The Michigan Daily
Edited and managed by Students at the
University of Michigan
Saturday, June 21, 1975
News Phone: 764-0552
End nUsing dece tionS
N THE WAKE of a dorm dirctor's charge of official
tampering with next year's housing budget, two stu-
dents yesterday went before the Regents to protest the
secrecy of Housing Office activities and to call for a full
investigation of its operations.
However, Feldkamp, in bewilderment over popular
disrepute of his office in general and his new "econo-
mizing" plan in particular, has failed to recognize or own
up to the consistent theme running through his deal-
ings with students.
Whereas many of the more academic departments
of the University have in recent years been forced to
allow students an equal role in much of the decision mak-
ing, the Housing office continues operating from a his-
torically elitist position.
JT IS BECAUSE of this sort of attitude that Housing
administrators have barred students - and their
own employees-from access to pertinent reports on the
dorm-system budget as well as alleged administrative
over- expenditures.
If John Feldkamp ever really wants to reestablish
some sort of credibility with the students on this cam-
pus, he's going to have to begin by opening access to
housing information to students files, so they might be
allowed some.real input on the operations and priorities
of the Housing office.
THE LIGHTER SIDE
Keepin' the Guvnuh happy
By DICK WEST
WASHINGTON-Peace. Harmony. Brotherhood.
You don't have to be a Republican to appreciate
those qualities.
Even Democrats could feel uplifted by the
sweatness and light that broke out in the GOP
this week.
There on the tbe was Sen. Barry Goldwater
discissing reports that conservative Republicans
were bent on dropping Vice President Nelson
Rockefeller from the GOP ticket next year.
Old political foes, Goldwater and Rockefeller.
The two poles between which thunderbolts flash-
ed at the 1964 GOP convention.
Yet when asked whether Rockefeller should
be the party's 1976 vice presidential nominee,
Goldwater couldn't have been more complimen-
tary.
"I've always thought that Nelson Rockefeller
would make a fine secretary of state," he re-
plied admiringly.
TO THE UNTRAINED ear it might sound like
Goldwater was whamming Rockefeller with
quaint praise. But no.
It turned out he actually was looking out for
his erstwhile adversary's own best interests.W ace
"I would hate to waste a man's talents on the official and he assured me the Democratic hi-
vice presidency when the vice presidency really, erarchy had nothing but admiration for Wallace's
as Jefferson said, is about the worst job in abiilties.
government," Goldwater explained. '"I would hate to waste a man's talents on the
As I was saying, solicitude of this sort trans- governorship of Alabama," the official said. "Wal-
cends party lines. I expect as the campaign lace should be encouraged to expand his horizons,
wears on that similar manifestations of sweet to move in new directions, the better to make
accord will erupt among the Democrats. use of his unique attributes."
The benevolence may have started already. I said, "Does that mean you favor him for the
You may have heard allegations that the Dem' 'Democratic presidential nomination?"
ocratic "establishment" is maneuvering to abort "I have always thought that George Wallace
the political ambitions of George Wallace. Pish would make a fine governor of Mississippi," the
and Tosh. official fervently opined.
I WAS TALKING just the other day to a party Dick West is a syndicated UPI columnist.
Kiamaths: Victims of Big Lumber
By DAVID WEIR
"They made many promises
but they kept only one. They
promised to take our land,
and they took it."
-bumpersticker in Klamath
Falls, Oregon
KLAMATH FALLS, OREGON
- The last hereditary chief of
the Klamath Indians is waging a
solitary battle to regain the site
of his grandfather's village.
Edison Chiloquin, 51, is the
only Klamath to turn down a
small fortune from the federal
government for his share of the
tribe's reservation, which was
taken over by the U.S. Forest
Service.
For six months now, his check
for $103,594 has been gathering
dust in a local bank. Meanwhile,
Chiloquin is demanding thu re-
turn of a logged-out, 800 acre
parcel of land worth much less,
in dollars, than the government
wants to pay him.
"They can keep the money,"
The Klamaths agreed to term-
ination because they thought it
meant the end of the white
man's control over their :and.
"The idea of termintion, re-
members tribal leader Einathan
David, was to get the govern-
ment out of the Indian business
at'd let us run our own affairs.
But it didn't work out that way."
Instead, the Klama'hs were
given two choices -- to sell their
land to the U.S. Forest Service,
or to submit to a trusteeship
arrangement with the U.S. Na-
tional Bank of Oregon, which
was appointed by the govern-
ment to take over the financtal
responsibilities formerly held by
the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Three-quarters of the approx-
imately 2,000 Klamatns opted for
the money, and in 1901 they re-
ceived $43,000 each for their
share of the 800,000 acre reser-
vation. The rest of the tribe, ir-
cluding Chiloquin and Davis. re-
mained under the baak'c feudal-
"The government has tried to legislate our
Indian blood right out of us," charges Dorris
Chiloquin, "but it won't work. We will always
be Indians."
says Chiloqut. "To me this land style control.
