OPA

An old Indian saying goes, "Give us good roads and we'll take care of our other problems."

While more than roads are needed to meet the many problems of the Indian people, a vigorous road-building program is doing much to improve the living conditions on the Navajo Reservation, largest and most heavily populated in the country, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Before 1950, the vast interior of the Navajo Reservation, which is roughly equivalent to the size of West Virginia, was virtually devoid of roads.

Indeed, the roads were so bad that one steep hill between Gallup and Ganado earned the Navajo name, "The Place Where the Mexicans Cry." The Navajo locals started calling it that when they witnessed a group of Mexican teamsters literally break down and cry from frustration when they couldn't push their wagons out of the mud. They were on the way to deliver supplies to the Ganado Trading Post.

In the intervening 15 years, some 600 miles of paved highways have been constructed. Good roads are beginning to crisscross the reservation where once there were only wagon trails. Hogans and trading posts, which were once far removed from the outside world, now have paved highways running by the back door.

Many Navajo families have moved from interior reaches of the reservation up to the highway. Good roads have enabled them to get to the hospital when they need a doctor.

The location of BIA boarding schools has been one of the determining factors in the location of new roads on the reservation. For example, a 39-mile stretch of paved highway from Navajo Route 8 westward to Pinon, in almost the geographical center of the reservation, serves seven schools. All-weather roads have contributed materially to increased enrollment of Navajo children in reservation schools.

A thousand miles of bus routes still need to be built to serve the present 69 boarding and day schools and 15 public schools on the reservation.

Roads are being built into some of the deepest recesses of the reservation although some areas--such as Black Mountain and Navajo Mountain--are still far removed from outside influences.

One benefit to the Navajo people from the road-building program has been the boom in tourists, who are coming to the reservation in increasing numbers to see some of this country's most scenic views.

On Navajo Route 1 (also called Arizona #64) which traverses the reservation from Tuba City to Shiprock, a count made last summer showed that 1,500 cars traveled the highway in a single day. Before this 185-mile stretch was completed, about three years ago, nearly all of the traffic was local.

Some of the attractions along this route, which tourists may visit by driving only a few miles off the main highway, are the Four Corners Monument, Monument Valley and the Indian ruins at Betatakin.

In the planning stage is a route intersecting Navajo Route 1 to Page, Ariz. When this road is built, an all-weather highway will link two major recreation areas--Glen Canyon Dam on the Utah-Arizona border and Navajo Dam in northern New Mexico.

When U.S. 64 is completed across northern New Mexico and tied in with Navajo Route 1, a large section of the country, containing many major tourist attractions, will be open to the public.

Two major arteries are being constructed north-south across the reservation-- Navajo Route 12 and 8. Ultimately, there will be a scenic 141-mile highway running by the base of the Chuska Range, one of the most beautiful areas of the reservation. Two other manmade lakes--Red Lake and Tsaile Lake--also border this route.

The Long Range Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act of 1950, which appropriated $20 million for road construction, and the Anderson-Udall bill of 1957, an amendment to that act, which appropriated another $20 million, have made possible construction of Navajo Routes #1 and #3, the major arteries of the reservation.

Some secondary road construction on the reservation was financed in the early 1950's by the Atomic Energy Commission to reach rich uranium deposits at Cove, Arizona; Mexican Hat to Monument Valley and Teec Nos Pos to Monument Valley. The BIA has also cooperated with State Governments and oil companies in building roads and bridges in the oil fields near Aneth, Utah, and near Farmington, New Mexico.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett announced today a series of shifts in supervisory personnel affecting four Indian reservations and one Area Office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

James D. Cornett, formerly a land operations officer with the Zuni Indian Agency in New Mexico, has been appointed superintendent of the Fort Totten (Sioux) Reservation in North Dakota. This is a new position, created to raise the status of the Reservation to agency level. For the past several years the affairs of the Fort Totten Sioux have been administered through the Turtle Mountain Agency at Belcourt, N. Dak.

Don Y. Jensen, superintendent of the Cherokee Agency in western North Carolina, will be assigned to the Aberdeen, S. Dak., Area Office as Assistant Director for Economic Development, effective June 19. He will fill a vacancy left by Owen Morken, who has become Director of the Juneau Area Office. A replacement for Jensen at Cherokee has not yet been named.

