is tied up with the definition of which degree of blood relationship is necessary to go into the question of who is a native. I think that is defined under our Indian laws now. But as to defining what these aboriginals' rights are in land is a question which the Congress has avoided, thinking that the Supreme Court was going to settle that for us. Apparently they have not and the time is going to come when we are going to be forced to settle it. I agree with you, it must be settled because the future development of Alaska is dependent upon a settlement of the Indian or native rights.

The other question I think we have already covered with previous witnesses.

Mr. OPLAND. Yes.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Utt?

Mr. UTT. I have no questions.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. McFarland?

Mr. MCFARLAND. I have no questions.

Mr. BARTLETT. Dr. Taylor.

Mr. TAYLOR. I would like to have Mr. Opland elaborate a little bit more on this Kodiak situation. I am not familiar with that subject and I wonder if he could very briefly explain it.

Mr. OPLAND. Briefly, the case was this: The city of Kodiak sought to tax certain land which had been deeded to natives residing in Kodiak and who held their titles under deeds given them by the Department of Land Management which contained provisions restricting both the transfer of those lots and the taxation of those lots by the city of Kodiak. Now the city of Kodiak sought to tax those lots and in order to do so they had to attack the title to those lots, or I should say, the restrictive covenant through which those titles were transferred to the natives. And the only direct attack which could be made at that time, there were several other incidental attacks but the main attack was on the constitutionality of those titles, based (1) upon whether the natives of the city of Kodiak were civilized or uncivilized people, that goes back to the Russian case of 1886 and the treaty of cession and 14 other things, and also upon the ground that since the United States had never definitely declared, that is the Congress, assuming, of course, it is true that Congress has the power to say who is the ward of the United States Government, based upon the fact that the Congress had never stated these are wards.

That went in turn to the question of whether or not they were civilized or uncivilized natives under the old Russian definition. The uncivilized native under the Russian definition was long ago in the case of In Re Annook, decided by Judge Wickersham many years ago, determined to be a ward of the Government by judicial status. That case was never appealed and so far as the courts of Alaska are concerned today that is law.

The uncivilized native, generally speaking the native of the north coast of Alaska, that is the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean coast and the interior native are by judicial decree determined to be wards of the Government. But the civilized native was in the same case of In Re Annook-the civilized or uncivilized status of the native was determined by the status of the tribe under Russian domination. Did he live in a Russian town? Did he act by authority of the Russian town, and did he accept the authority of the Russian orthodox tribe, that is his tribe a whole?

as

This attack, as I say, was turned down by the third division court here. I assume and I believe correctly, the case will go to the United States Court of Appeals to find out whether that decision is or is not

correct.

Mr. TAYLOR. Would you suggest we look further into that when we get into Kodiak?

Mr. OPLAND. I do not believe it is a question of looking into that particular one because that is merely the first time the problem has been raised. It just happened to be raised in Kodiak. It could be raised anywhere where there are these restrictive deeds or other legislation which must of necessity regard the natives as a ward of the Government. It just happened to come up in that particular place. I believe it is just a matter of someone saying, "Look, these people are wards," or "these people are not."

Mr. BARTLETT. Do you recall under what authority of law these restricted deeds were granted to the natives of Kodiak?

Mr. OPLAND. Under what authority of law?

Mr. BARTLETT. Yes.

Mr. OPLAND. 48 United States Code 35, unless my memory serves me wrong.

Mr. BARTLETT. Your memory reminds me of that of our counsel, George Abbott, who is conducting in company with Mr. O'Brien hearings in Anchorage today. He can name every bill and every public law and I think your demonstration is on a par.

Mr. OPLAND. My memory is aided by the fact that I was working as a law clerk for Judge McCarry when he was working on that case. Mr. BARTLETT. What does that particular section contain?

Mr. OPLAND. That contains a statement that when a survey of public lands within a proposed townsite area is made those lots which are found to be occupied by Indian or Eskimo natives of Alaska may be set aside to the native and deeded to him, provided, however, that land so deeded cannot be sold or mortgaged or in any way hypothecated without prior permission of the Secretary of the Interior and further provided this section will in no way lay this land open to

taxation.

Mr. BARTLETT. Was there any covenant in the treaty of cession which might have brought that law about?

Mr. OPLAND. No. In fact that law somewhat flies in the face of the treaty of cession in that it nowhere provides for any differentiation between the "civilized or uncivilized" native. That was one of the main attacks which counsel for the city of Kodiak made.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you.

Mr. Dawson?

Mr. DAWSON. I would like to comment if you were clerk to Judge McCarry when the decision was made I assume you prepared the research. We can therefore assume the decision is correct and the Supreme Court will uphold it. You have therefore probably answered your own question, have you not?

Mr. OPLAND. Oh, if that were only true. I merely raise the question, sir. I do not propose the answer.

Mr. BARTLETT. We will take a short recess.

(A short recess was taken.)

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Allen, would you identify yourself for the record.

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. PFOST. 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. Prost. 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?