OPA

It is real pleasure to be back in Oklahoma and meeting once again with so many of the State's fine Indian people and with delegates to the NCAI annual convention. All of us, it seems to me, owe a hearty debt of thanks to our good friend and host, Bill Keeler, for making this gathering possible and bringing us together in such excellent surroundings.

Because this is the first public meeting I have had in many months with Indian people from a large number of tribal groups from various parts of the country, I would like in take this occasion to give you a kind of progress report. My thought is not to cover every phase of Indian affairs but to concentrate on the three main fields where I believe all of us are agreed that Indian progress is especially important. These are health, education, and economic development.

In the field of health, it seems to me that the picture is now brighter and more promising than ever before. As most of you doubtless know, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of the Interior were strongly in favor of the legislation adopted about three years ago which transferred the whole Indian health program over to the Public Health Service. We favored it even though it meant a substantial reduction in the scope of our Indian Bureau operations because we felt that such a transfer would be beneficial to the Indians both immediately and over the longer term of years.

In the 27 months or so since the Public Health Service took over the program on July 1, 1955, it seems to me that our judgment on this has been pretty well vindicated. Today the funds available for health work among the Indian people are just about twice as large as they were during the last fiscal year the Bureau had responsibility for the program. In the meantime the health facilities and the trained personnel available for serving Indian people have been substantially increased. Continuing progress has been achieved in preventive medicine and sanitation work on the reservations. And there is every reason for confidence, I understand, that the rates of infectious disease like tuberculosis and the rates of infant mortality, which have been so shockingly high in many Indian areas, will be significantly reduced in the reasonably near future.

In the field of education, where the Indian Bureau continues to carry the responsibility, there are many encouraging items of progress to report.

First, let us take a look at elementary and secondary education--the ordinary schooling through the 12th grade which is provided for children between the ages of six and 18. In the school year that ended last June we had a record number of Indian children - over 132,000 – enrolled in schools of all types. On the Navajo Reservation, where we faced a real emergency four years ago with only about half of the 28,000 school-age children actually enrolled, the enrollment has been nearly doubled and was a little over 27,000 last spring. Perhaps even more important is the fact that we had just about twice as many Indian children in the public schools of the country last year as we had in our Indian Service schools both on and off the reservations. The actual figures were about 76,000 in the public schools as against approximately 38,000 in the Federal facilities and roughly 11,000 in mission schools and other types. When you bear in mind that there were less than 300 Indian children altogether enrolled in the public schools of the Nation at the beginning of the present century, you begin to get some true measure of the progress that has been achieved.

This is not to suggest, however, that all problems in Indian education have been solved or that we have any grounds for complacency. Actually the Bureau faces a severe challenge in finding public school opportunities or in providing Federal facilities for a rapidly increasing school-age Indian population. We must continue emphasizing a type of education which will facilitate the adjustment of children from non-English-speaking homes to the ways of modern American life. And we must work constantly to close the educational gap that now exists between the Indian and the non-Indian populations of the country. For the non-Indian ,people the median educational level is now approximately the 10th grade; for the Indians it is just about half as much. All of these problems deserve--and will have--our continuing attention in the years that lie ahead.

When we look beyond the 12th grade at Indian enrollment in colleges and universities, the picture is in some ways even more impressive than it is at the lower levels. As recently as 1935, according to the best reports we have in the Bureau, there were only about 800 Indian youngsters from reservations or similar areas enrolled in institutions of higher learning throughout the country. Last year, by contrast, there were over 2,800. And this year I feel sure the figure will be considerably higher.

Moreover, the funds available from private and public sources for assisting young Indians to obtain a higher education are constantly increasing. Several of the tribes such as the Navajo, the Nez Perce and the Jicarilla Arapahos have recently established their own scholarship funds with tribal monies. Educational grants and loans for Indian youth from foundations and other private organizations are undoubtedly more plentiful than ever before. And this year, for the first time, the proceeds of the nationally known Knickerbocker Ball, which will be held in New York City in November, will be devoted in large part to assisting qualified Indian youngsters in meeting the needs of a college or university education.

