OPA

The Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, announced today that John O. Crow, Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau, has been named as one of 10 Federal employees to receive the Career Service Award presented by the National Civil Service League.

The awards, now in their 10th year, are given in recognition of outstanding competence in public service, and winners are chosen from the nomination of cabinet officers, heads of Federal agencies, and the D. C. Commissioners. The 1964 winners will receive their awards at the April 14 presentation dinner at the Sheraton Park Hotel in Washington, D. C. Members of the Cabinet, Congress, the various Federal agencies and the judiciary will join businessmen, members of the public, and government employees to honor this year's awardees.

Mr. Crow, a Cherokee Indian, receives his award for sustained superior service in the Bureau of Indian Affairs throughout a career that began 30 years ago.

He entered service with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1933 as a temporary clerk at the Fort Totten Indian Agency in North Dakota. Successive assignments took him, in 1935, to the Truxton Canyon Indian Agency at valentine, Arizona, where, in 1942, he was made superintendent of the agency; and to the superintendence’s of the Mescalero (Apache) Indian Agency in New Mexico, from 1946 to 1951; the Fort Apache Indian Agency, W1literiver, Arizona, from 1951 to 1955; and the Uintah-Ouray Agency at Fort Duchesne, Utah, from 1955 to 1957.

He came to the central offices of the Bureau in Washington, D. C., in 1957, as assistant to the Assistant Commissioner for Resources, and in 1960 he was made chief of the Bureau's Branch of Realty,

The Department of the Interior reports that the volume of timber cut from Indian lands in lq63 was the highest on record. Not included in the report was the volume cut on the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin and the Klamath Reservation in Oregon, where Federal supervision ended in 1961.

The total cut under contract and paid permit was 640 million board-feet, 18 percent of which was cut by Indian operators. It provided about 6,000 man years of direct employment by the wood-using industries on or near the reservations, and an income of over $9, 950,000 for the Indian owners at an average stumpage rate of $15.55. This income value was exceeded only in the peak years of 1959 and 1960.

In addition to the volume cut under contract and paid permit, 124 million board-feet were cut for Indian free use at an estimated value of $460,000. The volume cut for 1964 is expected to rise substantially over the 1963 total because of higher allowable cuts on many of the reservations.

Transfer of Howard F. Johnson from the position of superintendent, Blackfeet Agency, Browning, Mont., to the comparable position at Osage Agency, Pawhuska, Okla., effective February 15, was announced today by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Johnson, superintendent of the Blackfeet Agency for the past five and a half years, succeeds Thomas H. Dodge, who recently retired. A successor for Johnson at Blackfeet Agency has not yet been selected.

A Federal employee with more than 27 years of service, Johnson began his career with the Department of Agriculture at Navajo Agency in 1935. Five years later he transferred to the Indian Bureau as a soil technologist at the same location and subsequently served as soil conservationist and agricultural extension agent before being appointed extension supervisor in 1951.

Mr. Johnson received a Bachelor of Science degree in the field of agronomy and soils from Colorado A. and M. College in 1935 and has done graduate work in the fields of education and mathematics.

The Department of the Interior has announced its support of proposed Federal legislation providing for distribution of a judgment fund of over $6 million recovered by the Pawnee Indian Tribe of Oklahoma.

The amount actually awarded the Tribe by the Indian Claims Commission and appropriated by Congress in May 1963, was $7,316,096.55. However, payment of attorneys' fees and expenses and other costs of litigation reduced the sum available for distribution to $6,439,088,88, including accrued interest.

Judgment was based on a claim by the Pawnee’s that they were inadequately compensated for lands in Kansas and Nebraska which they ceded to the United States from 1833 to 1893. The Pawnee Tribe in Oklahoma is the same tribe that ceded the lands to the Government during that period.

Proposed legislation submitted by the Department would permit the Pawnees, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, to make their own determination of how they want their judgment fund programmed. The Pawnee Business Council, governing body of the Tribe, is considering an approach that would distribute part of the money through a family plan program and deposit the remainder in the United States Treasury to draw interest. The interest would be used to finance tribal self-help measures, such as scholarship grants, industrial development, housing, employment assistance, and a loan program

Award of a $2,129,250 contract for the construction of elementary school facilities at Rough Rock, Arizona, on the Navajo Indian Reservation, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The scheduled construction, which will replace the obsolete existing temporary sheet metal building serving some 60 children, will provide an additional 260 Navajo children with needed school accommodations.

The proposed construction reflects the efforts of the Bureau of Indian Affairs 00 provide all Indian children with opportunities for schooling when public schools are inaccessible to them, or are unequipped to provide the special language instruction that permits Indians to keep pace with English-speaking schoolmates.

The contract calls for the construction of an 11-classroom school with a multipurpose room, instructional materials center and library; two 168-pupil dormitories, a 360-pupil kitchen-dining building; and living accommodations for staff.

