CHARLES "BUD" TANSEY INTERVIEW

   

   

   [BEGIN SIDE 1]

   

   This is Brad Cole from Northern Arizona University.

We're at the home of Charles "Bud" Tansey in

Farmington, New Mexico.  [Today is March 10, 1998.]

Also present in the room is Ed Foutz, and Lew Steiger

is running the camera and sound equipment.  We're going

to interview Mr. Tansey about his experiences with the

United Indian Traders Association.

   

   Cole:  Charles, if you could tell us, to begin with,

when and where were you born?

   

   Tansey:  I was born in Kansas City, Kansas, May 6,

1915.  That's in Wyandotte County.

   

   Cole:  What is your educational background?

   

   Tansey:  Well, I went through high school in Kansas

City, Kansas; went a year to Kansas City Kansas Junior

College, then went to Kansas University my sophomore

year and half of my junior year.  The clothing store

that I worked in, The College Shop, was closed down by

the company that owned it, as were the ones in Norman,

Oklahoma and Columbia, Missouri.  And without a job, I

couldn't stay in school.  My grandfather lived in

Albuquerque, New Mexico, and was quite a wealthy man.

My uncle also lived there, and I had a cousin living

there.  My grandfather said, "Well…"  He'd been

giving me a little bit of money to go to school, but it

wasn't enough to go on.  And he said, "Well, come on

out and go to the University of New Mexico."  So I came

out in February of 1935, and went to school there, and

then summer school.  I had enough hours then to get

into law school.  You just needed three years at that

time, unless you were going to go to Harvard or Yale or

someplace--then you had to have a degree.  I guess he

sort of thought, "Well, you're a good boy and you've

done well," so he said, "I'll send you to law school if

you'd like to go."  And actually, he didn't know how

much it cost.  He'd have sent me anywhere I'd said.  I

could have gone to Harvard (chuckles), as far as the

money was concerned.  He said, "How much are you going

to need?"  And I said, "Well, I think I'll need $75 a

month, and $100 in September for the first semester,

and $100 in February."  In those days, that was the way

the term ran.  And I might tell you that my last year

in law school at K.U., the tuition was $15 a semester,

and $1 extra fee for I guess athletic tickets or

something.  But it cost me $16!  And I knew one fellow

who worked in a store that was owned by my best

friend's father, who made $35 a month, and that's what

he went to school on.  You all can't probably relate to

that too much, but the $75 a month I had--and if I'd

have said I needed $100, I'd have gotten it--made me in

pretty good shape.  I really had plenty of money.  Of

course, I didn't get that in the summertime, I just got

it for the nine months of the school year.  I went back

and went through law school there at Kansas University

and graduated in 1938.  The Class of '38 was the

largest K.U. Law School class up to that time.  There

were fifty-four of us, and there'd never been a class

of over about thirty-five or six before that, and until

after the war [World War II], there was never another

class that was over forty.  And we've remained a very

cohesive class.  We've had a lot of reunions, and we're

going to have another one the twenty-fifth of April, a

dinner in Lawrence.  There are twenty-four survivors of

those fifty-four, and possibly three more.  There are

three people we haven't been able to locate for years,

and we don't know whether they're living or dead.

   I think to give you a perspective, you all have got

to know something about my law class.  We had two women

in my class, which was unusual in law school in 1938,

and one of them, Mildred Mitchell, was black.  I would

almost think she might be the first black attorney that

we ever had in the country.  She was a brilliant girl,

and everybody really liked her.  But women in law

school were very unusual in those days.

   After graduation from law school, I passed the

Kansas Bar and went back to Kansas City, Kansas and

practiced for a year.  My grandfather came back to

Kansas City to consult with a relative who was a vice-

president of Commerce Trust Company, which was a very

large bank, about purchasing the American Bank of

Carlsbad.  He wanted advice of this relative, who was a

very experienced banker.  When he got ready to come

back, he said, "Bud, why don't you come on back to New

Mexico with me and go down to Carlsbad with your uncle

and help out and advise him legally on the purchase of

the bank?"  And of course I couldn't refuse to do that

(chuckles) because he'd sent me through law school.

I'm sure he had it pretty well planned out, because

after we got the deal closed, the man who'd been vice-

president of the bank, they made him president, said to

me, "You know, why don't you stay in Carlsbad and

practice law?  We need a young lawyer here."

(chuckles)  And I did, and got admitted to the New

Mexico Bar in 1939, and have practiced in New Mexico

ever since, with the exception of thirty-eight months

in the Navy in World War II.  The school year 1947-48,

and summer school, I taught law at Washburn University

in Topeka, Kansas, in the law school, and taught a

summer school class at Kansas University.  Then [I]

came back to New Mexico.  I don't know whether it was a

mistake or not.  The man that was dean of the law

school had promised me--I got paid $3,600 for that year

of teaching--and he'd promised me that they would raise

me to $3,900 a year after one year.  It came spring and

school was about to be out, and he said, "Well, we're

not going to be able to pay you that $3,900."  I said,

"Well, to heck with you, I'm through."  And I resigned

and left.  He then was fired shortly thereafter

(chuckles) and a man who had been dean emeritus went

back in to act as dean.  He called me in before I left

town, and said, "I wish you'd stay.  We'll give you

that money."  And I said, "Well, I've moved out of the

apartment and stored my furniture, and I think I'd

better just go ahead and go."  So I came back to New

Mexico, and then came up to Farmington.  I didn't want

to practice again in Carlsbad, because I have an

allergy to something down there that makes me break out

all over periodically.  When I practiced down there,

some mornings I'd get up to go to the office or go to

try a case, and my eyes would be swelled shut.  So

that's why I left there, and I didn't want to go back.

   The man who'd been judge in Carlsbad, James McGee,

was on the Supreme Court, and he'd been kind of a

father figure to me when I started practicing law--he'd

been very good to me.  He and a couple of other lawyers

said, "You ought to go up to Farmington.  The oil and

gas business is going to break loose up there, and

that's going to be a real good place."  And of course

when I came up here in 1948, Farmington only had just a

little over 3,000 people.  The 1950 census, I believe,

gave us 3,700 people.  There was one paved road, the

main street through town, but it wasn't paved out to

the curb, and that was the only paving that we had

here.  Aztec only had about 750 people, and I doubt if

Bloomfield had 150.  So it was a very rural community.

There were situations in my practice with some of the

justices of the peace that Abe Lincoln would have been

completely at home, had he been with me in that court.

I tried one case, the J.P. had a photography studio

downtown.  I don't know that anybody ever had a

photograph taken there, but he held his court there.

