The Daily Alaska empire., 1950-04-25
ALASKA STATEHOOD H.B. 331-The Inferior Department Bill
 
United States"
 Indian Rights Issue
By BOB DeARMOND

United States"
 Indian Rights Issue This particular proposal of the Interior Department, which injects the Indian rights issue into the statehood question for the first time, appears on page IA of the printed copies of Committee Hearing No. 5. This proposal also appears word for word, on pages and of the H.R. 331. the Alaska statehood bill recently passed by the House and
 now under consideration by the Senate.
 The Interior Department further proposed the following amendment to Delegate Bartlett's bill: "The State of Alaska and its po- litical subdivisions, respectively
 shall have and retain title to all property, real and personal, title to which is now in the Territory ot Alaska or any of the subdivisions. The United States shall retain title
 to all property, real and personal to which it now has title. including public lands, except as provided in Section 5 hereof"
 This Interior Department amend mcnt has also been included, woro for word. in the new statehood bill,
 H.R. 331.
 The Interior Department pro- posed, in Section 5, to grant to the new state sections Is and 36 in each township for the support of its com mon schools, and sections B in each township in the Panama Valley for
 the support of the University of Alaska.
 Short Proposal The Interior Department was a long way short of generous in this proposal The two sections of each
 township. 16 and 36, were actually | given to Alaska thirty-five years age by Act of Congress, for the suppor of the common schools.
 These sections. while they prob- ably have not been a liability tc
 Alaska. have not been much of an
 asset, either. Dr. James c. Ryan Territorial Commissioner of Educa- ton, told the statehood committee
 about them at Juneau in 1947. He said:
 Since 1915, a period of 32 years Alaska has received the income from the 16th and 36th sections, yet
 on June 30, 1947, the permanent school fund (derived from these funds) amounted to only S12,1l9-98 Fully half of this amount has been derived from the sale of abandoned
 school buildings or other property or defunct Territorial schools" In the present statehood bill, the
 Interior Departments proposal has
 been somewhat liberalized. The bill
 would grant the new state two addi- tional sections of land in each town-
 ship, thus putting it on a par with 1 the states of Arizona and New Mex
 ico--on paper. How much these grants actually mean today. is an-
 other matter and one which will be
 considered more fully later in this
 series.
 More of Same Stuff Several more of the Interior De- partments proposed amendments to
 HR. POS have been adopted in full
 in H.R. 331; others of that depart
 ments proposals have been some-
 what liberalized. The department. for example, was willing to grant [
 paltry half million acres to the nev 1 states for public buildings. insane
 asylums, penitentiaries, schools. for l the deaf, dumb and blind, norma. schools, reform schools and home. for pioneer residents. H.R. 331 up. this allotment to an even million acres, which is still only slightly more than one quarter of one per
 cent of the total land area O.
 Alaska. And even this tiny portion would come to the new state, for the present at least, in theory rather than in fact.
 On the whole, after examining the Interior Departments proposed amendments to Delegate Bartlett's original statehood bill and compar- ing them with the present bill, H.R- 331, it can only be concluded that
 the Interior Department is the ac- tual author of the important sec tions of our present statehood bill. Under the provisions of this bill we would, of course, get statehood for Alaska. but the Federal depart
 ments and bureaus would retain control of some ninety-nine percent of the new state.
 The land grants to the proposed
 new state are perhaps the most im- : portant part of the enabling act. In
 the next article of this series the
 land grants provided in H.R. 33l
 will be scrutinized to see what they
 would actually be worth to Alaska.