does duplicate some of the testimony of the witness, but if you do not think it is fully covered I would almost suggest this be made a part of the file. I certainly think you made out a splendid case for roads. Mr. BARTLETT. Without objection, it is so ordered, and the matter referred to will be included as part of our file on these hearings.

Mr. Urr. How did you acquire the right-of-way of the Kennecott Copper Railroad?

Mr. LEFEVRE. They abandoned the right-of-way and all of their holdings to it. It fell back into the hands of the Bureau of Land Management, and they at one time did sell the rails off of there, but now we have acquired the rails through nonfulfillment of the contract and are using those rails out here now for a lot of steel construction and piling, welding them together, making piling out of them.

Mr. DAWSON. Does that also include the million-dollar bridge? Mr. LEFEVRE. No; the million-dollar bridge is at mile 49. This present contract takes us to 39.

Mr. DAWSON. You are going to cross the million-dollar bridge?
Mr. LEFEVRE. Yes.

Mr. DAWSON. Are you going to have to purchase that?

Mr. LEFEVRE. No; that has all been abandoned. It all belongs to us as I say, Uncle Sam. The whole route, all the way.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. McFarland?

Mr. MCFARLAND. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to tell Mr. LeFevre that Chairman O'Brien has expressed the intention of extracting testimony such as this that is not the direct responsibility of this committee and submitting it to the appropriate committee with such recommendations and comments as are appropriate. I thought you would be interested in knowing that.

Mr. BARTLETT. One question only: Is it not true that the road which you have discussed is now the only important highway being constructed in Alaska?

Mr. LEFEVRE. That is right.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.

Mr. LEFEVRE. Thank you.

Mr. BARTLETT. You made a good statement.

Mr. May, identify yourself.

STATEMENT OF HOWARD E. MAY, MINISTER, CORDOVA, ALASKA

Reverend MAY. Howard E. May. I am a minister and also the administrator of the Cordova Community Hospital. And just recently I was elected president of the Alaska Hospital Association.

Mr. BARTLETT. We will be glad to hear from you on every count. You are a minister of which church?

Reverend MAY. The American Baptist.

Apparently you have had a considerable amount of testimony relative to the mental health bill, so I will only touch on a few points. You understand, of course, that the organic act denies the Territory of Alaska the right to deal with its mentally ill. Secondly, that the bill treats a mentally ill person almost as a criminal, as related by Attorney Opland a while back.

Thirdly, because of these two facts, the Territory has no facilities for handling its own mentally ill in terms of those who need commit

ments; they must be sent stateside. Along with that, of course, because we lack facilities we also lack the professional people to deal with mental illness even in its preventive stage. These are some of the objections, I think, that arise from the present organic act.

As to the conditions that exist of being a frontier community, particularly our smaller communities, we have, shall we say, a large number of people who come into our communities under emotional stress and tensions, perhaps in some cases running away from problems that already exist. They arrive here hoping to find some relief from their problems. They do not find it. They have breakdowns. And then we are involved with the problem of what to do with them. We cannot care for them. We can only commit them.

Secondly, we also have quite a large number, I would say, of families that are relatively unstable, families with children. Parents may neglect their children because of alcoholism or because of excessive running around or simply out of ignorance or lack of concern. Nevertheless, the situation exists here as it does everywhere else. It is reflected somewhat in our schools. The schools have problems with some children. So do the churches. So does the community. What are we to do with the children?

In many cases they need expert care but there is no expert care available to us or has not been in prior years. A year or so ago there was one mental health team of experts established in the Territory. Another is proposed. That is a beginning to establish a mental-health program in the Territory, and that is all to the good.

There seems to be some relief available to us in the very near future in terms of the pending bill in Congress. I have read the Senate bill version which I understand is close if not exactly the same. As near as I can see from reading the bill, it provides the things which we do need, the turning over of the responsibility to the Territory, the providing of both land and money with which to get us some facilities for operating, and I think it is our responsibility as a Territory to go ahead and set up the program. But until the authority is given us so to do there is not very much we can do.