And he sat in a rocking chair, and my client who was, I

don't remember, accused of some misdemeanor, sat in a

chair, and I sat in a straight chair.  [He] had a pot-

bellied stove, it was hot.  He had about five dogs that

jumped all over you and smelled terrible.  And that's

the way we tried the case.

   It was another J.P. over in Aztec who had his

offices upstairs in his apartment.  I defended two boys

that were accused of chicken stealing.  It was a

preliminary hearing, and we got through with the

hearing, and I moved to dismiss after the district

attorney had put on his case.  I said, "He hasn't

proved that these boys took those chickens at all."

And the J.P. said, "Well, Mr. Tansey, you're probably

right, but I think you could ask him [i.e., the

defendant (Tr.)] some questions, and we'd find that he

was guilty.  So I'm going to rule that he has to go to

trial."  (chuckles)

   I suspect things were like that in the nineteenth

century.  Law was a lot different than it is now.  In

the sixty years I've been a lawyer, I honestly believe

it's changed as much as it did in the previous 250

years.  It's been a tremendous change, not at all the

same.

   

   Cole:  Once you were in Farmington, did you begin to

become involved with oil and gas law?

   

   Tansey:  Well, the oil and gas thing did not really

pick up until July 1 of 1950, which is when El Paso

Natural Gas Company was given their first pipeline

right-of-way to California.  Then things really began

to pick up, and I did start doing some oil and gas work

after that; and subsequently did legal work for Amoco,

which at that time was Stansland and then became Pan

American, and is now Amoco; and for Phillips Petroleum

Company; and Gulf Oil Company; and some local people

also--and some smaller operators--and did a little oil

and gas practice all during my career, although I

didn't do a whole lot.  The last few years, we had a

younger attorney who was really a specialist in oil and

gas.  I would never claim to really be that.

   And then in the fall of 1950, I went back to

Washington, D.C. to the American Bar Association

Convention, and I had written a letter to the editor of

The Times-Hustler, which was a weekly newspaper here,

in regard to water and the Navajos.  And there was, at

that time, I felt an obvious grab by the white people--

or an attitude by the white people--that they could

take all the water and the Navajos didn't really have

an interest much in it.  And I wrote this letter to the

editor, thinking it would be just a little letter to

the editor, and it appeared with a big headline on the

front page of that week's paper.  The word got back to

Norman Littell, who was general counsel for the

Navajos, and he contacted me in Washington and asked me

to come in, and interviewed me.  In 1951 I was hired as

associate general counsel for the Navajo Tribe, and

started doing a lot of work for them.  I was supposed

to give them twenty hours a week of my time.  When I

first started, that was fine.  I had twenty hours

available, I wasn't that busy with my private practice.

Eventually I got to where it was really a burden.  And

they had me traveling a lot--I was all over the country

with the Navajos, and doing business for the Navajos.

When the Upper Colorado River Storage Project Act was

being considered in Congress, I was in Washington for

two weeks with Sam Ahkeah [sp??] and the advisory

committee for testimony before the Senate Interior

Committee and the House Committee, and in fact, really

wrote most of Sam Ahkeah�s testimony for him, and was

with him all the time.  After a considerable struggle,

we did get the Upper Colorado River Compact backed, and

part of it, of course, was for Navajo Dam and for the

water for the Navajos.  In order to get it, we had to

agree that--my memory tells me 50,000 acre-feet, but it

may be 100,000 acre-feet, had to go in trans-mountain

diversion over to the Rio Grande to be used by the

eastern slope, Albuquerque, and put into the Rio

Grande.  The Navajos didn't much want to agree to that,

but we just simply advised them that Clinton Anderson,

one of the senators from New Mexico, Dennis Chavez, and

Tony Fernandez, who was our only representative at the

time, would not back the project at all unless they

agreed to it.  The only reason the Upper Colorado River

Storage Project got through was because of the

influence of Chavez and Anderson and Fernandez.  Chavez

had a great deal of seniority, and Anderson was very

influential because he'd been Secretary of Agriculture

and had been in the House of Representatives and then

become senator.  And Senator Millikin from Colorado.

And they put that across.  California, especially, and

Arizona to some extent, fought like everything not to

have that Upper Colorado River Storage Project Act

passed, because California to a great extent, and

Arizona to a slight extent, were using the extra water

that went down.  And the reason California wanted it,

one of the reasons I think that California developed so

much industrially, was that they got cheap dump power.

You know what dump power is?  That's the power that you

get from extra water that goes over the dam, that you

can let go over and run the generators.  And that could

be sold to California at very, very low prices, so that

they just had very, very cheap power.  And a lot of

their industrial development--they were more interested

in that electrical power, I think, than they were the

actual water.  They weren't doing too bad on water, but

they fought us, and the environmentalists fought

against it quite strongly.  Interestingly enough, one

of the people that was an environmentalist that fought

against it was U. S. Grant, III.  (chuckles)  He was

quite a character.  I got started in that, and I had

had experience in water law, and I'd had some

experience in mining, oil, and gas law down in

Carlsbad.  And that Norman Littell, general counsel in

Washington D.C., really didn't know anything about

either one of those.  Now, he's a fine attorney, but he

didn't know anything about those things, and that was

what I was hired to do, and we worked out--the uranium

industry was developing, and I worked out resolutions

of the Tribal Council under which there could be

uranium leases made, and uranium could be developed.

   Then one of the other things that I was really

involved with was negotiation with the United Indian

Traders Association over leases to operate on the

Reservation.  If I can digress just a little bit, the

first active Indian trader I ever had any dealings with

was Earl LeRoy Kennedy who had Lukachukai Trading Post.

And that was an old trading family.  I had taken over

the practice of a deceased lawyer who was quite

elderly, who had come up here during the war, from

Oklahoma.  He apparently had done work for Earl, and he

had done his income tax returns.  So Earl came in and

asked me to do his income tax returns.  I think he had

some other little business he first came in for, and

asked me if I would.  And being a young lawyer and not

having much practice, I was still doing income tax

returns.  It wasn't very profitable, but it made a

little money.  And so Earl came in.  I got here in

1948, and he came in sometime early in 1949 for me to

do his 1948 taxes.  He brought in two brown paper sacks

that had some sales slips and different things in it,

and had figures written on the side of the sacks, and

that was his records from his trading post (chuckles)

to make his income tax returns on.  And he did bring me

in an income tax return for the previous year.  I think

probably I knew a little more about taxes than this

elderly lawyer had.  There hadn't been any income tax

when he'd started practicing law, and I don't think

he'd ever taken a course in taxation, but I very

fortunately, in looking it over and making out the 1948

return found that for 1947 Earl had overpaid his taxes

quite extensively.  And of course he probably always

overpaid them, because with that kind of records, he

probably cheated himself far more than he cheated the

government.  But I got something over a thousand

dollars back for him when we sent in his tax return,

and he loved me like a brother.  (laughter)  I went on

doing his business and doing his tax returns probably

through 1949, 1950, 1951, and then I got to where I had

enough practice, and it wasn't profitable for me to do

tax returns.  That was something for a bookkeeper or an

accountant to do.  They could do it better and faster

and they could make a little money out of it, but I

couldn't do a tax return for Earl for the fifteen or

twenty dollars that he wanted to pay for it--it just

wasn't worth it.  And I told him I couldn't do it

anymore, and I guess it made him mad (chuckles),

because I never really got any more business out of

him.

