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American Indian Congress Opens At Santa Fe
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New Mexico pueblos in welcoming the more than 150 delegates for today's pre-convention sessions. Governors of 15 pueblos in New Mexico were introduced as were delegates from other tribes and states. 

Mrs. Ruth Bronson of Washington D.C., congress secretary, said the convention would take up a number of questions vital to Indian welfare--claims, legislation and related problems. She said discussion sessions of the delegates would be closed but that general meetings of the entire body would be public.

Banquet at School

A night sessions originally scheduled for tonight was postponed and program items slated for the meeting will be held tomorrow when the group meets at the Santa Fe County courthouse. 

A banquet is scheduled for tomorrow night at the Santa Fe Indians School. Reports of committees and adoption of resolutions, followed by election of officers, will close the meeting Saturday.

James E. Curry, Washington D.C., general NCAI counsel, is scheduled to make his annual report tomorrow. 

Curry recently returned from Alaska, where he has been conferring with Indian groups on their proposed sale of $20,000,000 worth of timber in Tongass National Forest. The U.S. Forest Service recently announced in Washington it would go into the courts to block the proposed sale by the Indian villages of Kake and Kasaan and would refuse to permit them to cut timber in the area, where the service has tried to encourage establishment of paper mills.

Dec. 1947

National Indian Congress Re-Elect Top Officers
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for Congressional Reorganization of the Indian Service, the delegates named a three-man committee headed by Robert L Bennett of Phoenix as chairman. The other two members were Alvin Warren, supervisor of education for the United Pueblo Agency in Albuquerque, and C. C. Victory, a Tulsa, Okla., attorney.

The tribal representatives were urged to submit their suggestions for reorganizing the Indian Service to the special committee, which already had under consideration the outline of a plan submitted to the convention by Mrs. Ruth Kirk, wife of a Gallup, N. M., Indian trader and chairman of the Indian Welfare committee of the General Federation of Women's Clubs.

The convention also approved resolutions recommending:

Establishment of a Government school for all Indian veterans at the former Japanese detention camp at Poston, Ariz, contending that the Indians' poor educational background barred them from GI bill of rights benefits in most higher educational institutions.

Congressional appropriations of at least $2,500,000 a year to clear and put in condition to be cultivated a part of the Colorado River Indian reservation in Arizona for colonization by Papagos, Hopis, and Navajos:

Provision by the Interior Department for hearings at which Alaska Indians could defend their land claims and fishing rights.

During the morning session, the convention adopted special resolution seeking aid for the Navajos of New Mexico and Arizona.