At the other end of the educational scale we have the many thousands of grownup' Indian men and women living on reservations today who were unfortunate enough to miss the advantages of schooling in their youth. In some Indian areas these illiterate or inadequately educated people represent only a very small fraction of the population--not much more than you would expect to find in the typical American community. However, in other areas such as Seminole of Florida, they represent a very large segment, perhaps even a majority, of the whole adult tribal population. Where this is the situation, we face a most challenging and stimulating assignment in helping these people to achieve some satisfactory adjustment to the way of life they find around them.

All of this was brought home to me quite forcefully about three years ago during my first visit with the Seminoles of Florida. At each of the three reservations where we held our meetings it was necessary to have an interpreter and my remarks were translated, practically a sentence at a time, into the native language for the benefit of my listeners. At the conclusion of each of my talks I asked the members of the audience whether they would like an opportunity to learn how to speak and read and write the English language and whether they would take advantage of such an opportunity if offered. If I live to be 100, I don’t suppose I ever will forget the reactions of those people. Even the older women, who traditionally take little part in the tribal affairs and usually sit around on the outer edges of the gathering, were almost unbelievably enthusiastic. On all three reservations they raised their hands practically 100 percent and their faces lighted up with an eagerness which was really wonderful to see. It was one of the most touching and heart-warming experiences I have ever had in my life.

Several months later, just as soon as we could get together the necessary funds, we launched an adult education program on a kind of trial basis not only in the Florida jurisdiction but also on four other reservations where the need was especially marked--Fort Hall in Idaho, Rosebud Sioux in South Dakota, Turtle Mountain in North Dakota, and Papago in Arizona. Over the past two years, I am happy to report, this program has produced some highly encouraging results and we have now taken it out of the experimental category and made it a part of our regular annual budget. This year we are not only continuing the program at the original five reservations; we are also initiating it on 12 additional reservations, at 39 trailer locations on the Navajo Reservation, and at 10 locations in Alaska.

Turning now to the economic opportunity phases of our work in the Bureau, I want to mention first some of the recent highlights in resource development on Indian lands. Probably the most impressive item has been the tremendous increase in tribal and individual income from oil and gas leasing. In the fiscal year which ended last June, the total of bonuses, rents and royalties received from this source amounted to over $72,000,000 which was not only a record but about 75 percent higher than the comparable figure of $41,000,000 for the previous fiscal year. Admittedly, this income is rather unevenly distributed among the Indian population of the country and there are, of course, many dozens of tribal groups which have not shared at all in its benefits. Nevertheless, it has been exceedingly important to the more fortunate tribes and has made possible many beneficial new programs including some of the tribal scholarship funds I have already mentioned.

Over and beyond this, we are continuing and intensifying our other lines of work to protect and develop the Indian owned resources. Over the past four fiscal years we have been devoting more money and more manpower to our resource programs than ever before in the history of the Bureau--in fact, just about one and a half times as much money as during the preceding four years. As a result, we are gradually extending soil conservation measures over the Indian lands that need protection, putting our land records and realty procedures in better shape, and developing up-to-date inventories of Indian timber resources. We are also enlarging and extending irrigation systems, wherever feasible, developing new sources of range water supply, and building and improving badly needed reservation roads.

All of this work, of course, is aimed at bringing the Indian lands and other resources up to the highest level of productivity, consistent with conservation principles, so that they will yield the maximum income for the Indian owners. It is one way of broadening the range of economic opportunities for the Indian people. But it is not and never can be, I am afraid, the complete answer to all their economic problems.