   But the interesting side of that, Earl was a typical

country man and Indian trader, and he wore Levis or

blue jeans.  And as many rancher and country types do,

he wore 'em way down low on himself--they looked like

they were almost gonna slide off, and his shirt tail

was always out.  And my kids were little at that time.

My daughter was in the second grade when we came up

here, and the two older boys weren't in school yet.

Our youngest son was born up here, he wasn't born then.

And my kids were in the office a time or two when Earl

came in, and after that, when they'd come in and they'd

see Earl, they'd say, "Oh, Daddy, Droopy Drawers

Kennedy was in to see you today, wasn't he?"

(laughter)

   He was not the first person involved in Indian

trading that I got acquainted with, or who had been in

it.  The first person I probably ever knew that had

been an Indian trader was Merrill [phonetic spelling]

Taylor.  We got acquainted with Merrill and Miriam

Taylor right after we came to town.  And then I got

acquainted very well with Jack Cline, who had the

Fruitland Trading Company, which wasn't on the

Reservation, but was an Indian trading post.  And I

worked a lot with Jack on political matters, and we

also formed a fruit growers' association up here and

built a warehouse and got the legislature to pass some

law where we could make the people raising apples and

peaches all, grade them properly and all, to try to get

more of a sale for them.  At that time, San Juan County

had lots and lots and lots of orchards.  They've all

been built on by houses now, practically.  There's very

little orchard here.  I don't know whether there are

any peach orchards to speak of at all anymore, and not

too many apple orchards.  But at that time, that was a

big thing up here, and oil and gas hadn't developed

much.  I got involved with Jack.

   And then after I went to work for the Navajo Tribe,

very quickly we got into negotiations.  Eddie's a

little young to really remember this.  I don't think

you were really involved as a trader (chuckles) in 1951

or 1952, were you, Eddie?

   

   Foutz:  No.  No, I was not.

   

   Tansey:  You were too young.  But the traders had

had trading permits or licenses from the government,

from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and they built their

trading posts on the land on the Reservation, which had

been assigned to them.  Some of them were fair-sized

tracts of land, and some of them weren't very big.

Norman Littell was the first attorney, really, that the

Navajo Tribe had, and he felt that the traders should

pay the Navajos some money for their leases and

operating on the Reservation.  And the traders came

into the deal with the position that "we own that land,

and we own those buildings, and we don't have to lease

them, and we don't have to pay anything."  And the

traders were represented by McQuatters and Stephenson,

I guess it was, in Flagstaff.  McQuatters, I'm sure, is

dead.  Stephenson may still be alive, he may still be

practicing.  He'd be a man of my age, I expect,

however.  McQuatters was older.  And McQuatters did the

negotiations, and I did them for the tribe, and we did

them mostly at the El Rancho Hotel in Gallup.  We'd

meet there, that was kind of halfway in between.

Somebody from the tribe--and I'm not sure--Sam Ahkeah

sat in some, and Maurice McCabe, who was the secretary

of the tribe sat in, and a man by the name of Brown,

who was an Anglo, but who was hired as their

controller, because of the financial aspects, sat in.

And it took us a long time to get--and I know that

McQuatters knew enough law to know better.  Even by

mistake, if you build a house on my land, it's my

house.  Now, you might, under the rules of unjust

enrichment, get a little something out of it, but you

might not either.  There are cases where the person

built a house on somebody else's land and a house

becomes a part of the realty when it's built on land.

And it took a long time to convince the traders that

all those buildings and everything they had belonged to

the Navajo Tribe.  And finally they agreed, well, they

guessed so.  So then we worked out leases for twenty-

five years, which was the most the law would allow at

that time, and I got resolutions drawn up and passed by

the tribal council and approved by the Bureau of Indian

Affairs authorizing the leasing.  And most of the

leases I think were probably made about 1954 or 1955.

And things went along fairly smoothly after that--at

least between the tribe and the traders on those

leases.  But then when the leases started running out

after twenty-five years, and the renewal came up, the

DNA had come along on the Reservation, representing the

Indians.  And the tribe had some people, and I don't

remember names anymore, that were a little more

aggressive, and it was a real struggle to get leases

renewed at any reasonable situation.

   Of course by that time I was on the other side of

the picture.  I had resigned and I don't think I

started working for the Traders, became secretary and

general counsel, till 1960 or the early sixties.  I

think it was a number of years.  I can relate it to one

thing:  I served in the New Mexico legislature in 1957

and 1958, and I know I was not representing the traders

at that time.  So it had to come sometime after that.

And I've never known for sure why the traders decided

to hire me, but I think Russell Foutz and Ralph Bilby

and somebody else came to see me and asked me if I

would be willing to be general counsel and secretary

for the Traders Association.  And I don't remember what

they paid me at the time, but they put me on a

retainer.  And I must have done the work for close to

twenty years, and then when I retired--that would

probably have been sometime after 1980, after I was

sixty-five.  We had another lawyer in the firm, Byron

Caton, who's now a district judge, and with the

agreement of the Traders, I turned that over to him.

And I guess James Payne took over the legal work.  And

really, there was not much that went on at all.  I

can't remember all of the traders that I had a lot of

dealings with, and who [was on] the board of directors,

but I know that Ralph Bilby may have been president,

actually, when I started.  And it might have been

Russell [Foutz].  And then Harold Springer was the

treasurer, and later his son, Jay Springer, became

treasurer after he died.  At some time Walter Kennedy

was a director, and Lavoy McGee was a director [also

Bill Palmer of Crownpoint and Elijah Blair].  Paul

Babbitt took Ralph Bilby's place, representing the

Babbitt interests.  Ralph Bilby was married to a sister

of Paul Babbitt, as I recall.  Is that right?

   

   Foutz:  That is right.

