The Daily Alaska empire., 1930-01-30
JUDGE WICKERSHAM ON SELF
 GOVERNMENT.

Judge Wickersham's Platform Pledges" and Part of Former Record" which make up little pamphlet that he is circulating in the interest of his can didacy for the Republican nomination for Delegate to Congress disappointing insofar as they relate to the question of full Territorial form of govern ment or home rule The Empire has had a lot to say during the last fifteen or sixteen years about Judge Wickersham's record and what he has writ ten and said on this question It has contended that he has either not been at heart supporter of self government that he does not think clearly on the subject The pamphlet seems to support that position
 The Empire has always insisted that the pow CTS given the people of Alaska in the government provided by Judge Wickershams Organic Act were so lneager so much less than those given the peo- pe of the other Territories, that we have not real Home Rule have not had it, and will not have it until Congress can be induced to give us what President Taft and President Wilson called the full Territorial form of government"
 In the Judges resume of his record he declares that he drew bills and secured their enactment into laws among which
 2 The Organic Act of August 24 1912,
 creating the Alaska Legislature and giving
 Home Rule to the people of Alaska.
 In the same list he claims credit for the enact ment by Congress of:
 g. The Alaska Bone Dry Law, in response
 to a large majority of the electors of Alaska.
 If the Organic Act had provided real Home Rule for the people of Alaska it would not have been necessary to go to Congress to get law regulating the liquor traffic, The Territorial Legislature could have attended to it without the intervention of the National Legislature
 Further, if we had got real Home Rule with the Organic Act it would not have been necessary for the Judge to promise ito support self-government in Alaska game fur and fisheries" We would have self government in that respect.
 And that suggests that the platform pledge" regarding the fisheries would be stronger if it had been limited to the support of self-government in the premises If should get that the elected repre- sentatives of the people in the Territorial Legis- lature would enact all the further legislation that would be necessary. That would be far better than to have one man, even though he be the Delegate to Congrss, to decide upon the details of fisheries legislation and beg Congress to put the decisions in the National statutes out of reach of the Terri torial Legislature. To make this point plain, we reprint the platform pledge regarding this subject:
 B. To support self-government in Alaska
 game fur and fisheries; the better seeding
 of salmon streams; a equal diStribu
 ton of the burdens of conservation all
 forms of fishing gear; that bona fide resi-
 dents of Alaska shall be allowed to take
 fish at all times and places for their own
 family use; that nonresident fishermen,
 their boats and gear, shall pay higher
 license tax than resident fishermen; and the
 continuation of Government investigations
 of halibut herring and other food fish in
 aid of their preservation and increase
 This criticism does not apply, of course, to the