In addition to the building construction, a 100,000 gallon elevated tank and water supply system, sewage system and lagoons, drives, walks and other site improvements are included in the contract. The successful bidder was Northeast Construction Company of West Virginia, headquartered in Tiffin, Ohio. Six higher bids were received, ranging from 2,280,122 to $2,634,600.

The Department of the Interior today announced award of a $2,131,000 contract to construct a dormitory facility which will enable 152 children from remote portions of Alaska to attend the State Regional High School built by the State of Alaska at Nome.

An agreement between the State of Alaska and Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs provided that the State would build the instructional facility and the Bureau would provide a dormitory. It is expected that later the state will add a second dormitory and expand the instructional space.

The dormitory facility being built under this contract will include sleeping and living accommodations for 152 students, kitchen and dining facilities, office space, staff quarters, garage and a pedestrian tunnel and stair tower to the State Regional High School building.

Norden Construction Company, Inc., and Associate, of Fairbanks, Alaska, was the successful bidder on the Nome dormitory contract. Other bids received range to $2,943,043.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash today issued a statement summarizing the status of the Seminole Indian lands claims case which is pending before/the Indian Claims Commission. The text of the statement follows:

"In response to many queries from the press and from individual citizens, and in order to halt further spread of unsubstantiated rumors, the following status report is submitted concerning the lands claims case of the Seminole Indians now pending before the Indian Claims Commission for additional payment from the Federal Government for lands once held by the Indians of Florida.

"Two claims were filed with the Claims Commission, one by the Seminoles of Florida (1950) and one by the Seminoles of Oklahoma (1951), as successors of the Seminole Nation. (Seminole is a name given to the Indians living in Florida at the turn of the 19th century, consisting of Indian immigrants, chiefly Creeks of the Hitchiti-and-Muskogee-speaking stock, with an admixture of remnant Florida prehistoric aborigines.) The claims of the two present Seminole groups have now been consolidated inasmuch as they were identical claims for "recovery of the value of a parcel of land being all of the present State of Florida excepting three enclaves." (The three excluded areas were known as the Picolata Purchase on the northern Atlantic Coast, the Forbes Purchase on the upper Gulf Coast, from Apalache Bay to Apalachicola Bay, and the Pensacola Purchase on the northwestern Gulf Coast, all consisting of lands sold by Spain prior to U. S. accession of Florida.)

"The case is based on the cession to the U. S. by the Seminoles under the Treaty of 1823 of about 32,000,000 acres for which they received 4 million reserve acres, 6,000 dollars’ worth of livestock and farm implements, and 5,000 dollars per year for 20 years; and also upon the cession of the reserve lands under a later treaty made in 1832 in exchange for lands in Oklahoma territory.

"Hearings have continued intermittently for several years, with deliberations at one period focusing on the motion of the Miccosukee tribal groups to dismiss the monetary claim in favor of restoration of title of the lands to the Indians, However action on such a motion is outside the jurisdiction of the Indian Claims Commission whose authority is confined to granting monetary settlements,.

“On May 8, 1964, the Indian Claims Commission handed down an interim opinion acknowledging that the Seminole Nation, as it existed at the time of the 1823 treaty of cession had original Indian title to almost all the lands that now comprise the State of Florida, except for the three tracts called Forbes, Pensacola and Picolata Purchases and certain Spanish land grants. Title to the reservation established by the 1823 treaty was held to have been extinguished by the 1832 treaty.

"The case was ordered to proceed for determination of (1) the net acreage of the lands ceded under the 1823 treaty, except for the reservation lands, the value of the lands as of September 18, 1823, and the amount of consideration paid under treaty; (2) the acreages of the reservation lands and the value as of May 9, 1832, and the amount of consideration paid under the treaty; and (3) the amount of credits or deductions to which the 'United States may be entitled.

"In view of the many steps yet to be taken in the case--most time-consuming among which is the gathering of documentary evidence of the actual acreages and value of the lands in question--it cannot be indicated with any degree of certainty how much more time may elapse before final decision is possible, As the case now stands, all issues on titles, boundaries, acreages and land values must be determined before there could be any indication of possible amount of recovery."

Timber cuts and sales reached an all-time high resulting in increased employment for several thousand Indians during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1964, the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

The total volume cut under contract and paid permit was nearly 741 million board feet, an increase of 200 million board feet over the previous 12 months. Cash receipts rose $3 million during the same period, to a new high of $11.5 million.

Timber resources remain one of the greatest of the income-producing potentials on Indian reservations. During the past four years, the Bureau has concentrated its efforts upon more effective management and use of Indian forest holdings as one phase of the overall effort to improve the economy of reservations.

Contributing recently to the success of the effort has been legislation endorsed by the Department of the Interior and enacted in April. 1964 (P.L. 88- 301) which facilitates Bureau management of Indian timber resources by amending a 1910 Act under which the Bureau's staff has been operating.