For we do have to face the fact that the population on most reservations and similar areas has already outgrown the resource base and is getting bigger all the time. Largely because of this fact, we are carrying forward our relocation services program to provide a kind of outlet for the Indian people who are unable to make a decent living from reservation lands and those who prefer to engage in some nonagricultural line of work. As some of you probably know, we now have a total of 12 relocation offices in communities all the way from Cleveland, Ohio, on the east to San Francisco and Los Angeles on the Pacific Coast. Over the past year or two we have greatly broadened the range of services we provide through these offices and have extended assistance to a steadily increasing flow of relocating Indian workers and families. In fact, during the first quarter of the present fiscal year we assisted almost twice as many people under this program as we did during the comparable period last year – 1,527 as against 814.

In other words, the interest of Indian people in relocation opportunities shows no signs of flagging and we undoubtedly face quite a challenge in keeping up with the demand 9 Nevertheless, I want to emphasize here as I have so many times before that we are NOT looking upon relocation--we never have looked upon it--as the total answer to all Indian problems. We recognize that there are many thousands of Indian people, especially in the middle-aged and older generations, who have no desire to move away from their present locations and would probably have a hard time of it if they did. So we are keying our programs to the needs and wishes of these people in addition to providing relocation services.

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today announced he has ordered a thorough reexamination of the Department 1s favorable report on S. 332, a bill to validate existing land titles and liberalize future land sales on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana.

He directed Assistant Secretary Roger Ernst to proceed immediately with the review. Assistant Secretary Ernst supervises the Indian Bureau and three other bureaus in the Department.

Secretary Seaton said the review is needed, "in light of apparent inconsistencies between the department’s report on the currently pending legislation” and testimony at the House Indian Affairs Subcommittee's hearings October 18 and 19 at the Crow Agency in Montana.

He said he understood the Department’s information was furnished by the Indian Bureau through its Montana area and agency offices. "Above all, I expect a full and accurate report of the facts to be furnished me expeditiously so that I may, in turn, communicate them to the

Assistant Secretary Ernst was told to use every appropriate departmental facility he might need in the inquiry.

S.332 would repeal provisions in a 1920 law which impose acreage limitations on sales of crow Indian land. The Department’s March 11, 1957 report, urging enactment of the repeal, noted that violations of the acreage ceilings had been discovered. The report explained how Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons suspended all Crow Reservation sales late in 1955 when he learned of the violations, and later lifted the suspension but ordered strict observance of the 1920 limitations.

The Department’s report also said S. 332 was introduced at the request of the Crow Tribe, which passed a resolution on April 14, 1956, urging validation of earlier land conveyances made in violation of the 1920 law. The report related that one of the explanations given for the violations was a widespread local impression that the 1920 limitations had been repealed.

After the Department submitted its favorable report, the Crow Tribal Council reversed its position, and now opposes repeal, Secretary Seaton was told.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons today commended the Navajo Indian Tribe for its “statesmanship” in appropriating tribal funds for projects which the Federal Government would normally carry out.

The appropriations included $545,000 to build major law and order facilities at Tuba City and Chinle, Arizona, and Shiprock, New Mexico, and small detention facilities at Bitter Spring and Lupton, Arizona, and Tohatchi, New Mexico.

In ordinary circumstances, the Department of the Interior would pay for such projects, Commissioner Emmons' November 12 letter to Tribal Chairman Paul Jones applauded the tribe's recognition that the Department’s limited funds for construction work have had to be used almost entirely for expanding badly needed school facilities.

“Under these circumstances," he wrote, "it seems to me that the tribe deserves high credit for stepping into the breach and using its own funds to provide facilities that are required for a more effective law enforcement program."

The tribe appropriated the money under a September 18 resolution.

Mr. Emmons also praised the tribe for providing $30,700 to activate a department of farm and range management in the tribal government. He wrote that it showed "a commendable readiness on the part of tribal organizations to take on increasing responsibilities in the important field of resource development and utilization.”

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today formally welcomed delegates to a Washington conference on Indian youth being held by Arrow, Incorporated, a nonprofit organization, and read to them a telegram of greeting from President Eisenhower.