   

   Tansey:  I think that's correct.  'Lij [Elijah]

Blair was a director along in there.  Raymond Blair, to

my recollection, was never a director.  I don't ever

remember Raymond being.

   

   Foutz:  Raymond was not a director--or Brad either

one.

   

   Tansey:  I didn't think so.  And I didn't remember

Brad ever being a director.

   

   Foutz:  No.

   

   Tansey:  Of course Eddie was a director, and Dale

Bond was a director.  Sam Drolet was director.  Was

Clarence Wheeler ever a director?  I don�t remember.

   

   Foutz:  Not to my memory, he was not.

   

   Tansey:  I don't believe he was.

   

   Foutz:  I don't think he was.

   

   Steiger:  We spoke to him this morning, and didn't

he say that he was?

   

   Cole:  I thought he said in 1975 he became a

[director.]

   

   Tansey:  He was a director?  I can't remember.

   

   Foutz: If he said that, I would have to believe he

was then.  You [Cole] would have a record of that, but

I'm sure he must have been then.

   

   Tansey:  Yeah, I just wasn't sure.  I kind of

thought maybe he was, but I wasn't sure.  And one of

the things that I've never known, were Whiff Wheeler

and Lloyd Wheeler related?

   

   Foutz:  Whiff Wheeler is Lloyd Wheeler's father.

   

   Tansey:  Right, I know that.  I did legal work for

Whiff Wheeler and Lloyd Wheeler.

   

   Foutz:  And then Lloyd Wheeler was the son, and who

else was…  Oh, and Clarence would be distantly

related to him, but he is related.

   

   Tansey:  He is related.  I never knew that.

   

   Foutz:  At a distance, yes.

   

   Tansey:  I knew Whiff Wheeler long before I knew

Clarence Wheeler.  And then of course Lloyd came along

as his son.  I knew them.  I don't know, was Bob Layton

ever a member of the Traders Association?

   

   Foutz:  Willard Leighton was.  I don't know that Bob

ever was a member.

   

   Tansey:  Yeah, I'm pretty sure Willard was, because

I had dealings with both of them, and I kind of thought

that Willard was, and I knew he and his wife pretty

well, too.  They bought some land where they built that

real nice house in town from my cousin and her husband,

who happened to be Tom and Vivien Dodge.  And Tom Dodge

was the son of Chee Dodge.  And my cousin married Tom

in about 1937.  They had one child, Cynthia, and she

died in childbirth.  She had lupus, and in those days

they couldn't cure it.  Tom and Vivien are both dead.

Vivien died before Tom.  They had moved and retired

down to Scottsdale, or outside of Scottsdale, and she

dropped over dead of a heart attack on the golf course.

   

   Foutz:  Oh, did she?

   

   Tansey:  Yeah.

   

   Foutz:  He was certainly a distinguished-looking

man.

   

   Tansey:  Oh, Tom really was.

   

   Foutz:  I can remember the first time I met him, I

was so impressed with his look.  He was gray, but very

distinguished-looking.

   

   Tansey:  I got a real kick out of knowing Tom, and

visiting in his and Vivien's home in Gallup.  They

lived in Gallup for quite a while, and I visited them

there after I came out here.  And they were up in

Farmington and visited with us, too.

   Well, I've about run out of what I know to say.

I've rambled a lot.  I don't know whether you've gotten

anything out of this or not.

   

   Cole:  What were your primary duties with the Indian

Traders Association?

   

   Tansey:  Well, of course I was secretary, so I had

the duties of getting out notices and communications

and working with the president, helping with setting

meetings and sending out notices of meetings.  The

president presided at the meetings, but I would sit up

with him at the head table and we would work out the

election of directors and things like that.  And then

along in the late sixties and through the seventies--

and I don't have the files that belong to my office,

and I don't know whether Robin Strother has kept them

all or not.  I know that the files that I got from the

Traders, that were the Traders files, have been passed

on to you all.  I had a hard time keeping those from

getting thrown away.  Our files and our legal files, I

don't know whether Robin has kept the older ones or

not.

   But sometime along in there, the Truth in Lending

Act was passed by Congress.  The traders had always had

a way of dealing with the Navajos, and dealing with

pawn and handling it.  And it became necessary that

they deal more formally with it, that they abide with

the annual percentage rate on their loans and all, and

they hadn't done that.  We got hauled into court.  My

recollection is that Clarence Wheeler got hauled into

Federal Court down in Phoenix, and Raymond Blair got

hauled into court down there, and because it involved a

situation that affected all traders, the Traders

Association paid me and a Phoenix attorney to go into

court and represent them on those things.  And we never

did go to trial on any of them, and we got them

settled.  And I don't remember whether the traders or

the Traders Association paid some settlement figures or

not--that's just gone from me.  I don't think we really

paid anything particularly, but they were required to

abide by the rules.  And the way trading is done, a lot

of that was just impractical.  We later had long

discussions with the tribe really being represented by

the DNA over tribal regulations on how lending and all

would be operated.  And of course a lot of the, I would

say, bleeding hearts and do-gooders, just figured that

the traders had just cheated the Navajos out of

everything they had.  They had no conception of how

trading operated, and how important, from way back in

the nineteenth century and up into the twentieth, how

important the trader had been to the Indian.  They

really couldn't have come into modern living without

the trader.  That was the source of their ability to

make money.  They sold their wool, and the  wool was a

big thing.  I represented the Traders in a lot of

negotiations over wool, and how that was handled.

   And along about that time also, we had hearings all

over the country.  We had hearings here in Farmington,

and I was involved both with the Traders and for the

San Juan Hospital, which is now the San Juan Regional

Medical Center.  Of course, the hearings accused all of

us of just mistreating the Indians terribly.  The

hospital was accused of not taking care of them in the

emergency room.  And in the early days, we didn't have

professional emergency room doctors like you do now.

You had to call in different doctors that were

practicing in town, took the duty different nights, and

you had to call them in, and things didn't always go

smoothly, and it was a real problem, and we got jumped

all over on in hearings by--I guess it was a committee

appointed by Congress, to go around and hold hearings,

and they held them up here.  And that carried over with

the Indian traders, and accusations of the traders.

Most of them were either post offices or the mail for

their customers came to them there, and they were

accused of opening it and stealing checks out of it,

and all kinds of things--none of which was ever proved,

but the worst publicity that you can imagine about it.

And it was a very difficult thing to fight against.

