enjoy."

"The use of other school facilities in States away from the reservation accommodating 5,570 children is necessary at least for the time being until school facilities closer to the reservation are available has been approved by the Council as the only available alternative to no Schools at all for some of our children," the resolution continues.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced that the Indian Bureau's School of Practical Nursing now located at Lawton, Okla., will be transferred in early February to Albuquerque, N. Mex., where much more extensive training facilities are available.

The school, established at Lawton in 1935, has been training about 40 Indian girls a year for practical nursing positions in Indian hospitals throughout the country. Approximately 28 percent of the graduates over the past 19 years have been Indian girls from Oklahoma as compared with 41 percent of the graduates who came from tribal groups in New Mexico and Arizona.

Recently the National Association for Practical Nurse Education, the national accrediting organization for schools of this type, announced that it would no longer approve the school in its present location because of the limited training facilities available for students. If the school should lose its accreditation, the graduates would no longer be eligible for Civil Service positions with the Bureau.

The Bureau's hospital at Lawton has an authorized capacity of 50 beds. Its operations will be unaffected by the transfer.

In the new location at Albuquerque, the students of the school will have access to the Bureau’s 108-bed Albuquerque Sanatorium, the 153-bed Bernalillo County Indian Hospital and the 208-bed Medical Center at Fort Defiance, Arizona.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced that the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation, located in southeastern California, just north of Yuma, Arizona, will be transferred on January 1 from the jurisdiction of the Indian Bureau office at Sacramento, California, to the area office at Phoenix, Ariz.

The move is being made primarily because of specialties which the Fort Yuma Indians have with other Indian groups on the Arizona side of the Colorado River.

Fort Yuma Reservation was established in 1917 in the easternmost part of Imperial County, California, and comprises approximately 7,800 acres. The Indian population is estimated at slightly under 1,000.

Three career employees have been selected by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for management training under the executive development agreement recently negotiated between the Department of the Interior and the Civil Service Commission, Secretary Douglas McKay announced today. They are: Carl J. Cornelius, relocation officer, Consolidated Chippewa Agency, Cass Lake, Minn.; Grover C. Gardner, supervising loan examiner, Anadarko Area Office, Anadarko, Okla.; and Richard D. Butts, superintendent, Red Lake Agency, Red Lake, Minn.

The Bureau's program is designed to prepare selected career employees for high level management positions in Washington and the field through a series of assignments outside their regular positions. Candidates are selected from a wide range of specialties, including such fields as education, welfare, soil conservation, forestry and range management, as well as the administrative occupations. Assignments are individually adapted for each successful candidate, based on an appraisal of the experience required to fit him for advanced executive posts.

The program is directed by a Bureau Executive Development Committee comprised of W. Barton Greenwood, Assistant Commissioner for Administration; Ervin J. Utz, Assistant Commissioner for Resources; and Miss Selene Gifford, Assistant Commissioner for Community Services. The Bureau's chief personnel officer C. E. Lamson, management planning officer Theodore W. Taylor, and personnel staff officer Joseph C. LaSalle, assist the central committee.

Supervisors throughout the Bureau recommend employees in the middle Civil Service grades (GS-9 through 13) for participation in the program. Candidates are screened by area executive development committees on the bases of their education, experience, personal qualities, and potential for development. Area directors then make nominations to the Executive Development Committee in Washington, and also recommend a plan for the assignment of each of the candidates.

The central committee makes final selections and establishes training schedules for successful applicants, whose development is accomplished through a series of diversified assignments of sufficient length to enable them to gain competence in their new work and to be productive in it.

Employees in specialized fields are given the opportunity to get administrative and high level technical experience. Administrative employees are assigned work in additional phases of administration and program direction. Whenever feasible, they take appropriate courses at universities to round out their program.

There will be systematic appraisal and follow-up of each participant as the program progresses. Those who are fully successful in their work will be available for executive vacancies. It is expected that positions of area director, assistant area director, division chief, branch chief, program officer and similar high-level executive posts will be filled through the program.

Promotion of Elmo F. Miller on January 16 from the position of agricultural extension agent at the Colville Indian Agency, Nespelem, Wash., to the job of superintendent of the Northern Idaho Agency, Lapwai, Idaho, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

Mr. Miller, Who has been at Colville Agency for the past three years, entered the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1941 as farm agent at Cheyenne River Agency, Lame Deer, Mont. and in 1947 was moved to Nome, Alaska, as administrative assistant. He was born at Nephi, Utah, in 1914 and graduated from the Utah State Agricultural College in 1939.

