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It is fitting that you have chosen the City of Bellingham in Whatcom County, as I feel that our local Indian population is experiencing a revival of interest in their own native customs and showing pride in the part their ancestors played in the early history of the Pacific Northwest. All of the Indians in the United States have a heritage of which they may be justifiably proud, and it is admirable that now as the distance is getting greater, the struggle between the native American and the Pioneer settlers is being seen in a different light. We who read of the early struggle between your ancestors and the pioneer settlers, realize and know that there are two sides to the question and that is is through organizations such as yours that the proper enlightenment of future generations will achieve the purpose of placing the Indian population in the proper place of sincere respect to which it is entitled.

I look forward to receiving a copy of the official report of the Convention for study at a later date. I also hope that the City Family and the citizens of Bellingham will prove that our hospitality is of the finest, that your Convention will be highly successful and that you will again choose our City for one of your meetings.

As Mayor of your Host City, it is a pleasure to welcome you to Bellingham; we wish you every success. With that in mind, I now present to your Chairman, a token of our sincerity in the form of a produce made from one of the resources of the Pacific Northwest - namely Bellingham Plywood in the shape of a key to the City.

Thank you.

JUSTICE JOHNSON: Thank you, your Honor. This will open the door to the jail will it? We appreciate this very much and the talk that you gave us, and the hospitality you have shown us. We know the Mayor is a busy man but we want you to feel free to attend any or all of our meetings.

It is my pleasure to present a young man who is a graduate from one of the colleges of my State of Oklahoma. He has been identified with Indian education, with the Pueblo nation and the Indians of the southwest. He is a very fine man and did a fine job with the Pueblos. He is of the Taos-Pueblo of Taos, New Mexico. He is at present Executive Secretary of the National Congress of American Indians and is in the Washington office doing a fine job.

JOHN RAINER: Justice Johnson, ladies and gentlemen, for a number of years I have been giving responses in these conventions. This year I decided to select two outstanding Indian leaders who will give responses to you because down deep in my heart I know by passing this responsibility on to them, they in turn, will express themselves with the full sincerity that I would have expressed myself. I have selected these men because of their leadership quality, because of their sincere interest in the welfare of the Indians, not in one section of the country alone, but throughout the entire United States, and in three compartments--the generation that

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