ernest gruening
Governor Gruening visiting medical personnel in the Aleutian Islands, ‒. No number.
Ernest Gruening Alaska’s Greatest Governor
Claus-M. Naske
university of alaska press fairbanks
© University of Alaska Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America. University of Alaska Press P.O. Box Fairbanks, AK - () - () -
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This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z.-.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Naske, Claus-M. Ernest Gruening : Alaska’s greatest governor / Claus-M. Naske. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN --- (paper) ISBN --- (cloth) . Gruening, Ernest, –. . Legislators—United States—Biography. . United States. Congress. Senate—Biography. . Governors—Alaska—Biography. . Alaska— Politics and government—–. . Alaska—Politics and government—– I. Title. E.G N .’’—dc
Cover design: Mike Kirk Interior design: Rachel Fudge
For George Sundborg who lived this history, played an important part in it, and generously shared his insights and recollections
Contents List of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Chapter Gruening’s Life and Career Before Alaska . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter North to the Governorship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Proposed Resettlement of European Refugees in Alaska . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter A Matter of Taxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Arming Alaska. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter The North and War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Censorship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Alaska War Council. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter The Alaska Highway, the Aleutian Campaign, and the End of the War in Alaska . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter The Tax Battle Continues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter The Struggle for Reconfirmation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter The Creation of a Modern Tax System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter The Statehood Issue: to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter The End of the Governorship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter The Battle Continues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Lobbying for Statehood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter A U.S. Senator at Last. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Running for a Six-Year Term . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Conservation Battles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Gruening and Alaska Native Claims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter The Vietnam Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter The Last Campaign for the Senate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Illustrations All photos and illustrations are from the Ernest Gruening Collection, Alaska and Polar Regions Department, Archives, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks. Frontispiece: Governor Gruening visiting medical personnel in the Aleutians . Dorothy Gruening . The Order of the Aztec Eagle . The delegation to Montevideo, Uruguay, . Letter from Cordell Hull to Gruening, December . Cartoon from El Diluvio, San Juan, Puerto Rico, . Black, Gruening, and four young Hawaiian men on Howland Island, . Black and Gruening on Howland Island, . Commemorating Amelia Earhart on Howland Island, . Amelia Earhart Lighthouse on Howland Island after completion, late s . Marker on Phoenix Island . Cover of El Florete, San Juan, Puerto Rico, . Warren G. Magnuson and Gruening discussing the Alaska highway . Gruening sworn in as governor of Alaska, December , . Governor Gruening signing the pro-statehood resolution . Governor’s dinner in Anchorage, . Territorial Governor Gruening on the cover of Time, June . Governors of the Western States meeting in Salt Lake City, November . Department of the Interior representatives headquartered in Alaska . Generals Alfred M. Gruenther and Dwight D. Eisenhower visit Alaska . Forty governors standing in a map of the United States . The Gruenings’ Christmas card from . Peter and Nancy Gruening . Gruening at the Democratic National Convention, Chicago, . Celebrating the passage of the statehood bill, . Celebrating the passage of the statehood bill in the Senate . Eisenhower signing the statehood proclamation, January , . The new flag unfurled in the White House, . President-elect John F. Kennedy with Alaska’s senators, . Signatures of Alaska’s house and senate and U.S. congressional delegation . Former President Truman congratulates Gruening,
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Freshmen senators of the Eighty-sixth Congress Senators Alan Bible, Oren E. Long, and Gruening, The Gruenings with the ambassador from Israel and his wife Gruening, Warren A. Taylor, and George Sundborg, Gruening and Ted Stevens Gruening on a visit to Rampart Canyon on the Yukon River Meeting in the White House after the Alaska earthquake, Vice-president Hubert H. Humphrey and Senator Gruening, Gruening with his book The Battle for Alaska Statehood Gruening at the South Pole, Antarctica, Gruening and Senator Jennings Randolph in Cartago, Costa Rica, Senator Wayne Morse, late s Senator Gruening addressing a rally on Vietnam Gruening addressing students at UCLA on Vietnam, Gruening with his interns Gruening signing his campaign biography, Gruening of Alaska Reelection campaign poster, Dr. Lawrence Irving and Gruening, The Margaret Sanger Award in Public Service, awarded to Gruening in
Acknowledgments
M
y interest in ernest gruening (pronounced Green-ing) goes back a good many years. I met him when he was governor during territorial days, and encountered him frequently thereafter. My involvement in northern politics led to a doctoral dissertation on the Alaska statehood movement; Gruening was one of the leaders of that movement. In , the University of Alaska Press published my biography of E. L. “Bob” Bartlett, a close Gruening associate. The two men had represented Alaska in the U.S. Senate after statehood. Their careers ended in , Bartlett’s by death and Gruening’s by defeat in the primary campaign. In , then–state Senator George Hohman (D-Bethel) was instrumental in procuring a grant for me to prepare a study of Gruening’s career as territorial governor. I took a year’s leave of absence from my duties at the University of Alaska Fairbanks to research and write that technical report, which I completed in and submitted to the Alaska State Library. For years, I fiddled with the technical report and eventually rewrote it into a book—this book—including certain aspects of Gruening’s Senate career. I thank the many good folks and friends who gave their valued assistance in completing this project. Archivists at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library at Hyde Park, New York, and Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri, were unfailingly courteous and helpful. The custodians of the Harold L. Ickes and Julius A. “Cap” Krug papers in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress made my work there thoroughly enjoyable. The National Archives contain a wealth of material dealing with Alaska’s past; there, Kenneth Heger, archivist in the Scientific, Economic, and Natural Resources Branch, Civil Archives Division, helped locate needed materials as did Robert M. Kvasnicka, the assistant chief of that division. Finally, Franklin W. Burch, chief of the division, has been helpful in numerous ways for many years. The archives at the University of Alaska Fairbanks contain untold riches. I used the approximately cubic feet of the Ernest Gruening Collection as the main source for the study. Also very helpful were the E. L. Bartlett and Anthony J. Dimond papers in the same depository. Various archivists there helped me substantially over the years, including Paul McCarthy, Renee Blahuta, and Pauline Gunter. Numerous friends and colleagues read either portions or the entirety of various drafts of the manuscript, including Ted C. Hinckley, Morgan Sherwood, Orlando Miller, George Sundborg, Robert N. DeArmond, George W. Rogers, Gordon Harrison, Carlos Schwantes, Alfred Runte, William R. Hunt, Terrence Cole, Gerald A.
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McBeath, Cornell Clayton, and William R. Morrison. Their comments and suggestions helped shape the manuscript. Finally, I thank Sheri Layral, the former administrative assistant of the department of history, who typed the manuscript and revised it on numerous occasions. She alerted me to duplicate footnotes, inconsistencies in chronology, and spelling mistakes. Shea Burgess took over where Sheri left off. I thank Julia Parzick and Don Davis for their good work in helping finish the project. Any mistakes of fact or interpretation remain the author’s responsibility.
Introduction
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n july 13, 1972, while attending the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida, Ernest Gruening fell ill. He was rushed to the hospital, where he underwent a five-and-a-half-hour operation to remove an intestinal tumor. The diagnosis was colon cancer. On August , still in the hospital recovering from the surgery, he wrote to his wife, Dorothy (Figure ), that while “not hearing your voice every day is a deprivation,” it was “nevertheless a wise economy to suspend our phone calls in view of our financial situation.” He told his wife that he had made substantial improvement and, if the attending physician was correct, he should be on his way home in about two weeks. While hospitalized, he wrote Dorothy, he had much time to think. The thought that “overwhelms me is how lucky I have been all these years to have the most wonderful wife in the world. I love you, love you, love you, darling.” He was impatient, writing he could “hardly wait our coming together again, dearest heart.” This note from an affectionate husband revealed a warm but private side of a multifaceted public figure. A couple of years later, on June , , the Washington Post reported that on the previous day, at : p.m., Ernest Gruening had died at Doctor’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., where he had been undergoing treatment for cancer of the colon. Obituaries, in both Alaska and elsewhere, commented at length about the former newspaperman, New Deal administrator, territorial governor, and U.S. senator. C. Robert Zelnick, a close Gruening associate, said that in the spring of doctors predicted that Gruening had only six to eight months to live. “The old man rejected the offer,” Zelnick recounted. “Gruening lived life on his own terms—all years of it. And he died on his own terms, too—quickly, quietly, and with grace and dignity.” Zelnick remembered an old Hebrew Passover song that commemorates the deliverance of the Jews from slavery. The song of thanks is called “Dayanu,” which means “it would have been sufficient.” If the Lord had merely led the Jews out of Egypt, or given them his law, any one of these acts alone “would have been sufficient.” Likewise, Zelnick said, it “would have been sufficient” if Gruening had “simply been a brilliant writer and editor.” Both Gruening’s many friends and his many enemies had to admit that he had been a remarkable man, with incredible reservoirs of energy that he summoned up time and again for new battles. His death ended the long life of a public servant remarkable for its diversity, creativity, and achievement. Columnists Jack W. Germond and Jules Whitcover pointed out that in Washington, D.C., “the word
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‘great’ was thrown around with abandon to describe some of the champion hacks of our time.” However, they felt that in Gruening’s case, “great” was a tribute worthy of the old man from Alaska. As they explained, Gruening had begun his Senate career when he was seventy-two years old, an age “when most politicians are hanging up their spikes [sic] and retiring on a fat government pension.” On the national scene, Gruening is best remembered for his ten years in the U.S. Senate, from to , when he found himself in the forefront of every major issue of the age, ranging from birth control to civil rights. He was one of the first and loudest opponents of the war in Vietnam, and he and Senator Figure . Dorothy Gruening. No number. Wayne Morse (D-Ore.) cast a courageous vote against the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in . A critic once said that Gruening was “one of the few public officials whose image stands tall with the generation that swore by Franklin D. Roosevelt and, with their children, swore at the Vietnamese War Presidents.” Though defeated in his reelection bid to the Senate in , Gruening fought on until the end of his life. In his last years he devoted much time and energy to writing his autobiography, published in under a most appropriate title: Many Battles. Although Gruening’s career in the U.S. Senate is now the best-remembered period of his life, he had many others. He started out as a newspaperman, served as managing editor on several newspapers, did a brief stint in the federal government, and joined the U.S. Army. After his discharge, he continued his newspaper career and became an expert on Mexico. In , the Roosevelt administration appointed him the first director of the newly created Division of Territories and Island Possessions. In , the president appointed Gruening governor of Alaska. He was fifty-two years of age and physically and mentally vigorous. It was his position as governor of the northern territory that was to be the crowning achievement of his long and distinguished career. Jack E. Eblen, a student of territorial government, has stated that the job of territorial governor was a difficult one in “which success might assure a bright future, and failure, oblivion.” Territorial governors symbolized an often-detested system of colonial government, and they had very limited powers. A governor’s ability to adapt and succeed in office, Eblen asserted, could be “measured roughly by the length of his tenure.” It took an unusually capable man to be effective, either as a leader or as an administrator. Gruening held office for more than thirteen years, from to .
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Only Benjamin F. Pott, governor of Montana from to , equaled that. Only two U.S. territorial governors, as it turned out, served terms longer than Gruening’s thirteen years and four months (Lewis Cass of Michigan served eighteen years, from to ; Arthur St. Clair of the Northwest Territory served fourteen years, from to ). Most governors held office only a year or two on average. Perhaps most important, of those governors with lengthy service, only Gruening presided over a complex and difficult territory during a crucial period in its development. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had been a senior at Harvard University when Gruening was a freshman, had appointed him adviser to the U.S. delegation to the Seventh International Conference of American States at Montevideo, Uruguay. The following summer, as a reward for his performance at Montevideo, Roosevelt appointed Gruening director of the newly created Division of Territories and Island Possessions in the Department of the Interior, charged with administering Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii, and the Virgin Islands. In , the President added to Gruening’s responsibilities, by appointing him to a second job as director of the Puerto Rican Reconstruction Administration. Gruening did not distinguish himself, particularly in his second job. He also incurred the displeasure of his boss, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, for routinely using his access to the Oval Office to circumvent Ickes’s authority to decide questions of Puerto Rican policy. By , Ickes was thoroughly fed up with his subordinate and planned to terminate him. The president did not want to fire his appointee; instead, he proposed that Gruening be appointed governor of Alaska. Ickes was pleased with the appointment, and so, on September , Roosevelt made Gruening governor of Alaska. Gruening declined the honor, realizing that it was the equivalent of exile to Siberia. The president, however, told him, “I think you ought to go.” He had no choice but to accept. The president then charged Gruening with modernizing the Alaska territory. At the end of , Gruening, an urbane, Harvard-educated physician and journalist with a national reputation, arrived in rainy and isolated Juneau, which was Alaska’s capital with a population of fewer than six thousand. He was determined to prove to the president his capabilities as an administrator and leader. As director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions for nearly five years, he had visited Alaska only twice and had few firm ideas on the issues he would have to deal with in his new post. On his visits, however, he had noticed that Alaska lacked a tax system that would allow it to derive income from the export of its raw materials. In , Gruening found that Alaska’s citizens numbered slightly over seventy thousand and the population exceeded one thousand in only seven territorial cities. Less than twenty-five hundred miles of public highways connected some of the towns and settlements, while most had no road connection at all and could only be reached by air, sea, or river transportation. The Jones Act prohibited supplying Alaska from the cheaper Canadian ports of Prince Rupert or Vancouver, granting Seattle’s shipping industry a monopoly on transporting goods to Alaska. During the Wilson and Harding administrations, the federal government had spent about
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million building the Alaska Railroad from Seward on tidewater to the interior city of Fairbanks, a distance of miles. Gruening found that the canned salmon industry and mining, both seasonal activities, constituted the core of Alaska’s economy. Outside capital controlled both industries, and lobbyists who represented these interests—and who wanted to maintain the territory’s very inadequate tax system—dominated the legislature, particularly the eight-member senate. Only in had Congress given Alaska an elected legislature with severely restricted powers. Apportionment for its members was based on the four judicial divisions, rather than population. Thus, the lobby controlled most senators of the eight-member body. Territorial governors had traditionally served as chief representatives of the federal bureaucracy, not as active participants in Alaska’s day-to-day political activities. Gruening found that, over the years, territorial legislatures had expanded gubernatorial duties by creating a system of government boards that were mostly chaired by the governor. Thus, the governor found that he chaired the Board of Administration as well as nine others. There were two types of boards when Gruening assumed office—namely those whose members the governor appointed, subject to legislative confirmation, and those whose members were elected territorial officials. Gruening quickly discovered that under this system, devised to reign in the toobroad executive powers of Washington-appointed governors, Alaska’s chief executive could only persuade. The new governor soon became involved in various issues he thought important. The navy had begun constructing leases at Sitka and Kodiak, with another to be located at Dutch Harbor. The navy had concluded a contract for hiring labor with a Washington State contracting firm and numerous American Federation of Labor (AFL) building trade unions in Seattle. The contract virtually excluded the Alaskan workforce, including paid transportation to and from the work sites. Gruening questioned the contractor and the navy, fruitlessly, and thereupon took his case to the nation’s capital, where he presented it to the Secretary of the Navy, Charles Edison, who directed that Alaskan labor be treated on a basis of equality. In Sitka, the governor found the municipal government practically helpless to deal with the prosperity that the new naval air station brought to the town. There was a dire lack of streets and sewers, so contractors built houses on unstable muskeg. The city had taken in only , in revenues during the year that had just ended, including assessments from real estate, personal property, licenses, and fees. The governor asked the mayor to immediately hire a competent assessor to evaluate property adequately. W. P. Mills, an elderly entrepreneur, had a monopoly on the city light and water services. He also owned the cold storage plant “and much else, including, as it turned out, a majority of the city fathers.” Apparently, Mills had been given a fiftyyear franchise at an earlier date, but the document could not be found. Mills did give the city a free, or reduced, electricity rate. There were many other problems, one of which was that the power plant paid no taxes. Eventually, Congress passed legislation
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that allowed Sitka to issue bonds in excess of the congressional statutory limit of ,. Sitka voters approved the bond sale and Mills’s property became a public utility. During his first year as governor, Gruening visited numerous communities to evaluate their needs. He obviously had decided to act like the governor of a state, and therefore adopted an activist approach to his duties. Before Gruening arrived in Alaska, war had broken out in Europe when German armies invaded Poland on September , . On September , England and France declared war on Germany. The Second World War had begun. Poland quickly collapsed. Alaska’s delegate to Congress, Anthony J. Dimond, had complained about Alaska’s military unpreparedness for years. In , Dimond and Gruening testified before the House Subcommittee on Appropriations in favor of building a military base north of Anchorage. Despite War Department approval, the committee refused the funds. Gruening asked that the subcommittee reconsider its action, and he, along with General George C. Marshall, the deputy chief of staff of the army, Major General H. H. Arnold, chief of the Army Air Corps, and Delegate Dimond testified again. Again the subcommittee refused to appropriate the money, but before the hearings concluded on May , , the German air force had bombed Rotterdam, and German armies had seized the Netherlands, stormed through Belgium, and begun the invasion of France. The situation had changed drastically. The Senate restored the funds and the House concurred. Thus, construction started on both Fort Richardson Army Base and Elmendorf Air Force Base. Other bases followed. Many other problems faced the territory—for example, the high freight rates on steamers supplying Alaska from Seattle. Eventually, the United States Maritime Commission agreed to investigate. Hearings began in Juneau, and the governor asked lawyer Mildred Hermann, a public-spirited woman, to report them every evening on the radio. Gruening had started his campaign to identify absentee owners as the villains in Alaska’s high living costs and lack of economic development. The hearings revealed that freight rates to Alaska were needlessly high and recent increases unjustified. The commission, however, failed to act. Gruening also found that steamship companies paid no territorial taxes and neither did a host of other businesses, including airlines, lighterage companies, and light and power companies, among others. They all merely paid nominal license fees. The governor planned to propose a modest revenue system for the territory at the territorial legislative session. He communicated with members of the legislature and found that a majority favored such a system. Gruening availed himself of several existing tax studies and also had the advice of Frederick G. Lusk, a United States Treasury expert whom Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. had loaned to Alaska. The governor hired Alfred Harsch, professor of taxation law at the University of Washington Law School, to draft the necessary legislation. The Public Administration Clearing House of Chicago defrayed the costs of Harsch’s services.
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The governor spent considerable time on his first message to the fifteenth territorial legislature. He greeted the lawmakers with what must have been the longest opening address any territorial governor in Alaska had ever delivered. He proposed a long list of social and educational initiatives, but emphasized that the territory had a duty to tax the wealthy and absentee interests because it failed to reap revenues from its raw material exports that were so necessary to building Alaska’s long-neglected social and economic infrastructure. The house responded to Gruening’s address by adopting a memorial that Delegate Dimond had previously introduced but decided not to push, which forbade the appointment of a nonresident to the governorship. During his first session, Gruening met the many lobbyists. Among them were W. C. Arnold, a lawyer for the canned salmon industry, and Jack Clawson, an employee of Captain Austin E. Lathrop who was loaned to salmon industry interests as a lobbyist. (Lathrop, the owner of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, radio stations and movie theaters in Fairbanks and Anchorage, and a coal mine, was Alaska’s only resident tycoon.) Gruening also discovered how influential these lobbyists were. Overall, the lobbyists won. They operated on the theory that Alaska should spend as little as possible on its own dire needs, and they successfully killed any sorely needed social and educational legislation. They also succeeded in fighting every tax reform measure that would have cost their employers money. Gruening was outraged at their behavior and decided to inform Alaska’s citizens of the issues. He did so by issuing a series of briefings titled “A Message to the People of Alaska.” The first overriding issue, as he saw it, was that out of a senate of eight members, four could block any legislation—which was “why outside vested interests with their private purposes to serve [could] control the situation.” The second issue, he said, was “whether Alaska shall be built up for the people of Alaska in conformity with American principles and standards, or whether it shall continue to be governed for and by outside interests whose sole concern is to take out of Alaska as much as they can, as far as they can, and to leave as little as possible.” Gruening identified those legislators who had either served the territory well or sold out to the outside interests. He issued several more of these reports to Alaska’s citizens after subsequent legislative sessions, with the intent of harnessing the power of public opinion in order to get his program through the legislature. When war broke out between the United States and Japan after the Pearl Harbor attack on December , , Gruening worried that Alaska’s still-incomplete military defenses might entice Japan to invade the territory. In early , the governor went to Washington, D.C., for a conference with the president, at which he complained about the U.S. military’s inattention to Alaska. He urged that the territory be made “impregnable” by supplying it with appropriate equipment and military personnel. In January , Gruening called Frank Knox, the secretary of the navy, and asked for his help in starting construction on a military highway to Alaska. Soon, the president appointed the secretaries of War, Navy, and the Interior Department to get construction under way. Gruening had advocated that the highway follow one of the
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two previously studied routes and was deeply disappointed when the army chose an entirely different route, which was farther east and had never been surveyed. The United States–Canadian Joint Defense Board, which made the recommendation, justified it because it linked three airports that the Canadians had built the previous summer, one each at Fort Saint John and Fort Nelson in British Columbia and one at Watson Lake in the Yukon Territory. Gruening objected to the route because it eliminated the possibility of building side-road connections with the communities in southeastern Alaska. On November , , after nine months and six days of construction, the Alaska–Canada Military Highway (Alcan), or the Alaska Highway, opened. Gruening reasoned that any highway was better than none. In the end, he persuaded James O’Connor, brigadier general of the Corps of Engineers and head of the Northwest Service Command, to build a branch road that would extend the road running north from Haines to the Canadian boundary until it joined the Alaska Highway about ninety-five miles west of Whitehorse at a point designated as Haines Junction. This hundred-mile addition had not been included in the construction plans, but the accumulation of freight at the Skagway docks that was overtaxing the capacity of the White Pass and the Yukon Railway aided in his request. The Haines Cut-off, as the extension became known, connected southeastern Alaska to the Interior and to the contiguous states. Gruening, with the help of two army reserve officers, Captain Carl Schreibner and Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) M. R. Marston, organized the Alaska Territorial Guard, a security force primarily intended to guard the long coastline and pass intelligence to the armed forces in the absence of the National Guard, which had been federalized. In the process of establishing the Territorial Guard, Gruening traveled extensively to the bush communities in Alaska. He visited Native Alaskans in their homes, where he ate their food, learned about their cultures, and, when necessary, used his medical training. He also saw to it that voting precincts were established in the bush communities for the first time. Gruening started to feud with the military when Alaska was declared a war zone and the military imposed censorship, ordered women and children out of the territory, and restricted the movements of those remaining; he continued to complain until censorship ended. The governor also objected to the military decision to build a base at Excursion Inlet, some seventy miles northwest of Juneau. There, material, supplies, and troops were to be assembled to proceed to the Aleutian Islands to assist in the expulsion of the Japanese from Kiska and Attu islands. There was nothing at Excursion Inlet and Juneau had the necessary facilities. Despite Gruening’s arguments, the army decided to build the base at Excursion Inlet anyway; long before it was completed, the Japanese had been driven off Attu and evacuated from Kiska. When it was completed, prisoners of war were brought in to dismantle the base. The war ended for Alaska after the Japanese were defeated on Attu and evacuated from Kiska in . Slowly, Gruening turned his attention to causes he had
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championed for a long time. For example, he urged the development of Alaska’s hydroelectric resources; suggested that the University of Alaska establish a chair in Slavic culture in order to link education with international affairs; proposed the construction of indoor swimming pools in Alaska’s principal communities; and, in particular, pushed for civil rights. In Juneau in the early s, signs in the windows of many bars and restaurants still read “No Dogs or Indians Allowed,” and windows in Anchorage and Fairbanks featured similar signs. In Nome’s movie theater, seating was segregated. Gruening later recalled that, on his first Alaska visit, he had seen a sign in one of Anchorage’s leading restaurants, The Anchorage Grill, that read “We Do Not Cater to the Native and Filipino Trade.” The sign haunted him, and he later returned to the restaurant and had a talk with its owner, George Grames, a naturalized Greek American. The sign came down. At the urging of Roy and Elizabeth Peratrovich and Governor Gruening, the territorial senate passed a measure to prohibit racial discrimination, but it failed in the territorial house. In his message to the legislature, the governor urged the lawmakers to abolish racial discrimination. After a fierce debate, the legislature passed an equal rights bill, which Gruening signed into law on February , . Gruening had quickly realized that Alaska’s legislature had to be reapportioned in order to prevent a small group of lawmakers from having the power to block all progressive legislation. Congress complied with the legislation, which became law on November , . The senate was to be composed of sixteen members, four from each of the four judicial divisions; the house was to be composed of twenty-four members, eight from the First Judicial Division, four from the Second, seven from the Third, and five from the Fourth. After each census, the director of the census was to certify proper apportionment on a population basis. The elections brought a narrow majority in both houses whom the governor had supported. Alaska had turned the corner, Gruening announced. He called a special session two weeks before the regular session met “to start clearing up the staggering mess.” That, along with the regular session in , enacted a broad-based system of taxation. Gruening’s ten-year struggle had ended in victory. In the meantime, after Alaskans had approved a statehood referendum in the elections, Gruening helped develop it into a crusade. Together with delegate to Congress E. L. “Bob” Bartlett, Gruening promoted statehood on a broad front. When he lectured in the contiguous states, he insisted on advertising the issue. He utilized his connections with the national press to promote the cause. He clearly defined the devils—the “outside” interests, including mining, salmon canning, and Seattle’s monopolistic control of Alaskan shipping. Gruening organized the statehood cause within the territory, calling upon Alaskans to join the movement, and also barnstormed the United States in the service of it. In , a year after he had left the governorship, Random House published The State of Alaska, a powerful polemic in which Gruening argued that only statehood could repair a century of federal neglect. In , after Alaskans elected him as one
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of two Alaska-Tennessee Plan U.S. senators, he worked skillfully in Washington, D.C., to persuade lawmakers to vote for Alaska statehood. On the evening of June , , Gruening was in the galleries when the Senate passed the Alaska statehood bill. Gruening was seventy-one years old. As governor, he had fought a running battle from until with the Alaska legislature and the canned salmon lobby, which adamantly opposed all but minimal taxation. While he looked forward, most legislators and far too many Alaskan residents looked backward. He won the battle, and at the end of his gubernatorial term he could be satisfied that he had pushed the territory into the twentieth century. Lawmakers and citizens now underwrote sensible health, welfare, and education programs. Gruening, although not the father of statehood, since competition for that title is still stiff and undecided, was Alaska’s most articulate advocate for the territory’s economic development, modernization, and statehood. Gruening’s nine years in the U.S. Senate may have been the capstone of his career, but his finest and most productive years were as governor of Alaska. Here, he became a leader and statesman, preparing for Alaska’s transition from a territory to a state. Without him, Alaska’s history would have been very different. He truly was Alaska’s greatest governor. Gruening served Alaska well. After Gruening’s death, Robert B. Atwood, the publisher of Alaska’s then-largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily Times, reminded his readers that upon Gruening’s retirement from Alaska’s governorship in , his paper had called him the greatest chief executive Alaska ever had. “Nothing has ever caused reconsideration of that statement,” he wrote. As governor, he “upset many applecarts and trod on sacred toes. He virtually yanked the territory out of a chronic lethargy . . . led the battle to rout the special interests that throttled Alaska—mainly the fish barons and other economic bosses living in Seattle, San Francisco and in the East.” Atwood could think of “no other one man who has done so much for this state and the people who love it.”
