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from the organization, although some have not yet paid in their annual dues to date, and some few are more than a year delinquent.

2. We are increasingly being appealed to as an organization that can speak with authority about and for Indians. We have become nationally known and the integrity and conservative, responsible reputation we have attempted to build up has, I think, been acknowledged in high places. When the American Magazine wanted to write as story about an Indian who has succeeded in our white economic world, they came to the National Congress of American Indians for recommendations about individuals to consider. We recommended a professor at Vassar College, who is a Sioux Indian woman; a Congressman from the United States Congress who is a Choctaw Indian; a Labor Relations expert who is a Cherokee Indian; about six other prominent and highly successful Indians, among them our own Legislative Director, Louis R. Bruce, who is attending the convention, and will report to you. I am happy to tell you the American Magazine chose Louis Bruce, and his story, which I hope you will all read, is in this September issue of the American Magazine. This same magazine plans to write another story on Indians, and the editor assigned the task came to the National Congress of American Indians again for help. I have here a telegram which I shall read to you, to show you the kind of cooperation we are frequently asked to give. I had hoped Don Eddy could attend this convention, and so had he, but circumstances made it impossible. My office is frequently called by newspapers, by church groups, by broadcasting companies, by all sorts of people and agencies for information and advice about Indian matters.

3. The third sign of growth I have noticed, comes, not from such outside agencies, but from within ourselves. As the work of NCAI becomes more and more known to Indians, as the results of what we are doing touch more and more Indian lives, the tribes who come to us to discuss membership no longer ask only "What can NCAI do for us if we join?" They now also ask, "What can we do for each other?" For they are coming to understand that no progress can be made from taking everything for oneself, and giving nothing. The tribes are understanding more and more, that when one Indian group joins with another in an important fight for justice and for self-help, they are helping all other Indian tribes who are facing similar struggles. And not only are they helping all other Indians, but they are also helping other groups who must defend themselves against prejudice, or poverty, or injustice--groups who are not Indians, and who in terms of issues and needs are very close, and whose fight is the same fight, for the same things, which Indians are waging. So we are learning to give of ourselves and our strength to all needy groups, while we are fighting to better our own conditions. It is in this that our great hope of victory rests.

At the Denver Convention, 1948, by convention vote you gave your Secretary and legal Counsel a mandate to set up a tax exempt unit of NCAI accordingly, in April, incorporation papers were filed in Washington, D. C., for the National Congress of American Indians Fund, Inc. According to 

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