Image provided by: Library of Congress; Washington, DC
About The Chemawa American (Chemawa, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (March 19, 1930)
Page 4 The CHEM AWA AMERICAN ATHLETICS _____ . The end of this week will mark the close of our Spring football season. Though short it has been full of enthusiasm and accomplishments. When the call was made for candidates so many responded that it was startling. Only half the demand for suits could be supplied. Thus far the record sheet shows only two absentees, which would prove that all meant busi ness. Those of last season’s squad who are not turning out are reporting for baseball or track work, and with all three sports going at the same time it affords an opportunity for nearly everybody to participate. Julian Smith, Alex Gouley and Joe Alexander, all regulars of last season, are assisting with the coaching of the football boys. James McKay is handling the baseball candidates. We will lose all four of those boys through graduation this June. Fundamentals have been given the mcst time so far with just enough team play and signal drills to put the boys in shape for the climax that will be reached this week-end when the regulars will play the new men in a game that promises to be more than interesting because of rhe wealth of material among the new men, many of whom are big and aggressive and who have come along since the close of the season. The squad lines up as follows: Joe Ball, Albert Miller, Dominic Dog Eagle, Peter DePoe, Melvin Wilson, Clifford Case, George Motchman, Claude Trinder, ends; George Thompson, Charles Huber, James Walters, John Marsden, Peter Levay, Harry Archambeau, tackles; Urban Brunoe, Alphonse Hoptowit, Russell Vallidy, Philip Baker, Avery Charles, Dennis Brown, Stanly Yellow Robe, Albert Fox, Milton Broncheau, guards; David Little Swallow, Fred Sandberg, James Scott Lonnie Weeks, centers; Dowd Franklin, Clarence Weaver, Hans Jack, quarterbacks; Warren Wilder, John Trottier, Lee Jordan, Robert Thomas, Murray McClusky, halfbacks; Roy Meachem, Elmer Cline, and Melvin Davis, fullbacks. WHAT THE STATESMAN SAYS It is especially pleading to us to reprint the follow ing self-explanatory article which appeared in ‘’The Oregon Statesman” last Sunday, March 16th: “The salvation of the Indian lies in work and more work, and because that is so, I’m vitally interested in getting employment out in the world for the Indian boys and girls,” George P. LaVatta, who is on leave from his position with the Union Pacific to work with the federal department of the interior on the Indian problems, told a Statesman reporter who talked to him yesterday morning at the Chemawa Indian Training school here. “But I don't want anyone to think for a minute that I want anyone to give anything for nothing; I don’t believe in giving anybody anything for nothing,” La Vatta added quickly after his first statement. Equally as interesting as the work he is doing for Indian boys and girls is the story of La Vatta himself. ‘ I’ve had to work ail my life, ’ ’ he said, “and I wanted to do it.” He is a graduate ol Carlisle and attended school in Philadelphia. Returning from the east, he went to the Fort Hall reservation in Idaho, where he, a full-blooded Shoshone Indian, was born. Upon his return from the east, he decided he wanted to work, so he walked 12 miles to Pocatello, Idaho, and applied for work at the Union Pacific yards there. The railroad bosses speedily told him they had no jobs for a lazy Indian and the only good Indians were dead ones. Persistent, La Vatta called at the yards every morning for 12 or 15 mornings; at last he was given brushes and pails and set to the worst job on the place, which was, of course, supposed to see the end of him. But not so; at the end of a day or two the gen eral superintendent came to demand who gave an In dian a job. But to make a long story short, La Vatta stayed on that week and succeeding weeks. He earned two promotions and he had the temerity to ask the officials to take on another Indian lad. They did; he made good. La Vatta has been with the Union Pacific 12 years, and in that time has placed 200 Indians in jobs, some as first-class mechanics, some in office work. And in that 12 vears, the Indian man who would not be downed, has come to be personally acquainted with Carl R. Gray, president of the Union Pacific, and Gray has become vitally interested in the welfare of the Indian and readily “loaned” La Vatta to the gov ernment service to help work out the Indian problem and organize his people for assimilation into the work aday world. La Vatta believes firmly that the Indian boy or girl, properly trained, will get out and work just as anyone else, but before they will be generally employed the white man must be shown and made to realize that the Indian is not lazy. “In fact, the time has come when the Indian must get out and work if hissalvation is to be worked out; the Indian owes that to a govern ment which has helped him too long,” says LaVatta. LaVatta’s stand and belief on the Indian situation coincides with the new Indian administration policy in Washington, he pointed out. All the Indian needs is a “break,” he says, adding that he believes there is nothing at all serious to the Indian problem. “I am in hearty accord with Superintendent Lipps’ program at Chemawa. “If the people of Salem and Oregon get behind the Indian training school here and Lipps’ program, how much they can do in extending a brotherly opportunity for work.” This is LaVatta’s first trip into the northwest and with the results of his visitations along the line, he is pleased. He meets whenever opportunity affords with service clubs, both men and women, and with other groups. From here he will go to Portland. His west ern headquarters are in Salt Lake City, Utah. Incidentally, LaVatta is the proud wearer of one of the meritorious buttons which the Union Pacific has awarded to less than a dozen of its outstanding workers.