1
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B
y his own account, Ernest Gruening followed his father’s spirit. Emil Gruening, a Jew, had left East Prussia to avoid being drafted into the king’s army, departing his hometown of Inowraclaw in at the age of nineteen and sailing for the United States, where he arrived penniless. Although the prospect of fighting against Prussia’s neighbors for the greater glory of king and fatherland had not appealed to young Emil, the war in America for the preservation of the Union won his commitment. In part out of a desire to win American citizenship quickly, he enlisted in the Seventh New Jersey Volunteer Infantry since he was living in Hoboken, where that regiment had been recruited. As a Union soldier, he fought in the Battle of Five Forks and witnessed General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. After his discharge from the army, Emil Gruening resumed his studies and worked his way through Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, teaching German to private pupils in order to support himself. He received his medical degree in . Thereafter he undertook postgraduate studies in Paris, London, and Berlin. Back in New York, he established his own practice in and soon became a noted physician, specializing in diseases of the eye and ear. In , Emil married Rose Fridenberg, a Christian, the eldest of ten children. Her family had emigrated from Inowraclaw a few years before Emil had. In , Rose died of typhoid fever; she was twenty-one years old. Four years later, Emil married her sister Phebe, the eldest of the remaining siblings. Phebe gave birth to Ernest on February , , in New York City. Eventually there were five Gruening children: Rose, from Emil’s first marriage, Ernest, and his three younger sisters, Clara, Marie (who later chose to be called May), and Martha. The children, raised as Christians, spoke German at home and English outside it. Their father decided that it would be desirable for them to learn French as well, so Phebe and her four children spent the year – in Paris. The children attended school in the city and in the course of the year learned French exceedingly well.
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Emil Gruening built a modest fortune; he had worked hard in his profession and managed to provide a solid, financially secure life for his family. At his death, he left an estate valued close to , and bequeathed to each of his five children , in bonds. Ernest’s father had so much self-discipline that when he retired from practice, he was able to say that throughout his career as a medical doctor he had never missed a day at the office. Ernest Gruening thus grew up in an upper-middle-class family with high moral standards, learning, and independent pride. He attended private schools, entered Harvard in the fall of at the age of sixteen, and graduated with a B.A. in science in . That fall he entered Harvard Medical School, from which he received his medical degree in . He never practiced medicine, though; by the time he completed his medical studies, he had developed a passion for the challenge and excitement of journalism. In Boston, he worked on the Boston American, Boston Herald, Boston Evening Herald, and Boston Traveler. He served as managing editor for the Boston Traveler at age twenty-seven, and later moved to the Boston Journal as managing editor. In the meantime, Gruening had courted a young woman, Dorothy Elizabeth Smith of Norwood, Massachusetts, who had been raised as a Unitarian. She had graduated from Vassar College in . The two had met that summer, while Gruening was playing tennis at North Scituate’s Hatherly Club. She had watched the game and caught his eye. A few years later, on November , , Dorothy and Ernest were married at the bride’s Norwood home. The two moved into an apartment in Cambridge, near Harvard Yard. The Gruenings lived in pleasant surroundings in Cambridge and often spent weekends with his family at their summer home in Rockport, Massachusetts. Ernest Junior, their first child, was born on October , . Huntington Sanders, their second son, followed less than a year later, on September , . Amidst mounting deficits, the owners of the Boston Journal sold out to the Boston Herald in October . Gruening was out of a job and, although he did not know it then, his Boston years were about to end. Gruening worked briefly for Frank Munsey, the owner of the New York Morning Sun, and then accepted an offer to help organize the Bureau of Imports of the War Trade Board. This was Gruening’s first government assignment. He moved his wife and children to the Washington, D.C., area and rented a house adjacent to Chevy Chase, Maryland. During this time he also decided to go into the army as soon as the Bureau of Imports was well organized. He was offered a commission in the Sanitary Corps because of his medical training, but, preferring combat, he applied instead to attend a newly organized field artillery officers’ training camp located near Louisville, Kentucky. Gruening’s plans were interrupted, however, when he was offered a job as managing editor of the New York Tribune. He accepted, and moved his family to New York. Gruening’s employment with the Tribune was short-lived, however, because he quickly locked horns with the executive editor over editorial policies. Gruening
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resigned and renewed his application for the field artillery. He was a candidate for a commission at Camp Zachary Taylor when the defeated Central Powers signed the armistice. Shortly after his discharge from the army, Gruening, who knew some Spanish, accepted the position of business manager for La Prensa, a new Spanish-language daily in New York. He held the position for about a year, but desired a return to the editorial and writing side of journalism. In , he accepted the invitation of Oswald Garrison Villard, owner and editor of The Nation, a weekly magazine in New York, to become its managing editor. Although the financially poor Nation paid its contributors only one cent a word, Gruening was able to enlist a number of the country’s foremost writers to contribute to the magazine, including H. L. Mencken, Dorothy Canfield, Sherwood Anderson, Sinclair Lewis, and Theodore Dreiser. He also conceived and edited a series on the states of the Union, published in as These United States. In his memoirs, Gruening recalled that his “life took a new turn in .” Although he continued to write freelance magazine articles, his interest in the impending presidential race drew him back into politics. He was enthusiastic about New York’s governor, Alfred E. Smith, but disappointed when the Democrats instead chose John W. Davis. The overtones of anti-Catholic prejudice, Gruening was convinced, ruined the chances of the Democratic ticket. The Republicans offered Calvin Coolidge, and with Coolidge and Davis, in Gruening’s words, “as tweedledum and tweedledee alternatives of standpatism and reaction,” the Progressive Party reemerged and filled the gap as a third party. It nominated Senator Robert Marion LaFollette of Wisconsin for president and Senator Burton Kendall Wheeler of Montana for vice president. Gruening considered both men to be outstanding candidates with excellent liberal records. He was pleased, therefore, when LaFollette asked him to be director of publicity for his campaign. He accepted, and worked hard, although he knew that his candidate would not win. In the end, the Progressive ticket polled five million voices but carried only LaFollette’s home state, Wisconsin. While still at The Nation, Gruening had become interested in Latin America. Eventually, in December , he resigned his editorial position and traveled to Mexico, where he became acquainted with political leaders, government officials, businessmen, writers, reporters, and peasants. To pursue his studies, Gruening became fluent in Spanish. Soon, he had convinced himself that the only way to correct the lack of information about Mexico was to write a book in English about that country. He felt that his book should tell the story of the Mexican people and their revolution, which, he believed, had its roots in the Spanish conquest four centuries earlier. Gruening returned home from Mexico to write the book, but he found that he did not have enough information from his six months’ stay to write the kind of volume he wanted to produce. He put aside his completed chapters in the hope of returning to Mexico in the future to resume his research. This he did through his freelancing work. The first time he returned was in , as a guest of
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Mexico’s president-elect, Plutarco Elias Calles, to attend the inauguration festivities. Gruening also resumed work on his book and served as a consultant for various enterprises that his friend Frank McLaughlin sought to promote in Mexico. Often separated from his family, Gruening hoped to make up for his absences with a trip to Europe in . His third son, Peter Brown, had been born on July , , so it was with their three children that Dorothy left early in for Paris. Gruening joined his family at the end of the school term, spending many happy hours in Paris visiting the scenes of his childhood thirty years earlier. The family traveled widely in France and visited Spain and Switzerland. In the fall, with Figure . The Order of the Aztec Eagle, conferred the two older boys in school and upon Gruening by the Mexican government in . No number. Dorothy safely housed in a comfortable apartment in Paris, Gruening returned to New York and continued his involvement in Mexican affairs. His book, Mexico and Its Heritage, finally appeared in . Considered then a standard work on that country, it is still recommended today by both the U.S. State Department and many Mexican officials as required reading. In fact, in the Mexican government conferred on Gruening the Order of the Aztec Eagle (Figure ), its highest decoration, in recognition for the best book written by a non-Mexican about Mexico. While he was still working on his book, Gruening had moved to Portland, Maine, in to take charge of a newly launched newspaper, the Portland Evening News. Philip F. Chapman, a Portland banker and lawyer, had seen a need for another Portland newspaper to compete with the town’s three papers, the Press Herald, the evening Express, and the Sunday Maine Telegram, all controlled by one individual. The Portland Evening News began publication on October , . From the beginning, the paper took a very liberal and vigorous position on important matters facing the state. For example, a move to abolish the primary elections and substitute the convention system had attracted little public attention and appeared likely to be adopted. The News editorialized against this attempt, calling it a backward step and
Gruening’s Life and Career Before Alaska
a return to “boss rule” that would lessen the people’s participation in government. The campaign to return to the convention system was defeated. Gruening had a hand in other important public issues in Maine, most significantly in helping curb the excesses of the Insull utility interests. Samuel E. Insull, a British immigrant, eventually became chairman of sixty-five company directorates that operated in the utilities field in twenty-three different states. Time magazine featured him on its cover as a financial genius. He was seen as a public-spirited magnate who saved the city of Chicago from bankruptcy, built a magnificent opera house, and started a natural gas pipeline from the Texas panhandle to Lake Michigan. With the onset of the Great Depression and throughout the worst months of and early , all of the Insull operating companies—namely those producing electricity and gas as well as running trains—continued to show good profits, and even the stock value of his investment trust, unlike most such, held firm while the economic world self-destructed. Fred Scheel, Insull’s principal securities salesman, was largely responsible for creating this apparent success by juggling the buys against the sells. Unfortunately, this also necessitated the regular purchase of Insull stocks to maintain the price levels, but sooner or later, as Scheel remarked, one runs out of money. Scheel’s delicate balance unraveled in September , when Great Britain announced it was going off the gold standard. Panic hit the New York Stock Exchange. Within a week, the stocks of Insull Utilities Investment Company, Corporation Securities Company, Commonwealth Edison, and Middle West Utilities together dropped more than million in value, and the losses continued in the following days and weeks. Samuel Insull frantically borrowed from this one to keep that one afloat, but in the end, he failed. The New York banks, particularly the Morgan banks, held large quantities of Insull securities as collateral, and now they had acquired them all. Eventually, the banks forced Insull Utilities Investments, Corporation Securities, and Middle West Utilities into receivership. By June , Insull was left with his operating companies, including Commonwealth Edison, People’s Gas, and Public Service, and on June his creditors demanded that he resign from these and all the rest. He did so, then slipped out of the country. In October , a Cook County grand jury indicted him on several counts of embezzlement and larceny, and in March law enforcement officers seized him on a rented yacht in Istanbul harbor, Turkey, and brought him back to the United States for trial. After he was acquitted, he retired to France on a pension of , a year. Gruening’s efforts to curtail Insull’s excesses started with his opposition to a measure introduced in the state legislature to give power companies the right of unlimited eminent domain to string power lines. Giving such a right without specifying the particular course over which lines would be strung was unprecedented and rendered private property open to possible invasion without the owner’s consent, and Gruening said so in print. In part because of his editorials, the Federal Trade Commission held hearings in Maine to investigate the propaganda activities of the privately owned utilities. As a result of this investigation and the subsequent
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revelations of stock juggling during the Great Depression, the Insull empire collapsed and investors lost an estimated . billion. The reports, ultimately filling eighty-four volumes, attracted nationwide attention, for they reached into the power trust’s activities in every state of the Union. Gruening believed that the corruption and the frenzied financial schemes of the utilities should be made known to the victims, the power consumers, so as to avoid repetition of these abuses. He summarized the millions of words of testimony and exhibits in a brief volume, published in , called The Public Pays. In the meantime, tragedy struck the Gruening family. Ernest Jr., nicknamed “Sonny” and a student at Milton Academy near Boston, developed a middle-ear infection early in the summer of and died on July of that year. When Gruening wrote an account of the tragedy forty years later, he said, “Even now so many years later,” it was hard “to keep back the tears when I think of Sonny.” As would often happen in his life, Gruening found solace in his work, which helped him come to terms with his grief. The Gruenings grieved a long time, but work had to continue. In addition to discussing state and national issues, Gruening also emphasized Caribbean and Mexican problems in the News. He urged a departure from American gunboat diplomacy and sent copies of his editorials out widely; other papers reprinted some of them. Gruening wrote in his diary, “As the election neared, I had some correspondence with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Governor of New York and a candidate for the Presidency. I called his attention to the need of a change of policy toward Latin America.” In , Gruening returned to New York as one of the four editors of The Nation. He continued his campaign for ending American intervention in Latin American countries, and also became involved in the campaign of Fiorello H. LaGuardia for mayor of New York City. On election day, LaGuardia received , votes to the , of his closest rival, Joseph V. McKee. The Nation had thrown its editorial support behind LaGuardia, and at the appropriate time had republished pertinent excerpts from a viciously anti-Semitic article that McKee had written for the May issue of Catholic World. After Roosevelt took office on March , , Gruening visited the capital city about twice a month “to check on its [the new administration’s] progress and write editorials on the subject” for The Nation. In September , he visited Thomas G. Corcoran (“Tommy the Cork”), then an aide to Eugene Meyer in the Treasury Department. In his diary Gruening wrote, “[Corcoran] said to me: ‘The President is looking for you’; I thought this was a new jest and reacted accordingly.” Corcoran, however, assured him that it was true. “They know you are in Washington and they have been calling up, trying to locate you.” As instructed, Gruening called Steve Early, one of the president’s secretaries, and was told that he was to meet Roosevelt at noon. “When I came to the White House, the President greeted me in a manner uniquely characteristic. With a warm smile he said: ‘Ernest, where have you been
Gruening’s Life and Career Before Alaska
keeping yourself?’” Gruening reminded Roosevelt that the two had met for the first time in Gruening’s freshman year at Harvard, when Roosevelt was a senior and editor of the Crimson and had addressed the incoming class of . The president was interested in learning what Gruening had done since graduating from Harvard. Then he came to the point: “What shall we do about Cuba?” he asked. “Felix [Frankfurter] tells me that you know more about Cuba than anybody in the United States.” Flattered, Gruening conceded that he knew something about Cuba “because just a few weeks ago I spent some time there participating in a study.” Previously, Roosevelt had become concerned about Cuban president Gerardo Machado’s bloody repressions and had decided that the man had to be removed from office. The Platt Amendment gave the United States special authority in Cuba. Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles had gone to Cuba “and exercised whatever pressure seemed necessary to cause Machado’s resignation” and the installation of a new government headed by Carlos Céspedes. Five days later, on the eve of Welles’s departure for Washington, there was a palace revolt. Céspedes and his cabinet were out, and a physician by the name of Grau San Martín had become president. Welles had been caught by surprise and was displeased at this course of events, which had taken place several weeks before Gruening’s meeting with Roosevelt. In answer to the president’s question of what to do about Cuba, Gruening urged him to recognize the Grau San Martín administration. Roosevelt was undecided, having been told that the new president was not going to last more than a week or two. Gruening asserted, “No regime in Cuba will last without our recognition. But if it falls, you will be holding the bag. Our policy should be to recognize any regime which the Cubans set up, try to work with it and make it succeed.” Roosevelt ventured that Gruening might be correct, but that recognizing Grau San Martín would embarrass Welles. In the end, the administration did not recognize the new regime, which nevertheless “lasted eight months without our recognition, evidence that it had very much more substantial support than Sumner Welles knew and that it was as responsive as any at that time to the wishes of the Cuban people.” The president then discussed Latin American affairs generally, including those of Haiti, Santo Domingo, Nicaragua, and Mexico. Gruening had a chance to express his views “on the need of ceasing intervention in our American republics, either military or economic, unless it was requested by them.” He also discussed the same topic with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who proved to be sympathetic to Gruening’s pro–Latin American views. In his first inaugural address earlier that year, President Roosevelt had declared, “In the field of world policy, I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others.” It was Hull who took the initiative in applying the Good Neighbor Policy to the rest of the Americas, supported by the president. Torn by strife and discontent, resentful of the years of interference by its big brother to the north, many in Latin America were skeptical of United States promises of no more meddling in its internal affairs.
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In mid-October , Gruening was appointed adviser to the five-member United States delegation to the Seventh International Conference of American States held at Montevideo, Uruguay (Figure ). The delegation sailed for Montevideo on November . Gruening recalled that the first conference took place aboard the ship, and he was shocked to discover they “had no program except to be friendly with everyone and radiate good-will.” A spirited discussion ensued, and Gruening urged Hull that the conference should accomplish three things: to abjure intervention, scrap the Platt Amendment for Cuba, and make the Monroe Doctrine a joint enterprise of all the American states and not one enforced by the United States alone. On arrival in Montevideo, the delegation found the situation to be tense. “The newspapers coming over daily from Buenos Aires were editorially very antiAmerican, reflecting the view of that nation’s Foreign Minister.” Secretary Hull, however, defused the tension. Wrote Gruening, he incurred “no end of good will by calling personally on all the delegations instead of, as apparently had been customary, expecting the delegations to call on the Chairman of the American delegation. He went around attired in an ordinary business suit, and while he spoke no Spanish (one interpreter accompanied him), his friendly manner, his informality, his winning personality and his obviously democratic ways, struck fire; and whatever might have been the general feeling towards United States policy, Cordell Hull greatly endeared himself and paved the way for a change in attitude.” On his return to the United States, Gruening felt inhibited from writing about the conference in The Nation, because he had been a participant. The Reverend Doctor Samuel Guy Inman, the secretary of the Committee on Cooperation with Latin
Figure . The U.S. delegation to the Seventh International Conference of American States, Montevideo, Uruguay, . Left to right: Spruille Braden (delegate), Alexander Wedell (delegate), Butler Wright (delegate), Sophonisba P. Breckenridge (delegate), Gruening (adviser), Secretary of State Cordell Hull (chairman), and Ruben Clark (delegate). Acc. no. --.
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America, who represented thirty American mission boards and was the author of numerous books on Latin American countries, did not. In an article that appeared in the January , , issue of The Nation, “The New Deal at Montevideo,” Inman expressed Gruening’s feelings when he stated, “To an old stager at Pan American Conferences, the difference between the atmosphere at Montevideo and the preceding conferences was nothing less than astounding.” Inman concluded, “Pan-Americanism had been saved from the rocks under [sic] which it was rapidly drifting.” In fact, Montevideo seemed to mark a real change in inter-American relations. GruenFigure . Letter from Secretary of State Cordell Hull ing was gratified to receive a note to Gruening, December . No number. from Secretary Hull at the conclusion of the conference, praising him for his “highly capable and valuable cooperation” (Figure ). Wrote Hull, “You have exhibited initiative, constructive capability and a spirit of splendid teamwork. I do not know anyone in your position who could have rendered more desirable and important service to the American Delegation and to the United States Government than you have rendered in connection with this mission and Conference.” The Roosevelt administration continued in the Montevideo spirit, and Gruening later wrote that he was left with “a deep satisfaction that our country had taken the three basic steps I had urged to end our imperialistic policies, and make the Good Neighbor Policy toward Latin America a reality.” In early , J. David Stern, a liberal and the owner of the Philadelphia Record and the Camden Courier, purchased the New York Evening Post, an old newspaper founded by Alexander Hamilton that had fallen on hard times. Stern intended to revive it, and he offered the managing editorship to Gruening. The two men discussed terms, and Stern agreed that Gruening would be not only the managing editor but the editor as well, with responsibility for the news, features, and editorial-page policies. Furthermore, there were to be no sacred cows. Before long, however, Gruening clashed with Stern over the kind of news stories he was to print; the two men clearly disagreed over how a newspaper was to be run, and they soon parted company.
