Morton cites Nixon administration
efforts in Native American affairs
Rogers Morton, U.S. Secretary of the
Interior, delivered the keynote speech at
the opening of the National Tribal
Chairmen’s Association (NTCA) con
vention Monday afternoon, and he took
this occasion to remind the participants
how much the Nixon Administration has
done for them.
Although no outright campaigning was
done, the undertone was evident. He listed
Nixon Administration achievements,
compared these achievements with those
of past administrations, and attributed the
slow progress of Nixon’s proposed
legislation to the “obvious political
lethargy” of the “Democrat-controlled
Congress” where he said “desperately
needed Indian Legislation is languishing in
committees.
Rogers opened his speech by reading a
letter from President Nixon addressed to
the NTCA. In the letter Nixon thanked the
NTCA for the assistance it has given the
Administration “in our determined efforts
to translate new attitudes toward
American Indians into effective actions.
“Our policy, as you know, is firm and
unwavering: greater self-determination so
that America’s Indians can manage their
own affairs.” Nixon said he welcomed the
guidance and assistance of Native
Americans in “our common efforts to
press vigorously forward the programs to
improve the living standards of our Indian
population.”
In his own remarks, Morton said
“Funding is the strongest indicator of
commitment in government” and ex
Photo by Matt McCormick
Delegates to the National Tribal Chairmen’s Association convention
listen to Morton’s keynote address.
plained federal government funding ef
forts of Indian programs. He cited a 20 per
cent increase in Bureau of Indian Affairs
(BIA) funding during the Johnson ad
ministration. against a doubling of BIA
funding during Nixons administration.
Morton cited the following Nixon ad
ministration moves toward ‘‘im
plementation of self-determination":
—Currently, a majority of top BIA
executive positions in Washington are
filled by Indians, and the number of In
dians serving as BIA area directors has
risen from one out of 11 to seven out of 12.
—All 200 BIA schools now have Indian
advisory school boards or education
committees.
—Indian tribal leaders are now setting
forth their own priorities for the use of BIA
funds, and BIA is acting on these
priorities.
Morton said the federal government will
spend $174 million on Indian education this
year. Money for Indian college scholar
ships has been increased by $12 million
and 7,000 more students are getting
assistance than were being helped in 1969.
he said.
Morton recognized problems of urban
Indians, saying, “1 suspect that one of the
questions most in your minds is whether
the BIA will change its long standing
policy of concentrating only on affairs of
on-reservation Indians. The President said
it clearly in his Indian message to the
Congress—BIA will concentrate its efforts
on serving Federally recognized tribes.
We are, however, investigating the
feasibility of cooperative programs with
other agencies to provide social services
for urban Indians.
‘‘Nevertheless, let me put it on the line.
We will not diminish the funds made
available to reservations from BIA to
provide service to off-reservation In
dians.”
Morton closed by saying “You are the
leaders of America’s Indians and I am
listening to your voice and the voice of
your people. We are listening to you.”
Benny Atencio, chairman of the All
Indian Pueblo Council, Inc., which
represents the nineteen New Mexico
Secretary of the Interior Rogers Morton
Pueblo Tribes, tried to question Morton
but Morton declined to answer any
questions from participants or reporters,
saying he had to return to Washington. He
referred Atencio to other Dept, of Interior
members present at the convention and
left.
Morton said the last four years "have
been marked with incredible strides in
education, economic development, and the
achievement of self-determination, but the
progress we seek is being slowed by
legislative delays. Today, desperately
needed Indian legislation is languishing in
committees of the Democrat-controlled
Congress.” Morton said it has been very
hard for him to accept criticism from this
congress about inactivity in the BIA, when
it is “sitting” on legislation and preventing
the administration from moving forward
with “progressive” programs. He cited
this as “obvious political lethargy” and
said he feels very partisan about it.
Morton also said that a balance is
needed on the self-determination issue. He
said that non-indians who have given a
life’s work to the BIA should not be
completely thrown out and washed out.
OSPIRG releases
ad report on auto
pdealers in Portland
Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group
(OSPIRG) recently released a report on “Bait and
Switch Advertising,” compiled by two University
students, Hal Fay and Dan Mulholland.
