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Show ' Uie Leaders Protest Sen. Watkins' Bill Ute Indian leaders have criticized crit-icized the recent announcement by Senator Watkins upon introducing intro-ducing the bill in Congress to grant "full citizenship" to Indians In-dians of California and western Oregon that the Ute Indians of Utah and Colorado would be next to be "emancipated." The announcement was made by R. O. Curry, business manager of ' the Tribal Committee. Francis McKinley, coordinator for the Ute iriDe, made tne following fol-lowing statement: "We have never advocated legislation to terminate lederal responsibility toward tne Uie Indians of Utan and will oppose aryy such measures meas-ures until we are satisfied that the Utes are prepared and wilting wilt-ing to assume tne responsibilities responsibili-ties of citizenship. We have nothing to qo with the affairs and problems of the southern Utes with headquarters in Ig-nacio, Ig-nacio, Colorado. "Senator Watkins and other Congressional leaders, believe that tne "cure-all' to the perplexing per-plexing Indian problems can be solved by legislation, but we disagree and would prefer to meet the problems by education, orientation, e x p e r i e n c e, and cooperative relationship between the tribal, county, state and federal fed-eral governments in working out our mutual problems to the end that the Ute Indians will eventually assume equal status with fellow citizens as valuable and respected people. Tne chief reasons lor tne existence of conflicting con-flicting statutes, obsolete and antiquated an-tiquated laws, treaties often unfulfilled, un-fulfilled, and the red tape entwining en-twining the so-called redman, are the result of hasty legislation legisla-tion framed by lawmakers lg noiant of Indian conditions and attitudes, with one eye toward the electorate, who are usually trying to relieve the Indians of what little natural recources are left to them, and who wish prematurity to impose taxes upon up-on the Indians before the federal fed-eral government has fully discharged dis-charged its responsibility toward them. "Our three-year program, financed fi-nanced by the Utes' own money, is designed to put the Utes' house in order, prepare them to face the realities of a long-range long-range program, and to improve their reservation resources. This will be followed by a long range program, objectives of which will ;be defined by democratic action of the Ute people, and where the questions of assuming greater responsibilities by both the tribal government and individual in-dividual Indians will be met. "Since we are succeeding in our program, we are alarmed over the policy announcements for the Ute tribe by others who are only dimly aware of what we are trying to do, and who, apparently, do not appreciate the fact that the Utes can think and act for themselves." |