CASCADE LOCKS, Ore. (AP) — An open house regarding a proposed tribal casino here pitted environmental concerns over the scenic Columbia River Gorge against tribal unemployment and the hopes of a dying river town that sees the gambling enterprise as its last chance.
The Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, with the support of Gov. Ted Kulongoski, wants to put the casino on off-reservation land in Cascade Locks, about 40 miles east of the lucrative Portland market. It would be the first off-reservation casino in Oregon and one of only a handful in the nation...
But some at the open house questioned whether high-paying jobs would really come to fruition. Others were concerned that a tax-free tribal casino would make it impossible for existing businesses to compete.
"If motels and restaurants from the casino come into town, what will that do to our businesses?" asked Cheryl Randall of Cascade Locks. "Our end of the town will dry up."
Waaah, flippin' waaah! The treaties that left the Warm Springs tribes on their little patch of reservation were designed to give the white folks the best farm and grazing land, and the barely-usable stuff to the Indians. The only advantage the reservations have is their legal status as not-quite-part of the state they're in. And when they made use of that lone advantage only for selling fireworks and cheap tobacco, nobody complained. But once they started making money that began to place them on an even footing with the white population, suddenly they were villains. Why didn't anybody cry "unfair competition" when the good farmland was handed out?
I don't see how anybody who ever saw an Indian reservation before the gambling caught on can complain without becoming nauseated. They were poorer than the dirt they lived on, they began to make good use of what they had, and now they're succeeding, enough to buy more land at the white man's prices and make profitable use of it. They're capitalizing on the very laws that were intended to screw them.
Why is it only "unfair" when the Indians win?
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