The Daily Alaska empire., 1946-04-04

terred to by the Governor was paS- ed upon the following letter which was read in. the Senate by Senator Coffey, and in order that both sides of the matter be presented, we reproduce it at this time. Let the reader decide who is to be be- lieved. The writer of the letter, "Gowey' Shepard, has lived in AL aska practically all of his life. owns a home in Juneau and is well-known throughout the Terri tory)
 January IS, 1946, Fairbanks, AL aska.
 Mir. Ed Coffey. Anchorage. Alaska.
 Dear Sir:
 Regarding your inquiry concern ing the cancelled allotment for the proposed Anchorage water system it will be necessary for me to go back into past history to tell you what actually happened. This is quite story and as it is some years since I have been connected with the EVA see no reason why you should not have the facts.
 You are of course familiar with the provisions of the Lanham Act which provided funds could be ob- tained by communities which were hard hit by an influx of Armed Service people and civilian war workers and were unprepared to take care of the situation
 As former head of the PWA in Alaska, was recalled to administer this act in Alaska The first appli- cations received by my office were from Anchorage, Fairbanks, Sitka and Ketchikan Among these ap- plications was request by the City of Anchorage for funds to construct water supply system from the Ship Creek Canyon to the point of city distribution. This application received immediate pri- ority by my office for the reason that some forty thousand soldiers and an unknown host of civilian workers had been assembled at Fort Richardson and were crowd ing Anchorage facilities, this town of course being totally unprepared for such an influx. Also was re- ceived from Anchorage an applica- tion for funds to prepare certain streets to bear the heavy army traffic.
 ! An allotment was made by the Washington office of funds to con- struct the water system. Plans and specifications were prepared and the project was advertised for bids. Shortly after this MT. Gruening summoned me to his office and in very suave language informed me that the people of Anchorage did not cooperate" with him and he desired no funds to be allocated to this community. He also addressed a letter to my office in which he put his seal of approval and disap- proval of the different projects and where the money could be spent. I was absolutely dumfounded to think that man in MT. Gruenings posi- tion, during wartime, would at tempt to use public funds of spe- ] cific purpose to further his own selfish political purposes.
 From this time on we were en- tirely at cross purposes. Note, one of the projects on which we were in disagreement was the construc- tion of the eighty thousand dollar USO building at Sitka which sits in lonely grandeur on Observatory l Hill and is entirely out of line with I the needs of the community, i e.. there are no military personnel at Sitka to speak of and this small community cannot afford to oper- ate such an installation as civic enterprise
 ] Shortly after these happenings I was shown copy of letetr writ 1 ten by MT. Gruening in which he l stated, T have finally succeeded in 1 having MT. Earl McGinty of the Indian Service appointed to direct the policy of the EVA in Alaska D MT. McGinty assumed this author ity under the guidance of MT. Gruening and approved such pro- ] jects as he indicated. I was unable ] to concur with such a policy and resigned.
 i In due course the Anchorage al- lotment was rescinded as was the paving money for Fairbanks. Ap- parently the people of Ketchikan, Sitka, Seward and Skagway "co- operated" with MT Gruening as money was poured into these towns for the various projects requested. I am unable to venture an opin- ion as to whether the water project i could be revived Four years have passed and possibly the people of Anchorage corporate" more fully with MT. Gruening and his seal of approval might be obtained. Yours very truly,
 (Signed) J. c. SHEPARD An estimated 28,500 persons were killed in traffic accidents in l945.