long way in helping Baltimore and the other urban centers throughout the country.

I, myself, was a street gang worker in New York for a number of years, I learned not only from the theoretical process of helping people, but from working with street gangs and with delinquent youth on the scene. I, as assistant to the mayor, also support this program. I think this would give us real stimulus in moving along our urban renewal program. I also thank you for the opportunity to appear here today.

Mr. D'ALESANDRO. In concluding, I would like to state that I am the president of the City Council of Baltimore, a Democrat. Stanley Mazer is the executive secretary in charge of human renewal to Mayor McKeldin, who is a Republican. Mayor McKeldin approved Stanley Mazer accompanying me to testify before your committee and he, too, is in favor of the creation of the National Service Corps.

Senator WILLIAMS. Of course, you were introduced by both a Republican and a Democrat, which is the highest praise.

What is the population of Baltimore now?

Mr. D'ALESANDRO. 927,000.

Senator WILLIAMS. Do you have the statistics on the number of young people of school age who are out of school and also unemployed? Mr. D'ALESANDRO. As far as dropouts, which I consider to be the No. 1 problem, in 1962 we had 6,000 dropouts in Baltimore from our public school system.

Senator WILLIAMS. In 1 year?

Mr. D'ALESANDRO. Yes. That represents 22 percent of the school population, as compared to 1957-58, when we had around 7,000, which at that time represented 35 percent. In fact, I think the statistics of Baltimore show that one out of every four, I believe, of those now in the seventh grade will drop out of school before they hit the first year of high school. That is our serious problem-dropouts.

Senator WILLIAMS. If your city is similar to other cities in this connection, the unemployment rate of those young people is way beyond the unemployment rate for adults.

Mr. D'ALESANDRO. That is true.

Senator WILLIAMS. We have a youth employment program that passed the Senate and is now before the House of Representatives which is designed to put these particular young people of productive work.

Mr. D'ALESANDRO. I think it is a must.

Senator WILLIAMS. This bill has a different purpose and a different objective completely; it is designed to bring volunteer service to areas of need. You have surely spelled out the needs of these young people, particularly in education, tutoring, and all of the other ways to helping them to become employable.

Mr. D'ALESANDRO. That is right; there is a difference between this bill and the Youth Conservation Corps bill. I wrote to Senator James, the State senator in Maryland in charge of the legislative council, suggesting the creation of a program for a Youth Corps in Maryland. I think we have to employ our youth, but that is separate and apart from the purpose of this bill, which I recognize. But I think this bill is a must.

Senator WILLIAMS. I can see down the road a way the possibility of two programs going together very nicely. The youth employment

program would create parks and areas for recreation, and to these areas the volunteers could come with underprivileged kids from the cities.

Mr. D'ALESANDRO. In Baltimore we have a terrific amount of diversity of industry. I found that we have an expanding senior citizen age group. We have a terrific explosion as far as the young people are concerned. In the middle we have the people between the ages of 22 and 60 who have been gainfully employed most of their lives and are losing their jobs through the advancement in technology and automation.

That is the atmosphere that exists in Baltimore. Through the National Service Corps I would like to try to alleviate some of the fears in the depressed areas as far as the youth and as far as the aged group is concerned.

Senator WILLIAMS. You have been most helpful to the committee, gentlemen.

Mr. D'ALESANDRO. Thank you, sir.

Senator WILLIAMS. We express our deep appreciation.

Mr. D'ALESANDRO. Thank you, Senator.

Mr. MAZER. Thank you, Senator.

Senator WILLIAMS. Now we are pleased to introduce again Mr. Robert Burnett of the National Congress of American Indians.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT BURNETT, NATIONAL CONGRESS OF

AMERICAN INDIANS

Mr. BURNETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator WILLIAMS. We are very pleased to have you give us the benefit of your thinking again, Mr. Burnett.

Mr. BURNETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure and honor to appear before your committee here and endorse the bill for the National Service Corps.

We Indian people are looking forward to the passage of this bill because there are many things that could be done on reservations for Indian people and with Indian people.