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Not long afterward, Gruening accepted an invitation to join a commission to study Cuban affairs and to make recommendations for Cuba’s economic and social rehabilitation. The Foreign Policy Association, of which Gruening was a director, sponsored the study, and the Rockefeller Foundation funded it. After the necessary fieldwork in Cuba, the commission issued its substantial study, “Problems of the New Cuba,” in both English and Spanish. Among other things, the authors recommended agricultural diversification and a redistribution of land. Unfortunately, however, there was to be no New Deal in Cuba. After the completion of the Cuba report, Gruening joined the faculty of one of Latin American expert Hubert Herring’s seminars on Mexico in Mexico. These seminars had already played a part in informing the American public and mobilizing sentiments for a friendlier government policy toward the United States’ southern neighbor. Finally, in the summer of , President Roosevelt apparently indicated to Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes that he would like Gruening to join the administration. The secretary, in time, cherished two sobriquets, “Honest Harold” and the “Old Curmudgeon.” The first reflected his Progressive, “Bull Moose” commitment to public service without graft or favoritism. Acutely aware of the reputation of the Department of the Interior as a warren of corruption and special privilege, nurtured by such controversies as the Ballinger-Pinchot affair and Teapot Dome, he was determined to ensure that no such taint would attach to his administration. The second nickname, “Old Curmudgeon,” was a term of both endearment and vituperation. Ickes could be petty, arbitrary, acquisitive, irascible, unfair, and unscrupulous, but he was also fearless, devoted, supportive, intrepid, efficient, and effective despite himself. He tapped departmental telephones, spied on his employees, and searched their desk drawers; at the same time, he also protected them and listened to their recommendations. In view of Ickes’s personality and shortcomings, it was perhaps inevitable that he and Gruening would clash. The two had known each other casually since early . The March issue of The Nation contained an editorial by Gruening, “A Good Cabinet,” praising Roosevelt’s appointments, particularly that of Ickes. The new secretary clearly was pleased and told Gruening, “[I hope] that at the end of my term all of you [Progressives] will feel that at least I have done the best that was in me and regard me as still a member of the Progressive fold.” In September of that year, while in the nation’s capital, Gruening visited Ickes and the two men presumably talked about Interior Department programs and Ickes’s role as federal emergency administrator of public works. A month later, Gruening commented favorably on the Public Works Administration in the editorial columns of the October , , issue of The Nation. In August , Ickes talked with Gruening and offered him the directorship of the Office of Territories and Island Possessions. In his diary Ickes wrote, “Subject to an understanding on salary, he agreed to take the place.” Although Ickes had authority to make the appointment on his own, he still discussed it with the presi-
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dent, who voiced his agreement. Ickes was impressed with Gruening’s familiarity with Latin America “and elsewhere outside the continental United States.” And although the position was not exempted from civil service rules and regulations, Ickes intended to recommend that it be exempted from these requirements because, to be effective, the individual for this post should be selected “on the basis of his peculiar qualifications and without regard to the civil service registers.” Gruening accepted the position at an entry salary of , a year, soon to be raised to ,. Gruening was conscious of his inadequacy to head the division. He had never visited three of its four prospective wards—Alaska, Hawaii, and the Virgin Islands— and he had spent only one day in Puerto Rico, in the course of a seminar on the Caribbean. The new director did not advertise this lack of firsthand experience, and none of the journalists who interviewed him raised the question. Editorial comments, in fact, praised his appointment. Gruening devoted his first few weeks in the Interior Department to organizing the new division. He employed Estella Draper, his secretary who had followed him from The Nation and the Post. He also named Irwin Silverman, a young lawyer, to be counsel. As assistant director, Gruening engaged Ruth Hampton, “a hearty, cheerful, levelheaded and very able woman.” Gruening admired his boss, Secretary Ickes. The new director was certain that he was working “for an intellectually and spiritually congenial man.” He also approved of Ickes’s departmental appointments, which included Harry Slattery, who as a newspaperman had uncovered “the little green house on K Street” where some of the crooked deals that tarnished the Harding administration had been planned. Oscar L. Chapman, a liberal lawyer who had worked with Judge Ben Lindsey in Denver’s juvenile courts, served as under secretary of the interior; and John Collier, a distinguished anthropologist who had come to the forefront as a defender of Indian rights in the s, had been appointed commissioner of Indian Affairs. There were many others with progressive views as well. Gruening felt confident that men with records like these would be an asset to the New Deal, and he was certain that he would be happy working in the Department of the Interior. It was not long, however, before Gruening and Ickes became disenchanted with one another. Gruening’s turn came first. When Boyd Brown, the lieutenant governor of Saint Croix, became president of the newly formed Virgin Island Company, the government agency designed to develop the economy of the three islands, Gruening considered it his duty to find a successor quickly. He thought that Robert Herrick, a nationally known novelist and retired professor of English literature at the University of Chicago, would make an ideal appointee. Urbane and knowledgeable, Herrick had also written a well-regarded book on the Caribbean. Herrick said that he would be delighted to accept the job. The director then mentioned Herrick to Ebert K. Burlew, Ickes’s administrative assistant, who expressed surprise that Gruening had talked about the position to Herrick. He informed Gruening that Ickes insisted on making employment offers himself.
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Gruening explained the situation to Ickes and told him that he had been unaware that Ickes desired to make all appointments personally. In any event, Herrick was a good choice, but the secretary refused to appoint him, ostensibly because Herrick was a snob, and ended the interview. Gruening was taken aback, particularly because he did not understand the secretary’s objections. At a subsequent meeting, Gruening again mentioned Herrick, only to be cut short with another rejection. Two weeks later, however, the director, to his astonishment, received a letter from Ickes in which he was informed that Ickes could not go along with Gruening’s insistence on appointing Herrick at a salary of , per annum because he had to protect the public purse. But if Gruening agreed to employ Herrick at , per annum, the secretary would make the appointment. Gruening was utterly surprised because he had insisted on no such thing. Under Secretary Chapman finally explained to Gruening that Ickes was simply “building the record.” Since Herrick’s rejection had become known, there had been protests to Ickes from various prominent individuals, including Felix Frankfurter and Jane Addams. “Now the record will show that it was you and not he who blocked Herrick’s appointment,” Chapman told Gruening. In the meantime, Ickes had made the appointment. Gruening was still angry, so he visited Burlew, explained his story, and gave him Ickes’s letter. Several days later Gruening thought better of it and went to retrieve it, only to find that it was missing from the files. In its stead he found, identically dated, another one, wholly innocuous, which merely stated that the secretary had decided to appoint Herrick. At that point, Gruening “knew it would be impossible to trust him.” One of Gruening’s most pressing problems concerned Puerto Rico, where absentee landlords controlled much of the economy, unemployment was rampant, and many citizens were bitterly poor. In March , the president had sent Rexford Guy Tugwell, a member of his brain trust, to the island to form a committee of local leaders that became known as the President’s Policy Committee on Puerto Rico. The committee’s report to Roosevelt became the working basis for a rehabilitation program. It was Gruening’s job to create an agency that could carry out the committee’s proposals effectively and find the means to finance them. Not long after his appointment, Gruening visited the president and complained that he lacked the authority to deal adequately with Puerto Rico’s problems. He proposed to the president a plan to coordinate all federal assistance to Puerto Rico. Roosevelt approved the plan and signed an executive order on May , , creating the Puerto Rican Reconstruction Administration (PRRA), and appointing Gruening as its administrator—in effect making him the economic and political czar over Puerto Rican affairs, with a bureaucracy several times larger than that of the insular government. Figure shows Gruening pointing to the sun, which represents the prosperity that PRRA programs were intended to bring to Puerto Rico. Ickes was unhappy about the turn of events and complained that he had not been given the opportunity to review the executive order. Gruening feigned surprise to
Gruening’s Life and Career Before Alaska
Figure . Cartoon from El Diluvio, San Juan, Puerto Rico, . Gruening is pointing at the sun, which represents the Puerto Rican Reconstruction Administration (PRRA). Translation from Spanish: [Gruening says] Juan, open your soul and rejoice before that sun that bathes you in its light, which shows the route to Canaan, where you will find safe haven; but beware of the slaves of the Pharoahs that will try to make you withdraw into the eternal dungeon of misery. No number.
find himself holding two jobs, and Ickes sharply questioned him on whether he had lobbied for the position. Gruening said no, but he was lying to the secretary. Ambitious and never shy, he had lobbied the president effectively and achieved his goal. The liberals were pleased with Gruening’s appointment. Perhaps typical was the comment of Oswald Garrison Villard, who wrote in The Nation, “Not in all the years that I have been writing for the press can I recall an appointment which has given me more satisfaction than that of Dr. Gruening.” On the island of Puerto Rico, reaction among informed liberals was similar. Muna Lee de Muñoz Marín, the wife of liberal politician Luis Muñoz Marín, wrote, “I don’t know whether you realize how profoundly happy Gruening’s appointment made us.” Gruening’s appointment, however, rankled Ickes—he liked to pick his own people. In April , the secretary discussed the matter with Roosevelt. He alerted the chief executive that the administrator “was reaching out for more power and had submitted an executive order to the Bureau of the Budget that would keep him in power for some years if he should live that long.” That executive order, if signed, was tantamount to creating an independent agency under the charge of Gruening. Most important, Ickes felt his turf had been invaded, for “with rehabilitation placed in Gruening’s hands . . . it left practically no administrative duties with the Department of the Interior so far as Puerto Rico was concerned.” Then Ickes came to the heart of the matter and suggested to Roosevelt that he, the secretary, be appointed
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administrator. This would leave Gruening administering Puerto Rican affairs through his position as director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions but would give the secretary some supervision, for “there was absolutely no check on Gruening of any sort and . . . no one knew how he was operating in Puerto Rico.” Roosevelt seemingly agreed that this was not a desirable administrative structure, but promised nothing. A few months later, Ickes again dealt with the Puerto Rican situation, reiterating that the appointment of Gruening had been “done without consultation with [him], and at the time,” he continued, he “thought it was bad business.” Ickes, however, had not interfered with Gruening’s administration of relief funds. Word had come to the secretary that Gruening was at loggerheads with his own organization and, as Ickes wrote, “hell is likely to break loose in Puerto Rico.” Apparently more than sixty members of Gruening’s staff had sent him a long bill of complaints dealing with various phases of the relief administration. Ickes had also been told that “Gruening is cordially hated by practically everyone in Puerto Rico,” and even that an attempt on his life would not be surprising. In any event, Gruening had made an appointment with Ickes to discuss Puerto Rican problems, and the secretary speculated, “[P]erhaps he is finding himself in difficulties from which he wants someone to extricate him.” The administrator was indeed in trouble over several issues. One concerned maternal health clinics where social workers dispensed birth control information. The Catholic Church objected strenuously, and Gruening terminated the program regretfully; he believed that all rehabilitation programs would be nullified by a birth rate double that of the United States. (Eventually, the Puerto Ricans themselves overcame Catholic opposition and maternal health clinics continued under their own government’s auspices.) Historian Thomas Mathews has written that before Gruening assumed the responsibilities of administrator of the PRRA, he had been warned that strong attempts would be made “to convert the rehabilitation program into a big patronage fund for the benefit of the Liberal Party.” It had been sound advice, which Gruening unfortunately disregarded. Eventually, Gruening even alienated Luis Muñoz Marín, editor of La Democracia, an organ of the Liberal Party, and an enlightened individual who had been elected “senator at large.” Government action against the Nationalists, who had attempted several political assassinations, further separated Gruening and Muñoz. The latter asserted that the Nationalists were the victims of political persecution and held Gruening responsible. Secretary Ickes alerted Roosevelt to the Puerto Rican situation during a luncheon on November , . The president listened, and then suggested that before he left for his vacation he would sign an executive order making Ickes the administrator for the Puerto Rican relief program. The secretary commented, “I do not seek it because I think that whomever succeeds Gruening will be taking over a very difficult situation.” Basically Ickes believed that Gruening had failed in Puerto Rico and that the ill will building up there endangered American relations with Central and South
Gruening’s Life and Career Before Alaska
America. In fact, Ickes concluded, “I am not sure but that Gruening had pretty nearly made himself impossible as Director of the Division of Islands and Territories [sic].” While Puerto Rican affairs largely occupied Gruening’s days, he nevertheless found the time to visit Alaska for the first time in May . The occasion was an invitation by the president of the University of Alaska to deliver the commencement address. It was a voyage of exploration and education for the director. He traveled widely and noted Alaska’s needs, opportunities, and problems. He observed that he “would have to work to solve [these problems] in Washington.” Around the same time, Gruening also became deeply involved in finding suitable facilities for Pan American Airways, Inc., and its plans to launch a transpacific service to New Zealand and Australia. In the mid-s, the United States sought a commercial air route to Australasia. Pan Am was the only American carrier extending its routes throughout the world, and had established an east-west route across the Pacific to Asia via Honolulu, Hawaii. It flew “clippers,” or big seaplanes, and it needed intermediate stations between Hawaii and New Zealand/Australia. U.S.-controlled stations under consideration, namely Kingman Reef and the harbor of Pago Pago on Tutuila in American Samoa, were inadequate. No other suitable American possessions lay along the proposed route. As a result, the State Department had begun exchanging views with the British Foreign Office to clarify, and if possible determine, the ownership of a variety of small islands scattered throughout the Pacific. Each nation felt it had some claims based on either discovery, past utilization of guano, or previous occupancy. Both nations agreed that neither would make any overt move until ownership had been settled. Pan American, however, did not wait for diplomacy to resolve the ownership question and sent an expedition under the direction of Dr. Dana Coman and Harold Gatty aboard the chartered schooner Kinkajou to establish colonies on Jarvis, Baker, and Howland islands, calling the venture the Coman Oceanographic Expedition and laying claims to the guano deposits under the American Guano Act of . When the Bureau of Air Service in the Department of Commerce responded to American commercial air service pressure by authorizing the occupation of the three islands, referred to as the Line Islands or the Equatorial Islands, and sent William T. Miller in to lend official sanction to the enterprise, the Kinkajou withdrew. The U.S. considered that it had undisputed claim to the islands, and that they were not to be included in the negotiations with Great Britain. The State Department nevertheless found occupation desirable to firm up ownership and enable the Bureau of Air Service to conduct weather observations there and prepare for utilization of the islands. William T. Miller of the Bureau of Air Service again visited the islands in on the Coast Guard cutter Itasca and established temporary camps that he staffed with four young Hawaiian men each. Early in , Miller withdrew his island personnel, pending transfer of the project to the Division of Territories and Island Possessions.
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Figure . Black, Gruening, and four young Hawaiian men who occupied Howland Island, . No number.
Figure . Black and Gruening on Howland Island, . No number.
Director Gruening looked for an individual with engineering experience, administrative ability, and familiarity with fieldwork. He found these desired qualities in Richard Blackburn Black, a civil engineering graduate of the University of North Dakota. Black had experience in railway construction and mine safety work, and had been a surveyor and assistant scientist in the second Byrd Antarctic Expedition from to . He had spent a winter in Antarctica in charge of East Base, and Rear Admiral Richard A. Byrd had recommended him highly. Gruening instructed Black to reestablish colonists on the islands, build permanent housing for them, and construct scratch-grade airfields. Black enlisted the help of Robert L. Campbell, an official of the Bureau of Air Commerce who had just completed an assessment of possible airfields in the Hawaiian Islands.
Gruening’s Life and Career Before Alaska
Between January and March , the two men laid out and supervised the building of an airfield on Howland Island (Figures and ) with surplus construction equipment furnished by the U.S. Army in Hawaii. The U.S. Navy donated communications equipment, while the Hawaiian territorial government hired several construction workers for the project, financed by the Works Progress Administration. Completed in March, the airfield was ready for Amelia Earhart on her first east-to-west attempt. The construction crew stood by until it received word that the pilot had ground looped at Luke Field, Pearl Harbor, and wrecked the plane. The Coast Guard cutter Itasca carried the June-July expedition and stood by as a radio guard for the last, disastrous leg of Earhart’s west-to-east attempt to fly across the Pacific from Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island. Early in the morning of July , , it became apparent that pilot Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, had made a forced landing at sea. The Itasca started the unsuccessful search, later joined by various naval craft. In November , Gruening and Black were present on Howland Island for the laying of the cornerstone of a lighthouse dedicated to Earhart’s memory (Figures and ). In the October-November resupply mission, Gruening and Hawaii’s governor, Joseph B. Poindexter, were passengers. It was Gruening’s intention to visit his farflung islands for the first time. Gruening had concluded that the three islands were unsatisfactory for commercial air operations. Landing supplies on them from the sea was very difficult, and none had a harbor or suitable anchorage. The Coast Guard cutter had to anchor several miles offshore, while the landing parties had to go over the reefs and through the surf to land men and supplies. Furthermore, Pan American
Figure . Commemorating Amelia Earhart on Howland Island, . Standing are Captain Coffin of the Coast Guard (third from left), Richard B. Black (center), and Gruening (fourth from right). No number.
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Airways had not yet shifted from seaplanes to land planes, and the islands were marginally suitable only for land planes. Gruening, therefore, decided to search for islands where commercial landing fields could be built. Before his departure, the State Department, which approved of his plans, had furnished him with a list of all the islands under discussion with the British Foreign Office. Earlier that year, in June , a total eclipse of the sun had taken place. Astronomers had been eager to observe it, and the most favorable spot was Canton Island. The expedition of American astronomers had asked the State Department to secure landing rights from the British. But no such rights were necessary, Figure . Amelia Earhart Lighthouse on the scientists learned, since Canton Island Howland Island after completion, late was one of those claimed by both nations. . No number. The Americans arrived and unloaded their equipment, and the following day the Australian cruiser Avocet arrived with the British scientists. The expeditions observed the eclipse and erected masonry pylons carrying the flags of the two nations. In November , Gruening and an expedition staff on the Coast Guard cutter Taney visited Palmyra Island, politically a part of the City and County of Honolulu, and Washington, Fanning, and Christmas islands, marked U.S.-British on the s maps of the Pacific, indicating ownership disputes. Christmas Island impressed Gruening as the ideal site for the kind of air station the U.S. needed. In the s, the British government had leased the uninhabited island as a concession to a French priest from Tahiti, a Father Rouzier, to grow coconuts. He had imported Tahitian natives, and by some twenty-five Tahitian families were settled on the island, together with a British administrator and a French family. The island was about thirty miles long and level, with a rise on one end. Its surface consisted of “hard packed coral sand which would have taken light planes without additional labor.” There was a lagoon, approximately four by nine miles, able to accommodate many seaplanes. Gruening next visited Howland, Baker, and Jarvis islands, whose unsuitability for the intended purposes “was more than ever made clear.” The Taney proceeded to the Phoenix group, and the party landed on five islands: Enderbury, Hull, Sydney, Phoenix, and Canton. On all these islands Gruening’s party “encountered an unpleasant surprise. Nailed conspicuously to palm trees were signs which proclaimed the
Gruening’s Life and Career Before Alaska
Figure . Marker on Phoenix Island declaring the island to be part of King George’s domain. Gruening (left) and his son Peter. No number.
island[s] to be part of ‘His Britannic domain, Gilbert and Ellice Administration’ ” (Figure ). The British had obviously departed from the State Department understanding by announcing sovereignty over or at least strengthening their claims to these uninhabited islands. At Canton, however, Gruening discovered two British citizens who, together with their Fijian servant, had established a radio station. The director found Canton, a coral atoll some twenty-eight miles in circumference surrounding a large, almost circular lagoon, to be ideal for building landing fields. The land varied from about a quarter to a half mile in width and “presented opportunities for landing strips in every direction” while “the lagoon could accommodate all existing seaplanes with ample space for their take-offs.” Gruening also visited Kingman Reef, mostly submerged, and the Samoan Islands, where they “satisfied [themselves] as to the hazardous nature of Pago-Pago Harbor for seaplane use.” Upon his return to the United States, Gruening and Jay Pierrepont Moffat of the State Department, who was in charge of the island negotiations, visited the president. Gruening recommended that the United States occupy Christmas and Canton islands. The State Department opposed the move onto Christmas Island, claiming that the United States had forfeited its claims through lack of protest over the past forty years, but did support the Canton claim and added Enderbury. In late February , Gruening ordered Black to establish permanent American stations on Canton and Enderbury islands. Under great secrecy, the Taney, loaded with supplies and building materials, steamed to Howland Island and picked up some experienced colonists and “then laid a course for Enderbury with darkened lights and radio silence.” On the morning of March , the Taney landed personnel, building materials, food, water, fuel, and radio equipment at Enderbury. At daylight on March , the Taney hove to off the western channel into the lagoon of Canton
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Atoll and lowered four boats filled with equipment and stores. The landing party went to dock inside the lagoon, where the two British citizens, “the Fiji houseboy[,] and the dog Blotto stood beneath the flagpole and the Union Jack.” After formal introductions, Geoffrey Langdale, the British administrator of the Phoenix Islands, told Black, “I must protest for my government your landing on Canton Island.” Black replied that each had to carry out his orders. “Yours are to protest my landing and mine are to land. You have protested our landing and I am going to land anyway, leaving to our two governments any discussion of the matter.” After these formalities, the Americans unloaded the Coast Guard cutter and put up the American flag. While this happened, the British contacted Suva to report the incident and “apparently there were instructions to be as friendly as possible under the circumstances.” Eventually, the two governments resolved their differences diplomatically by making Canton a condominium (that is, coming under a joint dominion of ownership) for fifty years. On April , , the Department of the Interior announced that Secretary Ickes had signed a revocable license permitting Pan American Airways to use Canton Island as an air base. (President Roosevelt had placed both Canton and Enderbury islands under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior the previous month.) In September , Gruening, by then governor of Alaska, visited Canton Island on the first flight of the New Zealand Clipper. He found that Pan American Airways had established all the necessary aviation facilities, “including an excellent hotel.” The airline had fifty-four employees on Canton, and he noted that there was a British couple and their native servant representing the Crown. On his arrival, he found the couple fishing off the reef, and he was informed that their government cared so poorly for them “that they gratefully accepted a monthly donation of canned goods from Pan-Am.” The Japanese shelled Canton in the early days of World War II and destroyed most of the structures. The adventures in the Pacific took far less of Gruening’s attention than did the continuing misadventures with Puerto Rico. In the middle of November , Ickes had reminded the president that no executive order had yet been drafted transferring Gruening’s Puerto Rican responsibilities to him—whereupon Roosevelt told his secretary to ask the acting director of the Bureau of the Budget to draft such an order. Ickes also resolved “to have a showdown” with Gruening. “He seems to think that he is entirely independent of me. He constantly shortcuts me and comes to me only when he is in trouble.” A few days later, on November , Gruening and Ickes discussed the Puerto Rican situation. According to Ickes, Gruening assured him that “from the very beginning he felt that it was a mistake to set up an independent administrator for Puerto Rico” and that the program should have been handled by the Department of the Interior. In his diary, Ickes asserted that Gruening now “professes great eagerness to cooperate,” because, he wrote, “in his heart I think that he is rather glad to have someone else share this responsibility. Doubtless he realizes that he is in a bad situation and he would like someone to bail him out.”