   I was asked, on behalf of the traders, to give an

interview while this was all going on, for Walter

Cronkite, to be on the CBS Evening News.  And they sent

a camera crew and an interviewer in here, and they

decided that they'd have me do it outdoors, up at the

airport, and have me make a statement.  I made a

statement that I thought was honest and correct, but

tried to correct some things that were being said about

the Indian traders that just simply were not true.  I

got all through with this interview, and I don't know,

in a night or two, it was on Walter Cronkite's program,

and they assured me, oh, yeah, whatever I said would be

on.  Well, they didn't put it all on, they didn't put a

lot of the good stuff on.  And it just infuriated me,

and I called up CBS and told them I was going to sue

them, and the Traders would sue them and all, and they

said, "Oh, we just have to cut these interviews down.

We just can't put this whole thing on."  I said, "Well,

you told me you would, and you've left out most of the

things that I said in defense of the traders."

   I guess I've never appreciated Walter Cronkite

[since then].  I don't know whether he personally did

it or not, but I've never appreciated him since,

because they cut out what we were trying to do to

defend ourselves.  It just really gripes you.  But it

grew out of the sixties and what went on in the

seventies, and the very liberal approach to things, and

the anti-establishment approach to things.  The

Traders, of course, were considered, as far as the

Indians, they were the establishment side.  I wish I

could remember better all of those things, but it's

been at least twenty years ago since that took place,

and I just can't remember all the details.  I can't

even remember the name of the lawyer in Phoenix that I

got to help us on the suits over truth in lending and

over regulations and the way the traders were

operating.  But whoever it was, he was in one of the

big Phoenix law firms, and was really an expert in that

law.  He really knew it and did us a great job.  He got

us out of--as I say, I don't think that…  And I only

remember Raymond Blair and Clarence Wheeler.  I'm sure

there were one or two others that were involved in

those suits, but I can't remember anybody except them,

and I think they stick out in my mind--and especially

Raymond--because they were so terribly angry over this

whole thing.  And actually, they hadn't complied with

the law.  But they hadn't really had an opportunity,

and it just wasn't the way that trading and pawn and

credit had been handled.  And they had to learn how to

do it, and they were obligated to do it, but the

attitude of the government, and the DNA, was just very

radical about it.  They sort of took the position,

"Well, we really ought to take you out and hang you."

It was real difficult.  It was an interesting time, but

details really escape me, except it was in Federal

Court in Phoenix.

   

   Cole:  What exactly is the DNA?

   

   Tansey:  The DNA is the…  Can you say the Navajo

name?  Do you know what it is?

   

   Foutz:  I could at one time, and I cannot [now], but

I can write it out.

   

   Tansey:  Yeah, it's a long name, but called "DNA,"

and actually, they have an office in Farmington now,

and they really are the poverty law program.  They

first started working with the Navajos, but they've

spread out now.  They represent poverty law, and the

government program which provides some money, and then

they raise money in other ways.  They were really…

Do you remember Richard Hughes?

   

   Foutz:  Yes.

   

   Tansey:  He was out at Shiprock, he was a young

lawyer out of Harvard, and just as radical as anybody

you ever ran into.  He practices in Santa Fe now, and

has for a long time.  I think, in my opinion, he's

become a little more respectable now.  He's even been a

member of the Bar Association government.  I've never

heard that he was quite as radical as he used to be.

He does still represent a lot of environmental

interests and all.  He's not changed completely, but he

was really difficult to deal with when we were working

on new trading regulations that they were going to

adopt and we were trying to get them to be reasonable.

'Lij Blair went down to--I don't remember whether you

[Ed] went or not, but we went down to Navajo

headquarters.

   

   Foutz:  Window Rock?

   

   Tansey:  At Window Rock, once or twice, and met down

there around the table, and talked about regulations

and trying to get them to…  This all came along at

the time when leases, the twenty-five year leases were

running out for everybody, and they really had some

radical ideas about what they wanted to do.  It was

just going to be very difficult for trading.  And in

fact, trading has never been the same.  The trading

posts as they existed before then--when the twenty-five-

year leases were made in the fifties, it didn't change

things too much.  But then when those leases started

running out, things really began to change.  And it was

just darned hard to get a lease.  Back when I was

working for the Navajo Tribe and we were negotiating on

those first leases--and it may be one of the things

that caused the Traders to come to me--Norman Littel,

the general counsel, and a lot of the Navajo people,

would have made those leases in such a way that the

traders could not have borrowed capital to operate at

all.  And the leases had to be made in such a way that

banks could lend the trader money and take a mortgage

on the buildings and everything.  You couldn't get a

mortgage on the land because you can't do that on

tribal land--but you could take a mortgage on the

buildings and improvements and the stock and

everything, and be able to foreclose on it.  If the

trader went broke and didn't pay them, they could take

it over and then they would have the right to close it

out or to sell it to somebody that they could get in

there to operate it that would pay their money back.

And I just had had enough experience dealing with small

business that I just told the tribe and the other

people, "You can't do it that way.  These people are

like anybody else.  They don't all sit around with a

million dollars to buy goods and operate their trading

posts and lend money and do all those things.  A lot of

them--maybe not all of them--but a lot of them have to

borrow capital to operate.  And if you can't give some

security of some kind, you can't get the capital to

operate."  Now, I'm sure there were traders that had

assets off the Reservation that could raise capital,

and I think one of the things that I heard mentioned

the other day, and that I agree with--in fact, it was

'Lij Blair who said it--that if it hadn't been for �Ma�

Sammons, whose name is Harriet Sammons, and she was the

main owner and the president of the First National Bank

of Farmington, if it hadn't been for her lending money

to traders in the early days--and I'm sure there was

somebody in Gallup and somebody in Flagstaff did--but

apparently Mrs. Sammons just carried a heck of a lot of

traders, and carried them on good faith without really

having security, except the traders.  And she was that

kind of a person.  She was the kind of a person that if

she didn't like you, it wouldn't make any difference if

you had a million dollars and wanted to borrow a

hundred, she wouldn't loan you a hundred dollars.  But

if she liked you and thought you were the right kind of

a person and [would] pay it back, and you wanted to

borrow ten thousand and you didn't have a hundred,

she'd loan you the ten thousand.  I guess 'Lij got here

early enough, in the forties, to have known about it

and had some dealings [with her] because he made that

remark at that luncheon the other day, that trading

would never have existed as it did if Ma Sammons hadn't

been available to make loans to the traders.  I don't

know whether Russell would verify that or not.

   

   Foutz:  Oh, I think so, absolutely.

   

   Tansey:  But she was real good to them.

   

   Cole:  Were you involved with the various tax

issues, like sales tax, that happened with the traders

on the Reservation?

