STATEMENT OF GRAYSON ALLEN, UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER AND CITY ATTORNEY, CORDOVA, ALASKA

Mr. ALLEN. I am Grayson C. Allen.

Mr. BARTLETT. Do you occupy an official position in Alaska, Mr. Allen?

Mr. ALLEN. Yes; I am United States commissioner and city attorney.

Mr. BARTLETT. Do you have a prepared statement?

Mr. ALLEN. No, sir; I do not.

Mr. BARTLETT. Proceed in your own manner. What is the subject? Mr. ALLEN. The planned subject is mines and minerals. Being a lawyer instead of a miner, I guess my testimony might be somewhat mixed, however.

Mr. DAWSON. We are glad to welcome you as a member of the great fraternity. You just go ahead and we will enjoy ourselves.

Mr. ALLEN. Thank you. Back a good many years ago I was fairly familiar with mining and especially coal, having come from the coal mining region of Kentucky-Pennsylvania-Ohio, in that territory. That was 30 years ago and I have not had much to do with mining since. I might say this: I have been in the Territory only-it is a little more than a year since I came to Alaska.

During the year I have been here, the fine Alaska spirit I met with when I came and the positive determination that I found in the various localities where I have traveled, and that has been pretty well over the Territory, men of such determination and spirit and fortitude that they went about doing things I was so favorably impressed with it that I want to consider myself a permanent Alaskan from now on and fight the battle along with other Alaskans. That is the way I feel about the Territory and my wife feels the same way, so we are here under those conditions.

From the mining viewpoint I noticed this, immediately after my arrival, flying about over the Territory as I did last year, in the course of my work, that there were numerous mineral deposits in Alaska. And I did not know at that time-I have read quite a little bit since, and gathered other information-that there are millions and millions and many millions of dollars worth of wealth locked up in the bosom of the earth in Alaska. There are many different metals and the great coal and oil deposits that we have here. I was just more favorably impressed the more I looked into the future.

So I came to the next question that impressed me adversely, whenever I looked around for heavy industry I did not see any. There is no heavy industry. There are no foundries. There are no steel plants. There are no oil refineries or any of the other things that go to make for as stable and substantial an economy as Alaska should have. It is fringe industry, it is service, is what we see in Anchorage, in Fairbanks, in Juneau, and all the other cities, but nobody is producing the basic commodities that go to make for a stable community. That is what we hope to have in Alaska. That is what we are entitled to, what we should have.

That brings on the risk of capital. Where is the capital coming from to develop these industries? There is plenty of it down in the States and according to the best information I have at present, and

I think it is pretty accurate, there is more than $10 billion now of American capital operating over here in Canada and supporting and developing Canadian industry, mines, oilfields, gasfields, and the great gas mines they are building over there to the distance of as many as 2,500 miles, I believe, at a cost of many millions of dollars everywhere they turn. That is risk capital going into Canada that should be coming here developing Alaska but is not under our conditions.

Well capitalized, they are people who like to invest their funds, yes, they have it available to them and they would come to Alaska and invest it and develop Alaska if Alaska had the chance that it should have and the privileges that those people should have if they come in here and develop and expend their money.

If the laws were relaxed to such an extent-getting back to Mr. Rosswog's question, which is basically mine-if it were a State where men would feel like when they came and invested their millions they were going to have something to say about it and control of the operation of the industries they were fixing to develop instead of coming under merely Territorial status under the adverse conditions that exist here from many viewpoints. We might say transportation is one of the major problems. You produce a large commodity in this locality, you cannot transport it to some other. I noticed that last year, last season particularly, at Palmer. I was interested in that farm development up there. I had followed it very carefully since it started back in the early thirties.

Last year I found it to be that they could produce a great quantity of agricultural products but whenever they produced them they had no way of disposing of it except what was consumed locally. They could not afford to transport anywhere except Anchorage. Pretty soon they supplied the demands for potatoes and other commodities. Then there was no market for the rest of it because it could be bought and shipped from Seattle up here cheaper than it could be freighted from there to any other community.