Gruening’s Life and Career Before Alaska
The president did sign an executive order making Ickes responsible for the PRRA, but the secretary, much to his regret, had no authority to dismiss Gruening because he was a presidential appointee. In the meantime, disquieting news of irregularities in Gruening’s handling of Puerto Rican affairs reached Ickes. He finally asked Leona Graham, his executive assistant, to go to the island and investigate the PRRA. Her report revealed such amazing incompetence and extravagance that Ickes strongly urged Gruening to resign as administrator of the PRRA. Gruening thereupon planned to travel to the island, make an inspection, and then resign with the comment that since the program was well under way, he could turn the task over to others and dedicate his time to his position as director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions. The secretary urged him to follow through on this immediately, before any incident might make a resignation most embarrassing. Political tempers, however, flared on the island. On Palm Sunday , the Nationalists staged a parade in Ponce, a small, quiet port city on the Caribbean side of the island. In a shooting incident, nineteen were killed, including two policemen, and more than ten wounded. Only the police had been armed, and coroner reports showed that most of the dead had been shot from behind. Although Ickes demanded an inquiry, Gruening convinced the president not to follow that course of action. He argued that federal authority had to be maintained “at an unquestionable level no matter what the costs.” Roosevelt agreed. Ickes was by then thoroughly fed up with Gruening, and in a June memorandum demanded his resignation as the administrator of the PRRA. Gruening did not comply, and finally Ickes, who was hospitalized at the time, informed the administrator that “if his resignation was not forthcoming at once [he] would dismiss him,” although he recognized that he had no authority to do so. Soon, however, Gruening wrote a “long letter of resignation . . . but it was a qualified resignation.” Ickes refused it as unsatisfactory and asked that it be unqualified. When Gruening did not reply, Ickes “sent a very sharp memorandum to Gruening telling him that [he] was not so much interested in his resignation as [he] was in his good faith.” On June , , the secretary received what he considered to be a satisfactory resignation. On June , Ickes handed the president Gruening’s resignation. “He put it into his pocket and said that he would accept it from Hyde Park.” Thereupon Ickes asked that the acceptance be sent to him so he could pass it along to Gruening, writing in his diary, “I am anxious to have this matter concluded and hope there will be no hitch.” A couple of weeks later, Ickes had still not received the president’s acceptance of Gruening’s resignation. The secretary was worried, particularly when his assistant, Harry Slattery, told him, “Gruening expects to resign in the fall to take a newspaper job and that in the meantime he wants to go to Hawaii on a long vacation—an official trip.” Ickes phoned Grace Tully, one of the president’s secretaries, and discovered that neither she nor Roosevelt could find the resignation, and a duplicate had to be procured from Gruening. This Ickes forwarded to the president “with a note saying that . . . it should be acted upon quickly.”
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The hospital discharged Ickes in the middle of July. The secretary returned to his office, summoned Gruening, and asked why he had read his memorandum demanding the latter’s resignation at an Interior Department conference and characterized it as the “memorandum of a sick man.” Gruening replied that he thought it showed irritation—which Ickes admitted. “I was entitled to feel irritation at his long delay in carrying out his promise to resign as Administrator of PRRA, a course of action that we had agreed upon early in January,” Ickes wrote in his diary. In fact, Ickes suspected that Gruening’s remark had been designed to create the impression that he was “so sick that [he] didn’t know what [he] was doing.” This Gruening denied emphatically. In any event, Roosevelt did accept Gruening’s resignation, much to the satisfaction of Secretary Ickes. In historian Mathews’s account, after applying great pressure, the secretary succeeded in extracting a resignation from Gruening in July : “The great liberal whose appointment had brought unbounded joy to those who knew him in Puerto Rico was partially retired in disgrace. Of course, the administration kept up appearances, and Roosevelt’s letter to Gruening stated that his resignation was accepted only because the President knew that he could continue to guide the good work initiated as director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions.” Mathews concluded, “To what extent Gruening’s continued personal intervention in Puerto Rican affairs could have been considered ‘good work’ is subject to grave doubts.” Gruening’s story of the whole affair in his memoir Many Battles differs substantially from that of the secretary and of Mathews. It is obviously a self-serving account. He told his readers that after only a year and a half, the PRRA was making real progress in its reconstruction programs. Land distribution was under way, the island-wide power program was achieving its objectives of increased hydroelectric output and reduced rates, and hundreds of hurricane- and termite-proof houses, constructed with cement from a PRRA-owned plant, were already tenanted, among other achievements. Although much remained to be done, Gruening felt that he should take care of his long-neglected responsibilities in other areas. For example, he had made only one brief trip to Alaska, and none to Hawaii. The Philippines was being added to his division and he had never been there. “So I wrote the president accordingly, submitting my resignation as administrator of the PRRA.” A month later, Roosevelt accepted, writing, “I would hesitate to accede to this request at this time were it not that I know that through your directorship of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions you will continue to keep close watch on the conduct and progress of affairs in Puerto Rico.” There can be no doubt that Gruening had some influence with the president, for if Ickes had had his way, he would have kicked Gruening out altogether—but this, the secretary sensed, would be imprudent. Ickes was frustrated with Gruening because the latter had proven to be a poor administrator who often bypassed the bureaucratic hierarchy in order to accomplish a particular goal. An example of this
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trait occurred in mid-February . Ickes was waiting to go into the president’s office when the door opened and “out popped Gruening,” together with a couple of other men. “He stopped to tell me something about having gotten another national monument for me but I didn’t listen to him. I resent this shortcutting to the White House,” Ickes declared. “It is something that Gruening has been guilty of on many occasions.” The secretary resolved then and there to call Gruening on the carpet at the next opportunity “because . . . he is false as hell and a double-crosser,” but his assistants Slattery and Burlew asked Ickes to wait until Burlew’s nomination to the position of assistant secretary of the interior had been approved by the Senate. The secretary complied, but complained, “So I sit here in a stew, knowing that I am beset by certain disloyal employees and restraining myself from doing anything about it until we are in the clear with respect to Burlew.” The Senate confirmed Burlew, and shortly thereafter, Ickes summoned Gruening to his office and accused him of “opposing [his] will to have Burlew confirmed,” an accusation that Gruening denied. Obviously, relations between the two men were far from cordial. Nevertheless, when the secretary was to make his first trip to Alaska in the summer of , he wanted Gruening to accompany him. The men did not travel north together, however. Gruening arrived in Alaska first, traveled widely and noted the territory’s many needs. He met Ickes’s party in Seward and briefed the secretary on territorial affairs. The two traveled together for a time, and then Ickes returned to Washington, D.C., while Gruening lingered behind, eventually returning south to Seattle on the Coast Guard cutter Haida and going from there by train to the nation’s capital. Ickes’s dislike of Gruening grew, and by May he suggested that Roosevelt appoint Admiral Percival S. Rossiter, the former surgeon general of the navy, as director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions. The president intimated that he would like to have Gruening become governor of Alaska in order to make a place for Rossiter. That suggestion did not please the secretary at all, because he wanted to kick Gruening out of the federal government entirely. Ickes complained, “He is a misfit and both of us long ago came to the conclusion that Gruening was not the man for the place that he occupies.” In fact, Ickes continued, “I am thoroughly fed up [with] Gruening. His division is badly administered. In effect, every decision has to be made by an Assistant Secretary or by me. Gruening hardly ever misses a cocktail party and he leaks like a sieve.” It is doubtful that the president had concluded that Gruening was a misfit, but he probably shared the secretary’s sentiments that the administrator had failed in Puerto Rico (Figure ) and lost his effectiveness in the Division of Territories and Island Possessions. Roosevelt probably considered alternative appointments because he wanted to give Gruening another chance. Ickes’s assessment of Gruening likely was clouded by his dislike of employees who did not follow his leadership without question. In early , the Office of the Comptroller General concluded an investigation in Alaska and found that Governor John W. Troy, who published the Juneau
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Figure . Cover of El Florete, San Juan, Puerto Rico, . Translation from Spanish: Ickes—Let’s see what have you done? Gruening—Well, in truth it’s not so much what we’ve done as what we’re thinking of doing. No number.
newspaper and also owned a printing shop, had been giving territorial government printing contracts to his own company. There had been several other irregularities that constituted criminal offenses. Ickes decided that Troy would have to resign, whereupon the president again suggested that Gruening become the next governor of Alaska, but stated that he wanted to wait on the appointment until Congress had adjourned. In the meantime, the secretary, in his own words, “brought pressure to bear on Doctor Gruening and he is more willing to accept an appointment as governor.” Ickes continued that he would “be more than glad to get rid of this ineffective busybody. He means well but he doesn’t follow anything through and when he maneuvers himself into a bad corner, as he frequently does because of his extracurricular activities, he will try to lie himself out of his difficulty.” At the end of August, Ickes received Troy’s requested resignation and “sent over to the White House promptly a commission naming Dr. Gruening to that post.”
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ecretary ickes suggested that Gruening take the Alaska governorship, adding, “We are all going to be through here when Roosevelt is and this is more salary and title.” Gruening politely declined, maintaining that he was not interested in titles and that in his present job as director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions in Washington he could accomplish far more for the territory than he could as governor (Figure ). Gruening knew the secretary wanted to get rid of him, but he also believed that Alaska’s governor should be a resident, “one who has been in the territory and expects to live there.” Perhaps above all, the thought of having to leave the nation’s capital, the center of power and action, and exchange it for far-off Juneau, truly a backwater, did not appeal to Gruening in the least. Still, Ickes insisted that Gruening accept the position. He agreed to think the matter over. There the matter stood when the Gruenings left on a monthlong vacation to New England on August , . Gruening was unaware that at the end of August Ickes had sent a commission to the White House naming him Alaska’s governor. While driving to a friend’s house on Saturday, September , a radio newsflash caught the Gruenings by surprise: “President Roosevelt today appointed Ernest Gruening, director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions, as Governor of Alaska.” Gruening was dumbfounded by the announcement. Alaskans reacted quickly to the news. Congressional delegate Anthony J. Dimond told the president that “in common with all other Alaskans and especially the supporters of your policies” he earnestly requested the appointment of a territorial resident to the position. The Cordova Daily Times praised the appointee’s record as director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions, and pointed out that Gruening already had “served as quite a restraining influence on the Department of the Interior in some of its wilder schemes for the ‘benefit’ of Alaska.” The editorial writer expected the new governor’s administration to be “progressive and beneficial.” The appointment, however, had left “territorial Democratic circles aghast with astonishment, not to say dismay.” The editor noted that the Alaska governorship was regarded as a political sinecure, eagerly sought among “the higher-ups of whichever party happened to be in power.” Unfortunately, the president had appointed few
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Figure . Representative Warren G. Magnuson, congressman from the First Washington District, Seattle (left), and Gruening discussing construction of the Alaska Highway. No number.
Alaska residents over the years “to occupy the Governor’s mansion in Juneau, but with Governor Troy’s appointment it was thought and hoped that precedent would be established of giving the job to a resident of the territory.” The Cordova editor concluded that many Democratic politicians were “muttering in their beards and biting their fingernails this week since the president’s precipitate and unheralded nomination of Dr. Gruening.” The Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle stated that Gruening’s appointment had been received “with deep regret and indignation for in every section of Alaska there are men of ability who would serve with distinction in the governor’s chair.” The Democratic Divisional Committees for the First and Second Judicial divisions passed resolutions opposing Gruening’s appointment, as did the Grand Igloo of the Pioneers of Alaska, then meeting in Juneau. The Anchorage Democratic Divisional Committee, however, approved the appointment. By and large, Alaska protests fell on deaf ears. Secretary Ickes, for example, reminded unhappy Delegate Dimond that it had “been the rule and not the exception to appoint as governors non-residents of the territory in question.” And this was only reasonable, since the territories constituted integral parts of the United States and had to be administered in the best interests of all the people, rather than a parochial few. President Roosevelt echoed the secretary’s sentiments and added that Gruening had “a splendid grasp” of Alaska’s problems, and would “give a good account of himself.” As far as the secretary was concerned, this sentiment was obviously for public consumption, because
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he did not really believe that Gruening would be a good governor. After listening to still further protests, Ickes terminated discussions and stated that the appointment had been made: “All of us ought to work together now to make Dr. Gruening’s administration a success.” On Gruening’s return to the capital, he discovered that Roosevelt had given him a recess appointment. He met with the president, who assured him that he would submit his name, together with many others, as soon as the Senate had finished debate on the Neutrality Act. Roosevelt suggested, however, that Gruening not leave for Juneau until he had been confirmed. Ickes was upset with the president because he had planned to ship Gruening off to Alaska and be rid of him. In fact, he intended to have the president dismiss Gruening at the end of the year and instead submit the name of Dr. Charles Bunnell, the president of the University of Alaska, for the Senate’s consideration as Alaska’s governor. The president refused to do so, however. In the end, Gruening resigned himself to accepting the governorship and leaving for Alaska, hoping that congressional friends would provide the margin to approve his nomination. True to his word, the president submitted Gruening’s name to the Senate on January , . On February , the Senate considered the nomination. Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-Mich.) stated: “Under the prevailing practice of ‘carpet-bagging’ the Governorship of Alaska, I have no objection to Mr. Gruening as nominee. I merely wish to assert my belief that there is now a sufficient civilized population in Alaska so that it ought to be permitted to have one of its own residents selected as Governor. I hope this is the last ‘external’ Governor who will be sent in that capacity.” Thereupon, the Senate, by unanimous consent, approved the nomination. November , , was Gruening’s last day at his office in the Department of the Interior. He met with Ickes, who confided to his diary, “I gave him no admonitions and offered him no further advice. I have given him all of the latter that I care to throw upon those particular waters. We parted without regret on my part, as well as upon his, I believe.” The secretary was happy to see him go, he continued, “although I am apprehensive of what may happen in Alaska.” A few days later, the Gruenings left the nation’s capital by railroad, bound for Seattle. Businessmen, industrialists, labor leaders, and newspapermen, wanting to meet Alaska’s new governor, conferred with him from the moment he stepped off the train until well into the night. The Seattle Chamber of Commerce, which had a vested interest in Alaska affairs, hosted a luncheon, while the Washington State Press Club gave a dinner honoring the territory’s new chief executive and also paying respect to his role as a former newspaperman of national prominence. Those who intended to discuss with him controversial subjects such as Alaska’s economic development, the protection of territorial fisheries, or the taxation of minerals came away uncertain as to what they had learned or where exactly Gruening stood on these matters. They knew, however, that they had met a cultured individual with broad experience in many fields, a man of liberal political beliefs who knew much about Alaska
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in an academic fashion, and a person enthusiastic about the territory and his ability to serve it well as chief executive. To reporters, Gruening talked of subjects dear to the hearts of northerners, such as modern air service to the states, bigger and better ships with which to transport the many tourists visiting the territory, and even of statehood for Alaska in the not-too-distant future. One Seattle-based editor pointed out that Gruening’s term as governor started inauspiciously because Alaskans had wanted a resident for the job, and that Ickes, to whom he owed his appointment, was considered by the North to be a menace. If, however, the new governor accepted his responsibilities as chief executive “of and for Alaska and not as a Department of the Interior puppet,” the editor observed, “he will be of tremendous value to Alaska.” Having met and talked with Gruening, this particular newspaperman was convinced that “he will stand on his own feet . . . listen attentively to the Alaskan viewpoint . . . [and] make a real governor.” The editor could not possibly have foreseen how correctly he had assessed Gruening. The Gruenings left Seattle on the SS Yukon for the voyage north. The scenery of the Inside Passage especially impressed Dorothy Gruening. It rained steadily, and if it did not rain, the clouds hung low in the sky. She observed seagulls flying over the ship and its wake and thought that they made “a perfect symphony of soft grays while the beautiful mist covered mountains . . . down which one can see any number of beautiful waterfalls casting their delicate white spray to the winds.” She noted that the Inside Passage was protected by islands, and compared it to “the most beautiful and spectacular part of the Hudson River magnified a great many times.” Mrs. Gruening also watched her fellow passengers and reported that the Alaskan women were “pink cheeked and happy looking and the men stocky and vigorous.” In fact, the “younger women [were] extremely pretty in a natural sparkling way” that reminded her of “beautiful European peasants.” After a brief stop in Ketchikan, the SS Yukon pulled into Petersburg on December . The day was beautifully sunny, showing the mountains covered with snow and the seemingly endless expanse of evergreen that grew down to the water’s edge. At the dock, Gruening met Earl Ohmer, the “high cockalorum of Petersburg . . . in his usual picturesque, wild west garb.” Joined by the editor of the local paper, the men walked around town and discussed some of the needs of the community, which included an airport and perhaps even a federal building. In the evening hours of the same day, Gruening arrived in Juneau and was met at the end of the gangplank by Harry Watson, former governor John Troy’s secretary. Watson explained that the official program required that Gruening be welcomed on board the ship. So back aboard he marched, to be introduced to a group of a dozen men and women, “chiefly all deserving Democrats holding office.” The party then went to the governor’s mansion, which, Gruening noted, was hereafter to be called the governor’s house. There, a few other important Alaskans assembled and the town’s mayor presented the new chief executive with a key to the city. From there, the group went to the federal building for the swearing-in ceremony. Many officials whom Gruening had expected to be there were absent, notably George A. Parks,
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Figure . Gruening sworn in as governor of Alaska, December , . M. E. Monagle, the secretary of the Divisional Democratic Committee, administered the oath of office. Governor John W. Troy is seated at right. Acc. no. --.
district cadastral engineer for the territory, with headquarters in Anchorage, who had been governor of Alaska from to ; territorial commissioner of education Anthony Karnes; Ike Taylor, the chief engineer of the federal Alaska Road Commission; and also federal officials Frank B. Heintzleman and Charles Hawkesworth. Jack Hellenthal, the Democratic National committeeman, presided, and M. E. Monagle, the secretary of the Divisional Democratic Committee, administered the oath of office (Figure ). Hellenthal then introduced Troy, “who started to say a few words and then petered out. It was rather pathetic,” Gruening observed, “and I realized for the first time how sick and far gone John Troy really is.” Hellenthal then introduced Gruening as the “Democratic Governor of Alaska,” improperly emphasizing a political and partisan aspect of the office that Gruening found offensive. Not wanting to lock horns immediately, he bit his tongue, realizing that the whole ceremony had been made to appear like a Democratic affair. He found it amusing, however, that “the very group which was now taking possession of [him] and the inaugural ceremony” were precisely those “who had unanimously resolved to oppose [his] confirmation on the grounds of [his] being a non-resident.” Gruening ended the ceremony with a brief speech in which he paid tribute to Troy and outlined the relationship between his office and the Department of the Interior. It had been a long day, so the Gruenings retired to the mansion, where they discovered that there were not enough blankets for two, that the furniture did not match, but that the bathrooms were “splendid with all the modern gadgets.” Rested, Gruening tackled his new responsibilities the next morning. As agreed on the previous day, he arranged for E. L. “Bob” Bartlett, the secretary of Alaska, to participate actively in the governor’s workload, fired Harry Watson and hired in his stead Estella Draper, his Washington secretary, and started to get acquainted with various territorial and federal officials. Among those who called was Father A. P.
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Kashevaroff, Russian Orthodox priest and curator of the territorial library and museum since its creation in , who reminded the chief executive that he had known the preceding twelve governors and gotten along well with them all. Gruening marveled at the continuity Kashevaroff represented and then asked him to prepare plans for a Bering bicentennial in , honoring the Danish navigator in Russian service credited with the discovery of Alaska in . Two days after Gruening had taken office, the Young Republicans sponsored a radio broadcast. Ronald Lister spoke for the group, and pointed out that a self-constituted welcoming committee, “composed only of favor seekers and office holders,” had greeted the governor on arrival; the people at large—the miners, fishermen, local business and professional people—had not been represented. Although Hellenthal had referred to Gruening as the Democratic governor, Lister and his group emphasized that they also welcomed him and expected that he would be “Alaska’s governor.” Lister concluded, “We shall judge by performance rather than by spoken words.” Gruening, of course, wholly agreed with Lister’s sentiments and fully intended to be governor for all the people. The governor soon discovered that Alaska had many problems as well as opportunities. A steady stream of territorial, federal, and private visitors passed through his office, enlightening him on Alaska affairs. Newspapermen Al Anderson, representing the Republican-leaning Press, and George Sundborg and Bob Henning, working for the Democratic Empire, visited. Henning told Gruening that he believed in Alaska’s future, and in fact was “sure it was going places.” As for Juneau, even if the Alaska Juneau Mine, a big employer, closed, there were other mineral deposits in the region. In any event, Henning believed the growing government payroll would take up some of the slack. It did not take Gruening long to discover that Alaska was unique in several respects. It was arctic and subarctic in climate, subcontinental in size, noncontiguous with the rest of the nation, and a maritime frontier. To borrow the terms of one historian, the governor found himself in charge of an administrative empire in which the federal government exercised its full powers to assure tight imperial control. Gruening studied the tortured legislative history that led to the passage of the Organic Act of , which prohibited both a legislative branch and a delegate to Congress. Alaska was made “a civil and judicial district,” with a governor, one district federal judge, four lesser judges, and other officials, all of whom were given multiple jobs. The U.S. marshal, for example, was to act as surveyor general despite the lack of legal provisions for a land system. The territorial officials were to administer the laws of Oregon and those that Congress specifically wrote for the district. Administration of some territorial affairs was to be carried out directly from Washington, D.C.—for example, the secretary of the interior was to direct education in the district. It was not until that Congress gave the territory the right to elect a congressional delegate and, in , with the second Organic Act, it gave Alaska a legislature. This representative body, however, was more limited in its field of action
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than the legislature of any other territory had ever been. This study of the historic record gave the new governor a good understanding of the territory’s governmental and administrative structure. Within days Gruening, a vigorous man, explored Juneau’s opportunities for physical exercise. He turned to Frank Heintzleman, the regional forester, for advice and learned to his dismay that riding was not a possibility; there were only a few farm horses in the area. He thought that taking up skiing at the age of fifty-two was too dangerous. That left hiking and skating, and perhaps even tennis if he could find some competitive partners. He also explored the city, using Bob Bartlett as guide. On one of their first walks, the two visited Robert Schoettler, the manager of the recently completed Baranof Hotel. The governor discovered that most of the money needed to build the structure had been raised locally through subscriptions from about fifty individuals. He was most impressed by the operation, and observed that this certainly was an “example of native enterprise and initiative and definitely a refutation to the allegations of Ickes that nobody would do anything here.” The governor promised to do all in his power to help develop Juneau as a tourist center. On December , Delegate Dimond visited the governor. He had just returned from a trip to the Interior, and related that Gruening had made “a very favorable impression and that the people up country were saying this was just the man for governor.” Gruening was pleased, particularly so after Dimond told him that he intended to urge the president to send his name for confirmation to the Senate as soon as Congress convened in . In a broadcast over the local radio station, Dimond called on his fellow Alaskans to cooperate wholeheartedly with Gruening, who he thought would make an excellent chief executive. Gruening quickly settled into his new job. He discovered that the duties of the governor’s office had been diluted through the years by successive territorial legislatures. Gradually, this had created a system of government by boards, and the governor chaired most. Gruening found himself chairman of the Board of Administration, the Board of Examiners, the Board of the Budget, the Banking Board, the Board of Road Commissioners, the Board of Trustees for the Alaska Pioneer Home, the Board of Public Welfare, the Territorial Historical Library and Museum Commission, and the Canvassing Board. There were two types of boards: those whose members the governor appointed subject to legislative confirmation, on which the law usually provided that one member be from each of the four judicial divisions, and boards whose members were elected territorial officials. The Board of Public Welfare belonged in the first category, with four members from each of the four judicial divisions. The Board of Administration belonged to the second category: the members were the territorial auditor, treasurer, attorney general, highway engineer and commissioner of public works, and superintendent of education. There were also a few specialized boards, such as the Fisheries Experimental Commission that supervised the newly established Fisheries Products Laboratory at Ketchikan, supported by federal and territorial
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funds. Its members were all Ketchikan residents. Whenever necessary, the governor convened the boards, and since most members were scattered throughout Alaska and transportation costs were high, they met only once or twice a year. These boards furnished some insulation against Washington-appointed governors wielding too much executive power, since board members were independent of the governor and under no obligation to follow his wishes. Like others before him, Gruening discovered that the territorial chief executive could merely persuade. Within the first month, Gruening had assembled a small staff consisting of a secretary, an assistant secretary who combined the duties of stenographer-typist and filing clerk, and an accounting clerk. Much of the governor’s time was occupied with housekeeping duties and innumerable details of the daily operations of government. In addition, all Alaskans passing through Juneau on either the north- or southbound ships felt the need to visit the chief executive. Gruening quickly discovered that most callers offered useful information or alerted him to conditions that needed investigating. He also realized that he continued to disagree with his boss, Secretary Ickes, on a variety of issues.
