The Daily Alaska empire., 1951-05-12


 vacant, unappropriated and unre. served public lands" and all ol them shall be primarily valuable for uses other than timber or min erai production"
 Additionally, any lands so; sel. ected would have to be approved by the Secretary of Agriculture ol the Secretary of the Interior.
 Then the new state would gel 5OO,0O0 acres for legislative, execu. tive and judicial public buildings 100000 acres for insane asyiunst 100000 acres for penitennaries 100000 acres for schools for tht deaf, dumb and blind: 500,OOO acres for normal schools; 100000 acre. for charitable, penal and reform atory institutions; 250,00O acres fol homes for pioneer residents anc 800, ,O00 acres for the University ol Alaska.
 These grants would be from wa, cant, unappropriated and unreser. yed public lands" They could no, interfere with existing government reservations or homestead or min. eral claims.
 All of these grants total 2,950,00( acres, which is less than one per. cent of the total area of Alaska
 Five years after the admission of Alaska as a state it could, undei the terms of the bill, secure moi to exceed twenty million addition al acres. Provided, that is, that il could find, such an area not al. ready occupied by some kind o1 government reservation. road. ane railroad rights of way, { private homesteads or mineral claims, oi some other sort of claim. ... Alaska could, then, get a maxi, mum of around 23,000,OoO acres o land, or just over six percent o1 the total land within it's boundar. ies, That is, incidentally, approx. imately equal to the area of $puth. east Alaska, although little of lanc would be in that area because il is largely occupied by Tongass Ma tional Forest.
 It is. also, approximately tht same number of acres that the Fed. eral government has granted t( the State of Florida. But in Florida the grants equal about TO percen of the total area of the state.
 Apparently that is all the lane Alaska could ever get in Fedora grants. For the bill provides that in order to get any of these lands said State and it's people do agree and declare that they forever dis claim all right and ., title to any lands or other property not granted and confirmed. to the State or its political subdivisions by or under authority of this Act"
 And on top of that, under this bill, ;AAskanss would forever dis. claim siall right and little to any lands or other property, including fishing rights. the right or title to which may be held by any In dians, Eskimos or Aleuts.
 What this amounts to, then, is that Alaskans, in return for con- trol of a maximum of six percent of the lands would give quit clain l for the remainder of them. > Much has been said about tht admission of Alaska on a basis O equality with other states of th' Union. 1. .aa
 There is little in this bill tha provides equality with the last two states admitted, Arizona and Nev Mexico, for example. Arizona re. ceived Federal grants of nearly | percent of her land area. New Mexico was granted over 16 per. cent of her land area.
 Since, by all reports, there i' little chance for the present state hood bill to be enacted by thi! Congress, there is ample time fol the Alaska Statehood Committee to draft new bill that would givt Alaska control lofslher fishsriss, hel wildlife, a major portion of hel minerals and other resources, ant an equitable part of her public lands.