James P. Howell, superintendent of the Fort Berthold (Sioux) Agency in South Dakota, will become superintendent of the Tuba City agency (Navajo) in Arizona, effective June 6. He will take up the post vacated through the retirement of Clinton O. Talley.

Slated to succeed Howell at Fort Berthold is James R. Keaton, former Assistant Superintendent of the Western Washington Agency which serves the Indian fishing communities of the Puget Sound region. The transfer is effective on June 19.

Kenneth L. Payton was transferred last month from the Mescalero Apache agency in southern New Mexico to head up the United Pueblos Agency with headquarters in Albuquerque. His move fills the vacancy created when Walter 0. Olson was named head of the newly established Albuquerque Area office several months ago. No replacement has yet been named for the Mescalero Agency.

Biographic Data on New Appointees:

Cornett, a native of Oklahoma, received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1952 from Oklahoma State University at Stillwater. He joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs that same year as a soil conservationist at the Fort Peck Indian Agency in Montana. He later served in a similar post at the Blackfeet Indian Agency in Browning, Mont.; and as Land Operations Officer at the Zuni Agency, in New Mexico.

Jensen, who has been superintendent at the Cherokee Agency since 1963, is a native of Castle Dale, Utah. He joined the Bureau in 1947 as a soil conservationist for the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Agencies in Montana. He has served as soil conservationist at the Blackfeet Agency, Montana; land operations officer at Standing Rock Agency, N. Dak.; and superintendent of the Northern Cheyenne Agency, Lame Deer, Mont.

Howell, an Oklahoma native of Indian descent, has been with the Bureau of Indian Affairs since graduating from Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kans., in 1940, with the exception of four years of military service. His assignments have included administrative posts at Haskell; Western Washington Agency, Everett, Wash.; Fort Belknap Consolidated Agency, Harlem, Mont.; and as assistant personnel officer at the Aberdeen, S. Dak., Area office.

Keaton, also an Oklahoman by birth, received a Bachelor of Science degree from Utah State University in 1949. From that year until joining the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1952 he was employed as a soil scientist with the Weber Basin Project in Utah and by Swift and Company in Portland, Ore. His first Bureau assignment was as a soil scientist with the Colville Indian Agency at Nespelem, Wash. He has since held posts as a soil conservationist and real estate specialist at the Yakima and Klamath Agencies and at the Muskogee Area office in Oklahoma. Following an 18 month management training assignment in Washington, D. C., Keaton was named Assistant Superintendent at the Western Washington Agency, his last post prior to the present transfer.

Payton, an Oklahoman, received a B.S. degree from Oklahoma A&M College at Stillwater in 1949. The following January he accepted a post as soil conservationist with the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Window Rock, Ariz. He served with the Navajo Agency until March 1958, when he was reassigned as land operations officer at the Consolidated Ute Agency, Colo. In November 1961, he became superintendent of the Mescalero Agency, in New Mexico, a post he has occupied until the present reassignment.

I remember Winslow from my boyhood. It was a busy town in those days, a rail center for an otherwise remote part of Arizona. In more recent years, however, Winslow became one of the many communities throughout America adversely affected by the transportation revolution and other changing patterns in our national economy.

But Winslow is picking up momentum again, thanks to a progressive social and economic stance. This community has learned what some others have yet to learn: To survive and thrive in today's economy it is necessary to act in partnership with other communities, merge local and State efforts with Federal efforts, and move in new social directions.

Winslow took a long step forward when it helped establish a Job Corps Conservation Center here -- the first in the west, the second in the Nation. Coordination and cooperation between local citizens and the Center's administrators have made this Center a continuing success and I understand that the Corpsmen have had a part back-stage in making today's event run smoothly.

Today we are here to dedicate a million-dollar industrial plant that surely will bring lasting benefits to the economy of the Winslow area. This plant represents a venture into a new kind of neighborliness between the people of Winslow and the Hopi people whose reservation is nearby.

At a press conference in my office less than two years ago, the first formal announcement was made of the signing of the agreement between the Hopi tribe and the BVD Company's subsidiary, Western Superior Corporation, to open a new garment industry here in Winslow.

Mayor Tom Whipple was there, and I remember his comment that this was one of the biggest things that had happened to Winslow in a long, long time.

The Hopi leaders were there, too, and they told me they considered this joint economic undertaking a milestone in their history for it represented the initial step by the tribe to remold its economy into a modern cast.

