Mr. REDWINE. May I point this out, Mr. Chairman:

It is a very simple bill. All it does is to extend the asbestos and fluorspar purchase program for 1 year. It increases neither the amount of money involved nor the tonnage involved. It extends the termination date.

Senator CHURCH. Our first witness this morning is Mr. Jack Neal, of Globe, Ariz.

Mr. Neal, would you like to come forward?

We are happy to have you with us this morning, Mr. Neal. We appreciate your coming all this distance.

STATEMENT OF JACK NEAL, GLOBE, ARIZ.

Mr. NEAL. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Chairman and Senators, I would like to outline to you gentlemen what the asbestos plans in Arizona have accomplished and what our future holds.

First, I would like to say that the program for the purchase of Arizona asbestos crude under Public Law 733 will terminate June 30, 1958. There will be approximately $1 million of appropriated money left in the program. The Arizona asbestos producers respectfully request and urge the committee to recommend a time extension of 1 year so the asbestos producers of Arizona can fulfill their allotted tonnages.

The asbestos mines in Arizona are all small and scattered over a wide mountain area with Globe as a center for milling and shipping point. The mines produce three types of fiber such as soft, semisoft, and harsh fiber.

In the past, soft fiber was the only type fiber on the market, but in recent years semisoft and harsh fibers have found a place in industry, especially in the lower grades.

There is a very bright future for low iron white chrystotile asbestos in the lower grades if milled and blended properly. We have a great opportunity for blending of these various fibers to meet certain industrial demands. We have right in the Globe area all three varieties available. Markets are becoming available all over the world. However, the asbestos industry in Arizona must be able to continue to market our high-grade crude fiber to the Government until small low-grade mills are established in the district and other mills improved upon and market and minerals technology is worked out on our particular types of fibers.

The Arizona asbestos producers who are producing in Arizona are D. W. Jaqway Co., Metate Asbestos Corp., L. E. Town Asbestos Co., Guy Phillips Asbestos Mines, the American Fiber Corp., American Asbestos & Cement Co., Board Tree Saddle Asbestos Mines, and Reynolds Falls Asbestos Mines.

Our firm, the Metate Asbestos Corp., is now working with one of the leading consulting and engineering firms from the Thedford Mine area in Canada. They are now engineering a small low-grade mill we hope to erect near Globe, Ariz., in the very near future.

Given more time to produce under S. 3186, we feel that there will be other mills erected in the Globe area for the processing of filter fiber, industrial fiber, and building material fiber.

I would like to recommend that the Government continue a buying program of Arizona crude 1, 2, and 3 for 1 year past December 31, 1958, with funds already appropriated.

Several new markets are showing great promise for our industry, such as atomic energy, plastics, and filtration. Low-iron white chrysotile fiber is finding many new uses from all over the world, and we feel that with proper milling technology, market analysis, research, and time we can eventually continue as a healthy, stable industry on our own.

I would like to read a letter from one of the leading mills in the Los Angeles area, whom all of the mines in the area have been shipping our fiber to. This is addressed to one of the producers in the area, Mr. Haines. It says:

For the past 7 years our company has been receiving fiber coming from Arizona as chrysotile asbestos which has been produced in the Globe, Ariz., area. This past year we processed 1,451 tons of asbestos fibers, which also includes our shorts and whites, which have come from the operations in Arizona after they have taken out the crudes 1, 2, and 3 for the Government stockpile, and also inIcludes the wastes and tailings that they have after taking out what other grades in the 4's and 5's groups that they are capable of doing with their own machinery. We have found that certain industry really prefers the Arizona chrysotile asbestos fiber over asbestos that is imported from other countries, due to the fact that it is white in color with low-iron content that enables it to be used in places that they cannot use the darker colored material from Canada, which contains a higher iron content.

We have run several tests in the plastics industry and other related industries and we feel this tonnage in this line will grow after this initial test period is completed, and therefore we would certainly like to see the producers and miners in the Globe, Ariz., area continue to operate because we feel that this demand is going to be greater than what they will be able to produce after they have taken out their crudes 1, 2, and 3. We feel that our tonnage could double or triple within a very short period of time providing some of the various uses to which we have introduced Arizona chrysotile develops.