The conference is being attended by about 50 delegates from Indian tribal groups and by representatives from many other public and private agencies concerned with youth matters and with Indian affairs. Its twofold purpose is (1) the exchange of ideas between Indian leaders, Indian youth, and non-Indians interested in youth problems; and (2) the development and approval of additional programs to benefit Indian young people.

Assistant Secretary of the Interior Roger C. Ernst addressed a luncheon meeting of the conferees at the Roger Smith Hotel. The text of President Eisenhower’s message of greeting follows: "Please give my greetings to all-attending the National Conference on American Indian Youth.

"Every American has a stake in the fullest development of our National resources, physical and spiritual. As a prime resource, the youth of our land must be trained to make their finest contribution to the strength of the Nation and for the fulfillment of their own life purpose.

“Best wishes for a splendid conference and a most enjoyable visit to the Nation’s Capital." In his welcoming remarks, Secretary Seaton said:

“It is a pleasure to welcome you here. I applaud the purpose of your conference, which brings together representatives of Indian tribes, private organizations, and Federal agencies in an effort to assist young Indians toward better education and better citizenship.

“We can all be gratified at the progress in Indian education which has been made in recent years. Last year, 132,000 Indian children were in school--a record number. By far the greatest proportion of these, 76,000 were in public schools-almost twice as many as in Federal Indian service schools.

"In 1946, for every Navajo child inside a school, there were three outside. Today, on the Navajo Reservation, the ratio of students to nonstudents is nine to one.

"The same progress is evident in higher education. Back in 1935, there were only 800 American Indians in college. Last year there were 2,800, three and one-half times as many.

"The Federal Government, of course, helped to bring about some of these encouraging changes, as did many colleges, churches, foundations and other organizations which have helped young Indians get an education. But much of the credit is due to the Indians themselves. I understand that 24 tribes have set up scholarship funds for their boys and girls with tribal money. The Jicarilla Apache Tribe in New Mexico has a million dollar scholarship trust fund. The Navajos have one for $5 million, and in this current year the tribe has made scholarship grants amounting to $200,000.

"The fact that you are here today, however, indicates that there is much more work to do for young Indian - whether they seek higher education, vocational training, or assistance after they leave school. I therefore wish you the greatest success in this meeting. Indian boys and girls, like all American boys and girls, should have every possible opportunity and encouragement for education or training which fits their abilities. Particularly at this time, this need is both obvious and urgent."

Assistant Secretary Ernst told the conferees that one of their big jobs was to clear away the confusion that surrounds many aspects of Indian youth assistance.

"You and your parents,” he told the Indian delegates, "have been guided and misguided, abused, coddled, mistreated and spoiled over a long period of time.”

He said the deeper he delved into Indian affairs, the stronger is the impression of confusion. “Among Government groups and Indians, I assume each thinks the other is confused," he said. “It is the responsibility of all of us to do away with the actual or alleged confusion.”

Asst. Secy. Ernst stressed the need for educational improvements. "Education means not only academic matters, but also spiritual, moral, cultural, social education and other facets,” he said.

He noted the conflicting views on responsibility for Indian affairs. “Some say the Indian, some say the Government, some say the state, some say the county, some say society,” he said. “But it is everyone’s responsibility.”

Award of a $243,370.50 contract for construction of irrigation works on the Hogback Unit of the Navajo Indian Reservation near Shiprock, New Mexico, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The successful bidder is Daniels Construction Co. of Albuquerque, N. Mex. Two higher bids were also received.

The contract covers construction of 14,240 feet of main canal to bring additional lands under cultivation and a 72-inch diameter siphon and concrete wasteway to protect the banks from overtopping during flash floods. Quantities of materials involved include 142,000 cubic yards of excavation, 5,000 cubic yards of structural excavation, 50,000 cubic yards of compacted embankment, and 2,750 cubic yards of concrete.

The Hogback Unit was started in 1909. Large-scale development of the unit was initiated in 1951. The project now includes 5,570 acres under irrigation which are being used by 402 Navajo families.

