The Daily Alaska empire., 1951-12-27
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 trial Organizations or have been as- sociated in one way or another with the CIO.
 And the CIO has emphatically ] supported the extension, rather than the reduction, of National Forests throughout the country.
 This was made clear in the state hood hearing testimony of Anthony 1 w. Smith, staff lawyer for the na- tional CIO committee on Regional Development and Conservation. 1 MT. Smith told the Interior and Insular Affairs committee. we think that it is imperative that the areas now in national forests in AL aska be retained in national forests It is in the interest of the people of Alaska and the people of the ! country as whole that the national forests be retained as they are now
 "As a matter of fact" MT. Smith went on, "it has been our position that Federal timberland should re- main under Federal ownership. We have opposed in general the turning over of any Federal timberland tc the states because it has been our experience that the pressures on State legislatures are so great that they are not resisted."
 MT. Smith, speaking for the CIO endorsed the Alaska statehood bill so long as the National Forests are 1; protected.
 I! Maybe the Panhandle Democrats | are not trying to alienate the vote of Senator Anderson and the SUD- port of the CIO for statehood, but if they are not they are going about it in an unusual manner. When a number of witnesses al various statehood hearings assert ed that the bills did not grant Al , aska enough of the lands and re- sources they were loudly belaborec from the statehood camp and accus- ed of trying to kill the bill witt kindness. The shoe seems to fiji i this resolution.
 When The Resolution was intro | duced, MT. w. c. Stump of Ketchi- kan, a delegate to the convention and member of the Alaska Devel- ! opment Board, remarked that nc criticism of the Forest Service wa. intended.
 1 But, said MT. Stump, only by get ting the forests under the control o1 the new State of Alaska can tho people of Alaska benefit from them
 That statement seems open tc question. The statehood bills now before Congress provide that Alaska shall receive 371a percent of the revenues derived from the Nationa Forests in Alaska.
 Forty-four of the AS states have National Forests. Some of them have greater areas in National Forests than does Alaska, and most of them receive only 25 percent of the reven- ues from those forests.
 It Appears Certain that if the for est resolution was not actually ord ; cred up by Governor Gruening, il was concocted by those close enough to him that it amounts to the same thing.
 Dr. Gruening has been taking poi shots at the Forest Service fol some time and when he has not actually pulled the trigger himself he has persuaded a couple of his captive newspapers to do it for him Partly this shooting seems to be personal ire. It may also be one o1 the battles in the internecine war fare that has long been carried or 1 between the Interior and Agricul- ture Departments.
 Now that the governor has drawn the Democratic Party, or at least a portion of it, into the fray, there is no telling where it will end. One thing is quite clear. The re- solution adopted at Sitka repre- sents complete reversal of Demo- cratic administration policy regard ing National Forests.
 In the past 18 years, this admins tration has added some seventeen million acres to the National Forests of the nation and, so far as the re- cords show, has not subtracted any sizeable acreage from those forests.