In his new position, Mr. Miller succeeds Frell M. Owl who transfers on January 16 to the position of superintendent at the Fort Hall Agency, Fort Hall, Idaho.

The Salt River Indian Community, near Phoenix, Ariz., was awarded the Meritorious Program Award of the American Institute of Planners Sunday, October 8 during the annual conference of the Institute at the Sheraton-Boston Hotel in Boston, Mass. The award is for the social planning the Indian community has developed over a five year period. This will be the first time in the history of the Institute's award program that the award has gone to an Indian community.

Receiving the award was Paul Smith, President, and Salt River Indian Community. He was accompanied by Garnet Gates, the Community's Vice President, and Vivian Andrews, Executive secretary. The award was I presented by Darn C. McGrath Jr., Institute President.

Awards were also given Metro Center, Baltimore, and the Twin Cities -- Minneapolis-St. Paul. The Indian community was nominated for the award by the Desert Southwest Chapter of the American Institute of Planners.

The citation that accompanied the award reads:

Whereas the Pima and Maricopa peoples who compromise the salt River Indian Community of approximately 2,000 persons on 49,000 acres of land near Scottsdale, Ariz., recognizing their economic difficulties, the increasing urbanization surrounding that their land was literally their only resource, I have initiated the first major planning program of its kind, and

Whereas, the Community, recognizing the need to retain its own identity, while producing a planning program which will enable it to improve its facilities, services and economic position has involved over 90 percent of its citizens directly, in the planning process, so that for the first time a plan has been created for an Indian community by an Indian community, and

Whereas the planning program has developed since 1967 such elements as creation of citizen participation, the development of a general plan, and the evolution of effective administrative guides for implementation, including capital improvement programming, and Whereas, through its planning efforts the Salt River Indian Community has made such measurable improvements as the adoption of a new Constitution, the hiring of paid-professional administrative personnel. a major decrease in unemployment, new educational programs, the construction of an industrial park, the adoption of zoning regulations and the improvement of its housing stock to the point where housing is now adequate for 30 percent of its families, and

Whereas, the Salt River Indian Community has set a record of its accomplishment in planning and management unpatrolled for any effort of its kind, one which can only be viewed with humility by those whose initial resources are so much greater, an example of resourcefulness and courage.

Now, be it therefore resolved by the Board of Governor of the American Institute of Planners that the.

Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Be presented with a Meritorious Program Award in the category of social responsibility by this Institute.

Secretary of the Interior Oscar L. Chapman today announced the appointment of Mr. Marcy Cully, Bowlegs, Oklahoma, as Principal Chief of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma for the period beginning December 10, 1952 through December 31, 1953.

Mr. Cully, who was elected Assistant Chief at a tribal election held June 3, 1952, fills the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. George Harjo, Sasakwa, Oklahoma, principal chief, on December 9, 1952.

Authority for the appointment of a principal chief of the Seminoles is contained in the Act of April 26, 1906 (34 Stat. 137).

Benefits accruing to the Navajos go beyond. the physical rehabilitation features of the long range program and reach many people through employment opportunities, Allan G, Harper, Navajo Area director reported.

Director Harper also reported to a recent meeting of the Navajo Tribal Council that Navajos have received $2,157,911.66 in wages since the inception of the long range program three years ago. This is 64.7 per cent of the total amount expended for wages. Harper compared this to $1,030,594.59, or 30.9 per cent, which has been paid to non-Indian employees. He also said that Indians of other tribes have received 4.4 percent, or $146,751.34.

"These figures disclose," he said, "that Navajos are receiving more than twice the amount paid to non-Indians. It is indicative of the large measure in which the educated Navajos are rapidly finding opportunity once denied them because of lack of skills."

The Area Director's report revealed that long-range appropriations during 1951 and 1952 totaled $15,320,620. Personnel costs, resources development, engineering, administration and community services have taken $3,335,257.59 of the sum.

In his report of employment by hourly wage and race, the trend was shown toward the higher brackets for· Navajo employees. 290 Navajos receive from $1.30 to $1.39 per hour and 275 Navajo workers get $1.40 to $1.49. The breakdown shows two Navajos receiving $3.00 per hour.

Total employment on the Navajo-Hopi Reservations is 21,200. This is made up of 1,119 Navajos; 212 Hopis; 169 Indians of other tribes and 620 non-Indians. Bulk of employment is in education, health and engineering, Administration employs 166 persons.