The present extension of the main canal is only one phase of the work that remains to be done. When completed, the project will irrigate a total of about 15,000 acres and will provide farming units of more adequate size than the present ones for more than 500 Navajo families.

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today called attention to the final roll of the Klamath Indian Tribe of Oregon which is being published in the Federal Register dated November 2.

The roll, comprising 2,133 names, was compiled under the Klamath Termination Act of 1954 and represents the final listing of tribal members after disposition of all appeals that have been made to the Secretary. Only those people on the roll are entitled under the Termination Act to share in the benefits of tribal property.

Ever since I first heard several months ago that a conference on Indian youth was being organized under the auspices of Arrow, Incorporated, I have been looking forward to it with keen anticipation. Arrow is to be heartily commended, it seems to me, for taking the initiative in pulling this meeting together, giving it focus, and inviting the many distinguished Indian and non-Indian people who are taking part.

As I see it, a conference of this kind is almost certain to produce helpful and beneficial consequences. It provides a forum for the interchange of information and ideas among people representing many different facets of our national life. It throws the spotlight on an area of specific Indian need which urgently calls for national attention and constructive action. It will in all probability produce at least the beginning framework of a positive program which will undoubtedly expand out and grow in importance over the years to come.

From the standpoint of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, such a conference is particularly welcome. I say this because there is an unfortunate (though understandable) tendency on the part of many people not too well informed in Indian matters to look to the Indian Bureau as the only source of assistance for the Indian citizen, the solver of all Indian problems, and the fountainhead of all organized action in the field of Indian affairs. So it is a rather unusual and exhilarating experience for us when an organization like Arrow takes the lead, calls upon representatives from many other governmental agencies and nongovernmental groups, and merely invites us in as one of the participating agencies.

As all of you doubtless know, the actual scope of our functions in the Bureau is reasonably well delimited by the various laws and treaties under which we operate; and it by no means covers all areas of Indian need or all types of Indian problems. Consequently it seems to me that one of the most useful things I could do here this evening would be to outline the kinds of programs we do have that bear on the needs of Indian youth, how vie are shaping these programs up at the present time, and what we hope to accomplish in terms of lasting benefits for the younger Indian people.

The Bureau’s major program in the youth field, of course, is our educational work which now accounts for nearly one-half of our total budget and roughly the same proportion of all our personnel. This program is aimed primarily at Indian youngsters between the ages of 6 and 18 - from the beginning grades up through the high-school level. It is and always has been one of the most crucially important responsibilities we have in the Bureau.

In my remarks here this evening, I want to touch on three aspects of our regular school program which I believe are especially significant at the present time.

The first is the challenge that we face, in common with public school districts throughout the country, in keeping pace with the constantly increasing school-age population. Without going to detailed statistics, it seems clear to me that we face such a challenge and will continue to face it for some years to come. So we have no grounds for complacency or relaxation even though we do have thousands of Indian children attending school today who were being deprived of educational opportunities just a few years ago. We must keep moving ahead just to avoid falling behind.

The second point I want to mention is the increasing emphasis we are giving in our education program to enrollment of Indian children in the regular public schools of the Nation. Personally I have always felt that it is most desirable for Indian children to be mingling regularly with non-Indian youngsters not just at the high-school level but down in the elementary grades wherever possible and feasible. To my mind, it is an essentially wholesome and typically American kind of development which will increase interracial understanding and benefit both the Indian and the non-Indian children. So we are making public school enrollment one of the top objectives of our educational program and we have made tremendous progress on this in the past few years. In fact, last year - if we look just at the Indian children in the regular school ages between 6 and 18--we find almost exactly twice as many enrolled in the regular public schools as there were in all the federal schools operated by the Indian Bureau.