   

   Tansey:  Yes, a lot of that came up.  It was among

the other things that came up.  All of those issues,

from the 1950s on, became constant issues.  There isn't

any doubt, from a legal standpoint, the Navajo people

have a right through their government to levy some

taxes on individuals and businesses operating on the

Reservation.  But the problem with the tax situation is

that the United States can tax, the states of Arizona

and New Mexico and Utah can tax, and then if the Navajo

Tribe taxes on top of that, it makes a pretty serious

situation.  The Navajos, of course, insisted that the

State could not levy gross receipts tax on trading on

the Reservation.  And at the time I was involved in it--

and I know we went to Santa Fe at least once or twice

on it--the ultimate result was, and the rulings by the

New Mexican--I don't know what happened in Arizona,

because I think somebody else…  And we didn't have

as much trouble with Arizona over that tax--it was New

Mexico.  I'm not sure we had any trouble at that time

with Arizona.  But New Mexico finally agreed that any

item sold by trading posts and traders on the

Reservation to non-Indians, the gross receipts tax was

to be collected.  Any business done with Indians, the

gross receipts tax did not apply.  And I don't know

whether that's still effective or not.  Still doing

that?

   

   Foutz:  That still is.

   

   Tansey:  Well, we had a lot of argument about it,

because the Revenue Department of New Mexico wanted to

collect gross receipts tax on all business done by

Indian traders on the Reservation.  It just was not

legal, and I think we convinced them it wasn't legal,

because they gave up on that, and agreed, the last time

I was involved in it, that only sales to non-Indians

would be taxed.

   

   Cole:  In the archives of the organization, I was

reading about an issue with the endangered species bird

feathers.  Were you involved in that at all?

   

   Tansey:  No, I was never involved in anything on the

bird feathers.  I never had any involvement in that.

I'm aware of it, but I was not involved in it.

   

   Cole:  What about any of the issues concerning the

Navajo-Hopi land relocation?

   

   Tansey:  I really wasn't involved in that.  I knew

about it, and I might have been, in a sense,

peripherally involved in it.  Sometimes I was asked for

opinions, but I never played any part in it--either in

the hearings with Congress, or the actions of Congress,

or any court proceedings.  I didn't have anything to do

with it at all.  Actually, a lot of that came after I

was active.

   

   Cole:  And then you did mention being involved in

some wool negotiations.

What would that have been about?

   

   Tansey:  (sigh)  Well, I'm trying to remember

exactly what.  I just remember having meetings in

Gallup.  And I think maybe we had a meeting once over

in Flagstaff.  I don't think we ever had any in

Farmington that I recall.  I just remember that wool

and the handling of wool and the sale was involved, and

I just can't tell you any details about it.  I just

don't remember.  Were you in on any of that, Ed?  Do

you remember?

   

   Foutz:  That was before my time.

   

   Tansey:  Well, that's what I thought.

   

   Foutz:  That was a little earlier.  That would

probably be Ralph Babbitt and Russell, and that era

just before I really became active in it.  I was with

Russell, but too young.  You know, just of interest,

but…

   

   [END SIDE 1, BEGIN SIDE 2]

   

   Cole:  [gives tape ID]  We were just talking with

Charles about what the viewpoint of the Navajo Tribe

was toward traders when he was the attorney with the

tribe back in the early 1950s.

   

   Tansey:  My recollection of all the Navajos that I

worked with on our negotiations, and our discussions,

and in advisory committee meetings, and in council

meetings--and I might clear up, the advisory committee

is what would ordinarily, if you and I had anything, be

called an executive committee.  It's not called the

executive committee by the Navajos, never has been,

since back in the days of Collier, who was the Indian

Commissioner, who back in the thirties came in and made

them reduce their livestock on the Reservation--and the

executive committee they blamed for going along with

that and causing a lot of that.  And they had had an

executive committee, and they quit.

   But getting back to what I was saying, all of those

people, as far as I can remember, did not have bad

opinions of the traders.  I think you could certainly

have gone out and found a Navajo someplace who thought

he'd been wronged by a trader, who had a bad opinion.

But the general opinion, that was not what was behind

negotiations.  Things were just changing and

developing.  The government, the Bureau of Indian

Affairs, I'm sure, probably started it off to some

extent, in feeling that the tribe, with its government,

its development, should have something to do with

governing trading and trading posts.  And I'm sure when

they got their general counsel, that the matter came up

of who owns these trading posts?  They're on the

Reservation, and I'm sure that before I was involved, I

think Mr. Littell became attorney in 1947.  I'm sure

that he told them, "Those trading posts are on Indian

land, and you've got a right to get some rent for them,

or some lease money."  And that's where the

negotiations started.  And I don't think they started

with animosity at all.  I don't think they started with

the tribe's attitude of, "We're gonna get to the

traders and we're gonna run 'em off the Reservation,"

and things like that.  That did not exist.  I don't

think there was any real animosity, as Eddie Foutz has

said, in regard to trading, until the late sixties and

the seventies, and until the Truth in Lending Act came

in, and a lot of other regulations, and we had changes

in the Interior Department, the Commissioner of Indian

Affairs.

   And then we got this government poverty law program,

and the DNA came in, and I'm sure that it started off

with them having some Indians who did come to see them

and say, "I pawned a valuable piece of jewelry," or

something else, "with 'X' trader, and he won't give it

back to me."  They got to looking into it, and I'm sure

there were other complaints that mail had come to the

trading post, checks had come, that they hadn't gotten

them like they thought they should get them; or they'd

owed the trader money, and he'd wanted them to pay out

of it, and they didn't want to pay out of it.  And the

DNA got all worked up, and it created, I think, some

animosity, and I think then there began to be, probably

in tribal government, some animosity toward trading and

trading posts.  I think there got to be a feeling,

"Well, these traders are all rich, they're all making a

lot of money, and they're taking it away from us, and

we've got to stop that."  And it got a little

acrimonious.

   But at the time of my representing the tribe, I

really don't…  Actually, my recollection is that

some of the traders took a more aggressive attitude

than the tribe and the Indians did.  They had had those

trading posts for generations, and they'd been able to

run them the way they wanted to, and they didn't like

the idea of having to get leases and pay rent and have

regulations.  But even there, I don't remember any real

animosity at all.  We negotiated for months--it was

really over several years, and sometimes we wouldn't

meet for three or four months at a time because we

couldn't get together, or we were trying to work out

how we'd handle it--and I was trying to draw up a form

of lease that would be reasonable that would give the

tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs what they

wanted, but would give the traders breathing room, as I

said, to borrow capital, to operate, and conduct their

business in a reasonable manner.

   But most of the individual Navajos that I knew--it's

kind of like we are.  The American people tend to swear

at Congress and everything, but your own congressman,

he's all right.  Well, I think some of the Indians took

the attitude that traders and trading posts were bad--

"But not my trader.  He's good."  That's kind of human

nature.  But I don't remember any real antagonism.

