Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton said today he has directed the Bureau of Indian Affairs to review the termination program affecting the Klamath Indians in Oregon, with a view to preparing appropriate amendments to the Klamath Termination Act of 1954 for presentation to Congress early next year.
The proposals would be designed particularly to protect the Klamath timber-land and the tribe's interests in this resource, the Secretary said.
This action followed Secretary Seaton 1s recent visit to the Pacific Northwest. During that trip, Secretary Seaton said, he discussed Klamath termination problems with former Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay, and it was agreed between them that a review of the whole program was desirable.
Secretary Seaton expressed his concern about the Klamath matter in a letter to Mrs. Harlan P. Bosworth, Jr., of Medford, Oregon, who had written to him as a representative of the Medford Council of Church Women. Secretary Seaton wrote Mrs. Bosworth to assure her that: "I share your feeling that the termination of Federal trusteeship should be scheduled so that no sale of the ponderosa forest will either harm the sustained yield program or result in marketing the Indian holdings at 'fire sale' prices.
“I have asked the Bureau of Indian Affairs and my personal staff to review the Klamath termination program, and to be prepared to submit proposed amendments to the Termination Act to the next Congress, when it convenes in January, to permit the intent of Congress expressed in the Klamath Termination Act to be carried out without any unfortunate consequences."
Regarded as the greatest asset of the Klamaths, the tribal timberland extends over some 850,000 acres and embraces an estimated 750 million board feet of reserve stands on cut-over lands. The Klamath lumber industry dates back to 1913.
