The Wrangell sentinel., 1946-04-26
THROUGH THE SENTINEL PERISCOPE

Regional office of the Veterans Administration was opened of- ficial in Juneau this week with Anthony E. Karnes. well known Alaskan and veteran of World War l and II, in charge as Director. Since being discharged from the. service Karnea has represented VA in the Territory from the Seat tle office. Under the regional of-I flee setup Alaska veterans affairs will be administered in the Ter ritory without the delay of clear Ing everything through Seattle. Regional office has large office space in the Goldstein building .ul Juneau with a staff which Tony % as most Alaskans refer 10 Director Karnes, says will enable every vet eran to get personal attention. We want to treat every veteran as a human being and not as a mum Der as they are sometimes compel led to do in some of the larger cen ters," Tony explained Later as the regional office gets under way, contact offices will be established in Anchorage, Fairbanks and per- hapa other places Col D. M . Shute, Deputy Administrator from the Seattle office. and William A Wells, Coordinator and Planning Officer, were in Juneau for the l. kickoff ceremonieS which were held Monday morning
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 Interior Secretary Julius A. Krug 1. will visit Alaska during July ac- c0rding to tentative plans The new Secretary, who succeeds Har- old Ickes, is anxious to become ac- Quainted with the Territory at first hand. As Secretary of the h. terior he serves on the Cabinet Committee appointed by President Truman to look into the Alaska situation with the aim of further development. On the committee with Krug are Secretary Clinton Anderson of the Department of Agriculture and Secretary Henry A. Wallace of Commerce.
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 Gov Ernest Gruening will be heading for Washington next week where he has been called to pre- sent the Alaska picture before the Senate budget committee. He pro- bably will be gone several weeks.
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 Next Tuesday Alaska Democrats and Republicans go to the polls to choose their fayorites for the big contest in October. It's primary el- ection day and there appears to be a keener interest in the party contests than in any year since be- fore the war Since 1940, when AL aska voters cast the remarkable total of 11.241 ballots for former Delegate Tony Dimond, there was 6 marked falling off in the size of the Alaska vote. The lowest point wag 1942. during the darkest days Ot the war, when only 2416 votes were cast in the entire First Dfvi- sion in the general election. A nor nal vote is around six thousand. t In fact, in 1940 the total vote in the First was 6,124 at the general election, an all-time high That was the year Wrangell precinct cast 35S votes and Stikine GA, the largest vote ever recorded in this area. But with the service men and women coming back as well ps many others who went elsewhere to do war work the trend should be toward a larger and more re- presentative vote. The primary as 8 rule is not productive of a big vote due to its nature of being voters prefer not to exercise their franchise at the primary because of the party label The voter is either a Republican or a Democrat and votes for the candidates on the ticket he selects. However, with the return of so many from tlie war this years primary may re- fleet a considerable gain. Until somebody comes along with a bet ter idea, the primary system is with us, as is our traditional two party system. The way to make them work effectively is to go to the polls next Tuesday and cast a ballot. There's no Gestapo hanging around to see how you vote.
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 Alaska still was strike bound this week, and unless there was Q break before long Alaakans were going to know how it is to be | without things Agreement had been reached in the local situation at Ketchikan and the ships in AL aska were being unloaded How ever, the prospect of anything coming from the south for some ime did not appear bright. CIO