As for myself, I consider the venture particularly significant because it shows the economic progress that can be made in a short period when the partnership approach is applied. The Hopi people and the people of Winslow became partners in formulating the basic plans which paved the way for a new industry to be located here. The business community joined forces with the Federal Government in attracting Western Superior to this area.

Land was set aside by the town for an industrial park, and a public-spirited developer in the community donated additional acreage. The Hopi tribe invested a sizeable percentage of its limited funds to build this plant, which will be leased to Western Superior. The Bureau of Indian Affairs provides on the-job training contracts--amounting to half the entry wages--for 13 weeks of training for each new Indian worker. Sixty Indians are now on the job and 200 or more will soon be on the payroll.

Meanwhile, the Hopis are taking another unprecedented step in the history 6f Indian affairs. They are now considering the possibility of issuing revenue bonds to finance a $2.25 million additional facility so that the industry may extend its operations and thereby provide jobs for hundreds more Indians.

Senator Carl Hayden's comment (Congressional Record, Sept. 16, 1968) epitomizes the importance of this entire industrial development endeavor. He said:

"It combines, first and foremost, a meaningful integration of red and white Americans, and, second, the integration of local and national economic interests."

The Federal Government's primary interest in this venture is that it means employment for a large number of Indians. Jobs for Indians--good jobs, steady jobs, jobs that have a future, jobs that lead to a new kind of family security-- this is the way out of the quagmire of poverty that has bogged down the Indian American for too long.

Indians are a very small minority among American minorities, numbering about 600,000 in all (according to the U.S. Census). But more than twenty-five percent of the reservation Indians live here in Arizona, and for this reason a considerable Federal effort is going into industrial, educational and community improvement programs for Indians in this State. About $52 million was expended by the Bureau of Indian Affairs alone for Arizona Indians during the fiscal year ended last June. Other agencies in the Federal Indian consortium--most notably PHS, OEO, and EDA--have contributed millions more for Indian aid.

Our concern is that Indians have not, in the past, enjoyed equality of opportunity. Their social exclusion is in large part due to economic exclusion. Industry has avoided Indian areas in planning for new sites. The employment markets for Indians have been narrow and the promise of future advancement severely limited.

But a new attitude has begun to surface in the business and industrial community, and it is typified by what is happening here in Winslow. Industry has at long last discovered that Indians are· quick to learn and .become able and loyal employees when treated with dignity by employers. Industry has also discovered that there is space for expansion in Indian country whereas space is at a premium in heavily industrialized regions.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs offers what we call a "one-stop service" to industry. It helps industry select suitable sites in Indian areas, assists in negotiations with tribal governing bodies, aids in finding capital (public and private) for the industry, assists in obtaining licenses and similar permits, helps recruit Indian employees, and provides on-the-job training contracts and employee relations assistance.

These are incentives which we hope will stimulate a full economic regeneration in Indian communities. More than 100 new industries, some of them with names that read like the WHO's WHO of American Business, have located in Indian population areas during the past three years. More and more Indian tribes are taking active part in regional planning and development programs, and this trend should stimulate still further commercial and industrial progress in the years immediately ahead.

During the 1970's, it has been forecast, our gross national product will have reached $1.2 trillion. Our farm population will be half what it is today. By the end of the decade more than half of all American families will be earning more than $10,000 per year.

The Indian American must not be excluded from his full share in the economic and social benefits that will be reaped from this national growth.

What the people of Winslow and the Hopi people have done here, together, is the beginning of a more equitable place in American life for the First Americans.

Owen D. Morken, 57, a native of Minnesota who has served in the Bureau of Indian Affairs almost 30 years, has been appointed Area Director for the Bureau at Minneapolis, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett announced.

Morken's appointment is effective October 6.

He succeeds Glenn R. Landb1Qom, who has been Area Director since January, 1966 and who will transfer to a position in the Division of Economic Development of the Bureau in Washington.

Born at Bemidji on February 24, 1911, Morken was graduated from Bemidji State College in May 1934 with a Bachelor of Education degree.

He was employed by the Minnesota State Highway Department from May, 1934 to January, 1939 and a month later began his career with the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior, as a Civilian Conservation Corps superintendent at the Consolidated Chippewa Agency in Minnesota.

He served in progressively responsible positions in the Minneapolis, Phoenix, Navajo, and Aberdeen areas of the Bureau and became Area Director at Juneau, Alaska, in January, 1966. He was transferred to Washington in April, 1968 as an Assistant to the Commissioner in the capacity of an advisor on Alaskan affairs.

