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[[Top right margin]] [[?]] and return [[crossed out]]to Hilda Henderson with for letter Monday 8/8/55 [[?]]

Box 708, Benjamin Franklin Station
Washington 4, D.C.
October 30, 1952

To Members of the Executive Council:

   Enclosed is a substitute draft of the Constitution and By-Laws of the National Congress of American Indians submitted for you consideration in lieu of a draft prepared by the Committee on Revisions who were appointed at our last convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.

   The substitute draft departs from the draft of the Committee on Revisions in two main particulars: (1) it seeks to make Indian tribes as the principal constituency of the National Congress of American Indians; and (2) it undertakes to enunciate certain Basic Rights, a Bill of Rights as it were, which the National Congress is pledged to secure, defend, and preserve.

   There can be no question that Indian tribes will continue to be the main concern of the National Congress in the foreseeable future. Indian tribes should therefore be expressly declared in the Constitution as its principal constituency. A provision to this effect could serve, it is felt, as a powerful inducement for tribes to come in under the banner of the National Congress, if properly approached, and at the same time the National Congress could gain in prestige and force before the Congress and government agencies as truly a representative of organized Indian tribes. We must look at this matter from a long range point of view, and we cannot but conclude, in consideration of the history of the Society of American Indians and other defunct groups, that and Indian organization on a national scale with leadership changing from time to time cannot endure without substantial tribal support.

   Many tribes do not want to join the National Congress because they fear that by reason of their membership they may be held by the Congress or the Federal Government as subject to some majority action or statement of policy of the organization on matters affecting their most cherished interests. This was illustrated at the St. Paul convention by the young Assistant Attorney General of South Dakota who sought guarantees, apparently without success, that the tribal interests of the Sioux would not be jeopardized by their joining. There was reason for his misgivings on this point because there was some talk on the floor on Government "paternalism," which was fundamentally inaccurate in the confusion of the idea of protection with the idea of paternalism, and on the advisability, in the minds of the speakers, for the Indians' breaking away from federal supervision. Whether we like it or not, whether we think we have superior judgment on the score or not, Indian tribes want the status quo maintained: they want to remain under the protection and supervision of the Federal Government, continuing to enjoy all the privileges and rights derived therefrom, relaxed only by the expanding systems of tribal self-government established under the Indian Reorganization Act and present departmental policy, 

   Therefore, in the substitute draft Article III is being proposed defining certain Basic Rights founded on the present status of Indian tribes and their enrolled members under federal protection and supervision. Article III is designed to constitute in effect the Indians' Bill of Rights, which our organization should be permanently pledged to "secure, defend and preserve" as 

Transcription Notes:
I am not sure how to transcribe the pencil in the top right corner.