Please keep us posted as to the outcome in the future of Arizona chrysotile asbestos because we feel it is quite important to many of our customers now located in the southern California area.

In regard to economic importance of our mines to our Globe-Miami area and to the State of Arizona, we feel we are quite important, especially with the copper situation as it is.

Mr. Jess Stevens, chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, will testify on the asbestos mines and what they mean to his people. We would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of this committee, for allowing us to testify before your committee.

I would at this time like to introduce Mr. Stevens of the San Carlos Apache Tribe.

Senator CHURCH. Before Mr. Stevens comes forward, Mr. Neal, you mentioned at the outset of your testimony that there is approximately $1 million left in the program. I take it that that is $1 million of appropriated money for the purchase program that is unexpended. Mr. NEAL. That is right. At the present time there is approximately $11 million, but the $500,000 will take us through June 30. We hope for the extension of this program so that we can go ahead and fill the allotted tonnage that the other $1 million would cover, and it will not require any additional money.

Senator CHURCH. Under the present law the program terminates at the end of this year. The purpose of S. 3186 is to extend it for another 12 months?

Mr. NEAL. Yes.

Senator CHURCH. But it will involve no additional authorization for public money.

Mr. NEAL. That is correct.

Senator CHURCH. Tell me approximately how many miners are employed in this industry in Arizona.

Mr. NEAL. We hire mostly all Apache Indian people in Arizona. There are approximately, I would say, 200 miners involved in the mining of asbestos in Arizona, with an additional probably of 75 white supervisors and people from the mills. Practically all of the miners in the mines are San Carlos and White River Apache Indians, and they are doing a very good job.

Senator CHURCH. Is the asbestos that the Government purchases under this program presently being stockpiled?

Mr. NEAL. That is correct; yes. It is considered one of the strategic minerals of the Government.

Senator CHURCH. Mr. Redwine, do we have a report on this bill from the Department of the Interior?

Mr. REDWINE. We do not.

The sponsors of the bill are pressing very hard for it, and I have just been talking with the Department of the Interior on it, and I think we will have it in the next day or two. I understand that the Department of the Interior report has gone to the Bureau of the Budget and it is being held up in the Bureau of the Budget.

The Department, however, may I point out, strongly urged the enactment of the original legislation.

Senator CHURCH. We can expect a report then from the Department soon?

Mr. REDWINE. Yes, sir.

Senator CHURCH. Thank you very much, Mr. Neal. We certainly do appreciate your testimony, and we would like now to hear from Mr. Jess Stevens.

Mr. NEAL. Thank you.

Senator CHURCH. Welcome to the committee, Mr. Stevens.

STATEMENT OF JESS STEVENS, REPRESENTING SAN CARLOS INDIAN TRIBE

Mr. STEVENS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman and honorable Senators, it is indeed a great pleasure for me to be here and appear again before you as an American Indian from Arizona.

My real name is Jessie James Stevens, chief of the Apache Tribe. I am going to try to make myself as clear as possible, as I don't speak English quite as fluently as I should.

Senator CHURCH. I think you speak it very fluently.

Mr. STEVENS. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am here for a good reason. I am not an expert in the production of asbestos, but I am an expert among my own Indian people, and try to lead them to the surviving point.

The biggest deposit of asbestos in Arizona is in my reservation, and it affects my people. I operate my own law enforcement, which we pay out of tribal funds. We set up a budget each year for our tribal

police law enforcement on the reservation. That money alone amounts to around $7,000 or $8,000 annually for law enforcement. The Federal Government does not have one dime in that program. It is a very sad picture at the present time. After July 30 I will only have $18,000 left for the coming year to operate on. The tribal government's operation costs anywhere from eight to one hundred thousand dollars a year.

The Indian boys that I have working out in these asbestos mines, I would say a little better than 200 men, mostly are GI veterans of foreign wars. They have families.

Mr. Chairman, it is a sad situation. It is sad to see humans suffer. A lot of the boys came to my office and put the pressure on me by saying: "Now, listen, Mr. Chairman, how are you going to provide for my little ones?"

I fought for freedom in this last war. What kind of freedom am I getting? What is the democracy that I fought for?