The third phase of our school program that I want to emphasize is also a challenge like the first. In my opinion, it is a challenge which all of us--not only Indian Bureau people but tribal leaders and Indian parents generally--must keep constantly in mind" The world of tomorrow, as all of us realize, is certainly to be vastly different from the world of yesterday or even the world of today. While none of us can predict the exact shape of the world to come, at least one trend seems unmistakably clear. This is the technological advancement of our whole society-the increasing emphasis on higher and higher skills - which is generally referred to under the forbidding name of automation.

What it means as a practical matter is that there will undoubtedly be fewer unskilled jobs available ten years from now than there are today and even less if we peer ahead two decades to the year 1977. This is the world in which the children now between 6 and 18 will be living their mature lives and it is obviously the part of wisdom for all of us to begin preparing them right now for productive and fruitful participation in it. We in the Indian Bureau face the task of adjusting our school programs and curriculums to upgrade the general level of knowledge and skills among the growing Indian generation.. Many other agencies and organizations should also plays part and will, I hope, be contributing to the tremendously urgent and demanding job of preparation and adjustment.

When we move beyond the sphere of formal schooling through the 12th grade, there are only a few regular Indian Bureau programs that have a direct bearing on the needs of the Indian young people, and I merely want to touch on them briefly. One of these, of course, is our new vocational education program which is aimed at the age group between 18 and 35 and specifically designed to provide this upgrading of skills which will be so increasingly important as we move further and further into the age of automation. Another activity which might be mentioned is the encouragement we give to Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and similar youth groups by making facilities available for meetings and providing other informal kinds of assistance. A third type of action, now being carried forward in most Indian areas by the State extension specialists under contracts with the Indian Bureau, is the fostering of 4-H clubs to give our Indian young people practical experience in farm and livestock and homemaking techniques. A fourth is the limited program of scholarship aids for higher education which is being conducted under Bureau auspices with appropriated funds. A fifth is the program of foster home placement which is administered by our welfare staff in cooperation with various public and private agencies at the state and local level.

From a mere listing of these programs and activities, anyone can see that they provide only a partial coverage for the many and diverse needs of our Indian young people. Looking just at the teen-age group, which is the primary concern of this particular conference, we can readily identify numerous areas of need which lie outside the scope of our regularly budgeted Indian Bureau programs. There is, for example, the very pressing problem presented by the large number of youngsters in their teens who drop out of school for one reason or another before reaching high school graduation. Even for those who are attending school there is the question of leisure-time activities during summer vacations and similar periods away from the classroom. There is the whole broad and complex question of what we might call preventive medicine for juvenile delinquency on Indian reservations.

There are the hundreds of Indian school graduates eager and well qualified to pursue a higher education needing financial aid which the Bureau cannot supply from the limited funds it has available. These are just a few in a long list of needs that might be mentioned.

One of the main reasons I am so pleased about the calling of this conference is because you will be focusing public attention on needs of this kind, you will be mobilizing resources to meet these needs from a wide variety of public and private sources, you will be making start on the systematic planning of what I hope will be a many-faceted and hard-hitting action program. Among the American people throughout the length and breadth of the country there is, I am convinced, a tremendous reservoir of good will toward our American Indian citizens. I have just seen concrete evidence of this myself in the famous Knickerbocker Ball in New York City where many thousands of dollars were collected to provide scholarships for Indian youngsters in colleges and universities. Another and wholly different kind of example can be found in Brigham, Utah, where local families have recently been welcoming Indian students from our Intermountain School into their homes and giving them an opportunity to learn more about their non-Indian neighbors--and vice versa.

Although this warmth of public feeling toward the Indian is especially noticeable right now, I am sure it is by no means a new development. It has been there for a great many years. But the main difficulty has been that so much of it was unorganized and amorphous--just a kind of general outpouring of good will that was never translated into actual benefits for the Indian people. Through this conference we should be able to start accomplishing such a translation, channelizing the amorphous good will of the American people into practical action programs, and getting underway on a job that undoubtedly should have been initiated many, many years ago.

