The daily Alaskan., 1909-01-29

to opposition to President Rooseyolts express declaration in favor of home rule for Alaska.
 Thus upon an open public contest with territorial home rule. for the real issue, it received seyenty.clght per cent of all the 9,G25 votes cast in Alaska; 7.4SG votes were cast in sup port of President Roosevelts recon, mendatlOn and but 2,IS9 against it. Of this opposition vote nearly 700 were cast by the railroad construc. ton gang on the Cordoya road; they would as readily have voted for it if so instructed, but they were not, In addition, Mir. Corson was obliged everywhere in his campaign speeches to avoid his own platform and prom ise support to home rule, More than ninety per cent of the electors of Alaska would vote for President Rooseyelt's recommendation it it were put to a direct vote between that and an opposing plank.
 A territorial form of government is that form which congress establishes m a territory There is no set form, and never was. No two territories have had just the same form of ter. ritorial government, though in all ter. ritories heretofore organized within the present limits of the United ,Jates the three coordinate branches the executive. legislative and judic- ial-have been created and have worked together as the territorial gov erument Notwithstanding Alaska has no territorial legislature, the SUI preme court or the United States in the Alaska case of Rasmussen ys. United States, Ig7 |. S., 5IG, and in prior cases cited therein, has speci- ncally decided that Alaska is one of the organized territories Of the United States. Congress created both the executive and judicial de- partments or branches of a terrttor. ial government for Alaska in 1881, but that great legislative body has it, self acted as the legislative branch of the Alaskan go, ernmeut ever since.
 Many otherwise weII-mfOrmed peo- pie and even the great seal of the territory at Juneau, speak of the ter. ritory as the District of Alaska. " And so it is-the customs collecting district of Alaska. For that matter, there is the customs collecting Dis trict of Delaware, too, though no one doubts that Delaware is at the same time a state in the Union. In that sense. and in that sense only, Alaska is the District ol Alaska. " The great executive seal at Juneau ought to be corrected, that it may speak the legal truth and give Alaska its true dignity as a territory, of which dignity the great seal seems to be ignorant.
 Alaska is one of the organized ter ritories Of the United States, and is now and since 1884 has been govern ed by a territorial form of govern meut. It is altogether misleading and inaccurate to say that Alaska needs territorial form of government" Alaska needs additional organic law in aid Of her insufficient form of ter ritorial government, Since 1884 it has had a governor appointed by the president of the United States, as was and is usual in all other terri tories. It has the same executive de- partment or branch of territorial gov ernment that other territories before it have had. The organic act of 1881 also establisheI the usual territorial judicial branch or department of the government, and today Alaska has a complete system of courts-the same judicial department given to all other American territories. The third branch or department of territorial government only is missing. Alaska has no Alaskan legislature. Con