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Show r ; June The National Enterprise, 22, 1977 Page After the long walk Now there is hope that all of this is changing. by Parker Nielson z In 1864 the U.S. Army rounded up the rag-ta- g remnants of the Navajo Nation under the leadership of War Chief Manuelito, and confined tnem in a Mesquite covered wasteland in New Mexico served by brackish water. There they were forced to live on government handouts or die of starvation and exposure. Many of them walked the 300 miles from their homes in the snow, in weather, without horses, shelter or adequate clothing. The mortality rate was high. The event is known to history as the Navajos long walk, and resulted in some 8,570 formerly peaceful farmers and herdsman being held at Fort Sumner. captive O sub-freezi- CL QC LU The Navajos now have 46 elementary boarding schools, two boarding high schools, 10 day schools, and eight dormitories on or near the reservation. They have the Navajo Community College at Many Farms, established in 1969. There arc now 193 uniformed Navajo police and 15 rangers to patrol seven Tribal Parks. There are six hospitals, five health centers and more than 100 Health Service Clinics on the reservation. ng There are now Navajo courts and a Navajo Bar Association, with the Navajo Tribe administering a Bar examination. Moreover, the Navajo Bar Association is replete with names like Louise Ipalook, Harry Bilagody, Zhunie Yellowhair, Louis Denetsosie, Herbert and Erma Yazzie. And there will be more, with at least six Navajos currently enrolled in law schools at New Mexico, Denver, BYU and Utah. In 1868 a 3.5 million acre reservation was created for the Navajos and they walked back to their ravaged homeland. The reservation has since been expanded to nearly 16 million acres and the population has increased from approximately 15,000 to in excess of 145,000. z 3 o o If there is hope for the Navajo Nation, an important factor is that it has succeeded in retaining substantial portions of its lands. Any thoughtful person having much experience with Indians knows that common ownership of land and the enjoyment of nature's bounty is the foundation of Indian culture. Compare the pitiful lot of Utah's Piautes and mixed-blood- " Utes, who have had their lands taken from them. The Navajos have been subjected to the same indignities as many Indian groups: moves to break their culture by destroying tribal traditions and institutions; transporting their children hundreds of miles to boarding schools where their culture could be further shattered; placement of their n children in foster homes, sometimes following a kidnapping, and not too subtly taught to be ashamed of Indian traditions in the arrogant belief that they should be brought into the main stream of Anglo culture. Indian affairs were n officials and their decisions made by managed by n lawyers appointed for them. off-reservati-on Utah officials locked in a dispute with the Utes over political and criminal jurisdiction of the former Uintah Valley Reservation could take a lesson from this history. Perhaps Utahns can be made to realize why control of their own affairs is important to the Indian's dignity. There may yet be time to mitigate the some of them. wrongs of the past non-India- non-India- t.. non-India- WM6RS 3UeiU6 MV w- - twenty-seve- n rue mcwBiee came id. MASS PROPUCTIOU pveioe hv rm- - AFF iveuce CAME ID- - CAME D AIR TRAVEE CAME ID SPte TRAVEL CAME ID. CAME $ 0, ID- - mim THE PARK oepce affimjr ;f&v ' "1M)6 M- time- WEDT OUT. E- - science THE teeS ft COUC5 L$S0U CF HISICRV THAT THE UF ID. SXAMIUep is dot uooem 6XAMI DID&. OBJT our. SHwM&ffcz ' i Pragmatic DogmaticsBack j to the brown bag - by Kent Shearer the premises rather than carry it home in ones car. Parker Nielson is on the mark when he concludes Enterprise, June 1) that Utahs liquor law and its administration are jointly and severally illogical. That is, unless one adopts Benjamin Jowetts aphorism that logic is neither a science nor an art, but a dodge." In 1965, the Legislature reaffirmed its dedication to the brown bag system. It defeated a modest step toward sanity (and moderation) embodied in a proposal to permit licensed restaurant sale, for consumption in connection with meals, of 1.6 ounce minibottles. But the law in question, as many others, is founded not in logic, but rather in history and a chronology may illuminate the otherwise During 1966, a liquor by the drink initiative petition wras launched by Utahns who discerned that needed investment in tourist and recreational facilities was impaired by the brown bag restriction. The requisite number of signatures was obtained, and the measure appeared on the 1968 general election ballot. Initial straw polls indicated the prognosis for passage to be excellent, and its opponents embarked on a strenuous counterattack in which they: (1) stressed that the measure would make drinking more expensive; and (2) promised that, were it defeated, the opponents would propose and secure passage of an alternative law which itself would reduce dependence upon the brown bag. i obscure. From the repeal of national prohibition until the enactment of the Liquor Control Act of 1969, liquor could not be sold by the drink in Utah. Intoxicants other than 3.2 beer were obtained in containers not less than a half pint in capacity from state liquor stores. These could be carried in a brown bag to virtually any cafe or tavern where mix could be purchased and wine cooled. Private clubs were locker facilities where receptacles were provided for l I 1 I I I members to store their bottles. It will law encouraged temperance. To the contrary, every inducement when not in a private club was to consume the evidence on pre-196- 9 ? I be observed that no feature of the d defeat Following what proved to be a called of the iniative, the opponents were upon 1969 Act The was on their promise. to deliver that fulfillment. It allowed sale of minibottles lop-side- w and wine splits during prescribed hours by liquor stores and, together with meals, by It further authorized the licensed cafes. private club sale and dispensation of drinks mixed from entire minibottles and wine splits. It may be argued, as apparently does Nielson, that the entire minibottle and split aspect of the Act encourages It can be contended, however, that it scarcely does not do so less than did its brown bag 1969 over-indulgenc- e. predecessor. Moreover, any future legislative change is more likely to be in the direction of a return to the brown bag than toward liquor by the drink. Three-quarteof the members of the current legislature are teetotalers, and an even greater proportion belong to a religious sect that frowns, and then some, upon hard liquor. Such lawmakers may find it suits their purpose to render a horrid hangover a necessary concomitant to booze. rs So, those who as Nielson and, for that this writer matter, perceive illogic in the present law had best recognize that it is as good as any we are going to get, mute the subject although it will rankle to do so, and devote our rhetoric instead to those topics of which we can accomplish something. |