tory would change the complexion of the entire Congress. And I am extremely interested in your statement about bringing the chairman and the first ranking member of various committees in. As a matter of fact, I would extend myself for the community of Anchorage and suggest that we would meet half of the cost of doing so throughout the Territory if you could convince the Speaker and minority leader and the rest to come here. What we need, Mr. Chairman, are missionaries. If we could just get across to the Members of the Congress that the fact that we live in a community that is not unlike many communities in upstate New York or Oregon or Idaho or in a dozen other States and that we have streets and drive cars and live in good homes and are intensely interested in a democratic form of government, and that we are reasonably mature people and want democracy here-if we could just get that across to the people in a new way, I am sure we would not have the large number of people existing in the last Congress as being in that gray area of neither convinced that statehood was a bad thing or worth while and, therefore, vacillating between the two opinions. If we could just get that across through your committee and the rest of the people who have been here, we would realize statehood, I am certain, and we ask your assistance in that objective. The second thing I would like to say would be that, as the chairman of the national affairs committee, we have thought long and seriously about the problem of the joint bills and the handling of those bills in Congress. We cannot from this location exercise our prerogatives or our thoughts particularly in that regard. You are close and on the scene. Your chairman, Clair Engle, whom I happen to know personally, is a magnificient person who understands what should be and should not be done. As policy, we are for statehood for Hawaii and Alaska, but as Operation Statehood we are for statehood for Alaska, and we take that particular position. The alternative of omnibus bills in statehood cannot help but remind me when I was in charge of the mess during the last war on a Navy ship that I used to frequently ask various officers if they wanted fillet or tenderloin steak, and when they chose I told them we would have Spam again tonight because there were not really good alternatives. With that I close my testimony, thanking you for coming here and being as diligent as you have been throughout this period. Mr. O'BRIEN. I want to thank you for your statement. I wonder if you would call your group. I understand they are going to speak briefly individually. Then what we might do when they have finished with that is just sort of toss whatever questions we have or spray them, and in answering them when that time arrives, if on each occasion the one who is answering would identify himself for the sake of the young lady taking the record. Mr. PAYNE. I have finished. The next person appearing is Joe Hong, who is appearing on Operation Statehood, a member of the board of directors. STATEMENT OF JOSEPH HONG, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, OPERATION STATEHOOD Mr. HONG. Mr. Chairman, my statement is very brief and with your permission I would like to give it on my feet. My name is Joseph Hong. I am representing the Territorial Junior Chamber of Commerce. I am the national director from Alaska to the national board of directors. As you probably know, the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce is primarily a local community service organization, built upon the local level. There are some issues which the national organization has felt transcend and go beyond the local problems. One of these issues is statehood for Alaska. During the past 4 years the national organization, through its some 3,000 chapters, 200,000 members, located in 48 States, Hawaii, Alaska, and the District of Columbia, have nationally endorsed statehood for Alaska. The national organization has felt that statehood for Alaska is a moral issue, and as a result, although Alaska is not a State, it has granted States rights to the Territorial Junior Chamber of Commerce in this respect: Without the granting of States rights, we would not have the privilege of having a national director sit on the national board. Secondly, we are also included in each national convention and in the rollcall of States. Alaska comes right after Alabma. Mr. Abbott mentioned the enthusiasm possibly which visiting Congressmen engender upon their visits to Alaska. I would like to illustrate this by telling the story of a fellow who is a Member of the House of Representatives in Congress at this time, Congressman Orvin Fjare from Montana. In 1953 Orvin Fjare was one of our 10 national vice presidents. He made a visitation to Alaska, and he told all of the Territorial JC's, at that time he said: "Gentlemen, before I came to Alaska"-this was his first visit "I voted at the national convention and also on the national executive board in favor of statehood for Alaska because I felt that they were morally entitled to it. Now that I have seen Alaska, I can see why I am all the more in favor of statehood and why, after seeing your great resources up here, that you need statehood to develop it." I am very happy for the fact that this committee has had that opportunity to visit Alaska. I do not consider this an ordinary junket. I consider this a very informative session of this committee. I feel, too, that like Congressman Fjare and like the fellow Alaskans here in Alaska, that you believe that we have a moral right to statehood, and now that you have seen Alaska you will be all the more convinced of the fact that we need statehood to achieve that Eskimo definition of Alaska which means "the great land." With your individual help and cooperation, we Alaskans will help bring about that definition of Alaska as "the great land." Thank you. Mr. O'BRIEN. Thank you very much. Mr. PAYNE. The next witness is Hon. Irene Ryan, a member of the legislature. I think she has filed a statement in addition to the one she wishes to give. STATEMENT OF IRENE E. RYAN, MEMBER OF THE ALASKA LEGISLATURE Mrs. RYAN. My name is Irene E. Ryan, 11744 14th. I have been a resident of Alaska for the last 14 years. I have filed a rather lengthy statement, and I have an extra copy here for you. Mr. O'BRIEN. Without objection, it will be made a part of the record. (The statement referred to follows:) STATEMENT OF IRENE E. RYAN Mr. Chairman and honorable members of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee of the United States Congress. My name is Mrs. John E. (Irene) Ryan. I am a member of the Territorial legislature having served in the house during the last session. I am a registered engineer, a housewife, and a mother. We have made Anchorage, Alaska, our home for the past 14 years. I am pleading today for statehood for Alaska. "Mother, may I go out to swim? Yes, my darling daughter, Hang your clothes on a hickory limb, But don't go near the water." This nonsense verse from childhood days points up the relationship and situation of the people of Alaska under the Federal Government. On the one hand we are urged to develop our country, on the other hand you, the Congress of the United States retain to yourselves the tools with which we can accomplish that development. The previous cycles of interest and immigration from the States to this land have all ebbed, taking away from our storehouse of resources without