As I have already intimated, we in the Bureau are delighted to be participating in this conference and we stand ready to play our proper part in meeting the multifarious needs of Indian youth as they may be spotlighted through the workshops and the other conference sessions. I am hopeful that Indian tribal groups--and particularly those with substantial funds in their treasuries--will also take an increasingly active interest in youth programs as time goes along. Several of the tribes, as most of you know, have already made an excellent start in this direction by setting up scholarship funds and other aids for higher education. However, there are many other needs of the young people on the reservations which are also deserving of tribal support and encouragement. I am thinking, for example, of such things as using tribal funds to build recreation facilities and provide other wholesome outlets for the energies of youth as a countermeasure against the dangers of idleness and the eventual drift into juvenile delinquency.

What we are talking about here basically, of course, is a resource--the human resource of the younger Indian generation. We in the Bureau and the many tribal organizations allover the country have spent a great deal of time, money and energy down through the years in developing and protecting the natural resources on the reservations. Irrigation projects have been built and expanded. Soil and water conservation measures have been spread over a constantly enlarging area of Indian land. Timber resources have been carefully safeguarded against the dangers of overcutting and fire and disease. Ambitious programs for the development and conservation of range resources have been carried out on scores of reservations.

All work of this kind, in my opinion; is crucially important and I believe it is essential for both the Bureau and tribal organizations to push forward with natural resource programs so that the lands on the reservations can be made to provide a decent livelihood for the largest possible number of resident families. However, I also believe it is at least equally' as important--and perhaps even more so--for us to be spending our time, money and energy on the development and protection of the human resource in the younger generation. This generation, as I see it, is something like a seedling plant and it needs to be properly nourished and given every possible encouragement and support if it is to realize its full potentialities in the ripening of time.

And what is the goal of our Indian youth programs in the Bureau, in the tribal organizations, and in the various other public and private agencies? Perhaps each of us here at this banquet would define the goal somewhat differently according to his or her own personal lights. To me, however, it seems pretty clear-cut. Ever since I became Commissioner four years ago last August I have been emphasizing this theme in my private talks both with Bureau personnel and with outside parties. Undoubtedly I shall go on emphasizing it as long as I can find someone who is willing to listen.

One of the real glories of our American way of life; it has always seemed to me, is the great arching horizon of opportunity which we open up for our young people--usually at a very tender age. Most non-Indian young people, by the time they reach the fourth grade or so, have been given to understand that there is no real limit to their aspirations--that they can grow up to be doctors or lawyers or scientists or Senators or even Presidents of the United States.

Unfortunately, however, for a variety of reasons, historical and otherwise, our Indian young people have not ordinarily been exposed to this sort of indoctrination. Instead, they have been permitted in all too many cases to grow up in an atmosphere of aimlessness and apathy and to develop deep feelings of frustration and inferiority. It is this above all else that we are trying to overcome today through our school programs in the Indian Bureau and through every other means we have at our disposal. We are trying to break through the shell of inferiority feelings that has surrounded so many Indian youngsters in the past, to fire their ambitions and quicken their aspirations, to imbue them with a sense of confidence and a hunger for positive achievement.

Personally I believe we have made excellent progress in this direction over the past four years. If our efforts are to be fully successful, however, it is essential that the channels of advancement should be kept open and unclogged for Indian youth and that they should have access to the same types of assistance and guidance which are available to our other young people. That, I take it, is one of the most important purposes of this particular conference.

So I am deeply encouraged by the mere fact that this conference is being held. Even though you may not accomplish everything that all of us could wish for, I have no doubt whatever that a significant start will be made here on the tremendous and urgent job that needs to be done in the Indian youth field. To all of you who are taking an active part in the conference, I extend my heartiest commendations and my very best wishes as you move forward with your sessions. All of us who are concerned, either professionally or personally, with the well-being of our Indian young people will be wishing you well and eagerly awaiting the outcome of your deliberations.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons today expressed "extreme gratification If over the selection of Fred H. Massey, a Choctaw Indian from Oklahoma and Assistant Commissioner of the Indian Bureau, as the representative of the Department of the Interior to attend a two-week conference for career Government executives being held by the Brookings Institution at Williamsburg, Va., starting December 1.

