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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.