The Daily Alaska empire., 1950-04-24

ALA5kA STATEHOOD An Examination of ile Enabling Bill
 By BOB DeARaGOND
By BOB DeARasON

AllC ubllC LdAlQo OokAlAAiAboSS VI the United States Senate today be- gan hearings upon HR. 33l. This bill, if passed by the Senate and approved by the President, will en- able Alaska to become one of the States of the Union.
 The bill has already passed the House of Representatives, although its passage was by narrow margin and there appeared to be sing liar lack of enthusiasm on the part ,f even those Congressmen whc voted for it.
 Nor have AlaskanS generally dis played enthuiasm for HR. 33l as m enabling bill, not even those Alaskans who so heartily favored I.R. 206, a previous enabling bill upon which hearings were held both in Washington. DC, and i'll he Territory. in 1947.
 Alaskans became familiar with a.R. 206, both through the hearings and through the publicity given it oy the press and radio. It is be- ieved that very few of them are familiar with the provisions of H.R ,31, which has not been widely circulated and which has received title publicity as to it's specific 1erms.
 Present Bill Distasteful?
 The present bill, H.R. 331, is SC iistasteful to many Alaskans that he Republican Party of Alaska, irl ts recent convention at Juneau condemned it roundly in the plat form adopted there.
 The statehood plank of that plat form reads: We advocate attain nent of statehood for Alaska, but we deplote the obvious inadequacy of the presently introduced enabling act, H.R. 331, in that it fails tc specify the respective rights ano privileges and the respective duties and obligations of the Federal Gov. srnment and the proposed State oi Alaska"
 It will undoubtedly be charged politics being what they are, that this was merely an effort by the Republicans to discredit Demo cratic Delegate in Congress.
 Some of the Republicans whc wrote the platform, however, ano who favored this particular plank were men who were very active in the campaign for statehood ano who testified in favor of the former statehood bill. H.R. 206.
 This statehood plank, rather, ex- presses a fundamental displeasure with the terms of the present bill
 Both Bills Explained
 In order to point out the reasons for that displeasure it will be neces- sary to examine both the present pill and the original bill, H.R. 206 the passage of which was advo- cated and urged by many informed Alaskans, both Democrats and Re- publicans.
 H.R 206. introduced by Delegate E. L. Bartlett in the first session of the 80th Congress, was an ex sremely liberal measure from any point of view and in anybody language.
 From the viewpoint of the larger Federal bureaus it was entirely too liberal and the Interior Department in particular opened some of its biggest guns on the bill, at what proved to be lethal range.
 What the Federal bureaucrats ob- jected to-and what, on the other hand Alaskans generally approved was the section of the bill spelling out the property that was to be turned over to the new state.
 Land Disposal
 
 This section of HR. 206 said '"The State of Alaska shall have and retain, and the United States hereby conveys to said State, all public property and all vacant and unappropriated lands, including lands reserved or withdrawn from entry, embraced within the boun- daries of said State, except the fol- lowing: Lands and property in pos session of and actually used by the United States or some department or agency thereof for some govern mental purpose, but not lands re- served or withdrawn from entry except as herein specifically de- scribed."
 The specific tracts to remain in possession of the Federal govern ment were the Mount Mckinley National Park, the Glacier Bay Ma tional Monument, and the naval petroleum reserve situated in northern Alaska.
 Why 2O6 Was Scuttled
 All of the rest, including the Ma tional Forests, the coal and other mineral reserves. the Pribilof Is- lands and all other lands and their