My children need clothes. My children need food, to go to school in order to be able to learn to speak good English so that someday they may be on their own.

As a matter of fact, right today I am stressing among my people that they should go to a higher school to get better education, become professional people, become doctors and lawyers and dentists and so forth, and I am only hoping that I live long enough to see that I will not have to call beyond my reservation for these people.

If the asbestos stockpile does not give us any more time under this program, my people are going to be on a starvation list.

As I said before, I don't know much about the production of asbestos, but we certainly have a large quantity of asbestos on the reservation. Mr. Neal and several others here have furnished a school bus. They were good enough to furnish a school bus, and are transporting some of our schoolchildren and also some of the non-Indian kids within a distance of about a little over 100 miles every day in order to get kids to school. We didn't have enough money to buy a bus. They were good enough to furnish us with a bus.

I know, by laying off men, it will affect a little over 1,000 Indians. I don't have the money to feed them. I don't have money enough to send them through schools. As I said before, it is a sad situation. I hate to see little ones, and I hate to see any human beings suffer from hunger.

I am sure, if you put yourself into my place, that the Congress of the United States has a very sympathetic feeling and will help these American Indians. Therefore, I am merely asking, please, do what you can to help us so that we get over these rough spots.

We are now taking many of the operations over ourselves from the Federal Government. For instance, we have tribal enterprises of livestock. We have farms which we are trying to operate, which bring us very little income. Most of the income that we have been getting in the past few years has been from the asbestos corporations. We receive the revenues from that, and we put it into the general fund of the tribe, and each year I make a budget. I plan budgets for various programs. The biggest part goes into the educational fund. We have tried to set up scholarships for some of the very promising young students that are going to be graduating from high schools, but we don't have enough money to go around.

The only way that we can support ourselves is through education, but we must have job opportunities on the reservation in order to do that. We must have the income in order to take care of all of the indigent Indians.

I came here a couple of years ago and I appeared, I believe, in this same room here. I made the same identical statement, and I appreciated it very much after it came out in the record. I saw the record and I appreciated it very much. I was well pleased.

At this time I am asking again, please, for just an extension of time on this asbestos business because, speaking for my Indian people, I don't know how these gentlemen are producing asbestos; I have very little idea of that. However, my people are so involved that it is pathetic when it comes down to starvation.

As I said before, many of these boys are GI veterans of foreign wars, and that is what hurts. Therefore, please take this into very sincere consideration in behalf of my Apache people.

I certainly thank you.

Senator CHURCH. Thank you very much, Chief Stevens, for your eloquent and moving plea on behalf of your people. We appreciate your coming here.

How many Indian people are there on your reservation?

Mr. STEVENS. There are a little over 4,500 Indians; possibly a little bit more than that.

Senator CHURCH. You would judge that there are about 200 Indians who are actually engaged in the mining industry and about 1,000 all told who are dependent upon this industry?

Mr. STEVENS. I would say a little over 1,000, and because the Indian people are just like Mormons, they have lots of children. Not only that, but their relatives are coming in and moving in with them because of unemployment. Therefore, I would say it would involve a little over 1,000 Indian people on the reservation. That is a lot of people.

I better come back with a very favorable report to my people or, else, I will be scalped again. I am getting scalped now by my people. Senator CHURCH. Mr. Redwine, do you have some questions? Mr. REDWINE. I have one, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Stevens, I know you are not here seeking welfare relief or anything like that. I understand that, but I would like to ask you this question:

Are the Apache Indians eligible for State welfare relief in Arizona? Mr. STEVENS. It all depends on who is in that county and who is in this county. We are in 2 counties, and I will say for 1 county that there is a very sympathetic-minded person who has helped some of my Indians. And then in the other county it is just the opposite way. Many people, I thought from judging my Indian people, would be eligible, but have been turned down.

Mr. REDWINE. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that, at the request of Senator Hayden, the staff has made a study of that. We find, although the Apaches are not asking for welfare relief, that, by and large, they cannot get it, and their only hope of employment is some such legislation as this. The staff study indicates that.

Senator CHURCH. I have one other question, Mr. Stevens.

I would like to ask, with respect to the young Indians who are engaged in the mining, do they receive wages directly or does the money go directly to the tribe?

27255-58-pt. 1-15