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Bread & Coffee. But last week these deprivations seemed like minor matters. Great numbers of the Navajos are facing starvation. Only 161 of their 11,117 families own as many as 200 sheep—the number needed to maintain a mere subsistence level of living. Without big irrigation projects (which could make the reservation capable of supporting 35,000 people at most), their desolate lands are almost useless for agriculture.
Last week, the Office of Indian Affairs was doing its feeble best to bring in some food. It promised to ship two carloads of potatoes a month. But from 25,000 to 30,000 Navajos were lingering in the state between malnutrition and starvation. The whole tribe's diet averaged only 1,200 calories (the U.S. average: 3,450) and many have nothing to eat but bread and coffee. Assistant Secretary of the Interior William E. Warne visited the reservation and last week announced a ten-year, $80 million plan for solving the Navajo problem.
But all this meant nothing if Congress did not vote the money. And the Navajos had little faith in high-sounding plans. The Government had welshed on its promises before. Last year, a group of old men had gone to Congress and asked: "What is to be done with the Navajo people?" Congress had replied by doing nothing.
And even if Congress were to change its heart, there was no likelihood that it could do so before the regular session in January. By January, if the winter was hard, there would be snowdrifts on the reservation and many of the children and old men would be dead.