Going back into the history of the American Indian people, as you well know, we were placed on reservations not at our own request, but at the request of the President and the Congress. We were isolated into reservations for the purpose of putting us in areas where we would not be dangerous to the general population.

That situation has since brought many problems to confront Congress and has created a great many problems for our own Indian people. Today we are existing in a situation where on most reservations the unemployment rate runs from 95 percent to 21 percent at the best, with an average unemployment rate of 44 percent.

This is quite a concern to the Indian people, and I believe it is just coming to the fore with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is beginning to realize that with this unemployment rate the economic situation on the reservations is going to worsen throughout the years.

We have several other problems that go along with the unemployment problem. One is that of education, which is one of the prime problems we have to deal with. We have some 9,000 Indian children out of school simply because there are no seats available for them in certain parts of the country, mainly in the Navajo country, although

in the Sioux country, where I am from, we have over 2,000 schoolchildren out of school.

Senator WILLIAMS. Where is your home?

Mr. BURNETT. My home is on the Rosebud Reservation in Rosebud, S. Dak.

Senator WILLIAMS. You know we are going to Pine Ridge, members of this subcommittee and others, tomorrow.

Mr. BURNETT. I think you will see quite a bit there. I do hope you will get out into the communities away from Pine Ridge itself so you can see some of the actual existing conditions.

Senator WILLIAMS. We are scheduled for 3 hours out there. Do you think that is enough time?

Mr. BURNETT. Yes. You can get down to Oglala, which is a neighboring community, which will really give you an insight into the actual conditions.

Senator WILLIAMS. That is on the list.

Mr. BURNETT. That is wonderful. I think you will see for yourself some of the problems.

Senator WILLIAMS. Can we do any politicking for you out there? Mr. BURNETT. I doubt that very much.

Senator WILLIAMS. Are you elected for life?

Mr. BURNETT. No, I am not; I am appointed each year by the tribes who represent the National Congress each year.

Senator WILLIAMS. You are in politics?

Mr. BURNETT. Somewhat, yes; although I am not primarily concerned with politics. My primary concern has always been the Indian people themselves. Politics means nothing to me except that we realize that we must be in the political picture in order to exist. If we are going to be successful, we must be in politics. That is the only reason I am in politics.

One of the main things that I think you ought to be cognizant of is the fact that most Indian people mistrust a white man, as we call him. It is a bad term in my own mind, but this is a term that has been built up by the reservation system. In order for someone to move into a reservation and do any good, he must get the trust of someone within that tribe, whatever tribe it is, and then go out into the communities. Indian people generally are very friendly people once they have trust in someone, and will go along with them and do things that are of benefit to the Indian people and to the community as a whole.

Most people in this country, I believe, think that the reservations are strictly Indian, with no non-Indians living on these reservations, but that is not true, because every reservation in the country does have a mixed population and, therefore, has some effect on the economy of the country.

So we have this problem to deal with. I think that the National Service Corps has a great deal of potential to overcome this fear, because we need outside people to come in and show Indian people that they do have friends all over this Nation, whether they be from Harvard or Yale or New York City or Pennsylvania or wherever they are from; that not all people are alike. But this must be instilled in the minds of the Indian people themselves.

One of the main things that I would like to point out to this committee and to the Congress itself, and they must all soon realize this,

is that we are getting nowhere in solving our problems as they are being approached now. You said today you are going to Pine Ridge. Pine Ridge is one of the tribes that I call a "have" tribe. This tribe has some officials who are completely informed on what their problems are, and do have some tribal funds to operate with. They do have legal counsel to advise them on what is best to do. They know how to go to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and use all of the facilities and opportunities that are there.

But we must deal with tribes who have not. There are some 100 tribes, or slightly more than 100, who have no facilities, no leadership, no money whatsoever. These are the tiny, small tribes scattered throughout the country who will have no way of even asking for the Service Corps to come in unless the Bureau of Indian Affairs or someone like that is called upon to do so. These are the tribes that are the primary concern in our whole Indian situation because every time an act of Congress is passed, such as the housing program that President Kennedy has put into effect, the credit program that was put into force by Congress in the last 2 years, the tourist development that is taking place in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and industrial development-the only ones that are taking advantage of these programs are the tribes that have some funds and know where to go and how to get these programs initiated on the reservations.

