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more quickly with a National Museum of the American Indian paralleling a museum of comparable size and scope in New York.

Third, again assuming the installation of the Heye Foundation's collections in the Custom house, we foresee a different ordering of priorities even within Smithsonian programs concerned with American Indians. An alternative Smithsonian focus would be, while improving exhibitions in presently available spaces, on educational outreach and training (especially for American Indians, in museum-related disciplines like collection curation and conservation, archive development, ethno-historical studies, and institution-building). An over-concentration of resources on museum construction and hence on exhibitions could have a negative effect on the balanced, long-term development of a broad understanding of American Indian cultural achievements. It would also be likely to weaken the Smithsonian's contribution to contemporary American Indian cultural expression.

Fourth, we have grave doubts whether it is appropriate to embark on the creation of a major new, Federally-funded museum when the collections that would occupy it are, in the last analysis, the property of a private body operating under the laws of a particular State. This does not involve doubts as to the good will of the present staff and Trustees of the Heye Foundation, repeatedly expressed in a series of cordial and constructive meetings. But the formal affiliation agreement whose terms are currently under discussion necessarily contains so many qualifications and constraints that it differs little from inter-museum cooperative arrangements that proceed even without such an agreement. Costs of implementing the suggested agreement would be very large. Publicly supported museums in Washington must be built with due regard for the very long term. Apart from ordinary personnel turnover, we must consider the long-term possibility of unforeseen political exigencies at a local or State level.

And fifth, we are obliged to consider the possibility that the Heye Foundation's Museum of the American Indian in New York might fail to receive adequate funding after it has been installed in the Custom House. Were this to happen, the Smithsonian could be under enormous pressure to support the New York operations directly. Otherwise the Institution might find itself confronted by the embarrassing prospect of a virtually empty museum with no agreement on the part of New York authorities that the collection then could be permanently transferred to Washington. The Regents have repeatedly expressed their opposition in principle to assuming responsibility for another substantial museum program outside of Washington, excepting only our present important Cooper-Hewitt Museum (the National Museum of Design) in New York City.

The points given above are substantial and compelling reasons for the Regents not to support those features of S. 1722 that are concerned with the construction of a National Museum of the American Indian in Washington. But there is one additional consideration to be taken into account. It has been suggested that the museum in the Custom House and the one of the Mall are absolutely interdependent -- that the former has little likelihood of being approved by the Congress without the latter. This is a political subject, about which we are unprepared to offer a