OPA

Legislation that would restore about 65,000 acres of land now in Federal ownership to five Indian tribal groups in California, Idaho, Montana and Washington is needed 1tin simple justice 11 to these people, the Department of the Interior said today in announcing endorsement of H. R. 3490 and S. 1757, bills that would accomplish this purpose.

The tribal groups and acreages involved are Fort Peck Reservation, Montana, 41,450.13 acres; Coeur d'Alene Reservation, Idaho, 12,877.65; Crow Reservation, Montana, 5,480.95; Spokane Reservation, Washington, 5,451; and Klamath River Reservation, California, 159.57.

All of these are scattered lands which were ceded by the tribes to the United States many years ago with the understanding that they would be sold and the proceeds deposited to the credit of the tribes in the United States Treasury. Since they have not been sold, the Department believes that they should now be restored to tribal ownership and held in trust by the United States like other reservation lands.

Similar action, the Department pointed out, was taken over 20 years ago in the case of tribes organized under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 and last year in the case of the Colville Reservation of Washington. Restoration of these lands would complete the process. It would also terminate the Federal Government's right to dispose of them under the cession statutes and assure the Indians of their continued use.

The Department recommended four minor technical amendments and one substantive amendment which would authorize the tribes to sell or exchange the restored lands with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior.

Regulations governing a new vocational training program for Indians between 18 and 35 years of age and residing on reservations ware announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The new program is being initiated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs with an appropriation of $1.5 million, contained in the Department’s fiscal 1958 appropriations measure signed by the President on July 1. Authorization for the program was provided by the 84th Congress in Public Law 959.

The regulations cover three types of training--courses at vocational schools, apprenticeship training, and on-the-job training.

To be eligible for participation in the program, a vocational school must be accredited by a recognized national or regional agency or approved by an appropriate State agency and must be able to show "reasonable certainty" of employment for its graduates in their fields of training.

Apprenticeship training may be approved if (1) it is either supervised or recognized and approved by an appropriate State or national agency, (2) leads to an occupation requiring skills normally learned through apprenticeship, and (3) is expressly identified as apprenticeship training by the establishment offering it.

On-the-job training programs may be approved when the training is recognized by industry and labor as leading to skilled employment.

To be eligible, potential Indian trainees must be in need of vocational training in order to obtain satisfactory employment. Approved trainees will be provided with transportation to the place of training and subsistence during the course of training, which is limited to a maximum of 24 months.

Public Law 959 authorizes annual appropriations of $3,500,000 for Indian vocational training. The Department requested $2 million less than that to get the program under way in its initial year.

Further information about the projected program may be obtained from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Washington 25, D. C.

Award of a $271,570 contract for construction of day school facilities at Borrego Pass on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico to Wilson Hockinson & Cantrall, Inc.; of Albuquerque was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Two other New Mexico firms submitted higher bids of $279,900 and $283,630.

The new four-classroom school will serve 120 Indian children living in the Borrego Pass area. It will be erected at the site of the present trailer school operated by the Indian Bureau.

A number of trailer schools have been established by the Bureau as temporary educational facilities for Navajo children living in isolated parts of the reservation. These units are being replaced by adequate school buildings wherever the population and daily attendance warrant.

Kitchen and dining facilities are included in the school building. The contract also calls for three two-bedroom duplexes, utilities, walks, and roads.

The Department of the Interior today announced award of a road construction contract calling for asphalt paving of approximately 8.141 miles of the Chuichu-Covered Wells Road on the Papago Indian Reservation, about 27 miles south of Casa Grande, Arizona, in Pima and Pinal counties.

The contract was awarded to Palmer Contracting Company, Phoenix. Its bid of $248,164.80 was the lowest of 12 received. The others ranged from $249,280 to $310,770.02.

This road constitutes another link in the connecting route between Casa Grande and State Route 86, the Tucson-Ajo Highway. It will provide an improved, dust-free access road for the entire Papago Reservation for travel north to Casa Grande and the greater Phoenix area. It is also expected to be an important tourist route for visitors wishing to visit the Papago Indian villages and enjoy typical desert scenery.

Seminole Indians of Florida will have an opportunity in the near future to vote on the ratification of a proposed tribal constitution and tribal corporate charter under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the Department of the Interior announced today.

The Florida Indian group, which has not previously had a formal tribal organization recognized by the Interior Department, submitted a proposed constitution and charter to Secretary Fred A. Seaton last March and asked him to authorize a tribal election on ratification of the two documents. Authorization was given by Assistant Secretary Roger C. Ernst in a letter July 11, 1957, to Kenneth A. Marmon, superintendent of the Indian Bureau’s Seminole Agency at Dania.

