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out that Indians are excluded from the benefits of a number of public laws, such as the United States Housing Act which authorizes the use of federal funds for low cost public housing, and again I note that our testimony on this subject was embodied in the President's report.
Those of you who have seen the October number of our Newsletter have read, I hope, the article dealing with the Tongass Forest. It was possible for me to be in Washington at the time the House Resolution proposing to authorize the sale of the time in Tongass Forest was brought under discussion. I spoke to the Alaska delegates who were in Washington to present the views of their respective villages. Everybody in Washington seemed to be suddenly concerned about developing the resources of Alaska and everybody was trying to make it appear that that native Indians were standing in the way of development. The same kind of arguments that were used against my Cherokee ancestors when gold was found in Georgia more than a hundred years ago, and the same arguments the were used against the Sioux Indians when gold was found in the Black Hills less than seventy-five years ago. Only in this case, the Alaska Indians were [[strikethrough]] also in favor [[/strikethrough]] were equally eager to see Alaska developed. But since some of the land in the Tongass forest was declared by the Secretary of the Interior to belong to them, they only asked that they be allowed to share in the development. This sounded like a reasonable request, if anybody had listened to it. We made an excellent fight in behalf of the Alaska Indians, and thought the Resolution was passed in a form that places a heavy burden on the Indians -- we have not yet seen the end of this matter and we have a good chance to win a better settlement. If you have not read the article in the Newsletter, be sure to do so. This was our best fight.