The Daily Alaska empire., 1948-01-20

lingham Wash got set to bid for the timber rights and put up a paper making plant costing around S160O000O
 "A Whereupon, the P. s. P. & T. Co. got letter 1 from Washington, D. G. signed by James E. Curry, advising them that his clients the Tling and Haida Indians of Alaska would be heard from in the law courts and under no conditions to put any faith in certain bureaucrats who might say otherwise.
 You can imagine how quickly P S. P & r Co lost interest putting up a paper mill on land that the Indians and the U s. Government would have to fight over with P S P. & T. Co as grass under the elephants feet
 5 Just by chance there is James E. Curry listed as conse the National Congress of American Indians. for which Mrs Ruth Muskrat Bronson is lobbyist.
 And just by chance last summer after Interior, Agriculture and Congress had hotted up the Ton gass deal Mrs Ruth Muskrat Bronson drifted up to Alaska And just by chance she discovered that h. dians up there were afraid they going to lose the timber and begged her to help them
 Next thing anybody knew, there James E. Curry up in Alaska doing about and 10 and behold in time it came to pass that the Timber Development Corporation No. g Rockefeller Plaza New York City, found itself with contracts from Indian tribes up there for timber rights
 The contracts each affected specified $10oOO- OO9 worth or tlmDeT. AIu IO tle up Jilt luuldllo ownership if any Timber Development Corp deposited with the tribes $500 per contract
 Nice work, a $500 binder for $10,000 900 deal, is it not?
 For the record it appears that Timber Deveop- ment Corp was organized by New York attorney, Richard C. Green, No. Rockefeller Plaza, and he says himself the incorporators all people in his office.
 "6 The Agriculture Department, through Chief Forester Lyle Watts has denounced the Indian claims and said the Forest Service will oppose them. He invites pulp and paper makers to bid and get started developing Alaska But Curry, Timber Development Corp. Mrs R. M. Bronson & Go, have scotched all that.
 Tn fact, Mrs. Bronson put out a press release here last month after the third contract between Alaskan Indians and Timber Development Corp. had been signed, flaty forecastng:
 litigation that will bring to a head the conflict over ownership of timber in Southeast Alaska that has been simnering for more than 20 years be- tween the Indian inhabitants of the area and the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture
 She said the Indians sticking by the Interior Department in it's inerminable bureaucratic for power against Agriculture and that Interior Depart ment officials urged the Indians to proceed to cut and dispose of their timber resources not withstanding Agriculture Department objections.
 But just the same, the Forest Service will invite bids for timber in Tongass forest in few weeks offering U s. government contract cn the same trees the Indians have already sold to Mrs Bronsons pals
 50 here we have Interior Department bureau crats pulling way, Agriculture another pulp com panes scared to bid for fear of lawsuits and lawyers forming timber development corporations nobody ever heard Of before AND Mrs. Bronson busy lobbying.
 When is the U. S. Congress going to investigate this sort of deal and clean up the whole Indian mess?"