Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-09-05
AN ALASKAN DELEGATE
Senate Committee Favors
Such Proposition.
HOUSE WILL CONCUR
THE PROBABLE CANDIDATES OF
BOTH PARTIES.
Gov. Brady Likely to Be Nominated
by the Republicans and Ex-Gov.
Swineford by the Democrats.

The Senate subcommittee on territories,
which has Just returned from a trip to
Alaska. is understood to be in favor Of
granting Alaska a delegate In the House
of Representatives. without. however. q
territorial form OF government although
no official statement has been made upon
the subject.
The committee went to Alaska for the
special purpose of investigating conditions
and there Is little doubt that its recon-
mendations will be approved by the COM
mittee and the Senate. On the House side
there has long been feeling favorable
to Alaskan representation. Now that there
are delegates from Porto Rico and Hawaii
there seems to many in Congress to be no
valid reason why there should not be one
from one of the most extensive territorial
possessions of the United States.
Probable Republican Candidate.
In the event that delegate Is given Alas
ka In all probability the republican candi-
date for that office will be the present gov
ernor of Alaska. John Green Brady. Gov.
ernor Brady is New Yorker by birth. his
early education. however. having been re-
ceived from Judge John Green of Upton,
Ind, to whom he was sent by the Children's
Aid Society of New York when a child.
There he worked his way through Yale and
the Union Theological Seminary, where he
graduated.
Later in life he engaged seventeen hun
dred acres of land in Texas. where he pro-
posed to establish an industrial reform coll
ony for New York slum boys. but on ac-
count Of the lack of funds it aban-
doned Governor Brady went to Alaska in
1873 as a missionary with DIR. Sheldon Jack
son and later became manager of the Sitka
Trading Company. He was appointed gov
ernor of Alaska. June 16. 1897, and was
reappointed June 9. 1900. his term expiring
in 1904.
The Democratic Candidate.
The democratic candidate is very likely
to be Alfred P. Swineford. After many
years of prominence in the upper peninsula
of Michigan. Mr.. Swineford became Cleve-
lands governor OF Alaska eighteen years
ago. He had a long training in mining
countries; he had been a state LEGISLATOR
and candidate for lieutenant governor ana
Congress. He had for years conducted a
newspaper In Michigans upper peninsula.
and he made one of the most popular gov
ernors the Russian purchase ever had Gov
ernor Swineford, some years ago. gave to q
newspaper correspondent a story which
widely published. In this he said:
When I am sitting in the executive resi-
dence at Sitka l am further east from Attu
Island-the westernmost of the Aleutian
1slands-than l am west of Portland, Me.
If the capitol of the United States was
located ia the exact center OF our
1t would be IN the Pacific ocean. GOO miles
north by west of San Francisco
Extent Of Alaska
This before the country became .
world power; it was before the gold discov.
cries of the Klondike and Nome and before
the mighty rush of people from everywhere
to Alaska. At the same time the then
governor spoke Of the agricultural possi-
bilities of the american wonderland" and
amused the Washington newspaper men
by telling them that Indian children played
base ball and danced barefooted before the
executive residence in Sitka on Christmas
day. He also delighted in exhibiting a map
of Alaska, made on the scale of an ordinary
state map 1t was a huge affair, rolled in
big bundle, large that no wall In
Washington could be found big enough to
hang 1t In actual land area Alaska is
ten times as large New York, and In ex-
tent of land and water, from the Russian
to the British boundary, 1t is something
colossal.
1t will be no small honor to be Alaska's
first delegate, and incidently the mileage to
and from Skaguay to Washington each
session of Congress during the term tsome-
times there are three sessions} will make
the Alaskan delegate the best paid man in
Congress, with the possible exception OF
Prince Cupid OF Honolulu, Hawaiian Is
lands.