Mr. Harper's report included a test run" for seven, four and six pay periods on the Shiprock school construction, the Gamerco warehouse construction and the Ft, Defiance road improvement with the follow1.ng results:

At the Shiprock school during seven pay periods, Navajos received $46,909.20; other Indians. $5,400 and non-Indians $30,556, At the Gamerco warehouse during four pay periods Navajos received $11,204, other Indians $696.60 and non-Indians $5,440, The Ft. Defiance road job paid Navajos $31,522, nothing to other Indians and $6,873.60 to non-Indians. Percentages were 64.7 for Navajos; 4.4 for other Indians and 30.9 for non-Indians.

"These figures prove that 69.l percent of the payroll is going to Indians." Harper said. "I would like to increase that percentage in favor of the Indians and we can do so if we work together," he told the councilmen. "I believe on-the-job training and apprenticeship training, more high school graduates going on to college to learn technical trades, will change the picture even more in favor of the Indians."

Harper also reported on the critical shortage of nurses in the Navajo-Hopi hospitals. Only the Winslow hospital is fully staffed, he said. 100 tuberculosis and 100 regular patients at Ft. Defiance are being nursed by only 11 nurses on a 24-hour basis. Everything is being done to recruit nurses, but the Navajo isolation is not attractive. He said he has orders from Washington to reduce hospital load in order that patients will continue to receive good, professional care.

Mr. Harper pointed out that the Arizona legislature will consider a measure, creating an Arizona Commission for Indian Affairs made up of 11 persons, including five Indians. He recommended that the Council pledge its cooperation to this proposed commission.

The Area Director proposed construction of a new Tribal Motel at Canyon de Chelly as a tribal industry.

Division of the waters of the San Juan River will be discussed at Santa Fe, January 24, Harper reported. Another conference at Cheyenne, Wyoming, January 29, can determine the fate of the Navajo reservation in relation to development of the great San Juan-Shiprock irrigation project, He said the Tribal case will be strongly presented at both conferences.

The Area Director reviewed the 1954 long-range budget as recommended to the Congress by the President this month. The President has asked the Congress to appropriate a total of $13,931,500 for the Navajo-Hopi program. Of this amount, $9,272,000 would be used to build new schools and hospitals.

Under the proposed budget, day schools would be converted to boarding schools at Cove, Crystal, Dennehotso, Greasewood, Huerfano, Lake Valley Naschitti, Pinon, Standing Rock, Steamboat, Tolani Lake and Polacca. The new budget also includes funds for the Shiprock boarding school, the new Shiprock hospital, Ft. Defiance sewage improvements, Keams Canyon utilities distribution system, quarters for nurses and teachers at Tuba City.

For highway improvement, the budget set up $1,500,000 and for irrigation projects, $756,000.

During a return visit to England King Charles I asked William Penn how he was going to gain possession of the Indian lands. Penn replied, "I will buy them."

"But how can you," asked the king, "When you have already bought them from me?"

Penn answered simply, "I bought them from you, but not because they were yours.... "

Today, almost two centuries later we are celebrating the extension of Penn's insight and belief that the land and heritage of the new world belonged to the Indians -- the first Americans.

It is as "first Americans" that we are commemorating the removal of the great and little Osage from Kansas to these great lands in the Oklahoma Territory.

It goes without saying that when the federal government made arrangements for the Osage Tribe to purchase almost a million and a half acres from the Cherokee Nation at a cost of seventy cents an acre -- the Osage got more than fair value. And that was before the consumer movement!

From the days when Father Marquette, the great Jesuit missionary first explored the Missouri River Valley, the Osage have exercised a great role in the development of this land and of our America.

Years afterwards, when Washington Irving toured the great pra1r1e lands of our growing nation he wrote, "They have fine Roman countenances, and broad deep chests: and, as they generally wore their blankets wrapped around their loins, so as to leave the bust and arms bare, they look like so many noble bronze figures. The Osages are the finest looking Indians I have ever seen in the 'West."

The Osage share a rich heritage as one of the leading tribes in -the mainstream of Indian history.

As early as 1725 a party of Osage were received by the King of France -­ and were among the first Indians to go abroad… from the New World to the Old.

The progress and vitality of the Osage is the result of the sensibility and strength, wisdom and pride that is at the very center of your tribal heritage. It is also the result of the great legacy of spirited and inspirational leadership that your chiefs and tribal chairmen have left you and the generation of Osage that will continue these traditions.

These great men like, Ne-kah-wah-she-tun-kah, James and Peter Bigheart, Paul Red Eagle, Fred Lookout, Paul Pitts and Chief Bacon Rind will be honored as long as the Osage are on this land.

In the last hundred years these lands have become as much a part of the Osage Tribe, and as vital to your heritage as your language and your traditions.