But the tribes who are in the status quo are these little tribes scatered throughout the country who have no way of getting these very things that we want them to have. This is the major concern of the National Congress. We find we are limited in the National Congress simply because these tribes cannot even get a member to come to our convention for representation of their tribe. We have over 150 tribes that do not even belong to the National Congress simply because they cannot get there.

The same thing is true when they need to appear before Congress. The only reason they don't appear is because they don't have the funds to get here to appear for and on behalf of a bill or to oppose a bill. This is of vital concern to us and we hope we can transfer this concern to your committee and the Congress itself.

I should like to discuss the use of the Corps itself when it is established. There are many fields in which the Corps could operate separate and apart from the responsibilities of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The first, and probably major area that I believe they could be concerned with is the development of the management skills that are vitally needed by all tribes.

As you said, we are in politics and so is the tribal leadership. They are subject to election every 2, 3, or 4 years, depending on the tribe itself. When this leadership turns over, maybe because of some simple little reason, we have no one there to stabilize that government for perhaps a year or 2 years, until the man who is elected learns what his responsibilities are.

I believe the use of the Corps in the management field, not working so much directly with the tribal council but advising the people of the tribe about what they can do with their assets and teaching management procedures would be of great help. The other area is in social work, which I am very concerned with. We do have the Bureau of Indian Affairs social workers, but their only responsibility at this

point is to issue checks; they deal primarily with welfare clients who have no other means of support.

We would like to see trained welfare workers go out into communities and deal directly with the people, teaching and showing the people how they should live and how to cope with some of their family problems. We have many other areas where Corpsmen could work. There is irrigation; although I think in some cases, we overemphasize this irrigation matter, because we are a Nation of plenty when it comes to agricultural products. I think that if we were producing more, we would be overloading our country, when that land could be used for something else that would be more profitable for the Indian people.

The field of tourist enterprise is one of the major assets to all Indian tribes. You can travel across the Nation and on very few reservations will you find any kind of tourist facilities on reservations themselves. When you do find these facilities, they certainly are not Indian. They are controlled by someone else, although they usually sit on tribal lands. This is an area where we could use Corpsmen to teach our Indian people how to gather together the leadership of the community and show them what benefits they could get from the tourist enterprise.

As we all know, one of the largest businesses in this world is tourism. We have recently become aware of the fact that Indians are a major attraction not only in the United States, but all over the world. Most tourists coming from Europe want to see an Indian reservation. On my reservation, we have started a tourist enterprise and our motto now is: "We won't lift the scalps, we will just lift dollars." We advertise that way. I think many other tribes have become aware of this and are utilizing it more and more. This is a field that is unlimited.

The arts and crafts of Indian people are much desired products. The dancing of the Indian people is something that everyone wants to take pictures of. Everyone wants to take pictures of an Indian because they think he has a feather growing in his head or something. They are quite emotional about Indian people. When they find out what the true story is, then we always have a friend thereafter.

I think one of the major things that the Corps can do in any of these fields is to act as a catalyst for the Indian tribes. Regardless of what an Indian tribe wants to do, the people coming in as Corpsmen could serve as a catalyst to gather together the people and to train other people on the reservations to take over when these Corpsmen are gone. I believe Indian people would certainly accept this kind of operation because we have always been looking for help of this nature; we have never been able to get it from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, because they are involved mostly with our land. As guardians of our land, they are somewhat skeptical as to what we should do as people. One of the things that I noticed in other testimony was that some people thought that the Governors should be in a position to veto or to accept these Corpsmen in a State. I would be violently opposed to any clause in the bill which gave the Governors this authority.

The reason I say that is because in South Dakota and in most Indian States, we are certainly on the losing end almost any time it comes to a Governor. We have had a very bad experience in the last 2 months with the Governor of South Dakota. We have had to petition for a