The Daily Alaska empire., 1950-04-24

AOAxUA HUH bilC JulluI dS OA T Oiiil Barrow to the wooded mountains of Portland Canal to accompany that departure. It is no wonder that the bureau and department heads trained their guns on HR 206 and scuttled it as quickly as possible.
 Its not within the scope of this or subsequent articles on the Alaska statehood bills to detemine whether or not the turning over of all the resources of Alaska to the new Etate would be wise policy. This writer does not pretend to be quail fled to say that the abolishment of, for example, the National Forests would be good for either the forests or for Alaska.
 National Forest Issue This was a point upon which there was disagreement among the Alashans who testified at the state hood hearings, both in Washington and in Alaska. in 1947. Many of the proponents of statehood felt that the National Forests. if not the other reservations. should remain intact.
 The views of the group that felt Alaska should receive all of its re- sources were perhaps most clearly presented by so emminent an authority on Alaskan affairs as Judge Anthony J. Dimond, the former Delegate in Congress.
 Judge Dimond told the Congress iional Committee at Washington on April l6, 1947: "So far as those forests are concerned, in my own judgment, the forests of Alaska should be turned over to the new State. My own personal view is that It would be much better for the Nation as well as for the State to turn all of the National Forests over to the State. If had the power myself to do anything in this direction. should certainly do so ?
 On the other side of this question Ralph J. Rivers, then Attorney Gen. eral of Alaska, felt that the Na- tional Forests should remain under Federal jurisdiction. He favored however, the turning of other re- sources over to Alaska and told the committee:
 ''The Bartlett bill as presently drawn would turn over the entire domain excepting areas that are occupied and used by the Federal Government. think that the Ter ritory should have at least some- thing like 50 percent of the public domain and be able to take care of it's own questions of entry, home stealing, and development"
 A lot of Alaskan old timers who nave struggled and fought with gov ernment bureaus for the privilege of honesteading a little patch O. ground would say "amen" to MT. Rivers statement.
 Land Resources
 The belief that Alaska should re- ceive most if not all of the land sources with statehood was ex- pressed by others before the com mittee three years ago. In reading the testimony of these witnesses, it is apparent that there are two req sons for this belief. r The first of these is simply that Alaska will need these resources as an economic factor in order to make statehood a going concern.
 The second reason is little more involved. but it boils down to some- thing like this: Alaska is now and long has been in the stranglehold of numerous Federal departments and bureaus. Statehood will give us rep resentation in Congress, but it will not give us representation in the Department of the Interior and in the other government departments that make so many of the rules and regulations that actually control our activities and limit our efforts to develop Alaska. In order that we may develop Alaska we must get rid of these bureaus and take con- trol of our own resources.
 The hopes of this group group which retains about all that is left of the pioneer spirit, were raised to a high level by the liberal provisions of H.R. 2O6. But these same high hopes were again undermined by the terms of the present statehood bill, HR. 331.
 It has been asserted that H.R 331 is a Federalized statehood bill designed to retain all present bu- reaucratic controls and perhaps provide new ones. In the next article in this series we will examine the new bill to see what basis, if any there is for this assertion.