issacred, andtl want it back." "Nobody liked the banK,"re-
Chiloquin's struggle higalights calls one Klamath. "It wouldn't
the plight of the Klamaths, the even let us use our own mon-
only major tribe disbanded an- eyl"
der an obscure federal policy After 15 years, the remaining
called termination. Pass yd by members of the tribe voted by
Congress as Public Law 587 in a bare majority to eid the
1954, termination striotpod way trusteeship arrangemest in 1969.
the Klamaths' tribal-status, na- Davis and Chiloquin opposed this
tive rights and land in return move because a clause in the
for a lump-sum paymett. bank's contract allowed the bank
About a dozen tribes, most of to dispose of the tribe's land -
them small, were terminated be- which still amounted to 135,000
fore Congress aband.ied t h e acres of prime timberland. The
policy in the early sixties. The bank invited the government in
only other large tribe termin- to condemn the land and turn.
ated besides the Klamaths were it over to the U.S. Forest Serv-
the Menominees of Wisconsm - ice, which *duly incorporated it
but the Menominees forced, Con- into nearby national forests and
gress to restore their tr hal era leased out portions to lumber
ts in 1973. companies.
"If we can get the land back,"
says Edison's wife Dorris, "our
plan is to move on to it and
reconstruct the tribal village. We
wil gather what food we can
from the land and live in earth
lodges in the winter." Already,
several Klamath teenagers have
built earth lodges there in anti-
cipation of the Chiloquin's ie-
turn, and many other Klamaths
voice support for their struggle.
"I think a lot of the Indians
around here will join us event-
ually," says Dorris. "Our peo-
ple just can't be happy in the
white man's world."
A little more than a century
ago, the Klamaths controlled 15
million acres of land, including
famous Crater Lake - w hose
volcanic creation was witnessed
by their ancestors 10,000 years
ago.
By 1954, when termination was
passed by Congress, white en-
croachment had reduced this by
more than half.
Today, virtually all of the land
is owned by whites and the gov-
ernment, and the Klamaths are
for the most part landless and
unemployed.
After lump-sum payments of
1961 and 1974, door-to-door sales-
men showed up seling $280 va-
cuum cleaners for $475. Car
dealers marked up hotrod mod-
els by $1,000 or more. When one
Indian returned a car with a
faulty transmission, the dealer
allegedly quoted him a $2,000 re-
pair bill and then suggested:
"Why don't you buy a new car
instead?"
The FTC eventually cited two
auto dealers, a local attorney
went to prison for embezzling
$100,000 from two Indian clients,
and a realtor was convicted of
fraud.
"I don't know why the gov-
ernment decided to terminate
us," says tribal leader Davis.
"The -way I see it now, they
wanted to get a hold of our
timber, because that's w h a i's
happened."
Hatfield
Senator Mark Hatfield of
Oregon and Rep. Al Ullman
have been informed of the Chilo-
quin's plight, but so far neither
has chosen to lift a finger to
correct the situation.
The one group which has con-
sistently profited from the Kla-
math lands is the lumber in-
dustry. Most of the big multi-
national litmber companies are
here. The largest one is the We-
yerhaeuser Corporation.
Ever since the U.S. Army
built the first sawmill in the
area in 1863, the lumber com-
panies have had access to the
Klamath forests. Major commer-
cial operations date back to
1910, three years after Wey-
erhaeuser first moved in. Wey-
erhaeuser's influence in the re-
gion is unquestionable - it
shares an interlocking director-
ate with the Klanmath's former
trustee, the U.S. National Bank
of Oregon, ad is the largest'
employer in the region. Further-
more, the company sent its pre-
sident, George Weyerhaeuser
himself, to testify before Con-
gress during the Klamath teri-
ination hearings in the late fif-
ties.
"Termination, really didn't af-
fect us," says Bob Klingman, a
company spokesman, "except
insofar as it affected the level
of harvest as permitted by the
B.I.A., the U.S. National Bank
or the U.S. Forest Service." All
three agencies favored w i d e-
spread logging of the Indians'
timber, which included some of
the best virgin stands of pon-
derosa pine in the country.
All of this has convinced the
Indians in south-central Oregon
that the government is virtually
indistinguishable from the b i g
lumber interests. "The F o r e s t
Service is nothing but a holding
company for the lumber firms,"
charges Sun Bear, a Chippewa
who publishes the Indian quar-
terly Many Smokes in Klamath
Falls. "It watches over the land
and takes care of it until the
companies want to log it out,
and then it leases the land over
to them."
The Forest Service recently
informed Chiloquin that an act
of Congress is required if he is
to regain his land. The Chilo-
quins have contacted Oregon
Senator Mark Hatfield and local
Representative Al Ullman among
others, but so far there have
been no results.
"The government has tried to
legislate our Indian b1o o d
right out of us," charges Dorria
Chiloquin, "but it won't work.
We will always be Indians."
"I hope Edison is successful,"
says Elnathan Davis. "At least
then there would still be some'
thing you could call Indian iand
around here.
Freelance writer D a v i d
Weir formerly edited S u n
Dance Magazine and Pa-
cific Basin Reports. COPY-
right, Pacific News Service,
1975.