STATEMENT OF JOE STEINARD, FAIRBANKS, ALASKA

Mr. STEINARD. My name is Joe Steinard. I am here as a private citizen.

I started out with one explanation and during the run of the meeting have found several loose ends that I honestly believe you gentlemen should know more about.

I first got interested in any of this last spring. The way it happened, it was in a peculiar personal way, but it has wound up now in a publicspirited way.

Here about a year and a half ago there was a public sale at Big Delta for business places, and at that time you specified, you drew sort of a sketch of what you was going to build and where abouts on that particular lot you were going to build, and about how much it was going to cost. You had to turn in all of your financial responsibilities as to your ability to build and so forth. Then, if that was accepted, you had 3 months time to get an operation. If you didn't, no matter how much you had spent, it became the Government's.

This spring I figured I would go out and buy me a truck to haul building material. Just before I left-I don't know where I heard it now, but I heard that they were talking about releasing 150 feet on each side of the Alaska Highway. So I mentioned it in the land office. I said, "If it does happen, I would like to know it as soon as possible because I am not going to build a building that any tractor can move. I am going to build the only concrete fireproof building on the Alaska Highway."

When I come back-I was out longer than I figured on, but when I got back I had a letter from the land office that that bill was going to come up you were talking about, to contact Delegate Bartlett and let him know somebody up here is interested in it. I did. He referred the letter on. He also sent me a copy of the bill and one thing and another. I guess it got as much consideration as it could in the short time it had. But anyway, that is the way it lays today.

Leading up to all this, I am pretty personally interested in that Alaska Highway, and during the war I was placed in charge of all equipment for the United States engineers in Western Canada and the mainland of Alaska to build the highway in Canada, Air Force or anything else the engineers might construct in Alaska. And during that time I walked or drove over or through every inch of that land 50 times. I have been to the end of each trail that shows wheel marks looking for lost or abandoned equipment.

Since the Canadians took that over, I believe May 9, 1946 in Whitehorse, they have had a 20-year program whereby that time instead of it being 2,250 miles from Edmonton to Fairbanks, they are going to make it 1,500 and have it paved.

Up to this time that has been financed directly by 100 percent military money on an average of $11 million a year, and the military takes that out of their appropriation all over Canada to run their expenses which they are cutting lower so they can have that $11 million.

In that time I have seen many, many places we thought was a wonderful road just completely abandoned and as good a highway base laid as there is any place in the States. I won't say it is maintained

smooth, but they are ready for solid bottom. They have cut hundreds of miles out in places.

Now then we come to Alaska. We put a pavement down, but we put it down in a place we don't expect to be there a thousand years from now or 50 years even. We do it the American way. Let's get it down quick because 25 years from now we will put it over here. But that is an expensive way, very expensive. The best way is the right way in the first place.

We have got practically the worst hills, the worst curves, and the biggest hazards between Fairbanks and Big Delta there is any place on the highway, and that is a 300-foot right-of-way. From Big Delta to the Canadian border you are going through, I would say, western North Dakota-Montana territory, rolling hills, flat country. A 150foot right-of-way would be big enough for anything in God's world, but we have a 600-foot right-of-way. For what nobody to this day knows. And right in the middle of that to make a bottleneck is what is known as the Cathedral Bluff repeater station put up by the Army engineers for sale this fall. The land and all the buildings which came within 50 feet of the center line of the highway. There is created a bottleneck right there in that 600 feet. But still the rest of the highway is 600 feet.

My contention is this and I personally put myself out to make three trips this summer up and down that highway talking to the businessmen. How can we afford to put up a building fit to live in or anything else when we don't know but maybe tomorrow somebody is going to build a barn right beside us a hundred and fifty feet in front of us.

Mr. ABBOTT. You understand, of course, do you not, that H. R. 4096 was a bill that was blessed by the Department of the Interior and came about because of recognition of a need for embarking on a general program to reduce the area withdrawn from use?

Mr. STEINARD. That is correct.

Mr. ABBOTT. And that bill has had the committee's blessing and has passed the House?

Mr. STEINARD. What I am saying on this particular one subject is to explain now how important time is right now.

Mr. ABBOTT. You understand and recall that withdrawal was once more than 10 miles on either side of the highway, and Congress at least has been sneaking up on it, reducing it.

Mr. STEINARD. Yes, but that leads up to other subjects that have been brought up here.