3
Proposed Resettlement of European Refugees in Alaska
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ruening had brought with him to Alaska yet another disagreement with Ickes. The issue had begun in , when Gruening was still the director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions. It involved a slowly developing proposal, championed by Ickes, to settle European refugees in Alaska. As governor, as he had as director, Gruening opposed the scheme. Resettlement was not a far-fetched idea, because Alaska was one of the last natural vacant places on earth considered by some authorities suitable for large-scale settlement. Alaska residents had long complained about the territory’s lack of population. There were precedents for settlement, and various groups had expressed interest in Alaska from time to time. Although the image of America as a haven for refugees was firmly ingrained in the American tradition, by the s the United States and its people had responded to several years of economic insecurity by wholeheartedly accepting the nativist slogan “America for the Americans.” The Great Depression and massive unemployment, coupled with nativistic nationalism and anti-Semitism, had destroyed confidence in the nation’s ability to absorb newcomers. By , the plight of German Jews had become desperate. On March , , Roosevelt decided to call an international conference on the refugee crisis, a gesture to the image of America as refuge for the oppressed, but he did not commit the administration to take any action. Following Roosevelt’s call, representatives of some thirty-two nations met in Evian-les-Bains, France, in July . The conferees formed the Intergovernmental Committee on Political Refugees, which was to undertake a search for resettlement havens and negotiate with Berlin over the refugees. Nothing was accomplished, and one participant succinctly summed up the conference when he declared that Evianles-Bains was “a façade behind which the civilized governments could hide their inability to act.” As the plight of the Jews became ever more pressing, private groups searched for solutions and turned their attention to Alaska. Soon, Democratic congressman
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Charles A. Buckley of New York offered to introduce legislation to exempt Alaska from the restrictive immigration laws, only to be rebuffed by the president. Although Alaskans had long complained about the territory’s lack of population, they also shared the generally unfavorable American attitude toward immigrants. According to a survey Fortune magazine published in July , fully . percent of the respondents opposed the admission of any more immigrants. “So much, then, for the hospitality of our melting pot,” concluded the editors of Fortune. Only American Jews were an exception to the generally hostile attitude; a scant . percent of them favored exclusion. Although the Fortune poll did not include Alaskans, one may safely assume that it reflected territorial attitudes. For as Alaska’s acting governor, Edward W. Griffin, explained to Congressman Buckley, much of the territory’s employment was seasonal and its economy underdeveloped. Griffin, however, explained to Gruening, then the director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions, that Alaska could probably take in small groups of refugees who had trades and could make a living. But, he cautioned Gruening, “we do not wish to give publicity to the matter, as it might result in a deluge of applications.” The director agreed with that assessment. Alaskans’ reactions were unfavorable to Secretary Ickes’s suggestion, at a press conference on November , , that room could be found in the territory for a considerable number of people. The secretary was known to be sympathetic to the plight of Jewish refugees and stated that he was “in favor of doing anything that a nation of Christian and humanitarian citizens can find the means of doing to help these people.” Despite the secretary’s carefully worded statement, however, the Times of Washington, D.C., headlined its story “Ickes urges Alaska as Haven,” while the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported that Ickes had stated that there was ample room in Alaska for Jews. After that burst of energy, Alaskans seemingly lost interest in the various immigration schemes. When Andrew J. May, chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee, introduced a measure designed to allocate all unused quotas for refugee immigration to the territory, Alaskans’ response was only minimal. Although the territory’s newspapers turned their attention to other events, the Department of the Interior continued to be flooded with inquiries from groups and individuals concerned with the plight of European Jews. These requests prompted Gruening’s Division of Territories to discuss the various colonization possibilities. These talks finally led the Department of the Interior to the decision to initiate an Alaska settlement program. Ickes gave the reluctant Gruening the responsibility of developing a concrete colonization plan, which was to include an analysis of the costs, required capital investments, and income possibilities in such diverse economic fields as the manufacturing of paper and the processing of furs and hides. Gruening was also to select a likely location in Alaska for such a colonization scheme. The director asked various federal bureaus and agencies operating in Alaska for the necessary statistics. On the basis of this material, the Department of the Interior issued a news release on the settlement question on April , . It explained that the
Proposed Resettlement of European Refugees in Alaska
department could make no specific recommendations for colonization because such a venture involved questions of national defense and the interpretation of immigration laws. These matters were beyond the jurisdiction of the Interior Department. The Interior Department’s reluctance to recommend a specific colonization scheme was due only in part to problems involving national defense and the immigration laws. According to the department, the reluctance also stemmed from the “beating which Interior had received because of its favorable attitude toward refugee settlement in the territory.” Eventually, however, with the prodding of Ickes, Felix Cohen, a member of the legal staff of the department’s solicitor, Nathan Margold, prepared a study titled “The Problem of Alaskan Development.” Gruening regarded this piece of work as “completely misleading,” and remarked that neither Cohen nor Margold had any firsthand acquaintance with Alaska. Their enthusiasm for the plan nevertheless convinced them of Alaska’s potential ability to absorb fifty thousand immigrants. Ickes had asked Under Secretary Oscar L. Chapman to lend his name to the report, but the latter took the precaution of first seeking the views of Interior Department officials familiar with Alaska. All considered the report too optimistic. Thereupon Chapman, a cautious bureaucrat, declined to make the report his own. Next, Ickes asked Harry Slattery—one of the secretary’s personal assistants, a lawyer and erstwhile friend of Gifford Pinchot and a conservationist in his own right—to endorse the report. He complied with the secretary’s wishes and the brochure became the “Slattery Report.” Released in August , it prompted Alaskans to rally in almost unanimous opposition to the idea of settling the territory with refugees and unemployed Americans. The Slattery Report maintained that Alaska’s high cost of living was caused by isolation, distance from markets, and high freight rates. The report continued that present immigration laws had been disastrous for Alaska because they had helped prevent needed population increases. In addition, absentee ownership, seasonal employment patterns, a lack of investment capital, and random settlement had severely retarded Alaska’s growth and development. Slattery then proposed the establishment of “public purpose corporations,” a modern version of the London, Plymouth, and Dutch West India companies. These were to be called Alaska Development Corporations, privately financed but bound by the terms of their charters of incorporation to conform to such conditions as Congress might prescribe. None of the planned colonizing and economic activities were to interfere with the existing economic structure in the territory (something that Alaskans recognized would be impossible to achieve). Congress was to pass legislation that would ease existing restrictions to admit refugees to Alaska but not to the contiguous states until they qualified under existing quotas. The Alaska Development Corporations were to select the settlers on the basis of fitness and skills suited for pioneer life. Enough American citizens were to be included among the refugees to assure their proper assimilation into American life. Self-sufficient agricultural communities were to be followed with industrial developments. Examples for corporation activities included
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tin mining, pulp production, use of fishery resources outside the heavily fished salmon, and the production of various types of fur, leather, paper, and wood products. Current earnings of the pioneers would repay funds advanced by the corporations and be put into revolving funds to be used for expansion and new settlement. Alaska newspapers and chambers of commerce overwhelmingly rejected the plan, but within a short time after the release of the Slattery Report, the Department of the Interior announced that it had received more than five hundred inquiries from businesses as well as private individuals. Actually, a great deal of human misery and anxiety lay behind the rather dry, factual announcement. Inquiries from refugees had been received throughout in the department. On May , , for example, some thirty members of the Jewish community in Neustadt, Germany, urgently applied for permission to emigrate “to Alaskan Territory.” All were healthy, strong, and skilled. “We know quite well,” their spokesman stated, “the difficulties making the rough clime of Alaska but now we have no other choice, we German Jews.” The problem, as a New York attorney involved in immigration cases explained to Gruening, was to find a place where German Jews could go immediately without great difficulty or expense. Action was urgently needed. Gruening’s reply was, perhaps, typical of the American response to these and countless other similar pleas. We are “most sympathetic,” he stated, but the American immigration and quota laws also applied to the territories and island possessions of the United States, including Alaska. Obviously, the hands of the department were tied unless Congress acted. In the meantime, however, Department of the Interior executives continued to discuss the Slattery Report and found it wanting. Gruening summarized departmental objections to the scheme in a memorandum for the secretary. He pointed out that the territories were entitled to equal treatment with the states—and raising the immigration quotas exclusively for Alaska would nullify this. The director further considered it “fundamentally un-American and undesirable to create a peculiar category of immigrants and prospective citizens denied the rights of free movement and compelled to live in one region, virtually making Alaska a concentration camp.” Gruening questioned the constitutionality of such a project, doubted that Congress would adopt it, and questioned the possibility of its enforcement if adopted. He noted, in conclusion, that a considerable number of refugees had already arrived in the United States since the persecutions began in ; he suggested that a reasonable number of suitable individuals be selected from among them and sent to Alaska in order to test the feasibility of the scheme. On November , Gruening attended a departmental staff meeting that Secretary Ickes opened by talking about loyalty. Certain members of the department, he complained, were not loyal to him and the president. Ickes related that he was encountering opposition to settling refugees in Alaska “and that he wanted it known again that this was department policy, that he had discussed this with the president and that the president had felt that , could be settled in Alaska every year for
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years.” Ickes told the staff that the Slattery Report was being revised by experts from the various bureaus and was to be reissued. He invited and welcomed any suggestions or critical comments, but “let it be clearly understood that the policy had been established—and it included an enlarged immigration quota for Alaska.” Ickes concluded that he “would not tolerate opposition, although he would welcome frank expression of views.” Gruening listened to the secretary’s exhortations, noting in his diary, “I never before appreciated how much the secretary was like Hitler and how the freedom of expression that he sought he would be as likely to get as Hitler would when asking his generals to make comment on a policy he had already announced.” The Slattery plan followed Gruening to Alaska. While reading a U.S. Geological Survey report on the mineral resources of southeastern Alaska, it occurred to him that one or more of Alaska’s numerous hot springs might be developed by qualified refugees as first-class Kurorte, or medical resorts. Prior to the war, American tourists had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in such mineral baths as Karlsbad, Marienbad, and Bad Neuenahr in Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Austria “for all kinds of afflictions, real or imaginary, such as obesity, rheumatism,” and liver trouble, to name but a few. Gruening reasoned that it should be possible to get competent German physicians, nurses, and masseuses and turn one of the hot springs into a really great resort. Circle Hot Springs, with abundant sunshine from May to August , had some features that might attract people. This settlement idea, Gruening concluded, “looks to me like a case of a good deal of capital and very few refugees,” just like all the others. Nevertheless, soon thereafter, the governor presented these ideas in a concrete proposal that some of the territory’s hot springs be developed into American equivalents of the famous European mineral baths. He pointed out that most of the professional staff at these European resorts undoubtedly were “among the proscribed of Nazi totalitarianism,” and either already were in the United States or else were trying to gain entry. Ickes, however, rejected that idea in favor of his much larger scheme, and the department took no positive action. Ickes pursued his plans and dismissed the opposition as coming “mainly from a handful of Alaska’s , white population, which feels that its monopoly of Alaskan resources would be threatened by an increased population.” Gruening was not surprised, for he had realized that it was useless to argue with Ickes about his colonization plans. Gruening asserted that “everybody who is familiar with Alaska and intellectually honest” knew that the colonization scheme proposed in the Slattery Report was based on nothing else but “wishful thinking.” Fortune magazine had probably best expressed American thinking on the subject of immigration when it released another reader poll in April . Respondents had been asked how they would vote on a bill to enlarge current quotas for European refugees, a prerequisite for Alaska colonization. Fully . percent of Protestants answered in the negative, percent of Catholics voted no as well, while only . percent of Jews opposed admitting more refugees.
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In early March , Ickes realized that it would be difficult to get anyone to sponsor an Alaska colonization bill. Gruening, in Washington on business, observed that the department “has been going down the coast trying to get a western Congressman to sponsor the bill,” believing that it would be helpful to emphasize Alaska’s development rather than the refugee feature of the measure. Finally, Representative Frank R. Havenner (D-Calif.) and Senator William H. King (D-Utah) introduced identical bills to implement the Slattery plan. The King-Havenner measure was “to provide for the settlement and development of Alaska.” Territorial opposition immediately intensified. The bill closely followed the Slattery plan and allowed ten or more American citizens to organize public-purpose corporations with a capital stock of at least ten million dollars. These corporations were to employ American citizens and immigrants, with preference given to the former. Nonquota immigrants, if meeting certain requirements, would receive visas for entry into and residence in Alaska only. This group of individuals was limited to those whose occupations were needed for the orderly development of the territory, and they would be required to remain in Alaska for at least five years after admission. Thereafter, they could be reclassified as quota immigrants. Developments were limited to operations suitable for Alaska, such as agriculture and livestock enterprises; production of furniture, wood pulp, and paper; mining, smelting, and processing of tin, platinum, gold, and other minerals; utilization of fish and shellfish (excluding the already heavily exploited salmon); fur farming and the processing of furs; the manufacture of products from reindeer hides; and furnishing services required by persons employed in any of these pursuits. Hearings on the King-Havenner measure took place May , , and in Washington, and provided a forum for a wide variety of comments. The secretary testified as the leadoff witness and restated his belief that Alaska should be settled and transformed from a “summer colony” into a “land of permanent habitation.” If this could be accomplished with European immigrants, then they should be allowed to come to Alaska. Numerous federal officials also testified in favor of the measure, but Governor Gruening, who was in town taking care of various Alaska matters, studiously avoided the hearings. He was convinced that the measure would not pass Congress, which he thought was apparently totally insensitive to the plight of the German Jews. He also knew that Delegate Dimond would testify expertly, and negatively, on the plan. Alaskans opposed to the King-Havenner measure had Delegate Dimond insert their statements into the hearing record. Most of the territory’s chambers of commerce, the Alaska Miners Association, and Anchorage Igloo No. of the Pioneers of Alaska vehemently opposed the bill. Delegate Dimond, aided by Governor Gruening, adroitly worked against the settlement bill. Dimond claimed that he regretted his own stand, particularly since all his life he had worked for the settlement and development of the territory. The delegate said he opposed the measure, however, because of the nonquota immigration provisions that would allow aliens to enter Alaska but not the contiguous states nor any of the other territorial possessions. This
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was intolerable because it set Alaska off from the United States and created a special class of aliens. The title of the measure was actually a misnomer, Dimond maintained, because it should have been called “a bill for the assistance and relief of the savagely persecuted people of some of the totalitarian states.” All Alaskans, he assured the senators, like Americans everywhere, wanted to relieve the miseries and agonies of those forced into concentration camps, exiled, even murdered, because of race or religion. There was less “race and other prejudice in Alaska than anywhere else in the nation,” Dimond asserted. After considerable testimony, the hearings concluded, but Congress took no action on the bill, owing in part to the negative nature of much of the testimony. In addition, both the King-Havenner measure and the Slattery plan on which it was based contained many weaknesses. Gruening and Dimond had criticized the creation of a special category of aliens for Alaska. Gruening ostensibly objected to the inadequacy of the Slattery plan, which failed to recognize how limited economic opportunities were in Alaska. The governor was correct in his criticism of the plan as unrealistic, but as a lifelong liberal he should have taken up the cause of people in dire jeopardy and urged that at least a few hundred of these be settled in Alaska immediately. As opportunity arose, more should have been added. Given his German-Jewish background, it is astonishing that Gruening was so opposed to efforts to help these people.
4
A Matter of Taxes
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ruening had visited alaska for the first time in May , after Charles E. Bunnell, the president of the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, had invited him to deliver the commencement address. The director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions was determined that this trip be a voyage of exploration and education. He was impressed with Alaska’s scenic grandeur, but struck by its lack of concern for the value of Native handicrafts and the future potential for tourism, and by the rigid policies of the U.S. Forest Service, which, in his estimation, prevented the establishment of a pulp and lumber industry in the Tongass National Forest. Gruening became aware of the need to construct an adequate infrastructure, and took note of widespread complaints that since the federal government owned over percent of Alaska’s land, it was next to impossible to acquire any of it. Therefore it was unavailable to produce revenues, and it became the responsibility of the federal government to contribute substantially toward the territory’s development. Gruening covered much of the territory in his short visit and realized that Alaska had serious problems that he “would have to work to solve in Washington.” He also concluded that Alaska’s people were her greatest asset, representing “a kind of democracy that had long since vanished from many other parts of our country.” Director Gruening visited Alaska for the second time in the summer of . As before, his travels took him to many parts of the territory, including the Aleutian Islands and the Brooks Range, the mountain system that divides the Alaska interior from the Arctic Slope. He also noted that Alaska had an inadequate revenue system, one that did not derive taxes commensurate with the natural resources extracted and shipped south. A lack of revenues prevented the territorial legislature and government from providing those services demanded by citizens in the rest of the United States. After Gruening became governor of Alaska in , he decided that the matter of taxation was the most urgent government problem in Alaska. In fact, if it were solved, the territory might expect for the first time to have an income more in keeping with the wealth it produced. Without any adequate system of taxation, Alaskans had no hope of gaining statehood, a goal desired by many liberals, including the governor.
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In short, Alaska’s tax system was archaic. Taxes were not levied in proportion to the ability to pay, and calculable benefits were not considered in the imposition of taxes. No uniform pattern governed the various occupational and business taxes; each was a unique case. Some were taxed by a specified amount that had no relationship to wealth or income. Others were taxed according to gross receipts or volume of production, regardless of the profitability of the operation. There was no tax on property or lands outside incorporated towns. This meant that general expenditures subsidized nonoperating mineral property by paying for the construction of trails, roads, and landing fields. Individuals living outside towns but using community facilities that the municipalities and the territory provided paid no tax in support of those facilities. For example, in the fiscal year ending June , , Alaska producers had exported minerals, including copper, gold, and silver, worth over million to the contiguous states; canned salmon and other fish and fish products worth over million; and furs and all other products amounting to nearly million, for a total of approximately million. Yet the territorial government had collected a mere ,, in taxes from the production of all of this wealth during the fiscal year. Additionally, the Alaska fund, derived from licenses issued for occupations and trade conducted outside of incorporated towns and deposited into the federal treasury, had yielded ,. Congress appropriated percent of these funds to Alaska for the construction and maintenance of roads and trails, percent for the maintenance of schools, and another percent for the relief of indigents. Clearly, the territory had a narrow tax base and derived far too little revenue from the exploitation of its natural resources. For the biennial budget period of –, the territorial board of budget estimated revenues of ,,—a decrease of ,, from the preceding two-year period, despite increases in natural resource yields—and expenditures of ,,. In short, Alaska sorely needed a modern tax system. The occasion that probably committed Governor Gruening to push for a modern system of taxation for Alaska occurred on December , . On that date, a former member of the territorial house, now on the tax collector’s staff, explained that he had a plan for developing Chena Hot Springs near Fairbanks. He advocated the conversion of the privately owned springs into a national monument, to be named after famed humorist Will Rogers. The man extolled the advantages of the hot springs and claimed that tests had shown that the waters were similar to those of the famous Carlsbad resort in Bohemia. There were difficulties, of course, since sixty-two miles of road would have to be built to make the place accessible— entailing an expenditure of approximately half a million dollars. He then suggested that the owners “who have spent so much time in Alaska and put in their lives here were clearly entitled to a payment of approximately , should the government decide to make it a national monument.” The governor listened carefully and asked what the assessment was on the place. There were no assessments since there
A Matter of Taxes
were no taxes, he was told. Gruening was astounded. Here was a natural spring of possibly great value, “a natural resource which some private person had seized by simply patenting the land” but which was subject to no taxes. But in case the federal government would actually desire to make the springs a national monument and develop it, “its value would suddenly become ,, that is if they can get it.” Gruening concluded, “It is clear that we do need an entirely new tax system here.” In Skagway later that month, Gruening met Charles Bunnell, longtime resident and president of the University of Alaska. That institution was always hard-pressed for funds, and Bunnell told Gruening that the “one essential, indispensable thing that needs to be done is a general tax program.” Everything else was secondary. Bunnell warned that it would “be difficult to put over because the territory has now gone years without such [a] program and has gotten in the habit of not paying taxes.” The educator was pessimistic that much could be accomplished, outside of a number of studies, since “several of the senators and [territorial] representatives were really employees of the gold companies . . . [and] they would be utterly opposed to it.” Having gone through many budgetary battles, Bunnell gloomily observed that “the legislature was pretty awful” and “getting steadily worse.” The two men discussed the legislative delegation from the Fourth Judicial Division and wondered whether it might be possible to interest some more qualified individuals to run for office. In discussing several possible candidates, Gruening realized that the outlook was not positive. The governor concluded from the discussion that apparently two types of men served in the legislature: namely “the respectable, fairly well educated businessmen; and the incompetent, possibly crackpot, possibly rabble rousing, generally unqualified person who comes up from below.” And while the first type had greater intelligence, he also would put up much greater resistance to a tax program, the governor thought, while he was “inclined to think that possibly the chance will be better with a majority of the less competent though it is purely a gamble.” Gruening spent a few months in Washington in the spring of lobbying for a variety of Alaska projects, including a hotel for Mount McKinley National Park. Again and again, the governor experienced how difficult it was to get Congress to approve the needed appropriations. Back in the territory, he was quickly reminded that Alaskans, too, were unwilling to pay for improvements. Congress was unwilling to spend much more money until territorial residents first helped themselves by reforming the outdated tax system. The governor encountered Alaskans’ intransigence on the matter while exploring the possibility of obtaining electrical plants for Sitka and Kodiak. He discovered that the residents of the latter town refused to incorporate so as not to have to assume some financial responsibilities. “In other words,” the governor wrote, “the towns here have precisely the same attitudes toward the territory as the territory has toward the federal government; let’s pay as little as possible and let the (a) territorial and (b) federal government do it all.”
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A few days later, a leading citizen of Deering visited the governor. She was very anti-Eskimo, and when Gruening suggested that some of the towns in the Second Judicial Division should incorporate in order to levy taxes, she was dismayed at the prospect of having a majority of the voters be Eskimos. She incorrectly stated that Native Alaskans paid no taxes; actually, they paid federal income taxes on monies earned and were subject to the same range of territorial taxes as any other residents. Gruening told her that it would be best “for the white people to set their own house in order in the matter of taxes.” Gruening knew that as early as , the Alaska Planning Council, a territorial agency initially sponsored by the National Resources Board, had studied territorial taxation. After a few months of work, the council issued the first systematic study of Alaska’s taxation ever undertaken. It concluded that the existing territorial and local taxes simply did not yield the revenue that could be expected with a modern tax system. Indeed, the authors pointed out, many critics had suggested that Alaska was being drained of its natural wealth and recovered far less than its due share. The governor read the report and found it highly useful, but agreed with its authors that further studies were needed. Gruening asked for help from the U.S. Treasury Department. After some negotiating, that agency agreed to loan the services of one of its experts, Frederick C. Lusk, to the territory. Lusk arrived in Juneau on May , , and as it was a beautiful sunny day, the governor decided to get the expert “started off right and take him out for a picnic lunch.” The party drove out to Lena Beach, and along the way the governor “had a chance to show Mr. Lusk [the] three dairies and other structures on the highway which pay no taxes.” This, he observed with satisfaction, was “Lesson No. .” Lusk went to work, but unfortunately had to return to Washington before he had completed his Alaska studies. Though incomplete, his work confirmed administration views that a tax system should be enacted. He also recommended a revision of the taxes on the territory’s various natural resources, such as minerals, fisheries, forests, and furs. Lusk argued that the territorial share from nonrenewable resources in particular should be substantial enough to enable Alaska “to reinvest the revenue in something of a substantial and permanent character, thereby giving back to the public for the enjoyment of future generations, as well as the present one . . . compensation for that which has been destroyed and consumed and which in no other way can be replaced.” Although considerable work had already been done, Gruening thought, “while we know in a general way that taxes should be sought from the legislature, considerable work needs to be done before such a program can be intelligently and effectively presented.” He therefore turned for help to the Public Administration Clearing House in Chicago. The governor asked for the loan of a tax expert and somebody skilled in drafting legislation. Gruening thought the latter position to be particularly important in order to make certain that “when amendments are presented . . . they do not denature the measure and nullify it with jokers.”