Morken is a widower.

He has one daughter and three grandchildren. The Minneapolis Area includes Indian communities with a Federal re1ationship in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa.

The award of a $3,386,999 contract for the construction of high school facilities at Sisseton, S.D., was announced by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior.

The contract calls for the construction of a two-story academic complex. this will include an administrative unit, general science laboratory, two biology laboratories, two home economics classrooms, a health room, and an instructional material center; a gymnasium with seating capacity for 3,000; and a kitchen-dining building with, shops and classrooms. Other work is to include site grading, heating, air-conditioning, utilities, extension of water and sewer facilities from the City of Sisseton; fencing, paving drives and parking areas and other related work.

When complete, the school will provide educational facilities for 660 students. The new plant will permit release of rented spaces in churches, stores, and assembly halls which are being used for classrooms and a library. The low successful bidder was Henry Carlson Co., of Sioux Falls, S.D. Two higher bids, for $3,468,400 and $3,547,200 were received.

LOWER BRULE INDIANS TO BE TRAINED--The CalDak Electronics Corporation of Pierre, S. D., recently negotiated a $6,950 contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide on-the-job training for a group of South Dakota Indians. The trainees, 16 Sioux from the Lower Brule Reservation, will learn to assemble electronics components while employed in the company's plant on their reservation. The opportunity to learn while earning is a part of the Bureau's employment assistance program aimed at expanding job opportunities for reservation Indians.

LEGAL AID FOR INDIANS--Indigent Montana Indians will benefit from a project soon to be undertaken by the University of Montana's School of Law. The University recently received a $54,150 grant from the National Defender Project, sponsored by the Ford Foundation to help those who are charged with crimes and cannot afford counsel.

The grant will be used for a three-year program to provide law students to aid assigned attorneys in these cases. The students will carry out investigations and perform legal research.

Charles L. Decker, Director of the National Defender Project, said the grant was the first under the Project to consider the plight of indigent Indians charged with crimes.

INDIAN CATTLE OPERATIONS PROFITABLE--Figures recently released by two Indian cattle enterprises indicate profitable operations during 1965.

The Mescalero Apache Cattle Growers, a cooperative on New Mexico's Mescalero Reservation, reported that sales topped $370,000 last year, thus wiping out a 1964 loss. The cooperative's cash position was sizably improved.

Meanwhile, on the San Carlos Reservation in neighboring Arizona, livestock-men sold nearly 10,000 head of cattle for $1.2 million. The San Carlos Apache Tribe, which operates a 16,000-head tribal herd, cooperates with the University of Arizona and the U. S. Department of Agriculture in a performance testing program. In 1955 the Indians set aside a purebred herd of 600 Hereford cows which has since been used as a foundation for the production of high quality replacement bulls. The objective is to increase beef production through scientific selection of breeding stock.

SECOND BRANCH STORE FOR NAVAJO CRAFTS GUILD--Construction is well under way at Kayenta, Ariz., of the second branch store to be operated by the Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild. The store's spacious sales area will include a modern sunken lounge with cone-shaped metal fireplace. The building also will provide living quarters for a manager-custodian and a workroom for craftsmen.

Designed by the Architectural Section of the Navajo Tribes Department of Design and Construction and built by local workmen, it will be completed by early July.

The Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild was established in 1941 to promote the sales of quality silver work and Navajo rugs. The Guild's main building is at Window Rock; and a branch store has been opened at Cameron, Ariz.

COLVILLE CLEANUP CAMPAIGN--President Johnson's program to keep America Beautiful is off to a flying start on the Colville Reservation in Washington.

A hard working five-man crew has been disposing of unsightly trash on roadsides, lawns and fields. Salaries for the workmen are paid by the Colville Federated Tribes, and three trucks were provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

To date the crew has located, gathered and buried an accumulation of junk that includes 600 rusting car bodies, numerous refrigerators and other abandoned items. Reservation dwellers are urged to help eliminate other eyesores in yards, fields and along roadsides.

The campaign was sparked by community rallies, poster contests in schools, and publicity through local newspapers and radio stations. Pleased with the improved appearance of their reservation, the Colville Indians plan to continue the campaign throughout the summer.

ANNUAL INDIAN ART EXHIBITION--Rafael Medina, an Indian artist from New Mexico's Zia Pueblo, was named winner of the $250 grand award in the Twenty-First Annual American Indian Artists Exhibition at Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Okla.

