Viewing page 59 of 88

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

You have heard the cry for education. There are, it is estimated, about 24,000 children of school age for whom school facilities, Federal, state and mission are available for 10,000. There are today 14,000 Navajo children for whom neither the Federal Government, state government nor missions have provided educational facilities. Actually the demand of the Navajos for education is a relatively recent development. The War brought home to the Navajo people that they would have to have the white man's education and, generally speaking, they have not appreciated that fact until the late War. We have 3600 veterans with GI benefits. I don't attend a single meeting with Navajos on the Reservation, that I am not placed in the embarrassing position of being unable to say, "Yes, next year we will bring you a school." It can't be done that fast with the money we are getting. 

Another fact is the medical situation. I'm not surprised that the TB and infant mortality rates are the highest in the United States. We have five hospitals with about 300 beds. We have 100 beds for TB patients. We send about 75 to Albuquerque and a handful to a hospital in Oklahoma. Recently we had on the Reservation a distinguished committee of doctors. They figured that we need 1600 beds for TB patients and we have less than 200. They said we have to have immediately a hospital of 400 beds so built that wings with 300 beds can be built on year after year. 

The Navajos have lots of good resources aside from grazing land. They have good stand of timber, a sawmill, coal, etc. The sawmill has earned for the tribe $900,000, and the men on the Advisory Committee say they want to build another one. Another fact: the Navajo today is a laborer. He is largely non-English-speaking and has nothing to offer but labor. Something like 4,000 or 5,000 Navajos go into agricultural work jobs off the Reservation every year. Between 8,000 and 10,000 work for the railroad. The most substantial cash that the Navajos have during the winter months comes from payments from unemployed insurance. 

It is well for you to realize that a bill like this is an authorization bill. It is one thing to get bills authorized and another thing to get the money appropriated. This bill promises that something over $88,000,000 will be spent in 10 years for 14 different categories of program. The Navajo has adopted its first tribal budget. Every dime laid out is justified. We have been told that our use of this power will be watched with a great deal of care, and if used unwisely, they might take the power away from us.

Another thing in the bill is the fact that Congress looks on the program as being so important that it has set up a special Congressional Committee on Navajo-Hopi affairs. It is a special standing committee. I think I am going to be the first Superintendent in the Indian Service to have three Congressmen and three Senators standing behind my desk to see how I am doing. We need this to feel that men in Congress understand our problems, that they will have some reason for coming out, talking with us, giving us advice, and going back to Congress with first-hand information. You develop programs with the Indian Affairs Committees in Congress. We can and need to re-establish confidence in the Indian Service and in each other. 
. . . . . . . . 
-57-