Bob - Ducheneaux, R. D.
#1 - Yes R.D. Fulsome.
Bob - I see.
#1 - But he was very happy here, he was really impressed with what he seen. And the next day after that we had a cross section of the county people that was non-Indians meeting with the whole group. And of course the thing was that the thing the come up with Mr. Meeds also was the hunting and fishing. Now there was an article in the paper, I think Joe put it in, on Sunday about hunting and fishing. And there was a controversy rosed due to this editorial. And of course Mr. Meeds didn't want any of that at all. And Charles Wilkinson turned to him three times and said this will be resolved, this hunting and fishing thing will be resolved. So when we came back that day on Wednesday the council went into session, and they felt that they should change the wording of the bill which I don't think your's shows that Bob, but we change the wording of the bill, and on page two of the bill its says "this act shall not grant any hunting or fishing rights of any nature to the tribe or its members." And we talked for two hours on this with the tribal group and they felt that the education and health benefits
that we would receive would over shadow this. So we changed that. And sure enough, the next day the game commission was here, the Steelhead people, sports fisherman, and the other people that do it for a living, what do you call them, commercial fisherman, and the whole works, they were all here. And its a good thing that we changed it. So after talking to them, most of them said Art we will support you.
Bob - Beautiful
#1 - So I think this we solved a problem there. But I do think we are going to have a little problem explaining to our own people this particular wording of the bill. Because they think we have eliminated hunting and fishing, which we haven't. We are just saying that this bill, this bill alone does not give that right. But it doesn't exclude anything else and we are not saying what else we might have until the proper time. So that kind of brings you up to date as to what is happening, I think, Pauleen do you have anything to add, you were there punching me, when I was talking to Mr. Meeds.
#2 - No, I think Art just about says it all. I would like to tell you though how hard we've been working on this bill, and I mean hard. The tribal council here is really just in the last few months, we practically dropped everything and we have been pulling ourselves into this bill. Like you wouldn't believe. We've been in [illegible], we've been writing
letters, we've been to the Governor, you know, doing the bit. And we all are exhausted. I heard today that we have a long ways to go. I thought maybe we could slow down here, but now we have to get, what is it teachers, education, people and doctors, and get letters of support from them also.
JOJO - I talked with Charles Wilkinson this morning over breakfast, and he said that you folks had really been working on this.
#2 - Oh yeah, we have. And I think our bill is a very unique bill. We recognized our needs, co-education, the cultural part of it, and I think it is really important more than the fishing and hunting and these other things. I know I have been away from here for 20 years since termination. And I think its been a lot, I don't say that it is harder out here, but it seems like we worked harder and its been a struggle just as a week ago something happened, and it has happened in the last 20 years that I been out there. My little nephew was rushed to the hospital, and he was sent home with pneumonia. And his mother didn't even have heat in her house, and I know its simply because all she had was a welfare card to present them. And I have seen this type of thing happen over and over in the last 20 years, and I am really working on this restoration hard because I feel like its going make a lot of good to our people.
JOJO - Give us a little background on the passage of the Termination Act back in the 50's and how much people knew about it, or if they knew about it at all until it had happened.
#1 - May I answer, unless someone else wants to. I think as you recall maybe back there it was the policy of the Indians' Bureau of Affairs to get the Indians to be white people. They become assemblated into the white culture fast as possible, and before termination, they figured that the Siletz people were further advanced than this than any groups in the United States. So they said well maybe this was the best thing to do. And I think it got to the point even a lot of people say there were only a few people at the last meetings that led to termination. And I think it had deteriorated to the point where people didn't give a damn what happened because its going to happen anyway. We are going to be terminated. And of course then they came along with some of them, not all of the people, and they said well you can go and sit in the bars and these things, and that was kind of a [blank] to some of them to go for termination, not all of them but some of them. And I think after the last meeting they had, they only had about 39 people voting because they didn't care.
Bob - Excuse me Art, when you say voting, isn't it true though that the bill was inactive in 1953, and you was voting after the facts, and wasn't actually voting for termination, was voting for to see which way your assets would vote?
#1 - Thats right, I think you are right.
JOJO - So there was really no vote taken on whether or not the tribe wanted termination.
#1 - Yes, actually I don't think the tribe, I don't know, Stanley was on the council at that time, I don't think it was a complete feeling of the people that termination was a thing. It was just inevitable. This is the thing that was going to happen regardless of what we did. Now I kind of got that feeling anyway, and it happened.
#3 - May I say something please?
#1 - Yes
#3 - At that time, it was the first floor Economics Bureau, at that time there had been records of 70,000 of our Indians involved in the war here. And all those war plans, everything they were actively involved. There was the Peuter area was open, these Indians were good workers and they were in great demand, and they were making big money. And they come back from the war, they come back from these other cities, the come here and the right back treated like Indians as they have been treated all their lives before. They wanted then to be treated as the white people were. They saw then that termination might mean that they could have all other freedoms, and they didn't need the assistance that was not incoming by the government but should have been under the reservation rights. So they were all willing and ready to have it terminated. But then the timber industry was wiped out and here they are back and
they don't have now the occupation they had then. And we have Indians here, all of them will say the same thing. All of them were working, almost all of them were working in the timber industry one way or another.
#1 - Stanley, how do you feel, you were on the council at that time?
#4 - Like you said Art, it is something that is going to come about. The Siletz Indians here, we in this reservation here, the ground I mean, continue logging here us Indians, younger Indians went into logging and we had money, and we passed ourselves the same as the white people. And termination was something that was coming upon us, we knew that for sure. I remember the time I went to the government hill up here at the school, and we had a rumor going, we are going to go down to the public schools, and sure enough we did.
#1 - It happened
#4 - Yes
#1 - Rumors happen
#4 - It happened
Bob - At the time of termination, how many acres consisted with the rest of the reservations.
JOJO - It says here 7,900 acres when the tribe was terminated.
#1 - It was, we had what, three tracts of timbers off. Three tracts of timbers was all we had left.
#1 - We say 2,000, its between 1,800 and 2,000 people. We are making a study, we know that the statistics is an important thing to get our bill passed. To the point, we felt that we should hire a consultant, which we have. And Stanley is working on the CETA program, and has collected information and now this consultant is getting this information together into a meaningful thing for us.
JOJO - Your efforts towards restoration, has that been
pretty much financed out of the people's own pockets?
#1 - Thats right.
#3 - Quite a bitch. (laughter)
#1 - Well even the alcohol program, I worked on the CETA position, Catherine works on the CETA position, we just recently put another one on, and we get no travel or anything. We go someplace we go to the workshops or anything, we pay our own way. And if we go to the county seat or Toledo or Newport, we assume..
JOJO - Pay your own way.
#1 - Pay our own way.
JOJO - Have you had pretty well a tribal council all these years since termination?
#1 - No. Just since '73. I think '73 they reorganized under non-profit corporation.
JOJO - Bob, do you know of any other things we need to know from your perspective either from Grande Rhonde or Siletz?