The Winslow mail., 1926-05-07
PLAN TO EXPEL
NAVAJO INDIANS
is FRUSTRATED
(From Tucson Starr

II IuSlI dIlOn VI a pan w IiINAA
would have robbed the Navajo In
dians located on reservation near
Gallup, New Mexico, last Sunday,
of their grazing lands near there
was told here this week by Mrs.
H. A. Atwood of Riverside, Calf,
chairman of the Indian Welfare
committee of the General Fedora
ton of Women's clubs, who is stop
ping in Tucson for few days.
Telegraphic appeals to war de-
partment officials, congressman and
the secretary of interior after the
plan became known, brought a
quick response and the order was
held up.
The commander of Fort Wingate,
located near Gallup, recently leas-
ed 1000 acres of grazing land, ac-
cording to Mrs. Atwood, located on
the Navajo reservation and the
military reservation, to a cattle
man for 500 a year. The cattleman
Immediately ordered all Indians to
move their focks of sheep and
herds of cattle from the land on
which they and their forefathers
have grazed their flocks and herds
for generations, by Monday. Friends
of the Indians gathered their forces
and telegraphed Mrs. Atwood to
come Immediately. An indignation
meeting of the Indians was called
on Sunday.
Investigation had revealed, Mrs
Atwood continued, that the leasing
of the land had been done without
competitive bidding and this point
was used as means to halt the or
: der giving the cattleman right to
the land.
Indians started gathering at Gal
lup early Sunday morning and by
morning practically every brave,
squaw and child was gathered there
to hear what the Great Father" at
Washington had done for them. A
telegram was read from Washing
ton notifying Captain Macdonald
of Fort Wingate to stop all proce-
dure on the lease pending an in
vestigation of the manner in which
the lease was executed. Reading of
the message by Mrs. Atwood
brought forth great cry of jubila-
tion. The tribesmen rushed for
ward anxious just to touch the wo-
man who had saved them from
practically starvation. Some were
crying for joy, others shouting, all
were jubilant. Mrs. Atwood denied
that she had much to do with saw
ing the situation, declaring that
most of the work had been done
before her arrival.
Such work as that, Mrs. Atwood
declared, is only part of the work
which her committee is doing. At
present she is engaged in fighting
for an amendment to bill now
pending before the house at Wash
ington and being heard before the
Indian Affairs committee. The bill
in it's present form, she says, would
tax the Indians holding oil and
mineral lands 81 per cent of the
five per cent royalty which they
receive. Mrs. Atwood is seeking to
have the bill so changed that the
producer of the oil would be taxed
equally with the Indian owner of
the land.
The bill provides that the money
so raised will be used for road and
school development in the Indian
reservations, and the committee of
which Mrs. Atwood is chairman, is
heartily in support of the measure,
provided, Mrs. Atwood declared,
that their amendment is attached.
Mrs. Atwood has been in Washing
ton for some time during the winter
fighting for the amendment pro-
posed by her organization.
The high goal to which the In
dian Welfare committee is aiming,
Mrs. Atwood asserted is full recog-
milton of citizenship for the Ameri-
can Indian. Giving the Indian full
citizenship, she says, opens the
way for the government supplying
instructors and agricultural agents,
and the services of the various bu-
reaus at Washington for the ad-
vancement of agriculture.
Teaching the Indian better ways
in agriculture and animal husband
ry will mean the opening up and
development of large arid tracts of
land in Arizona and New Mexico,
Mrs. Atwood concluded, because
the additional knowledge will mean
doubled production.