A Matter of Taxes
Eventually, the Public Administration Clearing House secured and paid for the services of Alfred Harsch, professor of taxation law at the University of Washington. The agreement was that Harsch was to come to Juneau in December and stay through the session in order to draft legislation and answer queries by legislators. Gruening traveled widely in Alaska in , in part to lobby legislators for his tax plan. He found that many were inclined to support his very modest proposals, which constituted a short list: • A general property tax to apply to real estate and improvements, but not personal effects or intangibles. The tax would be levied at ten mills and would be refunded to residents of municipalities so that there would be no double taxation. • A corporate income tax enabling the territory to tax the profits of mining and canning operations, cold storage plants, utilities, transportation companies, and motion picture houses. License taxes were to be repealed. • A personal income tax having two purposes: to bolster the income tax on corporations, and to levy taxes on seasonal workers deriving substantial incomes from fishing, mining, and construction jobs and taking all income outside without leaving anything in Alaska. Gruening apparently was fairly optimistic about his tax proposals, but soon some newspapers, the Alaska Miners Association, and even a member of the Alaska Planning Council opposed the proposed system. Gruening spent January of preparing himself for the biennial session of the territorial legislature that was to open on January . The governor conferred on the proposed tax package with Professor Harsch and members of his administration. He soon realized that the package was much more complex than he had realized. He also spent considerable time preparing his annual message, which was fifteen thousand words long. He delivered it on January , taking two hours to read it. Gruening remarked with satisfaction that despite its length, he “managed to hold the attention of the legislators.” In it, after giving a historical overview of Alaska and paying tribute to its pioneers, he emphasized that now the territory had a third generation, born and raised in Alaska, who wanted to make this their home. It was to this growing generation, he said, “which holds the hope and future of Alaska, that we must dedicate our attention and our efforts.” Too much of the pioneer spirit of taking all and leaving nothing behind survived, and while Alaska had enriched the nation, it had done little for itself. “The time has come,” Gruening declared, “when an increasing proportion of that wealth should be kept in Alaska for the further development, progress, and improvement of Alaska and the Alaskan.” The governor listed some of the most pressing needs, such as expansion of the University of Alaska, which had been turning students away because of a lack of
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space; support for secondary schools and old age assistance; mothers’ allowances; expansion of the Pioneer’s Home; an extension of the federal and territorial building; the construction of four National Guard armories; appropriation for vocational education that would bring with it two-to-one federal matching funds; amendment to the workman’s compensation law to apply to all workers, because the existing law excluded those establishments where only five or fewer people were employed; the long-overdue tax program; and much more. Legislators quickly responded to the governor. Immediately after Gruening had finished his message, Senator Norman R. “Doc” Walker of Ketchikan asked for a “rising vote of thanks to our honorable governor for the splendid message he had delivered.” The senate president, however, wisely did not put the motion to a vote but only asked the members of the legislature to stand—which they did, applauding. Fifteen minutes after the joint session had adjourned and the house had started work again, two representatives introduced, and the house unanimously passed, a memorial, or petition, asking Congress to enact legislation previously introduced by Delegate Dimond forbidding the appointment as governor of Alaska of any person who had not been a resident for five years. A couple of weeks later the senate followed suit, passing the memorial by a vote of seven to one. Thereupon Delegate Dimond informed legislators that he would amend his measure, reducing the residence requirement from five to three years—thereby excepting the Gruening appointment. Clearly, the legislative memorial was a slap at the governor, reflecting a deep-seated animosity. Territory-wide, several newspapers responded with headlines such as “Gruening Demands Higher Taxes,” “Governor Urges New Taxes for Alaska,” and “Alaska’s Governor Would Tax Absentee Fisherman.” The governor remarked, “The general impression seems to be that I am going to be licked on the tax program, that the legislators are not going to vote any new taxes. . . . While I am prepared to believe this probable I know that they are going to have a problem of raising enough money for existing programs and that some new legislation is imperative.” The governor suspected that in order to meet the fiscal needs, the legislators would probably increase liquor and gas taxes at the last moment. Gruening vowed, however, that he would veto a sales tax, in his opinion one of the most inequitable taxes, “whether we need the money or not.” After the session had opened, Gruening apprehensively observed, “The lobbyists are particularly active.” He knew that they opposed tax reform, and they all worked hard. Many of the legislators and most of the lobbyists simply did not share the governor’s ideas on taxation. As the arguments unfolded during the session, those employed by the foes of taxation were essentially that the American economy operated within a system of free enterprise fueled by private capital, that any attempt to redistribute wealth through taxation should be carefully reviewed, and that the real opportunity for the territory’s economic growth lay in the untrammeled exploitation of Alaska’s natural resources.
A Matter of Taxes
In February, the senate examined the provisions of the income tax measure and called on Professor Harsch, who had drafted the bill, to explain some of its provisions. His reception in the senate was not friendly, and boded ill for Gruening’s program. Finally, toward the end of the legislative session, an “irresistible senate coalition of members from the Second and Fourth Divisions, with help from the Third,” killed the Alaska income tax bill by a vote of five to three. With that vote, Gruening’s program suffered a significant defeat. In fact, Gruening’s ideas on taxation had aroused so much legislative antagonism that toward the end of the session, a representative from Anchorage introduced a measure that was designed to bypass the appointed governor. It provided for an elected administrator general who would make all gubernatorial appointments and receive the reports of the various territorial departments and boards. The appointed governor would be restricted to greeting the legislature biennially and serving on the territorial Board of Education and the University of Alaska Board of Regents. This measure would have deprived the governor of any opportunity to propose legislation. Although defeated by a vote of twelve to four, the measure indicated the deep hostility many legislators harbored against the nonresident governor and his unsettling ideas and proposals. In his memoirs, Gruening recalled that the lobbyists operated “on the principle that Alaska should spend as little as possible on its own needs” and were “influential in killing sorely needed social and educational legislation, and successfully fought every tax reform measure that would have affected their absentee employers. Their victory was so overwhelming,” he wrote, “and their performance so crude and shameless that I resolved to take the matter to the public and issue a ‘Message to the People of Alaska’ to give them my view of what had happened.” Gruening’s message was printed in pamphlet form; many territorial newspapers reprinted it. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, owned by a Gruening foe, refused to run the message, but a representative from Fairbanks, a Gruening sympathizer, read it aloud at a Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce luncheon. There were so many requests for copies, in fact, that the governor had to order a second printing. In his message, Gruening sorted out the issues confronting the territory as he perceived them. Alaskans had a simple choice, he explained: they could all work together to build the territory economically, socially, and politically for the benefit of all of its citizens, or stand idly by and continue watching it “governed for and by outside interests whose sole concern is to take out of Alaska as much as they can, as fast as they can, and leave as little as possible.” The governor then explained why outside interests were able to control Alaska’s destiny. The Organic Act of had created a legislature of sixteen representatives and eight senators, drawn equally from the territory’s four judicial divisions. Since it required a majority vote from both houses to pass any measure, four senators could block any legislation. In short, it was easy for outside vested interests with their private purposes to control only four senators out of eight and thereby dominate the legislative agenda.
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Gruening told his readers that legislators generally fall into two classes: those who attempted to represent their constituencies honestly and honorably, and those who served somebody else, including themselves. Fortunately, the governor declared, most of Alaska’s legislators were honorable individuals, although there were some who had been misled, intimidated, or tricked. Gruening then reiterated some of the basic issues the territory faced, and explained that even “with the utmost prudence and economy the expenses of the regular Territorial departments would be , in excess of anticipated revenues.” With war threatened and American liberties imperiled, the federal government was spending million on Alaska defenses, expenditures “of great economic and social benefit to Alaska.” Nearly every Alaska community benefited from these military activities. In addition, the federal government had started to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay and equip the National Guard, “an institution of which the states and our other territories have been proud.” The governor reminded his audience, “The one and only collaboration which the federal government has ever expected of the territory, the first request made of Alaska in its history, was that Alaska build its own armories, as every state and territory had done.” Shamefully, the gold and cannery lobby defeated the necessary appropriation. Gruening praised the ten representatives who had supported the construction of armories—and he named those individuals, as well as the five senators who had supported funding. But several house members had used treachery and deception to defeat funding, Gruening continued. One of those, James V. Davis, cosponsored the measure and then deliberately stalled it so that it did not reach the senate until after the fifteenth day. (Territorial legislative rules required that any bill reaching the senate after the fifteenth day required a two-thirds vote for passage.) That enabled three senators to kill it: Leroy M. Sullivan, O. D. Cochran, and Edward D. Coffey. Their action, the governor asserted, had frustrated the desire of a majority of patriotic Alaskans to have the armories built. Gruening also declared that patriotism that merely consists of “breast-beating and flag waving on holidays, but balks at a single cent of expenditures . . . is the type which has made the rise to totalitarianism possible in the world.” The governor assured his audience that “neither Alaska nor any part of our beloved United States will be controlled by penny-pinching pretended patriots, by the lobbyists whose flag is the dollar sign and who at all times in their methods and morals are the enemies of the democratic process.” While the lobby had won an important skirmish in defeating the tax proposal and most other important necessities, it had not won the war. For Alaskans now had two years to study the situation and decide whether to continue allowing the absentee interests to strip the territory of its wealth, or to take a part of it and reinvest it in the territory. In his message, Gruening had deftly defined the issues—and he had done so in black-and-white. The forces of evil were the absentee interests, chiefly mining and fishing, that methodically stripped Alaska of its natural resource wealth. Ably rep-
A Matter of Taxes
resented by lobbyists who controlled a handful of legislators, they had resisted any attempt to retain some of the wealth and invest it in the territory. Arrayed against these dark forces were most of Alaska’s citizens and a majority of the members of the fifteenth biennial legislature. The governor had drawn clear battle lines. A man of action and an optimist at heart, Gruening wasted no time before exploring alternative avenues to achieve his goals. One of these was reapportionment, an idea that Delegate Dimond had pursued for some time. Dimond, a keen student of politics, had long concluded that population growth in the Third and Fourth Judicial divisions demanded redistribution of legislative representation in accordance with the principle of proportional representation. Dimond hoped that reapportionment would break the power that the mining and fishing interests exerted on legislators. Like Gruening, Dimond pointed out that only four senators, in a legislature numbering twenty-four members, were able to control or stifle all legislation. He proposed to enlarge the legislature from twenty-four to thirty-six members. Under his formula, one member of each house would be elected for each population block of four thousand in each judicial division. While not changing total membership in each division, it shuffled membership in both houses. The first division would elect six members to each house; the second, three; the third, five; and the fourth, four members. Numerous chambers of commerce, various posts of the American Legion, labor and fraternal organizations, private citizens, and legislators endorsed the measure. The Juneau Chamber of Commerce opposed the scheme, claiming that it would, in effect, create a unicameral legislature—an idea that territorial residents had rejected in a referendum—and demolish opposition to the many other dictatorial plans advanced by Secretary Ickes, Delegate Dimond, and Governor Gruening. As finally passed by Congress and signed into law, Dimond’s measure increased the territorial senate to sixteen members, four from each judicial district. The bill was to take effect in , and it provided for regular reapportionments thereafter. Although it was not all he had hoped for, Gruening thought the change in legislative representation accomplished desirable objectives: it gave Alaska proportionate representation in the house, and by increasing the size of the senate made “it more difficult for lobbyists and selfish interests generally to control” it. The other avenue consisted of federal legislation, sponsored by the secretary of the interior, designed to aid the Alaska tax situation in a constructive way. To that end, the Division of Territories and Island Possessions, at Ickes’s request and in collaboration with the Solicitor’s Office, prepared a lengthy memorandum analyzing the weaknesses and strengths of Alaska’s tax system, and made a series of suggestions—including those for an income and inheritance tax, as well as excise and license taxes. The memorandum fully supported Gruening’s views on taxation. The Division of Territories and Island Possessions had rendered a comprehensive review of the Alaska tax system.
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Governor Gruening, though disappointed with the performance of the territorial legislative session, was not about to give up on his quest to reform the Alaska tax system. He had won allies among legislators and citizens, and the Department of the Interior supported his plans. He fully intended to resume the battle in . In the meantime, however, efforts to prepare Alaska for impending armed conflict consumed all of Gruening’s energies. Battling for a modern tax system had to wait for another day.
5
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n september , , German armies crashed into Poland. Two days later, Great Britain and France, having guaranteed Poland’s security, declared war on Germany. World War II had started, and soon cast its long shadow over the United States as well. Gruening was acutely aware of the role the U.S. Army had played in Alaska’s history, and also of the territory’s unpreparedness for any armed conflict. The army had ruled Alaska from to , followed by an agent of the U.S. Treasury Department, and from until the U.S. Navy governed Alaska. The army returned with the gold rushes of the s and built various forts. When war broke out in Europe in September , Alaska’s only military establishment was a remnant of the gold rush period called Chilkoot Barracks, located at Haines on Lynn Canal; fewer than three hundred soldiers and eleven officers, armed with pistols and old Springfield rifles, occupied it. The installation did not have a single antiaircraft gun. The troops were immobilized because their only means of transportation consisted of the venerable tug Fornance. Its engines were so feeble that while returning from Juneau in December , encountering a thirty-knot headwind, it was unable to advance to Haines and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard. In essence, the territory was undefended. That was the fault of Congress, for as early as Delegate Dimond had appealed for funds to build defense installations in the territory, but his pleas had fallen on deaf ears. He continued his efforts over the years, and pointed out that the shortest distance between the United States and the Orient, the Great Circle Route, crossed Alaska. The delegate was afraid that these geographical factors would encourage potential enemies moving across the Pacific to invade Alaska first. However, Dimond’s measures to provide million for an air base and another million for a naval base died quietly in the House Military Committee and the Naval Affairs Committee, respectively. Early in , however, Congress had designated six strategic areas in which there would be Army Air Corps bases, and Alaska was one of them. In subsequent congressional testimony, military witnesses unfailingly supported an Alaska base for defensive-offensive purposes and for providing training in cold-weather aviation.
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Brigadier General William Mitchell, an advocate of air power, epitomized the view expressed at the various hearings with his testimony on February , , in which he dramatically declared that Japan was America’s most dangerous enemy in the Pacific. “They will come right here to Alaska . . . the most central place in the world for aircraft, and that is true whether of Europe, Asia, or North America. I believe in the future he who holds Alaska will hold the world, and I think it is the most important strategic place in the world.” It was to no avail; Congress did not appropriate the necessary funds. In time, however, Dimond won converts, the most important being General George C. Marshall, the army chief of staff, and Major General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, head of the Army Air Force. In , Congress authorized naval air stations at Sitka and Kodiak with construction plans covering several years. The next year, Congress provided million for a cold-weather aircraft testing station, resulting in the construction of Ladd Field, near Fairbanks. As early as , while still the director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions, Gruening, upon his return from his second visit to Alaska, had discussed the desirability of an army base in Alaska with General Marshall. The director had suggested that the proper place for such an installation would be near Anchorage. Now governor, Gruening noted with satisfaction that included in the War Department’s fiscal budget (the then-modest sum—by today’s standards—of ,,) was a request for a base near Anchorage for ,,. On March , , both Delegate Dimond and Governor Gruening urged the House Appropriations Subcommittee to start construction on the Anchorage base and establish an Alaska National Guard unit as well. On March , Gruening asked for the president’s support for the Anchorage air base. Subsequently, Gruening and Dimond testified before the House Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee on the War Department, pleading for the Alaska bases. Gruening remarked that committee members “gave us an attentive hearing with the opportunity to extend our remarks.” On April , the governor learned that after the defense budget had reached the full Appropriations Committee, that panel had eliminated over million, including the money for the Anchorage installation. The governor and delegate were disappointed, and the former expressed the hope that the Senate would restore the funds for the Anchorage base. Gruening told the press that the Anchorage installation was important “not only to Alaska, but to the whole scheme of national defense.” The government had spent “,, fortifying the Hawaiian Islands while Alaska, on the shortest route to the Orient from the United States, is undefended at the present time.” The members of the Appropriations Committee, however, were adamant in their refusal to grant the requested funds. A few days later, on April , , Hitler’s armies invaded Norway and Denmark. In May, the German air force bombed Rotterdam and its armies seized the Netherlands. Belgium was next, and then the Germans invaded France. In the face of these developments, Congress hastily restored the funds for the Anchorage
Arming Alaska
installation, and thus the construction of an army fort, together with its airfield, were assured. On June , the army’s advance man, Construction Quartermaster Lieutenant Colonel E. M. George, opened an office in Anchorage. That same day, the federal government advised the California State Department of Employment that one thousand men were needed to construct barracks near Anchorage. On June , four men with one Caterpillar tractor and carryall, a concrete mixer, and four dump trucks that had been sent to Anchorage by train from Ladd Field started work on Alaska’s first large fort and tactical airfield. Soon local civilian manpower resources were exhausted, and construction workers from outside the territory arrived in Anchorage in succeeding months. A couple of weeks later, on June , Anchorage citizens greeted the arrival of the initial contingent of the Alaska Defense Force when officers and men of the Fourth Infantry, led by Lieutenant Colonel Earl Landreth, arrived. The troops pitched their khaki tents in a field outside of town called the Wallace Ranch. Swatting mosquitoes as they looked at the mountainrimmed valley, the soldiers asked bystanders where the air base was located; when told that they were standing on it, they soon set to work. Together with civilian workers, they proceeded to construct the base at top speed. During the long daylight and lingering dusk of the Alaska summer, work never stopped. Seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, bulldozers stirred up clouds of dust as they knocked over spruce, birch, and aspen trees to make room for runways, hangars, and barracks. The hectic building activity continued into the fall and winter. The military base rapidly taking shape was named Fort Richardson in honor of Brigadier General Wilds P. Richardson, the first president of the Board of Road Commissioners for Alaska from to . The airfield was named Elmendorf to honor Captain Hugh M. Elmendorf, who had been killed in an aircraft accident at Wright Field in Ohio in . (Later, after the air force had become a separate service, the army built its own fort seven miles distant toward the foothills of the Chugach Mountains, retaining the name Fort Richardson.) At the same time that the engineers started construction near Anchorage, five other military installations were newly activated or under construction in Alaska: major facilities were under way at Kodiak Naval Air Station and submarine base, Ladd Army Air Field, and the Dutch Harbor Naval Station. At the same time, the Army Corps of Engineers, through the Seattle District Engineer, started building airfields and garrisons at Yakutat and Annette Island, where the navy also had seaplane facilities. In the meantime, the Civil Aeronautics Administration had begun construction of runways at a variety of locations in interior Alaska. Gruening was satisfied that at long last a modest start had been made in fortifying America’s subarctic territory. In mid-May of , the governor left Juneau for the nation’s capital to lobby for Alaska concerns. He found Washington “seething chiefly with the war situation which was growing hourly worse with Belgium and Holland conquered, the channel ports taken with lightning speed, the Allied Army
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disastrously routed, and Italy apparently waiting vulture-like to jump in when it could be done without risk.” The governor sadly observed, “We shall never again see the kind of world that we had.” By June , he was once again back in Alaska. A few days later, the governor lunched with a trader from Attu, a Mr. Schroeder, who supplied him with information about the Aleutian Islands. Among other items of interest, Schroeder informed him that several years ago a Japanese flier had planned to make a goodwill tour, which included flying over the Aleutians. Soon three Japanese nationals landed on Attu, “allegedly to be there” for the airman, “although there was no likelihood of his landing, and hired a house and stayed three months minutely investigating every part of the island.” The story reminded Gruening of Delegate Dimond’s repeated warnings about suspicious Japanese activities along Alaska’s coastline, and he concluded that they probably knew “everything there is to know about our westernmost islands.” It is clear that both Schroeder and Gruening shared the then-common distrust of anything Japanese and Japanese intentions. On June , General John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command in San Francisco, together with various colonels including John Lee of the engineers, who was in charge of the Alaska work, arrived in Juneau bound for an inspection trip of the territory. Seven days later, the general and his party returned to Juneau. DeWitt related to the governor that “he was very much pleased with the rapidity with which work was progressing.” Construction crews in Fairbanks had made so much progress that DeWitt thought the base would be completed before June . Some men worked at the Anchorage installation, which was in a perfect location. As in Fairbanks, around-the-clock work speeded progress. The general had made arrangements to locate some army units at Kodiak for the protection of the navy air base. Dutch Harbor would be developed into a submarine base, and Alaska was to have a garrison of six thousand soldiers, commanded by a brigadier general. DeWitt revealed that he planned to recommend as Alaska commander Colonel Simon Bolivar Buckner, who was slated for promotion to brigadier general. DeWitt had decided that Buckner was “an excellent man, a great lover of hunting and fishing who would get all his men out in the open and have them hunting and fishing.” The general concluded that if the flying fields in Ketchikan, Juneau, and elsewhere were to be completed in a timely fashion, the job “had better be done by the army.” Gruening agreed with DeWitt’s assessment, confessing that “one of the compensations of having all this money spent on Alaska defense . . . will also help the general development of Alaska.” As it happened, Gruening had already encountered the man who was to command the army in Alaska. On June , three days before General DeWitt’s arrival, the Aleutian docked at Juneau with Colonel Buckner aboard. Governor Gruening met the ship and greeted the colonel, showed him the city and environs, and then arranged a luncheon on the Haida, commanded by Captain F. A. Zeusler, the new commandant of the Alaska Coast Guard district. Zeusler had also just arrived, and the three men had an opportunity to discuss military matters. The governor was par-
Arming Alaska
ticularly impressed by Buckner, pronouncing him “a winner” giving “the appearance of great ability and common sense.” Gruening, however, was not impressed with the congressional party, consisting of Representatives George J. Bates of Massachusetts, Beverly M. Vincent of Kentucky, and William S. Jacobson of Iowa, who had come north to inspect the new naval bases. Once in Alaska, Vincent was anxious to return to his home state to mend his political fences, and the party left after having seen only the Sitka installation. On July , Colonel Buckner arrived in Anchorage, moved into a tent on Elmendorf Field, and assumed command of the Alaska Defense Force, a job he held until his reassignment to the southwest Pacific in command of the Tenth Army in September . On August , , an army B- bomber landed at Merrill Field, Anchorage’s municipal airport, bringing Major Everett S. Davis and two enlisted men—the first Air Corps personnel to serve in the area. In the meantime, the governor and Major Jesse E. Graham busied themselves with establishing the first four National Guard units for Alaska, which Congress had authorized for Ketchikan, Juneau, Anchorage, and Fairbanks, and selecting potential officers for these units. In addition, Gruening contacted some members of the legislature and community leaders to determine what, if any, support there was for appropriating territorial funds for the construction of armories. A Democratic member of the territorial house from Juneau indicated that she would support armories “but didn’t want the fact known as . . . many of the people she counted on to vote for her were opposed to the National Guard.” In short, a sampling convinced Gruening that it would not be easy to get funding for armories from the legislature. Early in August, Representative C. Buell Snyder of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee for the War Department, and Representative George Mahon of Texas arrived in Juneau, bound for Anchorage and Fairbanks to inspect construction of the new bases. The governor decided to accompany the politicians. They left Juneau on the Haida bound for Seward and experienced such a rough crossing of the Gulf of Alaska that “both Congressmen were extremely seasick.” Gruening proudly remarked that he apparently was “the only passenger on board who missed no meals.” The ride from Seward to Anchorage in the private railroad car of Colonel Otto F. Ohlson, the general manager of the Alaska Railroad, was smooth and settled congressional stomachs. The governor was amazed at the progress that had been made since his last visit: a great area had been cleared of trees and shrubs, eight hundred soldiers lived in tents, and barracks construction was well under way. In booming Anchorage, the party met two other congressmen from the same subcommittee, Joe Starnes of Alabama and David D. Terry of Arkansas, who had just arrived from Fairbanks, where they had inspected Ladd Field. Gruening was impressed with the group, for “they knew their stuff and were interested.” (It was the same group, however, before whom the governor had appeared the preceding April to urge them to restore the Anchorage base that had been eliminated in their million cut from the War Department’s request.)