Succinctly stated, I think that is our position. We are very eager to have substantially this bill passed so that we can get going on the problem that confronts us.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you.

Mrs. Pfost?

Mrs. PrOST. I am sure, Mr. May, you are well aware that this committee did pass the mental-health bill and we hope it will be brought to the floor of the House early next session and acted upon favorably. As you know it is before the Rules Committee. I, for one, certainly heartily supported the mental-health bill. And since we have been in the Territory of Alaska, we have had brought to our attention very forcibly the very great need for mental hospitals and possibly that of opening up at least some of the beds that are now idle in the Ancorage hospital. In some instances you are already equipped to care for your mentally ill if granted the authority to do so.

I want to compliment you upon a very fine and precise statement. Mr. DAWSON. I would like to say we are all supporting the mentalhealth bill.

Mr. UTT. I might say we have taken volumes of testimony on this and it is cumulative. We are glad to have it and compliment you on your presentation of it and assure you this committee will do the best it can to enact that resolution into law.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. McFarland?
Mr. MCFARLAND. No questions.

Mr. BARTLETT. Dr. Taylor?

Mr. TAYLOR. I spoke with Reverend May briefly before the meeting got underway, and we talked over some of the proposed changes in the bill he has before him. He is going to contact us and get a copy of the reported bill and its report because in October he is going to the Territorial session on mental health. The reported bill and report will prepare him to a greater extent than he already is.

Mr. BARTLETT. It may be that I would have a copy of both of those documents in Anchorage and, if so, I will send them to you directly. Reverend MAY. That would be fine.

Mr. BARTLETT. I should add here, too, that Mrs. Edith Green, author of the bill which was reported to the House, was with us until a couple of days ago in Anchorage and she was required then to leave for the States. She and Mr. O'Brien, our chairman, introduced identical bills and it just happened that hers was the one that was considered. Mrs. Green, as you know, is a Democrat. The bill came up to the House as an executive communication from the administration, which as you know is Republican. I mention the political atmosphere there only to indicate to everyone that this bill has the support of both political parties and as a consequence we are hopeful it will not take so long to enact it as it does bills relating to fish traps.

Thank you very much.

Reverend MAY. Thank you.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Roark, please. If you would please state your

name.

STATEMENT OF MARVIN P. ROARK, CORDOVA, ALASKA

Mr. ROARK. Marvin Roark, resident of Cordova for 30 years.
Mr. BARTLETT. Are you in business here?

Mr. ROARK. I am in the insurance business here now, formerly United States commissioner and various city positions.

Mr. BARTLETT. I understand you are going to tell us something about land problems.

Mr. ROARK. One of our principal land problems, being within the national forests, as you may or may not know, there is only a limitation of approximately a mile and a half radius from the town for the growth of the town that is eliminated from the national forest preserve. This is a resulting handicap to the people who may wish to establish homes along the roads outside of town. The Forestry Department's procedure of renting small tracts on this use permit, practically a rental, may seem very reasonable and afford people a way to build a cheap hunting cabin or a little summer home at very little

expense.

There are increasing numbers of families interested in building permanent homes out along the roads or perhaps commercial structures at greater costs. When they are unable to show title to the land

or assurance of being able to get title within a reasonable time, they are unable to secure financing from most any agency, Government or otherwise.

Further, if this obstacle is surmounted and improvements are completed and later it is necessary to sell, they are again handicapped as value without title to land is materially reduced.

Another matter of vital importance to prospective settlers almost anywhere in Alaska is the lack of surveys. It is common knowledge here that small plots of land adjoining Cordova, formerly held by the Copper River Northwestern Railway, since returned to the public domain-these are inside the elimination from the forest reserve so we cannot blame the forestry for that-and on which individuals have had homes for from 25 to 40 years, were applied for, title was applied for by these people as much as 15 years ago but surveys have only been made within the last 2 years. Now they have hopes of eventually getting title.

