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followed through, such as in contemplated at this meeting, for the benefit and welfare of all Indians. Our plans must contemplate cooperating with the Government, the states, counties and local communities if our final integration into the population of this great country is to strengthen, and not make it weaker.

In the expenditures of our claims moneys, or any other tribal revenues, we must be certain and insist that the Indian themselves will say how they are to be expended; that not the Federal Government, nor the state governments, nor the tribal governments, themselves, shall waste the moneys for purposes foreign to the best interests of the Indians.

We should make plans to memorialize Congress to the effect that we do not wish it to regard moneys paid to Indians in settlements of cliams, as money to be given out on the one hand and expended without consulting the wishes of the Indians on the hand.

When we are dead and gone, those that come after us will be in a position to look back and see how we protected their best interests. Let's not be put in the position of those who went before us, whom we sometimes claim sold vast tracts of land for a string of beads.

Let us preserve and conserve what we now have, plan to make the best possible use of our resources on a sustained-yield basis, and prove that we have the foresight to plan for tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, as authorities granted to those that come after us may largely be based on the good use of what we have today.

I do not wish to take any more of your time, but appeal  to you to give to the National Congress of American Indians your best thinking and considered judgement, as the consideration and judgment you give to the problems before us today will be the determining factor in the policy followed by your National Congress of American Indians.

And so in closing, I must say that I am thankful I was given this time today to tell you of my feelings, to appeal to you to help me in my hour of need. Let's hope that we will all benefit in some way, no matter how small it may be, by the expressions of those gathered here today, so that with God's help we may not only achieve, maintain and preserve peace among our own people, but among all mankind.

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