The Daily Alaska empire., 1948-07-17
American Bomber Fleet Lands L1 Britai,
WILLIAM A. HE55E, FORMER ALASKAN,
 VISITS IN JUNEAU

William A. Hesse, former Terri torial Highway Engineer, visited old friends in Juneau for two days and left this afternoon via Pan Am erican Airways for Whitehorse. Since leaving Juneau three years ago, Hesse has been living in Ontario and Que bee in Eastern Canada. These two provinces contain one of the great gold producing areas in the world. Hesse reported that despite Can adian government subsidies to gold producers, the mines are having a difficult time remaining in opera tion because of high production and labor costs.
 Hesse, who was elected to the position of Territorial Highway En- gineer four times, related to The Empire the story of his first and only political defeat-a tale he has kept quiet until the present time.
 AS one who lived in the Territory for 43 years and who through the indulgence of the people of Alaska occupied public office here for IA years, it might not be inappropriate at this time to say through the courtesy of your paper, that l am overwhelmed by the confidence that was reposed in me. It sems in- credible that I, one that never had any political aspirations, would be nominated and elected four times to a public office, but speaking of political ambitions, I have a con- fession to make.
 When I was kid in the Occur dAlenes and comparatively new conner there, back in the days of political convention, was actually nominated by such a convention as a Democatic candidate for the office of County Surveyor of Sho- shone County. Idaho.
 "Shoshone County, which is the Occur d'Alenes, has about as large percentage of Democrats as the State of Alabama has Republicans, and to have been a Democratic can didate for anything there was re- garded as about the surest and swiftest form of political hara-kiri.
 Since I never attended political convention in my life, this nomina- tion was of course without my knowledge, advice, or consent and I carried on about the same kind of campaign there that l after ward did here-that is, I never made any public speeches or politi- cal promises, but it didn't work in Shoshone County and when the votes were counted the Democratic candidates were all swept into ob- livion and Shoshone County lost what might have been a good County Surveyor. From what I was able to learn afterwards, however Shoshone County survived, so. incl did the Democratic candi- date for County Surveyor, only to bob up again 30 years later as the for Territorial Highway Engineer in Alaska.
 While the people of the Occur d'Alenes would have nothing to do with the Democrats, they treated me fine otherwise and un- doubtedly came to realize what a grave blunder they had committed at the polls.
 T got a sizable vote as a Demo- crat in Shoshone County but it did not arouse in me any desire for public office and if such trait ever resized in me. which I am unwilling to admit, it lay dormant for more than quarter of a century before manifesting itself.
 All of this happened long time ago and there are probably no other survivors living who participated in that campaign, but if you should ever look up the records of Sho- shone County, you will find that Bill Hesse at one time also ran as a Democratic candidate for Coun- ty Surveyor"