So all of it everywhere you turn, it gets back to the basic problem of if we were a State of our own, if we had control of our own affairs, risk capital would move in, industry would move in, then thousands more of good substantial determined people would move in and not the floaters who come to gather up a few thousand dollars and do it quick and get back out of Alaska with it. There is a lot of that that has been going on for years, I understand. I have seen a lot in the past year I have been here.

The construction industry, they come. They make lots of money, high wages and expensive living, of course. But they will gather up a large sum of money and take it back to the States where they came from. They did not come with the expectation of staying and becoming citizens. Those kinds are not going to build Alaska or any other place.

But the kind of people that are here, those having been here for a time, and the kind I have found in Cordova, and the reason I believe it so much and I have only been here 3 or 4 months, I have become acquainted with people here and find that fine determined spirit everywhere I turn, everybody goes at it with the spirit of determination. When they start out to do something they do it. That is the way we are operating, but we are practically a one-industry town here as you have heard these other men testify.

The fishing industry is largely the economy of the locality, and it is about all it can be until we get some of these other things.

There is a great coal deposit, enormous coal deposit down here about 80 or 90 miles south of here. There are millions and millions of tons of good coal down there that is wanting to be mined. And what is not consumed in industrial plants and for general fuel purposes otherwise, well, we have the most excellent harbors here for export to ship it away from here into other markets. The same thing with our oil, millions of barrels of oil. It wants to get out so bad it is seeping its way out and we have some in yard seepage, surface seepage.

Mrs. ProST. Do you have oil right in the Cordova area, Mr. Allen? Mr. ALLEN. Not to our immediate knowledge. However, we feel sure it is here. The known deposits down below the pool we do know about.

Mrs. ProST. At Cordova?

Mr. ALLEN. South of here, Katalla, that area.

Mrs. ProST. How far?

Mr. ALLEN. Eighty or ninety miles. The only way to get in and out right now is by air and, of course, by boat. But the most of the supplies taken in and out of that development are being flown in from here.

Mrs. Prost. Do you have coal deposits close to Cordova?

Mr. ALLEN. That is about the nearest, I guess, unless it would be in the mountains back this way, and it has never been explored. There has been no incentive to go into it because there is no possibility of developing it, and as far as I know there has not been any extensive tests made. But it is known down this way, there are some samples of it back on the table, fine rich coal, comparable with West Virginia and Pennsylvania coal in that locality, and very fine clean grade, I understand. What I have seen of it is very beautiful coal.

Mr. TAYLOR. Are there metallic minerals here?

Mr. ALLEN. Not in that immediate area.

Mr. TAYLOR. But there are elsewhere in Alaska?

Mr. ALLEN. North of us here, yes; in the Copper River area, practically everything up in there. The richest copper deposits, I understand, in the world are up there, up in the Kennecott area. We were up there recently and took a look, on a flying trip on a weekend, and where Kennecott moved away and left it and still laying up there is millions of tons of rich copper ore up there and it is said to be, and I think it is true, that there is copper ore up there so rich it is hard to mine. It is so soft that a charge of dynamite or whatever the charge of explosive is that is used to place it out, it just tears out a small hole and does not pull out a great quantity of ore. The ore is so rich and has such a heavy copper content and is so soft and pliable it is really hard to mine in that respect, because of the richness of it.

There is a great quantity of it up there but there is no risk capital going there to get it. It is going to South America and the Malay Peninsula and elsewhere.

Mrs. POST. Is there placer mining around Cordova?

Mr. ALLEN. Not in this immediate area I do not think there is. If there is it is on a very small scale.

Mrs. Prost. Are there any lode gold mines?

Mr. ALLEN. Yes, there are a few small ones but they are not in operation. None in operation. Maybe slightly, but not to any great extent, I do not believe.

Mr. UTT. These properties, are they still owned by Kennecott Copper?

Mr. ALLEN. I understand they are.

Mr. UTT. Are they patented properties?

Mr. ALLEN. I think it is, way back many years ago.

Mr. UTT. Does the Territory have a tax on minerals in place or only upon extraction?

Mr. ALLEN. I am really not sufficiently informed on those things to know. I have only been here a short while and would not be able to answer that question.

