The Daily Alaska empire., 1950-09-30

Republicans. Democrats, Indepen- dents, young men and women of Alaska. We are asking you to join the crusade to save Alaska. This crusade was started more than a year ago when Senator Butrovich, along with others who have the in | terests of Alaska at heart, forced a long delayed audit of the Terri i tory's books. Senator Butrovich was the Senate member of the auditing committee which employed a na- tionally known auditing firm and disclosed, among other things, the shortages in the accounts of the Democratic treasurer, Oscar G. Ol- sen.
 Stole S5O,OOO
 MT. Olsen was convicted of his crime of stealing something like $50,OO0 from this Territory. He was sentenced to long term in prison and is now in the federal peniten- tiary at McNeil Island where, un- derstand, he is keeping the books ! for the prison. I also understand that in this capacity he does not handle any money.
 Many of you heard or read the speech delivered by Senator Butro- vich at the session of the Republican party of Alaska in Juneau last spring. He described the obstacles that the Democratic administration placed in the path of the audit. Sen ator Butrovich said that as nearly as could be ascertained there was a shortage of around $27,00O in liquor stamp funds. These liquor stamps were used for tax collection purposes and were sold by deputies appointed by the treasurer. Several of these deputies are reported to have been unable to account for all of the stamps or of the funds entrusted to them.
 That same session of the Repub- lican party of Alaska appointed a special committee to investigate the deplorable conditions that now exist in our Territory of Alaska. I trust you will see that something drastic had to be done and still has to be done to keep this great home of ours from being wrecked by corrup- ton, malfeasance and misfeasance. Special Committee
 This special Investigating commit tee has attempted to unearth other instances of this gross mishandling of our affairs by the Democratic administration We have had some success in this work, but in our in- vestigation of the liquor stamp deals we ran into a stone wall. When I recently visited the treasurer's office to look into this and other matters was told that all records regarding the liquor stamps have been de- stroyed. No records are to be had with which to conduct an investi- gation. That situation was not, of 1 course, entirely new. The auditors found that records, in fact much more recent records, in other des partments, had been destroyed Why were they destroyed? I cannot an- | ho hut hn cit is deplorable.
 Let us turn our attention to the Territorial veterans bureau, where some startling facts have come to light. That bureau was created to take care of returned Alaskan veter- ans who might require assistance in again becoming settled in civilian life. Its loan and bonus provisions of the act were financed, as you know, 1 by a sales tax upon us. The first commissioner of the Alaska veterans bureau set up for business on large scale and he was, unfortunately, not long in getting into bad company. One of his close friends was the owner of the Clover club cocktail bar in Juneau. The bar owner ran far into debt and the commissioner one day drew five thousand dollars from the veterans fund. He paid around $4,000 in bills and back rent for the Clover bar. What became of the other $1,0O0 is still a mystery. The taxpayers lost over S1O,O0O on this deal.
 Bureau Gets Yacht
 The veterans bureau also acquired yacht, using taxpayers money, of course. It was used by the commits sioner and his associates for fishing trips, poker playing and parties. This investment has never been fully explained, but the yacht is now at the dock in Juneau and has been there all summer. understand the loss to the taxpayers on this deal was more than $l0,000.
 Why did the veterans bureau need ! yacht? That is question I cannot answer, although it is not too late for the veterans bureau to answer it.
 This former veterans commits sioner finally resigned while under investigation by the Territorial le- gislature. He and his bar-owner