This is in no sense meant as criticism of the agency which does the surveying, but the lack of funds furnished them with which to do their work. We feel that with the vast unsurveyed areas in Alaska at present that a definitely larger appropriation or allocation of funds should be made to this work of surveying.

Another one of the individual problems particularly facing the town of Cordova as a municipality just now is a matter of title to some 20 acres of land adjacent to town formerly held by the railroad and later by the Army on which there were a number of large buildings, big warehouse building, carpenter shop, office building, and various other buildings, which the town acquired from the War Assets Administration. They purchased the buildings from the War Assets Administration for $2,000 with the promise later on when the land was turned over to them the town would have first priority to buy the land. I should say "correction" there. The buildings were bought from the War Assets at a cost of $6,000.

Later, in 1939, I believe, the War Assets informed the town they were ready to furnish deed to the land for $2,000, which the town paid. The War Assets Administration furnished a somewhat vague quitclaim deed which describes a piece of land that is supposed to be the piece we attempted to buy, but on examination of the deed we find that it is a line that goes out somewhere and stops and does not come back to the point of beginning. So it is a very questionable title.

Now the Bureau of Land Management says WAA, War Assets, did not own this land and had no right to sell it to the town. However, the Bureau of Land Management will allow the town to repurchase from them whatever portion of the tract they may consider allowable to the town.

We suppose we will have to impose on our good friend and Delegate Bob Bartlett to introduce a bill in Congress to attempt to get a refund of our $2,000 we paid the War Assets Administration in good faith for this land which they apparently did not own. Or perhaps another method would be to institute a civil or criminal suit against the now defunct War Assets Administration for obtaining money under false pretenses.

I do not know that I have anything further.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you, Mr. Roark.
Mrs. Pfost, do you have any questions?
Mrs. ProST. No questions.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Dawson?

Mr. DAWSON. Just on the survey question, there has been a half million dollars increase in appropriations to speed up these surveys which will be spent primarily in Alaska and in Utah. My colleague says, "What do you mean"? I say, for this reason: There are only the 2 States-Utah and Alaska are the only 2 areas that have an acute problem. The State of Utah, we have had a urnium rush down there and the State now has title to a little over a million acres of land, or will have when the surveys can be completed, of lands which are supposed to go to the schools. Over 10 million acres remain un

surveyed.

Alaska has the same problem. And those two were the only distress areas as far as the surveys were concerned. So you will find these surveys are going to be speeded up starting last year and through this year and the next few years on, we hope.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Utt?

Mr. UTT. No questions.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. McFarland?
Mr. MCFARLAND. No questions.

Mr. UTT. I would like to say one thing.

The problems like those presented will prompt your Delegate to stay loaded up every time he comes down to Congress and puts in about 100 bills, about half of them for little deals, like are being presented here. And he is so very capable in going around and getting votes. He has more votes than any other single Congressman. Mr. ROARK. We certainly appreciate the work of our Congress. Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you, Mr. Utt.

Mr. DAWSON. Mr. Chairman. A Mr. Kendall, in yesterday's testimony made some statements at the concluding portion of his statement which were derogatory to a member of this committee and I ask unanimous consent that those portions of his remarks be stricken from the record.

Mr. BARTLETT. Since the remarks were derogatory of me and since I have no objection at all to their appearing in print, coming from Mr. Kendall, I hope you will reserve your request. I do not mind a bit. Mr. Kendall is entitled to say anything he cares to say about

me.

Mr. UTT. Regardless of whether Mr. Kendall, or who it is, or what member of this committee, this committee is not sitting here or any other place to be criticized as individual members and I resent the criticism that he made and if I had been present or if I am ever present again when such an individual attack is made I will demand withdrawal of the words and also the exclusion of the witness that conducts himself in that manner.

Mr. DAWSON. I would say it is very gracious of you, Bob, not to request to have it withdrawn. I think it was entirely out of order. It was made when the witness was up from his seat and walking from the hall and I think it has no part in this record. Over your objection I still insist we have unanimous consent to strike it from the record.