The winning painting, in casein, is entitled, "Answered Prayer." It was the first major award in nationwide competition for Medina, a self-taught artist.

Other awards included: a special trophy to Oscar Howe, Sioux artist from Vermillion, S. D., for outstanding contributions to the annual competition, $150 first place and $75 second place awards for regional paintings, for a special category recognizing new trends in American Indian art and for sculpture. Winners were:

First in Plains paintings, Blackbear Bosin, Kiowa-Comanche artist from Wichita, Kans.; second, David E. Williams, Kiowa-Apache, Los Angeles;

First in Woodland paintings, Jerome R. Tiger, Creek-Seminole, Muskogee, Okla.; second, Fred Beaver, Creek-Seminole, from Ardmore, Okla.;

First in Southwest paintings, Raymond Naha, Hopi, Gallup, N. Mex.; second, Harrison Begay, Navajo, Ganado, Ariz.;

First in special category, Joan Hill, Cherokee-Creek, Muskogee, Okla.; second, Valjean McCarty Hessing, Choctaw, Owasso, Okla.;

First in sculpture, Robert D. Shorty, Navajo, Santa Fe, N. Mex., second, John D. Free, Osage, Pawhuska, Okla.

SANTA FE INSTITUTE STUDENTS TAKE HONORS--Students of the Institute of American Indian Arts at Santa Fe, N. Mex., won a total of 10 merit awards, plus )ne honorable mention in a Statewide Creative Writing Contest sponsored by the New Mexico State University. There were 524 entries from 28 schools, and 24 merit awards were given. The winning short stories and poems will appear in a publication of the State University, with cover design by an Institute art student.

AND THAT'S A LOT OF COOKIES!--The Chaparral Girl Scouts of the Navajo Reservation are proving that Scout cookies are big business. The 1,200-acre site they selected for a campground in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico will cost $123,585. The girls have been working hard to earn money toward the purchase price, including the Scouts' traditional fund-raising method of selling cookies. Now their elders are sufficiently impressed to offer help. A capital fund campaign to raise money for the camp is scheduled for kick-off in the first half of 1967.

INDIAN CLAIMS COMMISSION ACTIONS--An award of $11,394 has been granted to the Iowa Tribe of the Iowa Reservation in Kansas and Nebraska, the Iowa Tribe of the Iowa Reservation in Oklahoma, and the Iowa Nation, in settlement of a general accounting claim.

The Commission also held that the petitioners were entitled to recover the fair market value of 4,798 acres of land excluded from a reservation created for the Iowa Nation under a treaty of September 17, 1836.

In an order of April 4, 1966 the Claims Commission ruled that the Piankeshaw Tribe had title to a tract of land in eastern Illinois that was ceded under the Treaty of May 23, 1807. The case will now proceed for determination of issues, including acreage, and value of the land involved.

Chairman Nakai, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:

It is exciting to represent the Department of the Interior on this occasion. An event such as this can only happen once in a lifetime, and I am very pleased to share it with you. I have looked forward to the opportunity to become better acquainted.

I believe a Navajo must have originated the saying: "The first hundred years are the hardest." Nowhere in the United States ... and perhaps nowhere else in the world -- have a people faced challenge more ener­getically than have the Navajo in the years since 1868.

We are here to observe the One Hundredth Anniversary of the signing of a treaty between the Navajo Nation and the United States Government. Events prior to the treaty could have left the Navajos forever in despair. But you did not despair, you turned misfortune into a triumph of will to survive and grow.

What we are really observing here today is victory -- Navajo victory over adversity. Today you number more than 100,000 -- ten times or more than in 1868. Along with your growth today your lands are pro­ducing coal, oil, gas, uranium, crops and livestock, and supporting a flourishing and expanding tourist industry.

Irrigation has turned your desert areas green. Roads carrying school buses loaded with children wind through your valleys. Schools, hospitals, stores, motels, industries, new homes and growing communities dot the landscape. There are also the chapter houses, and in Window Rock, the seat of Navajo democratic government, the handsome Tribal Council building. Soon there is to be a tribal shopping center.

Horse-drawn wagons are almost gone, and pickup tracks are giving way to station wagons and passenger cars. Striking changes have taken place in the dress and self-assurance of the young adults. Your tribal leaders are forward-looking. They are educated and have an understand­ing both of the world and the needs of their people. I am greatly im­pressed with their earnestness and ability and the way they go about things.