leaving any development or social improvement in the Territory anywhere comparable to the total wealth that has been poured into the United States economy. A conservation policy that locks tight the doors is not the answer. Nor is the granting of special privilege and protection to pressure groups. To compound the difficulties encountered in pioneering and building homes and industries where natural conditions of terrain and climate are difficult the Alaskan citizen is frequently faced with either the lack of enabling laws or the necessity to beg for relief from restrictive laws, rules, regulations, and redtape. He finds his life in continual conflict with the plans of visionaries thousands of miles away or with impositions intended to discourage him which have been subtly introduced into Alaskan Legislature by established interests who do not want to lose their sinecure. In By now you are familiar with our prayers for relief and for assistance on a great many individual and specific problems. All too many of them affect the immediate needs of a country that is standing on the threshold of great economic development. More and more people are knocking at the Land Office doors and entering upon our lands. Major producing and industrial concerns are turning their attention to our oil and minerals, our forests, and power resources. each instance will legislative action come too late? Will the citizen or industry with an honest plan for development be starved out, be forced by economic circumstance to turn back? The answer is not in the hands of Alaska but in yours. The very diverseness and extent of our needs makes the possibility of your giving them all attention remote. Would not granting statehood now be better than piecemeal legislation? "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." James Adams in his Mark of Democracy, remarks: "So long as any portion of our national domain has remained in a Territorial or dependent status, as Alaska, Hawaii, the Phillipines, Porto Rico, and other portions yet do, we have found ourselves forced to govern much as England did in the 18th century. We have declined, as England did, to accord complete self-government, have appointed officials, legislated for and even taxed the inhabitants without their consent, and done many if not most of the things for which we so heavily blamed England." And under a chapter on Modern Imperialism in his Outline of History, H. G. Wells writes: "There has hitherto existed in the States no organization for and no tradition of what one may call nonassimilable possessions. The method of dealing with new territories was based on the idea that there cannot be in the United States system a permanently subject people-Alaska-remained politically undeveloped simply because it has an insufficient population for State organization * * *. It is improbable that either Puerto Rico or the Philippines will become States of the Union. They are more likely to become free states in some comprehensive alliance with both English speaking and Latin America ***. It is the older and more characteristic English tradition from which the Declaration of Independence derives. It sets aside, without discussion, the detestable idea of 'subject peoples.' If the American tradition, if the concept of democracy as accepted and understood by America is not twisted and weakened, what are you, the Members of Congress, going to do in the case of Alaska? Equivocation and compromise are an easy route to follow. Such piecemeal legislation will however point the direction of our destiny. Will "subject peoples' cease to be a detestable idea in the United States? Will the Declaration of Independence have the purity of concept twisted to mean "only those lucky people living between the Atlantic and Pacific, between Canada and Mexico? Will Alaskans be rewarded for their contributions to your world with a permanent "colonial status," remain a “subject people"? What are the alternatives? They are either full participation as a member State or the establishment of an independent state. How can statehood now help Alaska? First of all because it would give us effective participation in the making of those Federal and local laws and policies under which we must live. Second, it would guarantee for us, under that contract the Constitution of the United States, equality of treatment and consideration with any and all of the member States. Third, it would establish for us and let us establish a known, successful, accepted and expected system of laws, rules, and regulations for the orderly development of Alaska. Let me quote briefly. "The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises-but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States. "No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State. "No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another, nor shall vessels bound to, or from one State, be obliged to enter, clear or pay duties to another. "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the Several States. "The United States shall guarantee a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion." Nature bestows her varied and numerous favors on a geographical basis. Communities take root and become a part of the land. Where home is, that is my country is the natural and accepted belief and from that comes the feeling of proprietary interest in the wealth produced from the land. Certainly the area and wealth of Alaska is such that it deserves the same representation in Congress as the other States. The people to settle the land, to develop the resources will come and certainly with greater assurance if they know they will have representation as Alaskans in the making of the laws and policies to be imposed upon them. Special assistance, special laws, and special favors all are rosy but illusive solutions. I regard them with a deep and abiding distrust for the simple reason that the other side of the coin is special discrimination, special ommission, special punishment. Equality of rights, privileges, and consideration as well as burdens is to my thinking the Sự TOMS tank amicitatie ari imperialism The Constitutie that we vearn to embrace. When ta 1pm Liat p wimanning vad stout commonwealth The dictionaries define it simona Amentara defines it as follows: The state, or Commonwealth then se not defined in terms of rights or governm LON 627 the prefer wantwaith, without any further delineation of Art lauv if the intent is to grant some additional batu mader weif government and the election of our own goum Would Congress grant the Commor wea e domain and resources, the fisheries, firs If we would they still be administered by the Federal G. best & their hands under regulations and laws which we cannot ezaz If a line is to be drawn-where draw it? The best. • 2zested that the Federal Government forgive the C. As a Commonwealth would we be in the Union but not of Under the British Commonwealth of Nations are now seven There is no solution to the growing need for self-determinat of Alaska except full statehood or ultimate independence. A forms of government will remain onerous or quickly become heritage is the Declaration of Independence. The idea of an independent state of Alaska is to me alarm.-g-i the slow but inevitable severing of politics, economic, and eter that such a course connotes. We have carried here the yeast of democracy. It permegte As an Alaskan I wish to express my deep and sincere am you. |