The Wrangell sentinel., 1943-03-12

NEIL
 properly conducted his office dur ing his regime has turned out to be 1 the high point. Cor details of the hearing thus far. see news story)
 The wholesale liquor bill has got ten away to another 50 per cent start in the Legislature. House this week passed the measure which would put the Territory in the liquor business and it now has to be acted upon by the Senate where it probably isn't going to have very easy sailing unless Senators Doe" Walker and O. D. Cochran have had a change of mind The bill, as the House passed it. would set up an Alaska Alcohol Administration as a division of the Treasurer's office. An Administrator would be appoint ed by the Governor at a salary of $500 per month to head the setup for which s150,00O would be appro- priated. Idea is to have the Terri tory handle all liquor in Alaska, disburse it through dispensaries and so on, similar but not exactly like the Washington state setup. No. 1 objection to the measure is that the Territory would lose something over a million dollars in tax revenue, now derived from the sale of alec holie beverages. Major arguments of the proponents of the bill is that it would clear up unsayory liquor con- ditions in the Territory. Worst thing 1t would do is throw whiskey into politics and lay the foundation for corruption. Meanwhile, it would provide a fat job for somebody whose time probably could be more useful to the war effort.
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 OPA in Juneau and it's oppon ents are staging a ruekus in the capital city which might well bring some wrath down from on high. It started out with a squabble be- tween 0PA and a dry cleaning es- tablishment over prices. This went on for some months and finally broke out in a cloudburst of ad- vertisements and public statements, no end. The dry cleaning establish | ment, according to the advertise ment, quit civilian business and ca ters now only to the armed forces. | I- hnr up several columns of newspaper | type and a large amount of radio time attempting to explain. One statement is reported to be so viz orOus (meaning libel in newspaper circles) that the Empire deleted some pointed words fn the contro- versy the Juneau radio station, the Empire and we don't know who all got dragged into the fiasco. It's a l fine example of something or other possibly a new way to win the war. who knows?
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 While OPA has grabbed the pub lie spotlight, another controversy is l brewing under the surface up Ju- neau way. It appears that there are several applicants for the position of Postmaster in the capital city. left vacant by the death of Albert Vile. The applicants, several in numbers, went around and got en-I dorsements from various precinct committeeman and the committee, 1 being big hearted, endorsed most of them. Now the precinct committee finds itself in the position of having to decide and wants the Democratic divisional committee to do some thing about it. Upshot has been that some members of the commit tee are not speaking to other mem bers and party officials, and aIto- gether it's just a nice little how do-you-do the boys and girls are having. All of which is little a. musing in view of the fact that the Postmaster in Juneau will be theI person who successfully passes highest the necessary Civil Service examination and qualities for the position, Postmasters long since having passed from the political wars and must refrain from politi- cal activity.
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