Increased sales during fiscal year 1964 were noted in all parts of the country where Indian-held timber stands exist, with the exception of the Sacramento, California area. In the Sacramento area, the sales volume in recent years has remained consistently close to the maximum allowable annual cut.

The 1964 record is attributed to a planned increase in timber sale offerings combined with more favorable market conditions in the wood-using industries; large-scale inventories of standing timber financed through the Area Redevelopment Administration; and the start of production at three new tribally-owned sawmills on the Jicarilla-Apache Reservations in New Mexico, Fort Apache Reservation in Arizona, and the Red Lake Reservation in Minnesota.

It has been estimated that the fiscal 1964 cut created year-long jobs for between 5,000 and 7,000 men, most of them Indians, in various phases of the wood-using industries located on or near reservations. Most of the jobs were in areas of chronic underemployment. The stepped-up pace of cutting and sales has continued since July 1 of this year.

The new Economic Opportunity Act offers American Indians their greatest chance for self-help, Assistant Secretary of the Interior John A. Carver, Jr., last night told the 19-5tate Governors' Interstate Indian. Council.

Carver, whose six-Bureau supervision includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs, addressed the Council's seventeenth annual convention in Denver, Colorado. The member States have interest and responsibilities for Indian affairs.

"The old cry that the Federal Government should withdraw--that there should be less government--is a blind and shortsighted one in the West," he said. "It is strange that this is where most of it is heard.

“The point has now been reached, I am convinced, at which further accomplishments, further planning, will depend very greatly upon increased coordination among local, State and Federal Governments--and upon more and more participation by the Indians themselves."

Assistant Secretary Carver said “many Indian people themselves are unaware of how greatly their ultimate destinies rest with themselves," adding that they "contain within themselves the basic elements for their own resurgence as a self-supporting segment of our society."

He said the Economic Opportunity Act, embodying President Johnson's antipoverty crusade, offers Indians increased opportunities for employment, education, agricultural improvements, better health, new industries and a fuller life.

"The Indians are a proud and able people," Mr. Carver told the Council. "They don't want handouts. They want, in their innermost hearts, to be in control of their own destinies. This hope can become reality both for the Indians who prefer to live on their reservations and for those who prefer to leave. In either case, the thing they need remember--or learn, if they have not yet learned it--is that poverty is not necessarily the price to pay for retaining their Indian identity."

The Governors' Council includes representatives· of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

A 10-man delegation, headed by the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Indian Tribe of Oklahoma, and including three other Indians and two Interior Department officers, has been named to represent the United States at the Fifth Quadrennial Conference of the Inter-American Indian Institute to be held in Quito, Ecuador October 19-25.

W. W. Keeler, of Bartlesville, Oklahoma will lead the United States delegation. He is Principal Chief of the Cherokees, and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Phillips Petroleum Company. Mr. Keeler headed the Task Force on Indian Affairs appointed by Secretary Udall in 1961 and in that' capacity helped formulate current Federal policy in relation to Indians. He was also Chairman of another Secretarial task force appointed in 1962 to study conditions among the Indians and Eskimos of Alaska and to recommend Federal policy relating to them.

Other Indian delegates are as follows:

Irvin Santiago, Governor of Laguna Pueblo, New Mexico, and a member of the Tribal Council for six years. Governor Santiago was appointed by President Johnson to the National Citizens Committee on Community Relations. He is a member of the New Mexico Advisory Committee on Civil Rights and this year represents the Governor of New Mexico on the Governors' Interstate Council on Indian Affairs.

Robert Jim, of Toppenish, Washington, a member of the Trial Council of the Yakima Indians and officer of four key tribal committees. He is Chairman of the Fish, Wildlife and Law and Order Committee; Chairman of the Legislative Committee; Secretary of the Loan, Extension, Education, and Housing Committee; and Secretary of the Enrollment Committee.

Mrs. Agnes Savilla, of Parker, Arizona, a long-standing member of the Council of the Colorado River Tribes. A Mojave Indian, she is Chairman of the Council's Committee on Health, Education and Welfare.

Representing the Department of the Interior will be Dr. James E. Officer, Associate Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and Newton W. Edwards, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Public Land Management.

Other United States delegates will be: Dr. William H. Kelly, Director of the Bureau of Ethnic Research, University of Arizona; Dr. Erwin Rabeau, Deputy Chief, Division of Indian Health, United states Public Health Service; Mrs. Elizabeth Enochs, Senior Social Adviser of Economic Resources Office, Agency for International Development, Washington, D. C.; and Earl Lubensky, Political Affairs Officer, United States Embassy, Quito, Ecuador.

The United States will also be represented by social scientists who will present technical papers on community development.

The Inter-American Indian Institute, headquartered in Mexico City, was established in 1940 by an international convention. It is a specialized technical agency of the Organization of American States and functions as a clearing house for information about activities carried on by the member governments for the benefit of their Indian populations.

The Quito conference this month will focus on economic development programs for Indian tribes and communities, an issue of increasing interest to member governments.