Mr. UTT. It would certainly seem to me if there was a tax on minerals in place it would enforce disposition or operation.

Mr. ALLEN. I do not understand that except for the fact it is a very old operation probably patented many years ago. I am sure it was. And they do have title to it. What sort of taxes they have to pay on it, I do not have that information. I wish I did.

Mr. DAWSON. It is my understanding they high-graded that property and took the richest ore; that the ore they have there now is not as rich as the ore they took out. However, they are acquiring additional properties, not only those they already had but surrounding properties, with the thought in mind eventually they are going to start operations again when they figure it is profitable.

Mr. ALLEN. It is my information there is a great quantity of very rich ore up there yet, probably just as good as there ever was. I talked to a couple of young geologists, I believe they were, a month ago. We were up there. And they were of the opinion-I asked a good many questions about the copper deposits, and their information was it was probably as rich as any that had been mined here before.

Mr. DAWSON. It would be profitable now with copper at 50 cents a pound.

Mr. ALLEN. Right. They are getting it out of Canada but there is nobody up here.

Mr. DAWSON. There is no profit in taking gold out of the lode operation with gold frozen at $35 an ounce and wages at the price they are up here now.

Mr. ALLEN. No, and labor conditions as it is. Labor is so high there would be no profit in it. I guess another hampering feature on the development of the copper would be from the labor angle. I understand that was one of the troubles back when they shut the mine down.

Mrs. Prost. How long have you lived in Alaska, Mr. Allen?

Mr. ALLEN. A little more than a year. I just came last year. I have been in Cordova about 3 months.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Dawson?

Mr. DAWSON. No questions.
Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Utt?

Mr. UTT. No quesions.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. McFarland?

Mr. MCFARLAND. No questions.

Mr. BARTLETT. Dr. Taylor?

Mr. TAYLOR. No questions.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you, Mr. Allen.

The next witness, if my colleagues will permit, does not appear on his own motion but mine. You have heard his name mentioned before when Mr. Hansen was testifying. He is an expert on the subject of fisheries. I consider him one of the great men of Alaska, one of the finest men I have ever known in my life.

If you would come forward, Mr. C. Chester Carlson, I am sure the committee would be glad to hear from you.

STATEMENT OF C. CHESTER CARLSON

Mr. CARLSON. Thank you, Delegate Bartlett, for the glowing appraisal of my ability and character. I certainly appreciate that, and the opportunity to say a few words.

I hope that anything I say will not be misconstrued and the committee thinks that I am casting any reflections on the sincerity of their mission.

It has been my opportunity to testify in Congress three different times, once under the late Delegate Dimond on abolition of the fish traps; and another time for a bill that Delegate Bob Bartlett introduced for the same thing, to abolish the fish traps; and another time I testified in relation to the Japanese encroaching on the fisheries in Alaskan waters.

Now a question arises in my mind as to just what good does it do for the ordinary individual Alaskan or anybody else to testify before any committee whether it is here or in Congress. There has been volumes, it seems to me, spoken orally and written, and we have done, I think we have undertaken every method that we could exhaust to convey to the Congress just exactly what we wish.

There has been a referendum vote on the fish traps which carried large. And that, itself, seemed to me should have been explanatory enough to let Congress pass legislation tht has been introduced by our Delegate. But it never got out of committee.

So I just wonder whether it is worth a person's while to even testify here because I know it is worthless to go back to the Congress and even say a word. It is just a waste of time and money and effort. That is my candid opinion. So I say, if you have any questions to ask me, I have been in this country 40 years.

Mr. BARTLETT. What do you do?

Mr. CARLSON. All that time I have been a commercial fisherman. So I will take no more of your time because I know the clock is really rolling around and you must be tired.

Mr. BARTLETT. Red, you have heard these committee members speak and you and I talked about it and agreed they were sincere. What would you have them do in respect to the fisheries?

Mr. CARLSON. That is a big order.

Mr. BARTLETT. Are you for statehood!

Mr. CARLSON. Why, certainly.

Mr. BARTLETT. Do you think that would go some distance in meeting our fisheries problem?

Mr. CARLSON. It should be the direct answer, I would say, if we would have the same authority as is vested in the other States.