"This latest honor given to Mr. Hassey," Commissioner Emmons added, "provides further proof of the abilities which so many of our Indian citizens have and emphasizes the progress they can make if they are only given an opportunity, His promotion to Assistant Commissioner for Administration a year ago last July was based on an outstanding record of performance in positions of steadily increasing responsibility with the Indian Bureau over a period of 20 years. I have every confidence that he will represent the Bureau and the Department at the Williamsburg Conference capably and with distinction."

Mr. Massey first joined the Bureau in 1936 as a temporary clerical employee in the warehouse at St. Louis, Mo. One year later he was appointed a junior clerk in the construction division of the Bureau’s Washington Office and in 1940 was promoted to budget clerk in the administrative division. Subsequently he was advanced to the positions of senior clerk, assistant administrative analyst, assistant to the budget officer, and budget officer. He served as chief of the branch of budget and finance. As Assistant Commissioner for Administration, he now supervises the work of that branch and also the operations of the Bureau in the fields of personnel, property and supply, credit, plant management, and plant design and construction.

Mr. Massey was born at Massey, Okla., in 1912 and graduated from the high school at Quinton, Okla. He also attended Bacone Junior College, Muskogee, Okla.; Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kans.; and National University, Washington, D. C.

At the present time more than 50 percent of the Indian Bureau's staff of nearly 10,000 employees in the United States and Alaska are people of Indian descent. One of them, Ben Reifel, is serving as area director in charge of all the Bureau's work in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska. Others are functioning as superintendents at local Indian agencies, as branch chiefs in the Washington office, and in many other positions of comparable responsibility.

Indians can continue to maintain their tribal organizations and hold their lands in common for as long as they wish after termination of Federal trusteeship over their property and affairs, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons said in a statement released today by the Department of the Interior.

He said widespread misinformation among Indians and the public could be corrected by a further congressional declaration of policy on the matter, and added that he plans to consult members of Congress about it soon.

The text of the Commissioner’s statement follows:

"Recently there have been published comments that gave the mistaken impression that termination of Federal trusteeship over the lands of a particular Indian tribe means that the tribal lands must be sold off by the Government and the tribal organization will no longer be permitted to exist. Nothing could be further from the truth. Actually all the termination laws so far enacted--all the termination bills so far introduced on which this Department has reported favorably--have contained explicit provisions authorizing the affected Indians to continue holding their lands in common and maintaining a tribal organization after termination if they wish to do so. This can be done either through the formation of a corporation or similar organization under State law or through selection by the tribe of a nongovernmental trustee.

"This has been the policy actually followed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of the Interior and the Congress consistently since 1953. However, because there has been widespread misinformation and apprehension among the Indians on this matter, I believe it would be helpful if Congress could formalize this policy in some form of declaration at the next session. My intention is to consult with congressional members on this in the near future."

Award of a $648,685.59 contract for construction of 24.0909 miles of road on the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations, Navajo County, Arizona, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The project is part of the Indian Bureau's long-range program to improve roads on the two reservations. This is the final section of the road from Keams Canyon to U. S. Highway 66, about six miles east of Holbrook, and makes an all-weather road over this route.

Wells Cargo, Inc., Las Vegas, Nevada, was the successful bidder. Fourteen other bids received ranged from $681,804 to a high of $870,464.

The principal items of work covered under the contract are approximately as follows: 428,776 cu. yds. unclassified excavation; 59,717 cu. yds. borrow excavation; 23,000 cu. yds. select borrow for topping; 38,000 cu. yds. special subbase; 2,035 tens liquid asphalt; 4,676 lin. ft. corrugated galvanized metal culvert; 266 lin. ft. corrugated metal pipe structural plate.