I personally don't expect to gain a nickel by 90 percent of the things I argue for in my statement, but the general people.

There is an argument as to where to place responsibility of this street yesterday in Hamilton Acres. I personally know that street. That was built by the United States Army engineers' money in 1943 to let the prime contractor of the pipeline have a camp here at North Camp close to where they were constructing. That was the sole way of communication back and forth to Ladd Field through a wooden bridge they had planked so they could use it for that purpose. In 1947 that wooden bridge was torn out and a steel bridge put in. It was planked so they could use it for that purpose. It was kept open, travelable, all the time every day up to this very day by the Army engineers or what is out there at Ladd Field. That is the

history of that road and it never was put there with the Territory's money but strictly Army money that has never been abandoned by them.

There is another subject that is very dear to me because I believe Alaska some day, no matter how many people in the States don't want it to be a State, I believe it will be.

When you send a young fellow to school you send him there to prepare him for a high-school education. When you send him to high school you send him there for maybe a college or business, but you prepare him all the way. I think personally the time to prepare Alaska is a way, way past. We have got unsurveyed land here, we have got minerals, we have got resources untold because people don't know what they are. But we want statehood.

Supposing we get statehood tomorrow, what have we got to go with it?

Right quick, I don't believe the United States Government could scrape up enough money to properly take care of that statehood, but if these resources were released to Alaska-I am not saying all of them at one time and let them personally get surveyed or somebody get them surveyed, they would become money in the pocket, money that could pay these bills you gentlemen have been asking aboutcan you pay your way?

Don't worry, they could pay their way.

Here is an example of it. How much money has the biggest mining company in Alaska paid toward that school or royalties off of any school section or all the land they have mined? I don't believe it has been very much, only just personal property tax, where I believe they have mined sections out there enough to build every school in Alaska on just the royalties and perpetually keep the schools. We are going to lose that unless you release that land before they are a State.

Let the Territory, let either government, let anybody get in there and survey so we know what we got and establish the school sections before these mineral rights are released to anybody.

Mr. ABBOTT. You understand under the present law, even though inplace school selections are located, and if proved to be mineralized, under present law they could not select them, they would have to make in lieu selections?

Mr. STEINARD. That is true, but there is a lot of jealousy in this
world that never got anybody anything but a headache, and I believe
in the United States and the Territory of Alaska, if anybody wants to
see anybody get ahead, they help them.

Mr. ABBOTT. You have a Delegate, of course, who has emphasized
the very points you are emphasizing, and he perhaps could relate to
you at great length the reaction to some of his efforts to secure min-
eralized sections, and to speed up the survey.
You heard the testi-

mony of those people responsible for the survey?
Mr. STEINARD. That is right.

Mr. ABBOTT. Would it be possible for you to enlarge on your views
in a written statement, Mr. Steinard? We are unfortunately pressed
for time.

Mr. STEINARD. One of them was this: In the 10 years I have been directly interested in Alaska, I find out there is a certain class of people here, if given the opportunity it is pretty hard to equal in their know

how, and their willingness to learn and ability to perform real master jobs if given the chance, and that is the Eskimo. I don't believe that you can go into any town of equal size in the United States-and I mean the whole United States-and find-take a town of 200 population of Eskimos and a town in the States of 200 population, and the chance these Eskimos have had to learn and the chance these people in the States have had to learn, and I don't believe they can hold a candle to them.

Therefore, I would like to see somebody that would have the power, some organization have the power not to just keep throwing these little nickle and dime schoolhouses around, but a real high school in the Eskimo district where they didn't have to keep their whole family and all of their relatives broke paying their transportation back and forth and paying exorbitant room and board; some place where they can get to them to get that real high school education. That is what I would like to see.

What would that lead to?

Well, the Geological Survey cannot find people enought to half man it. Why?

Ninety percent of the employees are college students in the summertime. The first mosquito to stick a horn in them an inch deep, they run. These natives don't run for nobody. They are there. If working close to home doing surveys where land is needed, they are there to do it and will do it summer, winter, or any time.

Mr. O'BRIEN. We are very grateful to you, sir.

Mr. STEINARD. Thank you for your patience.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you, Mr. Steinard.

(Mr. Steinard submitted the following statement:)

My name is Joseph Steinard, a resident of Fairbanks, Alaska, having lived in the Territory for 9 years. Have always been very much interested in the Alaska Highway during the construction and since.