   

   Cole:  We were talking a little bit about the DNA,

and you might explain, was that a tribal program?

   

   Tansey:  No, the DNA is the government poverty

program, which you would find, I'm sure, you've got it

in Phoenix; you've got it in Flagstaff, I'm sure;

you've got it in Albuquerque, New York City, Kansas

City, Los Angeles.  You have government-sponsored

lawyers, and they're paid by appropriations, and they

represent the poor people who cannot afford to have

attorneys.  Of course the only people that are left out

are the middle class.  If you have got a $30,000-a-year

job, you can't afford to spend a lot of money for an

attorney on litigation, but the poverty program can't

help you either.  So the rich and the real poor get

along fine, and the middle class are the people that

suffer.  (Laughter)

   

   Cole:  Maybe one more question about annual meetings

and things of that nature, what you remember about

those, and the social events.

   

   Tansey:  Well, the United Indian Traders Association

had its business aspects and represented the traders on

legal and business matters, but the United Indian

Traders Association was also very much of a social

organization.  And some of the best times I can

remember are the annual meetings of the Indian Traders

Association.  They met one year in Gallup, and then one

year in Flagstaff, and then one year in Farmington, and

rotated around between the three cities.  They met and

conducted business, but they had a dinner, and usually

a dance, and at the meeting often some grand arguments

over whether liquor would be served or not (chuckles)

because we had a few who just absolutely…  I guess

you would say they were good Mormons.

   

   Foutz:  I guess you would.  I remember Dale Bonds

was really one.

   

   Tansey:  Dale Bonds was adamant.  Raymond and

Marilene and Blair were adamant.  And 'Lij and Brad and

their wives were just on the opposite side.

   

   Foutz:  "The Association shouldn't spend its money

furnishing liquor for free."  ____________.

   

   Tansey:  But usually--I don't remember any meeting

where they didn't have liquor, but there was a lot

of…  We had some bands or little orchestras

sometimes, didn't we?  I think we almost always did.  I

remember I worked a lot on at least a couple of the

meetings that we had here in Farmington, and we'd have

the dinner and dance at the country club, and we'd get

one of the local bands to play.  It was a real nice get-

together.  It gave the traders an opportunity to be

really acquainted, because they sometimes came from

long distances.  And I'm sure that there were times

when they didn't see each other any time except at an

annual meeting, and they could compare notes on how

things were going.  I'm sure Eddie would know better

than I would, but I'm sure that they sometimes talked

about rugs and what was good and what was bad, and what

kind of prices you could get for them, and where you

could sell them, and where you could get them.  And I

know that at times they did talk about the sheep and

the wool and the price of wool.  There were some wool-

buying programs, but I just don't remember the details

about them.  I'm sure that those things were discussed.

But a lot of the time it was just--outside of the

formal meeting, it was just social visiting and having

a good time, and people seeing each other more than

they had for a long time.  Trading posts, even clear up

until fairly recently--and they can still be now, to

some extent--were pretty isolated places, so it was

good to get together.  It was like any other group of

doctors or lawyers or accountants or chambers of

commerce or anything else--there's a lot of social

aspect to all of those things.

   I think it was probably out of that that maybe some

of the beginnings of the Traders Association, way back

when it started, was really a social thing, almost more

than anything else.  I read a little of the very early

history of it and looked at some things, and I think

there was a lot of social aspect to it.  But it was a

real fun thing.  Usually, everybody brought their wife

along.  Of course, a lot of times, the trader's wife

was just about as active in the trading business as the

trader was.  But my wife always went.  I think there

was one annual meeting that she didn't go to, but all

the rest of the time, when I went, why, she came along

with me.  And we had directors' meetings, and those

were kind of moved around, too.  I can remember going

over to Flagstaff for a number of directors' meetings.

I can remember flying over a few times.  I remember

once I flew over for a directors' meeting and it was

when Ralph Bilby was on the board of directors, or at

least active, because I remember after the meeting was

over, I had a flight out back to Farmington that night--

that was in the days of Frontier [Airlines]--and the

Bilbys took me out to their house and we had drinks and

then I think they took me out to dinner, because I

don't think my flight came through Flagstaff until

about nine o'clock at night.  We went out to dinner,

and I flew back.

   

   Cole:  Is there any particular trait that you picked

up on that makes an Indian trader or personality?

   

   Tansey:  (long pause)  I don't really know how to

answer that.  There's a lot of difference between the

different traders that I knew--just an awful lot of

difference.  I really don't know how to answer it.  I

found all the traders that I ever knew to be friendly--

not all completely outgoing, but all, as far as my

relationship, I found them all to be friendly.  I did

legal work for some of them that had nothing to do with

trading.  I did legal work for Raymond Blair before I

was ever attorney for the Traders Association.  I've

got a rug that he gave me, because he was pleased with

the way I represented him in a case we had in court.

But other than my finding both, generally speaking, the

men and their wives very friendly, I don't know any

other way to describe them.

   

   Foutz:  I don't think I ____ anything about

_________.

   

   Cole:  Lew, do you have any?

   

   Steiger:  I would�ve, but I've lost it.  There was

one that came along, I should have written it down.

   

   Cole:  Is there anything you'd like to add, Bud?

   

   Tansey:  No, I don't think so.

   

   Foutz:  Bud, as you know the politics of the Navajo

Tribe, and it still hasn't changed much, and the Indian

Traders Association is so changed in the needs and the

things, that there's hardly a need for the Association

anymore--is there in your view at all?

   

   Tansey:  Well, I think the Indian Traders

Association really has become defunct, because it

doesn't serve a purpose anymore.  Trading has changed

so much.  And at one time we changed the name of the

United Indian Traders Association to Navajo Business

Association.

   

   Foutz:  That's right, Navajo Business Association.

   

   Cole:  Indian Country Business.

   

   Foutz:  Yes, okay, that's right.

   

   Tansey:  And then we changed it back to United

Indian Traders.  I was not the instigator of that

change, and I can't remember who was.  But the reason

that that was made was because the traders were

beginning to lose interest in it, and they thought they

could get other business people besides traditional

traders as members, and thought they could get some

Navajo as members.  And there were some Navajos who

were beginning to get trading posts, and they were

getting in businesses and all.  I think everybody

wanted to see the Traders Association go on, and they

could just see that it just wasn't.  And probably

because of changes in regulations, changes of

operations, and changes of travel and communications,

it just is something that has seen its time, and its

time has kind of passed.  There's not the same reason

for it that there was, even ten or fifteen years ago.