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From Anchorage, the governor flew to Fairbanks, where he interviewed several National Guard prospects and inspected possible sites for armories. He concluded that “the National Guard material seem to be not quite so good here as in other towns,” perhaps because so many men were working in the field during the summer season. Next, the governor flew to Nome, which, he observed, had “improved noticeably since [he] was there in .” After a banquet in the governor’s honor, Tony Polet, the town’s leading citizen, arranged an airplane trip over the Seward Peninsula and Little and Big Diomede islands for Gruening. With him on the flight were Judge J. H. S. Morison, Mildred Maynard, Father Cunningham, and others. On the return flight, the plane crossed Tin City, the only location under the American flag where tin was mined. Gruening observed, “These pretentious names are marvelous, after one sees to what they are attached. Tin City consisted of a dock on a beach, a couple of shacks and then two or three miles back on the stream where the tin is being extracted, a dredge, one building which presumably houses personnel and a couple more shacks.” All in all, the governor thought the visit most pleasant, and the citizens friendly, hospitable, and seemingly “glad that [he] had come.” Gruening returned to Juneau on August , and left the next day for Seattle and Los Angeles to participate in the inaugural flight of the American Clipper to New Zealand via New Caledonia. After his visit, he returned to Juneau relaxed and ready to tackle Alaska’s problems anew. In September, the governor went to Bremerton to visit Rear Admiral Charles S. Freeman, the new commandant of the Thirteenth Naval District, which included Alaska, and discussed with him northern defense needs. “The Admiral is quite new in this part of the world and also knows nothing about Alaska,” Gruening observed. Freeman informed him that Captain Ralph C. Parker had just been appointed chief of the Alaska section of the Thirteenth District and, therefore, would be the individual concerned with territorial needs. Here was another officer in a crucial role, Gruening observed, “who apparently also knows nothing about Alaska.” A few weeks later, Gruening met Captain Parker, whose ship was moored off Japonski Island near Sitka. The governor was not impressed, reporting that Parker was “a tall, elderish gentleman . . . with far less pep than General Buckner.” After his visit with Freeman, Gruening stopped on Annette Island, where construction of an airfield had begun a few weeks earlier. He was impressed by the amount of work that had been accomplished: a big dock had been built, and the Civilian Conservation Corps employees and two companies of engineers were encamped. The terrain was swampy and everything had to be built on heavy planking. The officer in charge of the engineers had not yet figured out how to build the runway. The muskeg varied in depth from four to twenty feet. Scraping it away, the officer told the governor, presented problems since the rock surface underlying the muskeg was irregular and high rock spots would have to be blasted and the low spots filled in. In any event, the task was to prepare stable, firm, and solid runways. Army bombers, weighing many tons, were to use these facilities and required firm runways. Perhaps most
Arming Alaska
annoying, no authoritative information existed on what would happen if a runway was built on muskeg. These were technical problems, but a delegation representing the Native community of Metlakatla informed the chief executive of the human dimension. The delegation complained that they had been totally excluded from employment on the construction project—the main reason for which they had relinquished title to twelve and a half square miles of their island. But it had been in vain, because now soldiers and Civilian Conservation Corps employees had taken all jobs. On a more cheerful note, the governor attended the induction of Company B of the National Guard in Ketchikan, and reported that he was favorably impressed “that the ethnic origin of the boys enlisted was of the greatest variety and included Filipinos, among others, as well as an Olson.” In fact, Gruening remarked, he “did not know how Alaska would get along without its [Scandinavian] Olsons.” A couple of days later, he attended the induction ceremonies of the headquarters detachment of Company A of the National Guard in Juneau. The affair had been publicized, and a considerable crowd attended and patiently listened to speeches by Juneau’s dignitaries. A month later, Gruening also witnessed the same ceremonies in Anchorage and Fairbanks. The latter unit he judged “to be the best of the lot so far . . . the young men looked very fit and the place was packed. There were the usual speeches.” In Anchorage, General Buckner, assorted military brass, and civilian officeholders also spoke on the occasion—only the city’s mayor was missing because he was out hunting moose. In short, by late a good start had been made in providing the North with defensive installations. A program of Civil Aeronautics Administration–Defense Landing Area projects had gotten under way. Early fields were located at Nome and Naknek, the latter to aid aircraft from Elmendorf, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians. Ultimately, these emergency fields and runways were scattered throughout the territory and proved very useful as military aviation increased in Alaska. The Civil Aeronautics Administration had an Alaska budget of million in , and performed heroic construction deeds with the funds. Late in , General Buckner conducted a “sea survey” of the Aleutians from a destroyer and recommended the construction of advanced operating bases for bombers in western Alaska. He included an army base in the vicinity of Dutch Harbor in his recommendations. In the meantime, although Gruening welcomed and promoted military activities, he had started to worry about their impact on Alaska. One of his worries concerned wildlife. “I am very fearful,” he remarked, “of what will happen to our wildlife when the Army boys have been here for a year and start taking out their [resident] hunting licenses for ..” A fee of for nonresident hunters had kept the number of military sportsmen small, but that was soon to change. An estimated twentyfive hundred moose browsed on the Kenai Peninsula, “but there will be , soldiers at Anchorage, every one of them no doubt eager to hunt and every one a good marksman.” He concluded, “Our game will not stand up under the circumstances.”
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It was imperative that the game laws be modified “in advance of the wildlife destruction that will inevitably begin in another year.” In early October, the governor traveled to Kodiak to have a look at the naval base. He pronounced it an impressive undertaking, but doubted that it would be finished as rapidly as the Sitka facility because much of the site had to be filled in and the dredge could only handle two thousand cubic yards of dirt a day, while approximately one million cubic yards were needed for the project. At that rate, it would take two years to complete the earthworks. The navy had chosen the site well, “since a bend in the bay where the planes will come in is sheltered from the south and west, though exposed somewhat to northeasterly winds.” On October , the governor addressed a public meeting at the high school auditorium in Anchorage. He reminded his listeners that America was the “last great stronghold of liberty, the last citadel of democracy.” Was it “possible to save civilization” or would all that had been accomplished “be swept away” and the world “relapse into a dark new age” made terrible by the use of science for destructive purposes? “The tragedies of the present were without precedence in history,” Gruening asserted, and, therefore, “we are preparing in Alaska. The defense bases are merely a realization of a peace-loving people that we must defend our liberties. It has come so quickly that many of us are not fully aware of the necessity. Nothing is more important to the American people than to realize what the issue is.” Gruening continued that democracy would decay and fail unless defended vigorously. It needed both external and internal defenses. The arrival of the army and navy in Alaska assured the former. It no longer sufficed “to be almost ready, to have defenses almost good enough. We must be superior to all others.” Anchorage had a special responsibility because it had been favored with more good fortune than any other part of the territory. “This city was planned well. It has more economic variety than any other city, [its economy is] supported by mining, fishing, transportation. It has the climate and along came the Matanuska Valley project, giving it agriculture. Now the largest air base in the territory comes along and is built at Anchorage.” With all these things thrown in the city’s lap, it had a peculiar challenge to do well because “things we get for nothing often are squandered.” Therefore, Anchorage should strive to have a good and efficient government, the governor concluded. Making democracy work was a cooperative venture, and few others had the opportunities that Alaskans had. While Gruening exhorted the citizens of Anchorage, General Buckner announced his defense program priorities, which included the construction of a road from Palmer to the Richardson Highway in the vicinity of Copper Center. This road was to be kept open year-round, together with twelve months’ maintenance of the Richardson Highway. His second priority included the relocation of the Alaska Railroad terminal from Seward to Passage Canal (Whittier) and the construction of a highway from Seward to Anchorage. The Anchorage Chamber of Commerce was ecstatic and asked what it could do to help accomplish these goals, only to be told
Arming Alaska
by Buckner that “the best way to help is to do nothing,” for if the chamber “messed into it, the chances of getting it would be diminished, not increased.” In December, Gruening returned to Annette Island to have another look at the airfield. He discovered that the commanding officer had decided to strip the muskeg off the site, an undertaking that required the largest type of dragline available. Stripped to bedrock, the field needed material taken from nearby quarries to fill in the uneven spots. Concrete laid atop this surface would provide the five-thousand-foot runway. The cost would exceed million, and the project was slated for completion in the summer of . The highlight of this trip consisted of Gruening’s first inspection in Ketchikan of the National Guard unit there since its creation. Soon one of the governor’s aides reported that half a company of National Guard could be set up in Cordova, and another in Seward. He also informed Gruening that he had discussed the Sitka base with General Buckner, and that “whatever may have been the justification for going into Sitka in the first place, continuing to stuff that small area with new military installations is a serious error from a military standpoint.” The aide urged the military to leave Sitka “where it is with an approximately ,, installation and [build] an alternate base at Auke Bay [near Juneau] which had been better selected in the first place.” Buckner apparently had not realized this, but promised to send two officers to Auke Bay to appraise the situation. Gruening suspected that nothing would happen, although he hoped that someday “the error that is being now committed may not prove serious.” Nothing did happen and the error did not prove serious; it only wasted money. Early in , some three thousand troops were stationed in Alaska, and although construction had started on a number of air, naval, and army installations, defense capabilities were inadequate to hold the territory in the face of an efficient force of invaders.
6
The North and War
M
uch to the governor’s satisfaction, national publications such as Time magazine had started as early as to pay attention to Alaska’s strategic importance in a possible armed conflict in the Pacific. In July of that year, General Hap Arnold decided to make aerial and ground inspections of Alaska’s developing military installations. Gruening invited the general to stop in Juneau on his return trip to the contiguous states. The general accepted the invitation. He left Washington, D.C., in a Douglas C- army transport and arrived in Fairbanks after twenty-seven hours’ flying time. In Fairbanks, Arnold surveyed the work performed under the direction of Major Edward M. George of the Quartermaster Corps, whose men had worked through the cold subarctic winter preparing the ground for summer construction. Hangars were going up, and crews were working on Ladd Field’s seven-thousand-foot runways, sufficient for the army’s biggest planes. In a little over a week, Arnold and his staff flew ten thousand miles, visiting Fairbanks, Circle, McGrath, Talkeetna, Tanana Crossing, Anchorage, Seward, Iliamna, Cordova, Yakutat, Juneau, and Sitka. Arnold soon realized that it was easy to decide that the national defense required air bases near the Arctic Circle, but quite another matter to accomplish this goal. Most building materials, except sand, gravel, and some lumber, had to be imported from the States. The construction season was short, and tundra and discontinuous permafrost presented considerable engineering problems. Although the United States had construction experience in the tropics in such places as Panama, the Philippines, and Hawaii, military knowledge of the Arctic was meager. Despite these obstacles, work on Ladd Field had progressed so steadily that the general planned to send airplanes and combat and maintenance crews for cold-weather tests in the fall of , rather than in as initially projected. In addition to inspecting the military bases, Arnold also looked over the emergency landing fields that the Civil Aeronautics Administration had been laying out for more than a year. No air defense system was complete without weather stations. During his inspection trip, the general chose sites for “five weather stations to belt the perimeter of Alaska.” Once they were operational, the United States would be
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able to take the “continental weather pulse” for the first time. Much flying weather in the states, Arnold observed, originated in Alaska. As arranged, Arnold visited Gruening in Juneau to discuss military plans for Alaska. Better yet, the governor took his guests salmon fishing, which produced “better than a salmon [per person], weighing to pounds.” Arnold was satisfied with his inspection trip and concluded that the air bases and their associated facilities, the emergency landing fields, radio beacons, and weather stations could also be used by civil air commerce, for they were situated “along the logical air routes from the Far East to the industrial centers of the United States. They are the airways of the future.” By early , the feverish military construction activities had created a boom in Alaska. Congress had appropriated millions of dollars to fit the territory into the socalled Pacific Defense Triangle, Hawaii and Panama constituting the other two apexes of this triangle. The army, navy, Civil Aeronautics Administration, Federal Communications Commission, and Weather Bureau had joined forces to construct defense installations clustered around five major centers. Blueprints called for a million army base and headquarters at Fort Richardson near Anchorage, with seventhousand-foot runways for the largest bombers; a million army air base and training station at Ladd Field, near Fairbanks; a million naval base on Womens Bay, near Kodiak, with facilities for one submarine division and three bomber squadrons; a million naval air base on Japonski Island, near Sitka; and a million submarine base at Dutch Harbor, Unalaska, pointing “like a cocked pistol” at the large Japanese naval base on Paramushiro Island as well as the Soviet submarine base in the Kommandorski Islands. By March , some five thousand civilian workers and four thousand troops labored in unloading building materials, pouring miles of concrete runways, and erecting frame barracks. Men worked three shifts per day, seven days a week, in the process transforming the economy so long dominated by fishing and gold mining. The population of Anchorage had jumped from about four thousand to six thousand and that of Kodiak grew from four hundred to fifteen hundred almost overnight. Demand for housing overwhelmed supply, and rents were skyrocketing for even the most primitive shelters. Movie theaters, dance palaces, and saloons bulged with free spenders. The boom put severe strains on the territory’s already inadequate municipal services. The governor closely followed military construction activities, and Secretary Ickes soon asked him to assess the situation in the territory. Although not an expert, Gruening was appalled at some of the military activities. The Sitka base was a good example of poor planning. In the s, when defense money had been next to impossible to obtain, the navy had wanted to establish a small air base in southeastern Alaska. It already had a small reservation at Japonski Island in Sitka Harbor, an island less than a mile long and half as wide. Situated on this island were the obsolete towers of an old radio station and a coaling facility. The navy knew that Congress would appropriate money more readily for the expansion of an existing base
The North and War
than for the construction of a new one somewhere else. The navy proceeded along the lines of least resistance and obtained a small amount of money that allowed a modest expansion. After war broke out in Europe, Congress made additional monies available for an enlargement originally not contemplated. Soon the military brass thought it necessary to have army detachments stationed there to protect the navy facilities. But there was not enough space, not even for a landing field; new structures crowded Japonski Island so that there was scarcely room to turn around. Without consulting the navy, the army decided to station its detachment on two other tiny nearby islands, Alice and Charcoal. The former was about two hundred yards long and a hundred yards wide; the latter, shaped like an hourglass, consisted of two parts joined by a twenty-five-yard strip. Both parts together were smaller than Alice Island. In order to give the army access to Japonski Island, the area between had to be filled in—a time-consuming and difficult task that involved blasting, bulldozing, and moving huge quantities of rock and dirt. Gruening thought that the whole scheme was inefficient, and with all the land available, it was totally unnecessary to create new land. Most serious, however, was that given the new military developments in the Pacific, Sitka was a very unsatisfactory military base. Originally, it had been designed only as a stopover for planes on the way to Kodiak. The military authorities were in a quandary, recognizing the deficiencies of the location but not knowing what to do about it. In the meantime, the project had acquired a momentum of its own. “Orders have been given; every few weeks a new appropriation emerges from Washington—for Sitka—which increases the congestion and aggravates the problem.” Army and navy officials had admitted all of these shortcomings, albeit with some reluctance, Gruening related, and although now was the time to modify plans to meet changed conditions, “tradition and discipline are so strong that no one quite feels it incumbent upon himself to ‘stick his neck out.’” Nevertheless, money continued to pour into Sitka and construction continued on Kirushkin, Sasedni, Virublennoi, Makhnati, Gold, and Baranov islands. In addition, contractors had built a rock causeway connecting Japonski, Nevski, Reshimosti, Virublennoi, Gold, Sasedni, Kirushkin, Mogilnoi, and Makhnati islands. Within a couple of years, contractors had completed a very substantial installation—in the wrong place. In the meantime, the war in Europe spread when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June , . Although relations between the United States and Russia had been cool, the two countries now faced a common enemy; soon American aid began to reach the Soviet Union in meager amounts. In July , Representative Warren G. Magnuson (D-Wash.) made public his fears about Alaska’s unpreparedness. He reasoned that if Germany defeated the Russians, Hitler would control the Trans-Siberian Railway. German troops would then be able to invade America via Siberia and Alaska. Magnuson warned, “With Russia’s Siberian bases in German hands Alaska could become another Norway.” Although the army and navy were working hard to build new airfields and bases, those installations alone could not “transport or supply the kind of army that would
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be needed to protect Alaska from invasion.” What Magnuson wanted were appropriations from Congress in order to build a highway from Seattle to Alaska. As chairman of the Alaskan International Highway Commission, of which Gruening had been a member, he had tried unsuccessfully to obtain those funds for years. Now, however, the congressman took heart. “Until last week,” he asserted, “the whole plan sounded pretty far-fetched to the House. But with Hitler’s shadow coming east against the sun,” it started to look a bit more promising. Governor Gruening observed the military events in Europe and the Far East and became increasingly concerned about Alaska’s safety. In July, he traveled to Fairbanks, Nome, Kotzebue, Kivalina, Point Hope, back to Fairbanks, and then south to Anchorage. The main purpose of his trip was to organize civilian defenses in the larger cities and to inspect the arctic coast. In Anchorage, the governor attended a city council meeting and came away from it greatly annoyed. The major problem discussed revolved around the issue of whether the town should deed a small tract of land in back of the city hall to the federal government in exchange for the gift of a , recreational building. The city fathers were unwilling to give up the land; they wanted the building to be open to civilians as well as soldiers—and, above all else, they “wanted to make sure they wouldn’t have to pay for maintenance.” Gruening was disgusted with the attitude of so many Alaskans who seemed to be “totally lacking in public spirit and patriotism.” This was particularly true of Anchorage, the governor complained. “No town in the territory has received so much for nothing as had Anchorage. No town has been more prosperous owing to factors beyond its control.” In late August, Gruening visited Sitka to inspect progress on the base he considered to have been put in the wrong place. He met Commander J. R. Tate, and the two discussed several matters, including recreational opportunities for the troops. The commander had the governor flown to Goddard Hot Springs on Baranov Island to enable him to look at the site and help determine its suitability for recreational development. The weather was beautiful, and Gruening inspected the hot springs and also decided that Redoubt Lake, three miles from the springs and extending some nine miles inland between high mountains, should be developed as well. “This whole region,” Gruening decided, “will make a gorgeous setup” and, although sixteen miles away from the town, would probably see heavy use on extended weekends. Gruening and Tate planned to secure necessary funding for the construction of the Goddard recreational project, which would include shelter cabins and trails. The governor was convinced that the project was absolutely necessary, for “there will be , men at the base marooned on little islands in Sitka Harbor with practically no place to go.” The recreational project was “indispensable” not only to their morale but also to their sanity. By September of that year, Gruening felt that “the defense tail is wagging the Alaskan dog.” The governor was certain “Uncle Sam will spend as much money on defense in Alaska as in Hawaii before the international trouble is settled.” The gov-
The North and War
ernor was pleased with the caliber of military men he had to work with. The commanding officer, Major General Buckner, was just “tops, no better choice could have been made. He is ideally suited to this command.” Colonel Sidney Erickson, in charge of Fort Raymond at Seward, was very impressive, as were Lieutenant Colonel Paul Peabody, Buckner’s chief of staff in Anchorage, and Lieutenant Colonel Dale Gaffney, commander of Ladd Field at Fairbanks. On September , the Alaska National Guard units were inducted into federal service, becoming the th Infantry in the process. Even before the four companies of the Alaska National Guard were federalized, Gruening had decided that every able-bodied male not already in the armed forces or engaged in essential-to-war service was to be enrolled in a new entity, the Territorial Guard, and kept in Alaska for local defensive needs. At the governor’s request, the Alaska Command assigned him two military aides to help in this organization. The War Department also extended aid by promising to loan the force two thousand rifles, which, however, had still not been delivered by December , . Delegate Dimond and Gruening had collaborated on the initial creation of this force, but they soon realized that they needed funds for the support, equipment, and maintenance of the Territorial Guard. Dimond appealed directly to the president for aid, asking that he allot some , from his emergency fund. The request was apparently denied. Alaska was, in many ways, already like a country at war, and not only the residents saw that. Jean Potter, a journalist on assignment for Fortune magazine, sailed north from Seattle to the territory in November . She vividly described the crowded conditions and concluded that Alaska was becoming accustomed to the hectic confusion and the many changes and uncertainties of a country at war. Governor Gruening shared these hardships while traveling throughout the territory. On December , , he was to leave on the SS Mt. McKinley for Seattle, intending to go from there to Washington, D.C., by train. Upon waking on that Sunday morning, he looked out the window and saw that it was snowing heavily; in fact, it looked like the worst blizzard Juneau had experienced in many years. At : a.m., the governor phoned the Alaska Steamship Company office to learn the departure time for his ship, only to be told that it would not leave until some time on Monday, December . The delay gave Gruening a full day to complete his packing in a leisurely fashion and “to wind up the little odds and ends which always turn up on the eve of a departure for a long trip.” At : a.m. the phone rang in the governor’s mansion; Gruening answered. A man who identified himself as Tom Gardiner said that he had been listening to a broadcast from Seattle’s KIRO. According to the announcer, the Japanese had attacked Manila and the Hawaiian Islands in force by air. Many civilians had been killed, and the defensive installations at Pearl Harbor had been extensively damaged. “It seemed hard to believe,” Gruening observed, “but it seemed equally hard not to believe that these incredible facts were true.” The governor quickly called the local station, KINY, which had heard nothing, and then contacted its manager and suggested that he try to find out what had happened. A call
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to the U.S. Army Signal Corps brought the news that the personnel there had heard similar reports from station WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio. Now “there could be no question about its truth,” Gruening concluded. At about noon, KINY confirmed the reports and furnished more details, including reports of extensive damage at Pearl Harbor. Singapore, Wake, Guam, Midway Islands—all had been attacked. Hong Kong was taken, and an American ship was torpedoed seven hundred miles from San Francisco. But, however damaging to American defense, Gruening remarked, it was “probably worth all the battleships, planes, and personnel that we have lost in welding the country [together].” With the news confirmed, the governor wasted no time. He called Frank Metcalf, the director of civilian defense for Alaska, and instructed him to organize a meeting of the defense committee immediately and prepare for the emergency. Next he informed Bob Bartlett, secretary of Alaska and his right-hand man; Estella Draper, his secretary; and Juneau mayor Harry Lucas, “all of whom were most incredulous.” That night the defense committee met in the city hall, formulated plans for local civilian defense, and arranged for a trial blackout at seven o’clock the following night. In the meantime, the governor had informed all territorial directors of civilian defense and instructed them to provide around-the-clock protection for radio stations, telephone exchanges, oil tanks, public utilities, and docks, and to be vigilant against possible sabotage. Meanwhile, in Washington the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor caught American officials unprepared. After much confusion, the executive department organized itself to meet the emergency. The next day, Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war. Congress complied. America was at war, yet it was only half a war, for what would Germany do? Roosevelt did not have to wait long to find out. On December , the Reich declared war on the United States. Later in the day the three Axis powers, Japan, Germany, and Italy, declared their unshakable determination to fight until the Anglo-American forces were beaten. Roosevelt responded by sending written messages to Congress asking that a state of war be recognized between the United States and Germany and Italy. Congress approved the war resolutions unanimously. Well before Pearl Harbor, the armed forces had rapidly expanded their Alaska facilities and streamlined their organizational structure. As early as February , , the Alaska Defense Force had become the Alaska Defense Command under the leadership of General Buckner. A network of bases had taken shape on the mainland and gradually was pushing toward the Aleutian Islands. On October , the Alaskan Defense Command Air Force had been established. During the same period, in July , the chief of naval operations divided the Pacific Naval Coastal Frontier into two parts: the area north of forty-two degrees north latitude became the Pacific Northern Naval Coastal Frontier, under the command of Rear Admiral Charles S. Freeman, and the area south of forty-two degrees became the Pacific Southern Naval Coastal Frontier, commanded by Rear Admiral
