With regard to national Indian policy and legislation, identifying friends and foes in Washington is often difficult; and changes with time and tides of public opinion.

To some people making such a judgement is just a matter of party affiliation: i.e., Democrat = friend; Republican = foe. But that doesn’t hold true in many cases, depending on the legislation’s intent, budget and area impact. Even looking back in history, it is difficult to tell who was a friend or foe of the tribes, in all the federal government structure, but especially in the Congress.

For example, in 1973 a group of friends of the National Congress of American Indians – volunteer stalwarts including Grace and Gail Thorpe, Rose Robinson and Ella Mae Horse – came up with a fund-raising plan for our cash-strapped organization. I was Executive Director at the time. They had planned a special honoring banquet, at which a member of each house of Congress would be honored with an award for outstanding work on behalf of the tribes. This would be an annual event.

For the name of the award, we selected Senator Edward M. Teller, Republican from Colorado in the 1880s. The reason we selected him was for a speech he had made in debate over the impending disaster called the Dawes Act or the General Allotment Act; we hoped it might serve as an inspiration to all those in Congress. The speech included this statement:

“If I stand alone in the Senate, I want to put upon the record my prophecy in this matter: that when thirty or forty years shall have passed, and the Indians shall have parted with their title, they will curse the hand that was raised professedly in their defense; and if those who are clamoring for this legislation understood Indian culture and religion......they would not be clamoring for it at all.”

The first banquet was a great success that featured the noted humorist Art Buchwald as emcee and commentator, and Senator Sam Irvin (D-NC) and Congresswoman Julia Butler Hansen (D-WA) as Teller Award recipients. The annual banquet was carried on for several years, but the first one was the only one that featured a Teller Award. After that first award, some astute scholar pointed out to us that the Colorado senator finally succumbed to pressure to favor the Dawes Act. Worse yet, he took it even farther and proposed that the Indian lands be allotted in checkerboard fashion with white owners who would be granted every other plot. If the law was meant to “civilize” the Indians with virtues of land ownership and farming, he proposed, then they ought to be made to live side-by-side with their white mentors.

We figured that NCAI ought not to be honoring such a man, and quietly withdrew the name from future awards.

During my tenure in Washington in the 1970s, a few congressional friends that will withstand the test of time and scrutiny include Congressman James Haley (D-FL), Senator Lee Metcalf (D-MT), Congresswoman Julia Butler Hansen (D-WA), Congressman Sid Yates (D-IL), and Senators James Abourezk (D-SD) and Fred Harris (D-OK). And, surprising to many, several in the Nixon White House proved to be champions of the tribes and Indian people, including the President himself.

On the other side of the coin, chief among those who had proven themselves to be foes of the tribes’ interests were Senators Arthur Watkins of Utah, the champion of termination policy, and Clinton Anderson of New Mexico. Two other men in Congress had changed their status from friend to foe, and vice versa: Congressman Lloyd Meeds (D-WA) a long-time champion of tribal interests ended his career sponsoring legislation that called for the end of tribal fishing rights. The other, Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson (D-WA), a long-time terminationist ended his career sponsoring and championing some of the most important Indian legislation in history, including the Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act.

There is an excellent new book that tells the story of this “conversion” of Scoop Jackson, and the Indian man who did much to convert him, Forrest Gerard of the Blackfeet. The book, The Last Great Battle of the Indian Wars by veteran Native journalist Mark Trahant, gives an excellent look into the workings of Congress in an era that was the most prolific in terms of favorable legislation and policy.

Trahant, of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes of Fort Hall, is the most experienced journalist, as reporter, editor and publisher, in Indian Country. Along with the late Richard LaCourse of Yakama, he is perhaps the best to come along, ever. His writing is clear, sharp, and interesting, and he brings out factual situations and vivid characterizations. He writes of an era in which I was privileged to serve as Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians in the nation’s Capitol – the 93rd, 94th and 95th Congresses in the 1970s. However, some of what he describes were things I had not witnessed or was otherwise unaware of.

Some of the behind-the-scenes activity he describes in this book brought back memories of instances in which differences between Indian organizations might have given the impression of lack of consensus in Indian Country and caused key members of Congress to back off supporting the legislation. In the consideration over the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (first introduced as the Indian Self-Determination and Education Reform Act), competition between the staffs of Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Interior and Insular Affairs Committee Chairman Scoop Jackson, gave NCAI concern that the legislation might be jeopardized if the controversy was carried further.

While I served in Washington, I often resented the fact that although NCAI had worked to secure consensus from the tribes themselves at its annual Convention and other intertribal meetings, some Congressional members and staffs would often ignore our consensus positions and go to a local favorite for Indian input. And sometimes these separate positions were in conflict.

It is interesting that his account of that era makes no mention of the militant activities that highlighted those years. Although the subject of his book was the last battle “on the Hill” regarding policy and legislation, he makes no mention of the militant activities of the Trail of Broken Treaties, the AIM Occupation of Wounded Knee II, or the Longest Walk, all of which occurred in the 1970s. Perhaps his omission of any mention makes an important observation – that the militant actions of AIM and others did not have an appreciable effect on national policy; and that the legislative and policy initiatives were in the making before the Indian militancy began in earnest.

Although that was not likely Trahant’s intention, it is something for someone to study while many of the people who witnessed the militant actions and the making of the important, positive legislation and policy in the 1970s are still alive.

I had always felt that the militancy, which was frowned on in Congress and throughout the government, made NCAI’s advocacy for legislation and policy appear as a much more reasonable alternative. For that, I was thankful to the American Indian Movement.

Charles “Chuck” Trimble, Oglala Lakota, was principal founder of the American Indian Press Association in 1970, and served as Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians from 1972-78. He may be reached at cchuktrim@aol.com. His website is iktomisweb.com

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