Viewing page 14 of 75

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

that this was an example of what Indians can do with the legal weapons within their grasp. He touched on many other matters of vital interest and his report reflected a job well done by our legal department.

Mr. CURRY:Chairman, I would like for my friend and associate who has helped me much in defending Indian rights to stand up.

Mr. MOBERLY: I realized long ago that I was not an orator. In fact they really haven't left me much to say, except that I am going to do everything I can to carry on my part of the work, and cooperate with Mr. Curry. As Mr. Curry told you, the illustration he gave that there are times when all the power of the Legislative Department and the Executive Department is not where it is properly asserted. That is one thing that you people can be thankful for, that the men who founded this government were not only men of great wisdom but great principle. They thought that the cause of human short-comings at that time, which still exist, that the principles they laid down would not always be properly enforced, but they would be there always for us to go back to when we realized the error of our case. Special problems of special groups have always had some experience with them, not with your problems, but with those of other groups, and I have long since abandoned any idea of trying to serve any special interest either for myself or any particular group of people because it just doesn't pay.

     I am very grateful to the chairman for allowing me to speak. I want to assure you I will do everything I can to help, and wherever I can do any good in this work.

Address by Sam Akeah, Chairman of Navajo Tribal Council.

SAM AKEAH: Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very glad for the privilege to come before you all and speak for my people which number 61,000 and most of whom are not able to talk English. We occupy the country mostly in Ne Mexico and Arizona and little in Utah. Quite a few of the tribes are very fortunate because I noticed yesterday a number of Indian lawyers in our midst, and that is what the Navajos haven't got up to date. These Indian lawyers will realize that there are a great number of Indians that you can help because they are not able to speak all right in English so they could present a written statement or bill to our government. You see in the papers these days about the Navajos being very hard up. We are rather embarrassed that we should be in that fix for the reason that the Navajos have always been self-supporting and they still want to be that way. We feel that it is not altogether out fault, but the fault of our government through its agencies, and the Indian Bureau which sponsored the sheep and stock reduction program in the last ten or more years. The Navajos have reduced from probably one and one-half million and the stock is down to 500,000 or 600,000 sheep
                                     -11-