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Show Left Of Center l A Problem Ignored with an insignificant detail such as the conservation of human life. Mr. Bowman's bitterness is not without justification. The question his letter raises in my mind is this: When is this country going to stop being a nation which says it cares about people, and start being one which actually does care and is willing to act in a way that proves it? By MARYBETH MEFFERT to In a letter to the editor published Friday, April 12, Mr. Jack "Tonny" ' Bowman presented very elequently the case of the American Indian. k Perhaps the most disturbing thing Mr. Bowman's letter reveals is the willingness of the white majority to ignore the problems of any minority minor-ity group they do not consider a ijj. threat to their security. If Consider the attitude of many It whites toward recent civil rights legislation. When they do approve, they approve only because they hope the action taken will stop the riots, and not because they are ! honestly concerned about the welfare wel-fare of black Americans. They see I the riots as an example of unprovoked unpro-voked lawlessness rather than as the effect of a previously existing cause, white racism. Their support of civil rights legislation is motivated moti-vated solely by self-interest. They are now willing to eke out bits and pieces of equality to black people only because they are afraid. Safely Ignored For the American Indian there is no such recourse. Imprisoned as they are behind the "Tumbleweed Curtain," to quote Mr. Bowman, they are not a threat to the complacency com-placency of the white community; therefore, they can be safely ignored. ig-nored. The Bureau of Indian Affairs sponsors a two-week summer camp program for Indian children on the North Idaho Reservation. During the summer I spent working work-ing as a camp counselor in that program, I noticed that the camp was allowed an especially gener ous amount of money to purchase food, and that special care was taken to see that the children received re-ceived nutricious meals. I soon found out why. It was to make up for the fifty weeks of the year, during which time many of the children were chronically undernourished. under-nourished. Beautiful brown children child-ren who should have been happy and energetic sat silent and listless. list-less. Often they exhibited poor posture pos-ture and a lack of enthusiasm. Even minor cuts and scratches on their bodies were slow to heal and easily infected. Two weeks of a proper diet does not have the power pow-er to undo the ill effects of fifty weeks without one. The children who were the most healthy were the ones who lived at the orphanage. There were many who lived there, due to the early mortality rate among their parents. Any Rights? At the present time there is a case before the United States Supreme Su-preme Court which will affect Indian In-dian tribes in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. The state of Washington Washing-ton has refused to recognize the claim of approximately thirty Indian In-dian tribes to the net fishing rights which were granted to them in 1855 by the Treaty of Medicine Creek. The state of Washington bases its case on the necessity for the conservation of wildlife, but those in authority have consistently failed either to recognize or to do anything about the problem of poverty. pov-erty. For many Indians, the fishing fish-ing rights are very nearly a matter of life and death. But it appears that the government is too busy conserving wildlife to be bothered |