This is a written and itemized statement of the oral information I presented at the committee hearing, here at Fairbanks, Alaska, while your committee was here.

1. ROADS

The Alaska Highway was built primarily for a military highway, with military funds. Now for the past several years it has been maintained with road funds by the road commission. It is my firm belief that the Alaska Highway should be maintained and improved, with military funds, as in case of war, it would be practically useless for civilian use, as it would be overcrowded with military traffic.

In Canada, their part of the highway is maintained and improved 100 percent with military funds, taken a little here and a little there, from all the military funds of Canada, to do the job, amounting to $11 million yearly.

Why the Army shouldn't pay their fair part in maintaining this main highway to and from Alaska, I believe, needs investigating.

2. RIGHT-OF-WAY WIDTH

As it stands now the Alaska Highway is 600 feet wide. Most of the terrain it goes through is fairly level, on both sides of the highway, therefore making 600 feet a farce, as there could be many railroad tracks, 2-land highways, pipelines, and any other items not thought of now, properly placed in a right of way 300 feet. There are many improvements being erected along the highway, but none of a permanent nature, because of the width of the highway. No one dares to invest in a permanent building, because if at a later date more land in front of them should be released, all their funds would be exhausted, building the original permanent-type building, while the land alongside them not built on, anyone could build closer to the highway and therefore obstruct their view and cause them many inconveniences, and loss of income.

There are 3 or 4 town sites, along that portion of the highway that is 600 feet wide. With that extreme width it is causing many inconveniences and unsightly sights at those places because of the portion of the highway laying between the private property and the highway proper. No one wants to properly take care of it, as it belongs to neither but the Interior Department, it is a sort of no-man's land.

At Tok Junction, Forty-Mile, Tanacross, Big Delta, all towns in the process of forming and growing, this 600 foot right-of-way is causing a serious problem.

Less than 30 days ago there was a large townsite scld at auction at Big Delta Junction. The whole town will lay 300 feet from the center line of the highway with 150 feet of that belonging to neither the highway or the private parties, but the Interior Department. Who takes care of it? No one, as it is now.

Why not at least release that portion where there are towns now so that they can plan and properly take care of it, before they are so far along in building and planning for the future that it would disrupt their future for years, as later it would be necessary to revise and change all their plans to include said land. I am not alone in this request to release this land. I have contacted many people along the highway, especially at the above townsites and everyone says they cannot afford to erect decent buildings when to protect their investments it would be necessary to build closer, later when said lands were released, while many said they were planning to build permanent concrete buildings if and when it was released.

I believe more could be done without any cost to the Government, by releasing this land now, than in the future, as now everyone is ready to go ahead and improve it, and with buildings that would be a credit to these towns, instead of the cheap makeshift construction that is being used at the time.

Mr. ABBOTT. The next witness I have listed is Alice Stuart.

STATEMENT OF ALICE STUART, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER OF THE
ALASKA CALENDAR FOR ENGAGEMENTS

Miss STUART. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee and audience, I am here

Mr. ABBOTT. Would you identify yourself for the record, please?
Miss STUART. My name is Alice Stuart, editor and publisher of the
Alaska Calendar for Engagements.

I am here in the interest of another referendum on the statehood
issue. There is diversity of opinion in Alaska on the issue of immedi-
ate statehood, even if divided. Immediate statehood only if kept
together. Commonwealth status even on a permanent basis. Com-
monwealth only a step toward statehood. Or remain temporarily a
Territory for the time being.

I have here a petition. One of them has one title and one another. there are two parts to it.

Fourteen hundred plus names are on this petition. It says:

Let the people of Alaska be heard. We the undersigned citizens of the United States of America and legal residents of the Territory of Alaska respectfully request another Alaska referendum on statehood. We further request that the question be worded very clearly and definitely in an unbiased manner such as "Are you in favor or against immediate statehood for Alaska?

Against."

In favor.

And that would be placed on the ballot for the 1954 Alaska general election, 2 years ago when I started this petition just before the other hearings.

Mr. ABBOTT. You say you have 1,400 signatures?

Miss STUART. There are over 1,400. There are 1,420. Some have gone off. Mr. Rain of the newspaper is no longer on it, and there are a couple of the others have gone.

70587-56-pt. 1-15