The Daily Alaska empire., 1938-10-25
Uncle Sam Aids
 Indians, Battle
 White Man Again
New Trib al Constitutions May Conserve Land
 of Red Men
By +. N. THOMPSON AP Feature Service Writer

Indian tribe, descendants of the War-drum beating Apaches, may yet lead the red man to new kind of happy hunting ground.
 Deep in the mountains on the New MeXico-Colorado border this little band of Jicarilla Indians is working out a new system of tribal 1 life with the help of Uncle Sam The experiment is being conducted eight hours from civiliza ation-if you travel by the little narrow-gauge railway which carries in supplies and hauls out the wool which brings the tribe its income. A generation ago the Jicarillas were given up for lost-a ghost l tribe that never would come back They lived in landless poverty, their 75o o,000-acre reservation leased to stockmen for s10,O0O year. It took Federal doles to keep the once proud warriors from starving ata Have Own Government Their numbers dwindled from nearly 300 in 1909 to less than 600 in a few years. But now they're increasing again, faster than the general population, Indian Bureau officials reported on the eve of the twentieth annual, American h. dian Day. September 9. Their jand is bringing them back, the officials |say. a
 The Jicarillas have gone to work on their reservation and they're try ing to make their own living They nave organized their tribal govern ment, adopted a constitution and voted business charter in order to borrow capital. With an $80,OOO loan from the government they set up a tribal trading center to haLdle livestock. clothing and other neces- sities. All this has been done under the Federal Indian Reorganization Act, of Is. A..
 4 ltp cite1A iiido iotitCp lldft lt- placed the white mans herds on the reservation range. In the spring they take their stock, wives and children to the high plateau where they live in sheepskin tents until the fall chill drives them down. Then they move to their tents and wooden shacks on the lower range, where they tend their flocks and prepare for next summers migra- ton.
 To guarantee control of their lands, individual Jicarillas who hold pieces of the reservation have deeded their mineral and timber rights to the tribe No white trader can get hold of it even though the oil which some men say they've seen oozing from the ground, proves to be a flow of black gold Borrow from U. $.
 Other tribes have followed a similar path since the Indian Re- organization Act was passed. IL of fers the red man the chance to adopt political constitutions, incor- porate to do business as a tribe, check the transfer of Indian lands to. white people, conserve Indian timber and range area.
 For example, the northern Chey- ennes, in Montana Tongue River reservation, are feeding great herds of cattle as a tribal enterprise With business charter under the reorganization act they are borrow ing $85,000 a year to start, and will begin selling cattle fed on the range at the end of the second year
 Eighty-four tribes have adopted constitutions, and 58 of these have voted to become chartered corpora
 tions with power to borrow money
 from the government.
 Uncle Sam has contributed near
 ly 3,000,000 acres to Indian holdings
 in the past four years, bringing their domain to some 56,625,OOC
 acres. It had dwindled from nearly
 three times that half century lago.
 But the Indians themselves have
 been increasing Their population
 now is an estimated 350,000, com
 pared with 270OOO in 1900.