This land is beautiful, and it is bountiful and rich, and has done much to make the Osage Tribe one of the leading Indian nations’, in the world. But more important than that, the Osages have growth with this land, and you and your leaders have grown in stature, and wisdom and maturity during the last century -- because of your reverence for the integrity of the land.

This regard, this respect for the earth is something that not only other tribes -- but all Americans can learn from you.

There have been a lot of changes in the last hundred years.

The American Indian has struggled during the last century with the meaning of his identity, and the role of his tribe in American society.

Already this awakening has led the tribes of America into a new era of understanding, of prosperity, of hope.

The American Indian has awakened and is on the way to a new era.

America's Indians have learned that you cannot go back -- you can only look back.

The Osage can be proud to have been at the forefront of that era of prosperity and hope.

You and the members of your tribe have reason to be proud because your tribe as much as any in America is passing through a new threshold of self-determination.

In the last four years we in the federal government have done much to bring to reality President Nixon's commitment "to a new era in which the future of American Indians is determined by Indian acts and Indian decisions."

Since 1969, for example, we have doubled BIA funding from $249 million to over $530 million, and have increased Indian funding from other federal agencies, like BUD, OEO, EDA, HEW, and Labor by nearly as much.

I have worked with Secretary Morton and Indian tribal leaders to bring out their funding priorities in consultation with us. I am proud to say that we have acted on those priorities.

We have made great strides in education. In the last two years alone, for example, we have increased funding for Indian education by almost $20 million. And today all 200 BIA schools have Indian advisory boards or education committees. We are also pursuing a vigorous scholarship program to help build the new Indian leaders of the future.

Today a majority of the top BIA executive positions at the Washington level are filled by Indians; and the number 6f Indians serving as BIA area directors has risen from lout of 11, to 7 out of a possible 12.

We are especially proud of our actions to restore 48,000 acres of the sacred Blue Lake area to the Taos Indians, as well as our, efforts to return lands to the Yakima Indians in Washington State.

The tribes of America are also making great strides in achieving economic independence. Our efforts through the Indian Business Development Fund are already bringing new prosperity to Indian lands, as well as assisting Indians to safeguard their own rights as well as develop them.

There is no question about it American Indians are entering a new era. We in government have learned from you, and as President Nixon has said many times, the future of the first Americans cannot be entrusted to anyone other than themselves.

That is what he meant when he established a goal of Indian "self-determination." We will not cease until that goal is achieved.

I would like to conclude with a few words directed to the young Osage men and women here.

First of all I must admit to you that I envy you each. I envy you for two reasons. First because you are young, and second because you are Osage, and are heirs of a great and stirring legacy of a rich tribal culture and tradition.

I know that each of you are filled with the special excitement of youth. You are looking forward to creating new relationships, of learning new things, and making new achievements.

Many of you will be leaving Oklahoma -- perhaps to join the Armed Forces, or to go to school. Some of you may not return and will seek a new home elsewhere.

Some of you have learned the Osage language at the weekly classes at Pawhuska and many of you are keeping alive Osage tradition and culture and your ceremonial dances.

If I can leave you with one thought it is that you must always be proud of this heritage. No matter how intense the pressures are that you encounter, do not deny this great legacy -- your birthright as an Osage.

To those of you who are younger and who are still formulating your education goals for the future I urge you to commit yourself to keeping these traditions alive.

Much has happened in the last century. This is a great day for Oklahoma and for the Osage, and particularly for those remaining living original Osage allottees, whom we particularly honor today.

It is an even greater day for America. Thank you.

Senator Henry M. Jackson (D. Wash.), chairman the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs announced today following an executive session of the full committee that he has appointed an ad hoc subcommittee to make a thorough study of a long-standing dispute between the Navajo and Hopi tribes over reservation boundary lines. The subcommittee is composed of Senator Frank Church (Idaho) as chairman and Senator Frank. E. Moss of Utah and Paul J. Fannin, Arizona. The committee directed the subcommittee to report back no later than March 1, 1973, its recommendation to the full committee.

Senator Jackson said that because of the many complexities surrounding this dispute he felt it would be unwise for the committee to act at the present time without the benefit of a more thorough examination of the facts in the controversy. The House recently passed legislation on which the Senate Interior Committee held open hearings on September 14 and 15 at which time both sides to the controversy made presentations. Senator Jackson said that he felt in fairness to both tribes and to the Senate itself his committee should not act without sending representatives to the area for a field examination and local hearings to allow those people who could not come to Washington an opportunity to be heard.