Under the rules that have been established, Superintendent Marmon will set the election date which may be any time from 20 to 60 days after the posting of public notice. All Indians 21 years of age and over whose names are on the agency’s tribal census roll at Dania are entitled to vote whether or not they reside on one of the three Florida reservations under Federal jurisdiction.

For the election to be valid, ballots must be cast by at least 30 percent of those entitled to vote. Favorable ballots by a majority of those voting will constitute ratification of the two documents.

The proposed constitution provides for a tribal council of eight members including one representative each from the Dania, Big Cypress and Brighton Reservations and five members elected at large. The council would have authority to represent the tribe in dealings with the Federal Government, to enact ordinance subject to review by the Secretary of the Interior, and to conduct programs for the tribal welfare.

The proposed charter provides for a separate organization to conduct the business affairs of the tribe and manage the tribal property.

Award of a contract for construction of dormitory and dining facilities to accommodate Navajo Indian children attending public school at Flagstaff, Arizona, was announced today by the Department of Interior.

The successful bidder is Wilson Hockinson & Cantrall, Inc., of Albuquerque with a bid of $801,723. Six higher bids, ranging from $804,880 to $899,500, were submitted by contractor, from Arizona, New Mexico and Missouri.

The facilities will provide quarters for 304 Indian children above the fifth grade or age 12 and older. Dormitories have been constructed at a Dumber of towns adjacent to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, as a part of the Indian Bureau’s policy to make available to Indian children the same opportunities for public education as are provided for other citizens.

The contract calls for construction of two two-story dormitories and a multipurpose building, including utilities, walks, roads, incinerator, fencing, and certain other related items

With an appropriation of $109,410,000 for the fiscal year which began July 1, 1957, the Bureau of Indian Affairs is in position to initiate a new adult vocational training program and substantially broaden educational facilities for Indian children, Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton announced today.

Bureau plans for the new fiscal year also include expansion in the geographic scope of the relocation service operation, enlargement of the adult literacy training program on reservations, extension of welfare assistance to an increasing number of needy Indians, and some acceleration of resource work, especially in forestry and soil conservation.

Many of the program changes and expansions scheduled for the next 12 months represent a fulfillment of plans outlined by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons in a series of field conferences held over a five-month period last summer with elected tribal officers throughout the country.

The Bureau's 1958 appropriation compares with $87,737,500 available in the fiscal year which ended June 30. Initiation of adult vocational training, construction and rehabilitation of school facilities, and operation of the Bureau's regular education program account for all but a minor fraction of the increase.

The adult vocational training program is being launched with an initial appropriation of $1,500,000 under authority of a congressional law enacted last August. It is aimed primarily at reservation Indians from 18 to 35 who need such training to enhance their earning powers and improve their personal and family living standards. Plans contemplate enrollment of Indian trainees in regular vocational schools and provision of “on-the-job” or apprentice training in industrial establishments.

While funds for relocation service to Indians have not been increased from the $3,541,000 available this past fiscal year, the Bureau will broaden the geographic coverage of its operations by reducing the staff at several existing field offices and by opening six new ones. Three of these in medium-size or suburban communities--Joliet and Waukegan, Ill., and Oakland, Calif.--actually began operations July 1. Three other offices are in process of selection.

With the increase of funds for the education of Indian children, the Bureau will be able to provide for a total enrollment of 45,465 pupils in Federal facilities--29,455 in boarding schools and 16,010 in day schools. Funds for assisting State and local bodies in the public school education of Indian children from families on tax-exempt land were increased by $2,652,200 and will provide assistance for a total of 46,140 pupils.

Of the $17,000,000 available for the Bureau's construction program, the major share will be used for the building and renovation or enlargement of school facilities to keep pace with the growing school-age Indian population and to relieve overcrowding which in some Bureau schools now runs from 25 to 50 percent. The construction appropriation also includes other buildings and utilities needed in the Bureau's program and continuation of work on existing Indian irrigation project.

For the adult literacy training program, which has been in operation over a year on five reservations, the Bureau will have $805,800, an increase of $647,800. Plans for expansion call for establishing units on 12 additional reservations, at 39 trailer locations on the Navajo Reservation, and at 10 locations in Alaska.

