The Wrangell sentinel., 1940-10-04
TIaR0UGlH TB1S3
 POLITICAL - PERTSC0PE

office of Commissioner of Eduea- ton elective as it formerly was. In formation reaching the Periseope is that the general dissatisfaction of local school boards throughout the Territory with the ruling of the Board of Education making it com plusory to give graduates of the Un- iversity of Alaska preference for teaching positions has been pound ing into the ears of Legislators so persistently that some Of the law makers. especially those who served in previous sessions, see an out in swinging the office Of education back to an elective official. chosen by the voters and not the Board of Education. an appointed group.
 Agitation to that end was started in the 1887 legislative session. But it died a lingering death. Last ses- sion it got to the point of being a hotly talked bill. It was so hot in fact that certain members of the board of Education, which was i'll session in Juneau at the time, threatened to resign, on grounds that it would be a direct slap at the Board. This threatened action soothed some of the more determined lawmakers, who were directing their fire at Commissioner A. E. Karnes and not the Board, with the result that the bill died. But coming ses- sion. the picture will be different. Now the Board is in the doghouse, particularly with the city school boards. Upshot This howl from the constituency is fairly certain to give impetous to the old effort to make the office of Commissioner of Edu cation elective.
 It can be a nice out. It will avoid either having to stand up for the Boards action, tough spot with the folks at home protesting, or crit icising the Board, which after all Is made up of a member from each Judicial Division, appointed by the Governor and approved by the Leg fslature in joint session. And it may meet with a great deal more satisfaction with the folks at home than some of the lawmakers suspect. You can't make voters mad by giving them something to vote for.
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 If the reports of it's agents in AL aska click with the new Department of Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington it is almost certainty there will be more equitable salmon fishing regulations in effect in the Territory next season. conforming more closely 10 actual run of fish.
 Department agents have been making a fairly thorough check of streams in the Southeast since the season closed. What they found in many places were streams so clogged with fish that millions will die waste conservation In some places they found small streams where sal mon had gone up on the September freshets only to die by the thous- ands along the banks, on the oars and in other exposed spots when the streams quickly fell again. Some had spawned but the great majority were ripe with eggs. Other streams were so damned with fish that hordes of their kind were dying near the mouth of the streams, un- able to get up stream to spawn.
 #H&
 For years salmon control in Alas ka has been a political football. Headed by political appointees and largely staffed by the same method. Regulations were often made up without sufficient attention to eX- isting conditions. As a job-proyiding setup it was ideal. As a fish con- servation-for-use organization it has left a bad odor, almost as rank as that left by the millions of dead sal mon lying today in the streams and bays of Southeast Alaska which might as well have been put in a can, or used in some manner for human consumption rather than be wasted through negotiable regul- ations.
 Studies made by agents of the re- organized department are being coupled with reports of men in the fishing ndustry-fishermen pack CTS and others who know about fish from close study over the years. Plan is to assimilate this informa- tion into workable set of regula- tions which will provide conserva- tion, at the same meeting conditions as they actually exist In short catching fish when the fish are run ming and applying enforcement sanely to protect the fishermen as we'll as the fish.
 Setup will be much like that sue cessfully used by the game commis- sion in administration of the Alas ka Game Law over the years; re- concentrations made by men ac- tually on the ground in the Terri tory and approved in Washington l Dr Ira GahrieIson Director of the