You are mastering your own fate and shaping your own destiny. But how different it all was in the months and years immediately following the­ Iong Walk to Fort Sumner, where the treaty was signed a century ago.

In those days the relationships between the Federal Government and the Navajo people were more in the nature of supervisor and supervised, than the partnership that exists today. The lands of the reservation were stark and wild. There were no roads. There were no schools.

There were no hospitals or other medical services. There was no organized tribal political structure to help strengthen and unify the Navajo people. There were a few thousand people, and there were a few thousand head of sheep and that was about all.

Although the lean years followed, the Navajos not only survived, but grew stronger. Many of your young men joined the armed forces of the United States in wars against our national enemies.' ·More and more, the Navajos became linked with the growing American Nation, and today you are an important and prominent part of it.

The Navajos have seized upon one aspect of American life in particular. You have stressed the value of education. One Navajo leader of old said to his people:

"Education is the ladder. Climb it, my children."

The Navajo people have climbed high. In 1885 the Navajo agent reported a regular attendance of 33 pupils, an increase of nine over the preceding years Following World War II the Navajo Council sent a special delegation to see the Secretary of the Interior and Congressional com­mittees in Washington to tell them that formal education was considered by the tribe to be its primary need.

The Navajos have been leaders among the Indian groups in their insistence upon educational opportunity for their children. Particularly in the Past 30 years, the demand for schools, and good ones, has been most in­sistent.

The Federal Government, through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, responded with a vast program of school construction. Ten years ago there were thousands of Navajo youngsters who had no school to attend. Today this is no longer true. You have some of the finest schools to be found any­where in this country. But fine buildings are not enough. We are now working with you to improve the quality of educational programs that will benefit the Navajo students.

We are greatly impressed with your Tribe's $10 million scholarship fund to help train future leaders, as well as your plans for a junior college.

Next to education, perhaps the most significant progress has been the building of roads for vehicular use in this vast area. Not too many years ago the best travel was over little more than trails by horse and wagon.

As a result of the Anderson-Udall Bill, paved roads were pushed across the reservation. Today the school bus, the Navajo driving his own car, the grocery delivery truck, and the visiting tourist are familiar sights.

President Johnson, this spring, sent a special message on Indian matters to Congress. He called attention to the still inadequate roads for the Navajo Reservation and asked Congress to appropriate more money. The new roads will help the Indian people keep their children at home in­stead of having to send them far away to boarding schools. New roads will also aid economic development of the area/and allow other citizens of this country to visit your reservation. There are many good things that other Americans can learn from you, the richness of your past your love of beauty and nature, your arts, your steadfastness and tranquility.

Within the next few years the Navajos will face a new challenge, not only to themselves but to all the people in the southwest. This reser­vation is the very hub of the Four Corners area, which has been singled out for economic development through Federal assistance. The Navajo Reservation within this region can become the prime area for industrial, commercial, agricultural and social achievement.

Some of the groundwork already has been laid for such growth, in the establishment of vast tribal enterprises such as the Navajo Tribal Utilities Authority and the Navajo Forest Products Industries. The latter enterprise, I understand, has turned back a large sum into the tribal coffer this year. This is real progress -- and I am sure it is only the beginning.

The Navajo Tribe has also established industrial parks at Shiprock, and Fort Defiance. No less than 12 major private industries -- chiefly producers of coal, oil, gas and uranium -- are already contributing to the economic growth and sufficiency of the tribe.

But still there is high unemployment across the reservation. Even though several thousand jobs have been created by new industries, still there is poverty and the average educational level is lower than it is for the Nation as a whole. Resources are producing less revenue for the tribe than they might if they were more fully developed.

We are all interested in helping you make a better life for yourselves and your children. This administration believes that .you must be free to choose your own path of development, to find your own most satisfactory way of life with dignity and self-respect. We are pledged to help without coercion.

Today as we hail this One Hundredth Anniversary, we can look forward to another century of even greater progress, with more benefits to all of the Navajo population.

The ability to shape future events rather than rely on achieve­ments is the quality that enables a race or a Nation to survive be able to adjust to change, to grow with charge, is the quality that distinguishes the "doers" from the followers." Americans are confident that the Navajo will continue to make new history. It is with deep respect and admiration that I salute you on your 100th Anniversary.