The report, which deals exclusively with the ad
vertising practices of 12 Portland automobile dealers,
uncovered several instances of misrepresentative ad
vertising In one case, the OSPIRG report led to the
signing of an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance by Joe
Fisher of Joe Fisher Ford, two weeks after the report
was turned over to the district attorney.
In its investigation of the 12 dealers, OSPIRG
discovered two other dealers who used "bait and swit
ch” advertising. According to the report,, similar legal
actions are not expected against those two “in the hope
that the uncompromising terms of the Assurance will
prove to be a deterrent to other dealers practicing
similar illegal sales techniques.”
Fay calls the report a “success from one standpoint.
The car dealers are aware that people are checking on
them.” They must now be more explicit and more
careful in their advertising, he said.
The “Bait and Switch Advertising” project came
about as a result of a University class taught by
Professor John Wish “Consumer Problems" aUows
students to receive 15 hours credit during spring term
working on projects such as “Bait and Switch Ad
vertising.”
“The main purpose of the project," Fay said, “was
to educate the consumer that this practice is prevalent
and hopefully they will be aware of that when they go
into a car lot.”
According to the report. Day and Mulholland feel
that their investigation helped bring about a distinct
change in advertising practice, “a change that benefits
the consumer by eliminating elements of bait and switch
and deceptive advertising.”
Fay and Mulholland used volunteers, students from
both the University and Portland State University, and
from the community, to act as potential buyers of the
automobiles advertised in local newspapers or on
television. The volunteer would usually make a definite
effort to see the car advertised.
Following their visit to the dealer’s car lot, each
volunteer made out a report concerning deceptiveness
or discrepancies involved in the dealers’ advertising.
“Bait and switch” advertising involves attracting
the customer to the lot through an insincere offer to sell
and then "switching” the customer to another, less
favorable, deal.
Upon completion of their investigation, Fay and
Mulholland confronted individual dealers with their
findings, then turned their report over to the district
attorney.
OSPIRG is making no further checks into the area of
car dealers. The office of Consumer Protection will
continue to handle the situation, according to Fay.
Transportation a major problem
for local, state recycling groups
“We’ve never had a meeting like this before,”
Peter Thurston, a representative of Eugene BRING
(Begin Recycling in Natural Groups) said, as he
told the Emerald about a statewide conference of
community recycling groups held in Junction City
last week.
“Mostly what we did was sit around for six or
eight hours and talk about recycling problems, and
how to bring recycling to Oregon on a state wide
basis.”
There were nine orten groups present, Thurston
said: Included were high school recyclers from The
Dalles, and representatives from Coos Bay and
Cottage Grove, who are planning to set up recycling
centers in their communities.
Plans were made at the conference to distribute
literature throughout Oregon on how each com
munity could start it’s own recycling center. A
series of pamphlets is slated for publication
“sometime in the near future,” Thurston said.
The big problem facing local recycling groups,
according to Thurston, is transporting the glass and
steel to Portland, the major market for recyclable
materials in Oregon.
Transportation costs money. “In Eugene alone,
we collect 12 to 15 barrels of glass a week, to ship to
Portland," Thurston said. Each barrel weighs six
hundred pounds ”
“It may not be good to pour money into a
community that is not yet ready to recycle,” he
said.
The solution decided at the conference was to
make information on recycling available to the
smaller groups and help them get together with
neighboring groups to pool the cost of tran
sportation. When enough materials from a com
munity are transported regularly to Portland and
sold, the cost of transportation is covered by the
sale.
BRING has been operational in Eugene for
almost three years. They recycle glass, steel,
cardboard and aluminum.
“The idea of BRING is to stop cans and things
from being wasted in the dump. If someone else
finds it profitable to do this, BRING (which is a non
profit group) would dissolve as a recycling group,”
Thurston said.
It might take five years, he said, but it is
possible that a city or county agency could take
over the business of recycling in Eugene
What would BRING do then?
“Even if we stopped recycling we’d still be
involved in education in some way," Thurston said.
“Tied in with recycling is a lot of learning.”