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ADDRESS OF ALLAN HARPER.

To speak of the Navajo is to speak of the most publicized Indian tribe. Every man on the street has heard about the Navajo because of the unending stream of newspaper stories, series of articles, magazine pieces, pictorial displays and what have you. The editors of the country have attempted and made a very special effort to get the story straight and report accurately to the American people. There have been some misrepresentations, some distortions and exaggerations. But the true facts are bad enough to warrant the statement that with the Navajo people we have a national tragedy. During the past few years, in all of the discussion concerning the Navajo, there have been two forces contending with each other to offer a solution. On the one hand there have been those who have, with good hearts and fine intentions, been trying, in effect, to turn this tragedy of the Navajo into a huge objective of national sympathy and charity, expressed in bundles of old clothes and surplus commodities. on the other hand, there have been those who have seen that fundamental need of the Navajo is a broad, persistently pursued, comprehensive program of education, preventative medicines, resource development, off-reservation relocations, and, above all, a wide variety of economic operations for the Navajo. 

The first round has been won for the latter group. The enactment of Public Law 474, approved by the President on April 19 of this year, is the first attempt in the history of Indian affairs that I know of, where Congress has taken a particular group of Indians, studied their problems in generalities, but studied their particular situation and came up with a concrete program of doing something about it. I learned yesterday by phone that we will get about eight and one-half million dollars cash and about one million dollars contract to begin this program. I wish that every newspaper story and every magazine article were required to state somewhere in the article the central fact about the Navajo. In fact, many of the Navajo don't know it and appreciate it. It is simply the fact of over-population. 

When the Navajo came back after the Treaty of 1868, they numbered 10,000 to 12,000. Today they number 65,000. The original Reservation was 3,500,000 acres and they now have 15,500,000 [[of ??]] 16,000,000 acres. No matter how you figure it, not more than 35,000 of 65,000 can possibly hope to raise from their desert a subsistence living. The logical conclusion is that something like 30,000 Navajos must in one way or another turn away from the traditional way of life with a band of sheep. Take 8800 families who own some sheep, and keep in mind that the maximum carrying capacity of the Reservation is 585,000 sheep units, and the average maximum number of sheep a family could have would be 66. You have to have at least 250 to [[seek??]] out a meagre starvation existence. It is therefor of the utmost importance for everyone to realize that any kind of realistic program for the Navajos has got to face the central fact of over-population. This is unpalatable and unwelcome to the Navajo people. 

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