About 1,000 teachers, from Bureau of Indian Affairs schools and from public and private schools attended by Indian students, are scheduled for intensive training in new teaching methods this summer, the Department of the Interior announced today. The program is being conducted for the Bureau of Indian Affairs by the University of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, Ariz., under a c $399,800 contract, financed with a part of a $9 million grant from the Department, of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Other programs being funded under the grant provide for cost-effectiveness studies of Bureau teaching and administration; training of BIA guidance counselors; teaching of English as a second language to Indian children; development of social and cultural understanding of and for Indian groups; and development of procedures and guidelines for Indian people to establish their own Boards of Education to take over operation of Indian schools under contract.

Working at institutes coordinated by Northern Arizona University, school administrators will study ways to improve the effectiveness of professional staff who have charge of teaching Indian youngsters.

About 1,000 participants from all over the country will be involved in a continuing program on four university campuses: Northern Arizona, South Dakota, Utah, and Central Washington. The interrelated programs are designed to provide both old and new members of the BIA education staff with the latest information on instructional techniques and analysis of Indian youth.

Typical areas that will be explored include the differences in language development in first and second languages. Example: Most Indians learn their native tongue first, then have a difficult time transferring Indian imagery concepts to the more exacting demands of English tense and gender. There will be strong recommendations for early childhood education.

Other areas include the relationship of health, family and cultural differences to the development of intelligence, and the importance of family, community leaders and home environment in the education of the Indian child.

Recognizing that the Indian child is strongly family-oriented, with Indian families working in close cooperation on the reservation, Bureau educators have been learning to bring the family into actual participation in schoolroom activities, from PTA work to direct involvement as dormitory advisors in Bureau boarding schools.

In addition to expanded instruction for educational personnel, the Bureau is seeking approval of the Civil Service Commission for establishment of rates of teacher pay that will provide additional compensation for graduate study credits and extra-duty assignments.

The Department of the Interior has amended existing Federal Regulations governing preparation of tribal rolls and enrollment appeals, to implement preparation of rolls for the Tlingit and Haida Indians of Alaska, a current activity of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The amendments to Title 25, Code of Federal Regulations, Parts 41 and 42, became effective upon publication in the Federal Register June 1, 1966. They establish qualifications for enrollment in the Tlingit and Haida Tribes and set a June 30, 1967 deadline for filing applications.

All persons of Tlingit or Haida Indian blood residing in the United States or Canada on August 19, 1965 are eligible for enrollment if they were legal residents of the Territory of Alaska on or prior to June 19, 1935 or are descendants of such legal residents of Tlingit or Haida Indian blood.

Sponsors may file applications for members of the Armed Services or other services of the United States or Canadian Governments or for family members stationed abroad. They may also file on behalf of minors, mentally incompetent persons, or others in need of assistance, or for persons who died after the date of the Act of August 19, 1965 which authorized the Secretary of the Interior to prepare the Tlingit and Haida tribal rolls.

Any person who has been rejected for enrollment may file an appeal, or have an appeal filed by a sponsor on his behalf. Such appeals must be addressed to the Secretary of the Interior and be filed in writing before the close of business on the 30th day after receipt of a rejection notice. Those who receive rejection notices at addresses outside the Continental United States will have 60 days to file an appeal.

A new Instructional Service Center has been established in Brigham City, Utah, to direct a massive in-service training program for the education staff of the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett said that Edgar L. Wight has been appointed director of the Center.

Wight has a background of educational experience that ranges from principal teacher in Alberta, Canada through a variety of Federal Government assignments, including a number with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He also did a stint as training director for the Development and Resources Corporation, New York, in its Khuzistan Development Project in Iran on the Persian Gulf.

Because of the Bureau's increased tempo and accent on preschool and elementary education, thousands of BIA school administrators, teachers, guidance personnel and aides will be involved in a series of three and four week workshops. They will be trained in the latest and most successful instructional techniques and media in Indian education, Bennett said.

The program is being undertaken as a result of a recent agreement with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare that will provide the Bureau of Indian Affairs more than $9 million for such projects.

To be served are the education staffs of all 253 Bureau-operated schools, as well as extension of some services to public schools which educate Indian children.

The facility is located next to the Bureau's largest Indian school, Intermountain, at the south edge of Brigham City, Utah.

Wight has most recently served as BIA education assistant area director in Alaska, and on the central office staff in Washington, D.C.

The new director is a graduate of Brigham Young University, Utah State University and Calgary Normal School. He has taken advanced graduate study at Utah State.