Funds for welfare service to Indians residing on reservations have been increased by $1,116,000 to $4,954,000. This will permit the Bureau to keep pace with the increasing welfare load which results largely from the needs of dependents of Indian patients hospitalized for tuberculosis under the stepped-up case finding program of the Public Health Service. In addition it will make possible an expansion of assistance for handicapped Indian children needing foster home or institutional care. It will also provide expanded family counseling and guidance services.

Funds for the Bureau's forestry work have been increased by $101,100 to $1,675~6l8. This will make it possible to continue inventory work on all Indian forests of commercial importance, and to place them eventually in full-scale production within the limits of sustained yield. An increase of $288,500 in soil and moisture conservation funds to $4,638,000 will permit some acceleration in the tempo of this activity on Indian lands.

Awarding of a contract for construction of a series of earth fill dam and dike projects on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Fremont County, Wyoming, to C. J. Abbott of Laramie, Wyoming, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Abbott's bid of $37,600 was the lowest of six received by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The others ranged from $38,000 to $62,200.

Construction of the projects on Cottonwood Creek drainage is part of a comprehensive program for development and conservation of the resources of the Wind River Basin on which the Bureau of Indian Affairs has been engaged for the past nine years. When completed, the projects will help to retard erosion, halt sedimentation and reduce peak flows of Cottonwood Creek.

A two-year extension of the Interior Department's authority to lease lands on the Colorado River Indian Reservation in western Arizona would benefit the Indians, the Federal Government and the economy of Yuma County, Arizona, Assistant Secretary Roger C. Ernst said today in announcing the Department's support of S. 2161.

The bill would amend the Colorado River Leasing Act of 1955 and would provide such an extension beyond the present August 14, 1957, expiration date.

In clarifying the Department's position, Mr. Ernst pointed out that when the Colorado River Leasing Act of 1955 was enacted, it was anticipated that a controversy over the ownership of the reservation would be settled either by the Indian Claims Commission or by legislation during the succeeding two years. The dispute, however, has not yet been settled and probably will not be before the end of the current year.

Under these circumstances, Mr. Ernst said, a continuation of the leasing authority is needed and desirable.

The Department is now studying proposals recently submitted for agricultural development leasing of as much as 65,000 acres on the reservation. Execution of such development leases, said Mr. Ernst, will obviously benefit the Indians eventually determined to be owners of the land and will also relieve the Government of the need for making large expenditures of Federal funds for development.

Yuma County's economy will be strengthened greatly by the additional jobs and crop processing facilities created by the reservation's expanded potential, Mr. Ernst said.

Opportunities for training on the job in manufacturing plants located near Indian reservations will be provided for nearly 700 Indians under contracts recently signed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs with eight private business firms, Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton announced today.

Two of the plants providing the training are in North Carolina, two in Arizona, two in South Dakota, and one each in New Mexico and Washington. All have been cooperating in the Indian Bureau's industrial development program and have for some months past been employing Indian workers.

Under the contracts, signed by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons, each enrolling Indian will be given a course of not more than 13 weeks. The cost of the training will be $20 a week for each trainee.

While in training, the Indians will be bona fide employees of the plants and will be paid at least the minimum wage as required by Federal law. The contracts also state that "there is reasonable certainty that the employee-trainee will be continued in an employed status upon completion of the training period.”

The eight contracting companies are as follows:

Whitetree's Workshop, an Indian-owned and operated manufacturer of souvenir items on the Cherokee Reservation, North Carolina; Saddlecraft, Inc.;

Knoxville, Tenn., which operates a leather goods plant at Cherokee, North Carolina;

Lear, Inc., of Santa Monica, California, which operates an electronics plant (Lear Navajo) at Flagstaff, Arizona, near the border of the Navajo Reservation;

Casa Grande Mills, Casa Grande, Arizona, a garment factory near the Pima and Papago Reservations; New Moon Homes, Inc.,

Rapid City, South Dakota, manufacturer of house trailers near the Sioux Reservations;

Tatanka, Inc., McLaughlin, South Dakota, toy manufacturer near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation; Navajo Furniture Industries, Inc., Gallup, New Mexico, a furniture plant; and

Bably Manufacturing Co., Yakima, Washington, denim garments manufacturers located near the Yakima Reservation.

While it is not possible at this time to predict just how many Indians will eventually be enrolled in each of the plants, the maximum number that might be trained under all of the contracts is 680.

The training is being furnished under Public Law 959, enacted last summer, which also authorizes training for adult reservation Indians in regular vocational schools. Steps are now being taken by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to activate this phase of operations in the next few weeks.