I wouldn't see that that situation is going to go back

to the way it was, or ever be the same at all.  I don't

think you can keep an Indian Traders Association really

going anymore.

   

   Cole:  Thank you.

   

   Tansey:  You're welcome.  I hope I've helped you a

little bit.  I don't know that I have, because my

memory is not the best in the world.  I haven't been

able to give you details on some of these things.

   

   Foutz:  You know, Bud, the thing that I hear is you

come from such a different slant and background, and

even more unique than that, you worked with the tribe,

and with their chairmen and their politics there, to

where it's very, very interesting to me to hear some of

the comments that you made.  And I can tell you as a

trader I learned from it, because, you know, it's a

whole different little bit of a slant.  I really

appreciate it, I think it's wonderful, I think it's

great.  And [we�re] going to miss you to death.

   

   Tansey:  I hope it's helpful.

   

   Foutz:  I'm going to check with Strother tomorrow

and just call down and see if he happens to have those

legal papers, and make a note of that [if] it's all

right?  He happens to be a lawyer I've got on

retention.  I'll touch base with Robin.  Robin's one

that keeps things, he may have them.

   

   Tansey:  Until February of last year, we had a law

firm here that I had formed.  The first of February

last year, we dissolved it, because I had totally

dropped out of practicing law, and we had lost a couple

of lawyers that we didn't like to lose.  We had a big,

expensive building that the ones that were left could

not really afford to keep up, and they had a chance to

sell it for an awful good price.  So we just decided

the thing to do was dissolve the law firm.  Before it

was dissolved, Robin Strauther had taken over, because

James Payne had left to go to Florida.  And so he took

your files with him and was representing you in the

case that you had in court, trying to decide what to do

with your money.

   

   Foutz:  Yeah.  Well, I'll just touch base with him

_________________.

   

   Tansey:  He should have.  And if he has the old

files, and I guess all of your problems are settled.

The Indian Traders Association doesn't really need

Robin as a lawyer anymore, but he can certainly keep

those files they've passed on to him.  But if he's got

them, and you want to get them to me to look over,

maybe I can find out a little more detail about things.

I don't know what files are left.  We had to clean out

an awful lot of files and get rid of them.  We had a

completely separate storage building full of files, and

when the firm dissolved, why…  So some of the old

files may have gone by the wayside, and those Indian

Traders files that had been passed on to me when I

became secretary, they weren't passed on to me as

attorney, they were passed on as secretary.  I had a

heck of a time keeping those from getting thrown out.

I kept periodically saying, "Now, do you still have

those files out there?  Don't destroy those files."

   

   Foutz:  Well, all those files have been turned over

to the _______ writer.

   

   Tansey:  You've got those.  And actually, I never

went through those whole files in detail.  I had

occasion from time-to-time that I'd need to go back and

look at something, but I can't say that I ever

completely looked over all those files, because I

didn't have any need to, there was no occasion to.

Once in a while something would come up, and I would

have to go back and see if I could find something that

would give us a little history about what had happened,

but there was very little occasion to use them.  They

were just handed on to me as secretary to keep for the

Indian Traders Association.  And I'm glad they were

preserved, and got to you, because I'm sure there's a

lot of really interesting stuff in them.

   

   Foutz:  I think a lot of the old records came

through Ike Merry that were lost, and Gallup, which is

a shame--the real early ones.  I think they got lost.

   

   Cole:  Who was the secretary before I took over?

   

   Foutz:  Ike Merry.

   

   Tansey:  Right! Ike Merry.  I could not think of his

name.

   

   Foutz:  Ike Merry.  And for years he had been

secretary _______________.

   

   Tansey:  Oh, yeah.

   

   Foutz:  My understanding is that a lot of the old

records were lost, either in mud

   and rain, or a combination of the two.  But we lost

a lot.  He was also secretary for the Gallup Indian

ceremonials…

   

   Tansey:  Yes, that's right.

   

   Foutz:  And they, too, lost a lot of their early

records in the same way.

   

   Tansey:  That's right.  I could not think of Ike's

name to save my soul.

   

   Foutz:  He was [secretary] for years, and he was

good.

   

   Tansey:  Yeah.  Well, I guess he just got to the

point--he was still alive when I took over.

   

   Foutz:  Oh, he got to the point that he was

_________.

   

   Tansey:  But he just couldn't do it anymore.

   

   Foutz:  He could not.

   

   Tansey:  And that's why they…  It was really kind

of unusual to ask somebody like me to be both secretary

and general counsel.  But I'll tell you, Eddie…  Are

you still recording?

   

   Steiger:  I am.  I can…

   

   Tansey:  No, that's all right.  I was just going to

say that being attorney and

secretary of the Indian Traders Association was one of

the most pleasant things that ever happened to me as a

lawyer and as a man.  I really…  And I look back now

and wish that I had kept on doing it longer than I did,

but I just got too old and too tired.

   

   Foutz:  Well, and you were a busy person.  You got

on that water commission, and you had a lot of

challenges to take care of.

   

   Tansey:  That took a lot of time.

   

   Foutz:  Oh, it did!  I remember you were traveling a

lot, and there were too many times when we'd go to hold

a meeting, and you were out on a hearing somewhere, and

you just had to be there, and I understand that.

   

   Tansey:  I was an attorney for the New Mexico

Interstate Streams Commission for years.  I just was

constantly going to…  Also, as that, I was also an

attorney for the Upper Colorado River Commission.  And

they were constantly having Upper Colorado River

Commission meetings, and New Mexico Interstate Streams

Commission meetings.  And we had those meetings

everywhere from Cheyenne, Wyoming; to Santa Fe, New

Mexico; to Albuquerque; to Los Angeles, California; to

Las Vegas, Nevada.  When the Colorado River Commission

and the Upper Colorado River Commission met, they loved

to meet in Las Vegas.  (laughter)  You know, that's a

great deal!  And of course it's all expense paid.

   

   Foutz:  Right.  That was great.  Well, that's

wonderful.  We appreciate your time.  Charles, I want

to just tell you how much I appreciate you doing this,

and taking the time, because you've been an integral

part of the Association since I can remember.  Instead

of a legal counsel so much, I've always looked on you

as just part of the Association, because it was one and

the same to me.  So I�d say ____________.

   

   Tansey:  You kind of sound like Lavoy McGee.  He

called Robert up to talk to him, and he said, "You

know, we didn't really think of your dad as the

attorney, we thought of him as a trader."

   

   Foutz:  No!  That�s the very idea!  I just thought

of you as the Association, I did.  That was what was

great [about] it.

   

   [END OF INTERVIEW]