The North and War
John Wills Greenslade. At the same time, the Alaskan Sector was set up under Captain Ralph C. Parker as a command within both the Thirteenth Naval District and the Pacific Northern Coastal Frontier. The district coast guard base at Ketchikan operated in conjunction with this sector. In December , the United States and Canada formed the Joint Canadian–United States Pacific Coastal Frontier Defense Plan No. , a defensive measure designed to protect shipping and communications, and set in motion the machinery for coordinating the military efforts of the two countries. Still, Washington did not believe that Alaska would be particularly important in the conflict. Therefore, the navy was unable to obtain the ships required for adequate patrol work, and the U.S. Army Air Force found itself short of necessary planes. Many Alaskans, however, were convinced that Japan would invade the territory. There were many scares, and rumors circulated freely. Residents saw, or imagined they saw, the periscopes of Japanese submarines near Juneau. Rumor had it that the enemy was between Juneau and Sitka. Rumors spread that the Japanese had planned air attacks on various Alaska coastal cities, but exceedingly foul weather all along the coast made such raids impossible, if indeed they had even been planned. Governor Gruening was convinced that, if such raids had taken place, the Japanese would have found Alaska even less prepared than Hawaii. Early on December , Secretary Ickes wired Gruening and instructed him not to leave Alaska without “specific consent from [him].” On the afternoon of December , Ickes reported that Gruening called him and argued that he should be allowed to proceed with his planned trip and come to Washington, because important issues needed to be discussed. Ickes insisted that the governor stay put because it would be setting a poor example for others for the chief executive to leave the territory during the crisis, at least “until the situation with Japan was better clarified.” When Gruening cabled that he intended to go east on December , Ickes had a “sharp radiogram” sent to Gruening, instructing him “that he was to stay there [in Alaska] until further notice.” To his diary, Ickes confided that he did not “regard Gruening as a very brave person physically” and that he “suspect[ed] that he wanted to get out of Alaska before anything might happen up there.” Ickes added that this was perhaps unjust, “but this is the way I feel.” The governor was swamped with work and beset by problems that needed to be resolved. Within a couple of days of the ordered blackout, he realized that the policy would have an adverse economic effect on Juneau, since it would necessitate the closing of the A. J. Mine, the city’s largest employer, for at least one shift and thereby cause unemployment. Gruening advised against blackouts whenever the weather was so bad that planes could not possibly fly. The military, however, insisted that blackouts were desirable at all times because of the danger from surface raiders. This reasoning struck the governor as “unmitigated bunk,” for if a surface raider knew the coast so well as “to slip through these difficult waters and get past the rock pile, the fact that a town is or is not blacked out would not make the slightest difference. It could shell the town and destroy it.” A couple of days later, on December , he went
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to the city hall to organize civilian defense. The meeting was well attended and there was “much enthusiasm and great solemnity.” Somebody at the meeting proposed a password, which seemed far-fetched to the governor, until somebody else suggested that “there should be a double password—one given by the person challenged and one in reply by the challenger.” It was proposed that the password “be kept highly secret” and be “Nuts/Nerts.” The governor “found it difficult to keep a straight face, but among people present no one cracked a smile.” The continued blackout, planned until further notice, demoralized the whole community, Gruening observed, and residents were “getting jittery.” After the meeting at city hall, on the evening of December , the governor ordered a partial blackout, which eased nerves. Gruening also thought that “the present system of home defense was unnecessary and dangerous,” and that nobody should carry guns except those individuals detailed to guard specific installations. Gruening had reason to worry: he had made the mayors of the various towns responsible for selecting local heads of civilian defense units, and problems had resulted. Anchorage, for example, reported that an “irresponsible armed guard . . . in the first flush of authority got drunk and did some unnecessary shooting. Nobody [was] hurt.” As a result of this incident in Anchorage, twenty guards had been put on a blacklist and were not allowed to serve any longer. Unfortunately, public reaction to the insobriety and gunplay in Anchorage resulted in the civilian defense organization falling to pieces in that town. Gruening wanted to prevent any further such problems. On December , the governor discussed the civilian defense program with Juneau’s mayor and told him that it was important “to get back to normalcy” as early as possible, and that “there should be no more blackouts except an occasional practice one; that dances and amusements be resumed and that . . . marching patrols with guns be discontinued.” The mayor agreed on all points. Gruening also worried about Alaska’s extended supply lines and the ability of the various carriers to supply food and fuel to the territory’s scattered towns and villages. He suggested to members of the National Resources Planning Board (NRPB) that they undertake a census of food and fuel supplies in the Gastineau Channel area as a pilot project that might prove useful in obtaining similar information from other settlements later on. A few days later the governor wired all the mayors, asking them to get the information. In the meantime, the NRPB had prepared forms and a plan to undertake the survey. The governor commented, “I asked Stell [Gruening’s secretary] to revise the blanks, take out the self-advertising and agreed to let them go ahead—since otherwise they would have nothing whatever to do.” Washington also informed him that, if needed, surplus food commodities could be made available to the territory. Soon Gruening learned that Congress planned to buy food supplies for the territories. The plan did not appeal to the governor, “since all we need is storage space on ships, and not free gifts of food.” Gruening had considered Alaska unprepared militarily to withstand a Japanese assault. Worse, Hawaii had been better prepared and still the Japanese had surprised
The North and War
the American defense forces there. The governor soon received what he considered to be evidence substantiating his opinion. There are three important entrances to southeastern Alaska: in the south, through Clarence Strait; centrally, through either Sumner or Chatham straits; and in the north, through Cross Sound. The commander of the coast guard cutter Perseus, back from a five-day patrol guarding Icy Strait— one of the inside passages to southeastern Alaska, reached from the ocean after entering through Cross Sound—told the governor that the ship had plenty of antiaircraft ammunition but no antiaircraft guns. Similarly, although his ship carried a good supply of depth charges, it had no apparatus for deploying them. The commander pointed out that it was very dangerous throwing these devices overboard without the required apparatus because there was no assurance of getting away fast enough “so they don’t blow up under you.” There was a serious fuel shortage throughout Alaska, and worse yet, a complete lack of storage facilities near airports. An Alaska representative from Standard Oil Company, whose headquarters were in Juneau, explained that his largest truck held a thousand gallons, while a simple bomber required eighteen hundred gallons of fuel to fill its tanks. To fuel a flight of six bombers required ten round trips from Juneau to the airport, for a total distance of eighty miles. In Sitka, the situation was worse. Three big fuel tanks stood next to one another and only one was concealed. A single bomb hit would set them all off and destroy the entire fuel supply for the base. All the evidence, Gruening thought, ran counter to the claim, which Secretary Knox had made just before the war, that the navy was ready for attack. The army was no better off, for the Pearl Harbor attack had caught it “in a state of complete confusion.” Everything considered, Gruening concluded, “how fortunate we were in our weather,” because Alaska was otherwise wholly unprepared. In fact, he wrote, “if the Japs were to come over there now they could probably take any one of our bases.” With the approach of Christmas, Alaskans became jittery again because “everybody seems to have the same bright idea about the holiday season being picked by the Japs for bombing or raiding.” Christmas and New Year’s passed, however, without any Japanese attack. What had become clear to many was that the war would be long and bitterly fought. Gruening shared this sentiment, and a talk he had with Major William J. Verbeck, an expert on Japanese affairs, strengthened this conviction. Verbeck had recently returned from Japan after a four-year service stint; he had also spent part of his childhood in that country. Verbeck told the governor that the Japanese would fight and fight well. The Japanese armed forces were much better than American military experts believed them to be, Verbeck asserted. In fact, he said, they “are only slightly inferior to our troops when well trained and that chiefly in the lack of individual initiative among the men if anything happens to their officers.” Stories that had been circulating asserting that the Japanese were poor marksmen or lacked a sense of equilibrium when flying Verbeck dismissed as sheer “poppycock.” The news from the Pacific front bore out Verbeck’s opinion. It was almost all bad: the Japanese followed their Pearl Harbor strike with quick thrusts in the Philippines,
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Guam, Midway, Wake Island, Singapore, Thailand, and Hong Kong. After smashing Clark Field, near Manila, Japanese planes struck at Cavite naval base. With nearly absolute freedom of naval and air movement, they rushed troops and arms west, south, and east. In short, the Japanese Imperial Navy reigned supreme from the Indian Ocean to the eastern Pacific. Early in January , the president requested a report about Alaska’s war readiness. What he learned from the chief of naval operations was disquieting. The Pacific Northern Naval Coastal Frontier Forces were seriously inadequate to deal with even minor Japanese threats in the area because they did not possess enough aircraft, gunboats, and subchasers. Worse, these items could not be supplied because other naval coastal frontiers were “in similar or worse states.” In mid-February, the governor summarized the Alaska military situation once again for Secretary Ickes. Gruening reiterated his belief that Alaska was not prepared to withstand the expected Japanese onslaught in the spring. The enemy knew that the northern bases, while designed to be used offensively, were far from complete and probably could be destroyed easily. The governor was especially critical of military planning and the lack of coordination between the navy and the army. Gruening once again chose the Sitka base as a bad example: approximately thirty-two hundred troops and about eight hundred naval personnel now occupied the base, and “their lack of mobility is striking. They can move only on a series of narrow causeways.” Surely, continued the governor, “the lack of pre-vision and good judgment in the selection of Sitka is painfully manifest.” The choice of Kodiak as a base was little better, because no allowance was made for the army here, either. Although the navy was well situated around Womens Bay, some seven thousand army troops were “huddled together in the tiny Buskin River Valley in quarters fantastically cramped and inadequate.” The same miscalculation took place at Dutch Harbor. Like Sitka, Dutch Harbor had no adequate site for an airport. In case of emergency, army troops would have to be rushed to Dutch Harbor by navy plane transports from army airports, which had no landing facilities for seaplanes. If troops were rushed in by army transport planes, they would be unable to land at Dutch Harbor because there was no airport. In order to rectify the situation, an airport was under construction on Umnak Island, some sixty-five miles distant from Dutch Harbor. This meant that troops would have to be ferried across sixty-five miles of open ocean to reach Dutch Harbor. Worse, the construction of Dutch Harbor had lagged, even though it was “the base at which the Japanese [could] strike most easily and which they [would] probably select first since it [was] the most difficult of all to defend.” At the end of January, Gruening continued, Sitka had three small observation planes, one of which was equipped with a bomb rack. When the governor had inquired as to what would be done in case enemy submarines were sighted, he was told “they would use this one plane, but they could also throw the bombs out of the back door of one of the other two planes.” At the same time, Kodiak had four bombers and Dutch Harbor
The North and War
had three planes. The army did rush bombers to Alaska, but in one week, five crashed in transit because inexperienced fliers were in command. In view of the importance of Gruening’s opinions, Ickes decided to send the memorandum on to the president, who apparently studied it closely and asked his director of the budget, Harold D. Smith, to “look into this and let [him] have a memorandum.” Colonel H. M. Waite, a member of the Defense Projects Unit of the Bureau of the Budget, studied the matter and confirmed Gruening’s views. The army and navy had indeed neglected to cooperate with one another “in the selection and development of sites for bases, resulting in the usual waste of funds.” In another few months, on June , the Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor, and on June , , the Imperial Northern Force landed almost twenty-five hundred crack combat troops on the beaches of Kiska and Attu. The battle for Alaska was on.
7
Censorship
A
long with selflessness, bravery, and devotion to duty, the war also brought many absurdities. One of these involved censorship in many different forms, enforced by the Civilian Office of Censorship in Washington, and a censorship policy that the military in Alaska had devised and vigorously enforced. News dispatches disseminated throughout the United States and in newspapers and magazines heading for Alaska were censored and clipped by a censorship office in Seattle. Although the army and navy maintained that anything that had been published in the States should be sent to Alaska, the Seattle censors thought otherwise and tampered with the materials. For example, for several hours they held up a speech Roosevelt had given nationwide. More galling was the clipping of newspapers and magazines. Gruening protested that copies of the Washington Post and Newsweek addressed to him had arrived with a section excised by the Seattle censors. This was happening to all Alaska subscribers to national publications. All letters to and from Alaska were also subject to the prying eyes of the Seattle censors. Likewise, Kodachrome film, which had to be sent to Eastman Kodak Co. in Rochester, New York, or to Los Angeles, California, to be developed, did not escape scrutiny. Although there existed no censorship of such pictures for anyone in the United States, Alaska photographs perceived to have some military aspect were not returned to the senders. The army and navy controlled outgoing news and dispatches. During the first six months of the war, the military command blacked out any news or stories dealing with Alaska, and generally tried to keep northern residents in the dark as to events concerning the territory that were published openly elsewhere in the United States. Soon after the outbreak of the war, and after it had become evident that Alaska might become a theater of war, various newspapers requested permission to send correspondents to the North, only to be turned down by the War Department and the Western Defense Command in San Francisco. In fact, the latter requested that no material should be released to or approved for the correspondents already in Alaska for transmission to the States. Instead, material deemed suitable for release to the press outside the territory was to be sent to headquarters in San Francisco to be screened first.
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In addition, the Western Defense Command initially refused to allow reporters to work in Alaska. Although Governor Gruening knew that there had to be some curtailment of civil rights and liberties during wartime, he doubted that the armed forces had the authority to differentiate between correspondents who had been longtime residents and those who were newcomers, and to permit the former to continue press services while forbidding the latter to send any stories at all. There were other annoyances as well. For example, the army forbade naming aliens arrested in Alaska for possible internment, a practice unheard of in the States. Still, within a few months after the outbreak of the war, the Western Defense Command moderated its policies and reached workable agreements with the correspondents. No such accords were reached with Byron Price, the director of censorship, a respected former Associated Press editor. As early as February , Gruening had complained to Price about the maze of conflicting censorship practices and asked that there be some coordination between the regulations of the armed forces and those issued by Price’s office, for many were totally unnecessary and “distinctly detrimental to morale.” Price quickly agreed that the press censorship regulations were unwarranted but blamed the War Department for this state of affairs. After all, the department controlled cable and radio communications between Alaska and Seattle even in peacetime and always exercised broad supervision over the transmission of news. This practice had only intensified after Pearl Harbor. Price pointed out that the War Department had not notified his office of these practices, and that he could not act in any event, since the statute authorizing international censorship omitted any authority over communications between the States and outlying territories. While armed forces regulations relaxed, censorship from Price’s office continued unabated. Censorship was ridiculous, the governor maintained, and certainly did not aid the war effort. Magazines such as Time and Newsweek, already circulating in millions of copies in the States, continued to be delivered to Alaska subscribers with whole pages missing. Bulk copies of these publications coming to Alaska, however, escaped unscathed, and subscribers simply had to go to the neighborhood drugstore to find out what had been cut out. Residents routinely listened to the radio to get the uncensored news. Private and official correspondence between Alaska and the States continued to be opened in Seattle on a random basis. Worse yet, as the governor discovered, the excised materials, called “intercepts,” were collected and made available to a wide range of federal agencies and even to foreign governments. Although objectionable, Gruening found it amusing as well, for one of the intercepts he read, taken from a letter of a Juneau resident to her husband in the States, referred to the governor as “that s.o.b.,” an attitude Gruening observed dryly, “she had never showed when we met socially or otherwise.” After repeated complaints on the part of the governor, Price finally explained that although it seemed “incongruous for examiners in postal censorship stations to excise objectionable” materials from the mails addressed to a high official of a United States possession, it still was necessary to assure uniformity of action and avoid what would
Censorship
soon be an impenetrable confusion. The director asserted that there just was no workable method of setting up long lists of names of privileged recipients in the various localities. In any event, he assured the governor, the “rough points in censorship procedure as it affects Alaska are being smoothed out,” and the situation would continue to improve. Although the American press operated under voluntary censorship, Price continued, “in some instances editors, either inadvertently or otherwise, do print stories which violate postal censorship regulations,” and did reveal information that should not be disseminated because it might fall into the hands of enemy agents and hurt the security of the United States and its allies. In conclusion, he hoped that Gruening would regard the actions of the Office of Censorship “as wartime expedients, not capricious but necessary.” Gruening, naturally, was not satisfied with the explanation, and continued to seek clarification from Price. The latter, in frustration, finally sent the governor one copy each of the editions of the Code of Wartime Practices for the American Press and Code of Wartime Practices for American Broadcasters. The governor was not alone in objecting to the censorship practices. In October , Ruth Gruber, a special field representative for Secretary Ickes, reported while touring Alaska that continued “censorship is dealing a body-blow to Alaskan morale.” Not only mail, but also newspapers and magazines sent to Alaska continued to be “heavily censored. A whole staff of ex-bank clerks sit in Seattle doing nothing but boldly snipping articles out of the Seattle Post Intelligencer, Newsweek and other periodicals.” In fact, a complex system of censorship existed in Seattle, including postal, navy, army, radio, and other forms of communication. “Some of the censorship,” Gruber observed, “is wise and absolutely necessary. But some of it is asinine.” The navy, for example, opposed the “stranglehold on news coming from and going to Alaska.” She recommended that the most offensive censorship on newspapers and magazines going to Alaska be lifted. The recommendations fell on deaf ears in the Office of Censorship, as did a similar recommendation by Assistant Attorney General Norman M. Littell. Having recently toured Alaska, he reported that everywhere he traveled, Alaskans complained about the federal government’s censorship of their mail. Absurdities abounded. For example, a schoolteacher departing for the States carried a copy of famed Canadian poet Robert Service’s The Spell of the Yukon. Since the army, early in the war, had prohibited photographing or mentioning any shoreline, towns, and rivers, a military policeman confiscated the woman’s volume because it mentioned a river. The aftermath was even more bizarre: when Robert B. Atwood, the editor of the Anchorage Daily Times, wanted to write a humorous little editorial about the incident, the local chief censor, one “Duke” Myers, suppressed it. Myers’s preparation for his important job had been a stint as a book reviewer for a small-town California weekly and a job teaching journalism at a college in that state. Myers had arrived in Alaska with the rank of lieutenant and was successively promoted until he reached lieutenant colonel. Shortly after he suppressed the Atwood editorial, the army found
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the man to be insane and retired him. Alaskans, Gruening reported, had reached the same verdict about Myers—but much earlier. The censorship of Kodachrome photos was ridiculous, because spies would have used black-and-white film that they could develop and print secretly at home, impossible with color film at that time. Censors deleted pictures deemed to have some military importance. Among the indignant victims of this censorship were Gruening and General Buckner: censors removed a picture of a sled from one of Buckner’s orders, on the assumption, presumably, that if such a picture fell into enemy hands it might reveal that sleds were used in Alaska. At the instigation of Gruening, Byron Price finally met with the governor, Delegate Dimond, and Ben W. Thoron, the director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions. The meeting was held in November in Washington, D.C., to discuss the censorship situation affecting Alaska. The men reiterated the familiar complaints. Price was “most pleasant and very vague,” generally professing a lack of knowledge about the situation the men criticized. He told the conferees that he understood perfectly well the special problems and privations Alaskans faced since the Japanese invasion of the Aleutians. He explained that the massive military operations had created a situation in the territory unparalleled elsewhere on the American continent. Because of this, it had become mandatory that all communications between Alaska and the States be carefully supervised. This did not reflect adversely on Alaskans, but was simply a necessary precaution. Since the course of the war had changed for the better in recent months, Price continued, instructions had been issued in August to discontinue the clipping of items from American newspapers and magazines, while mail inspection had been reduced to the very minimum. His office, however, still supervised cable and radio communications to protect Alaska shipping. Price finally asked the conferees for sympathy and understanding, and admitted “that mistakes have been made by individual censors. We must depend upon human judgment which is sometimes in error.” What Gruening particularly objected to was the treatment Alaska received in the censorship matter relative to the rest of the country. At the end of the conference, as the men were leaving Price’s office in the old Federal Trade Commission Building, Gruening remarked to him that there was no legal authority to treat Alaska differently. Price maintained that he had that authority. Later that same week, the governor attended a dinner party at the apartment of Oscar Chapman, the under secretary of the interior. Also present was Francis Biddle, the attorney general. Gruening asked Biddle whether Price had the authority to censor Alaska more zealously than the rest of the country. Biddle responded that Price did not have that authority, but instructed Gruening not to quote him because he might “be asked to give an opinion.” The following weekend, while he worked in his office in the Department of the Interior, Gruening happened to look through the Congressional Record and read that a measure to give Price that authority over the territories had already passed the
Censorship
House and been approved by the Senate. The governor was angry, feeling that Price had not been frank with him in discussing the matter the previous week. Gruening thought Price had won, but then he remembered a procedure that allowed lawmakers to move for a reconsideration and recall of a bill. The next day was Monday, so Gruening lost no time and contacted an old friend, Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska, the ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee, which dealt with censorship matters. Norris shared Gruening’s indignation, and told the governor that he “was convinced that no member of the Senate had any idea that such censorship was going on.” He then suggested that Gruening contact Senator John Danaher of Connecticut, the chairman of the judiciary subcommittee in charge of the bill. Gruening did so at once. Danaher and several of his colleagues were sympathetic, and when the Senate opened for business on Monday morning, Danaher moved for reconsideration and recalled the bill. The Senate Judiciary Committee thereupon agreed to grant Gruening a hearing the next day before the full committee. The governor carefully chose his evidence, about twenty-five intercepts that had been sent to the Department of the Interior. More than half of these, Price admitted, “were bad in that they did not deal with matters directly connected with the war.” Among them, for example, were parts of letters from Department of the Interior employees written to their wives in the States, voicing criticisms of some departmental policies and personnel in the North. They obviously were not intended by the writers for inspection by the department. Others were excerpts from letters written by residents of various states, then living in Alaska, to their senators. This made the members of the Judiciary Committee very angry. Gruening had chosen well, especially since Price’s office had delivered approximately forty thousand intercepts to the Department of the Interior over a period of several months. The committee then called Price to a closed session and criticized him sharply. Senator Frederick Van Nuys, the chairman, informed the press that he had asked Price why, if he was convinced, as he had stated, that authority already existed for censoring mail between the United States and its territories, he had then requested legislation granting such powers. Price had replied that he wanted it in case a damage suit came up. As Van Nuys put it, “He thinks it all right for him to do so as long as he does not get into trouble about it. And now he wants us to protect him.” Committee members told Price that it was a “unique invasion of privacy and a waste of time to read family letters,” particularly those between husband and wife. Price defended the practice and stated that such correspondence often proved to be the most dangerous “and the most likely to contain hidden messages by secret ink or otherwise.” Price emphasized that the controversy not only involved his office, but also the Army Signal Corps, which, he said, “has the authority, if we have none, to censor communications under the direction of the commander-in-chief. It also involves such censoring as the navy is doing in Alaska.” He impressed upon the committee “that abandonment of mail censorship would undermine all censorship since
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it would do no good to suppress a cable if the sender knew he could send a confirmation copy immediately by airmail.” The matter did not affect only Alaska, Price argued, but all the territories, including the Canal Zone. Price cautioned committee members not to “define the limitations of censorship by writing into the statute something about civil rights, and so forth.” Such details should be handled administratively if the United States was to have “strong and efficient censorship.” Soon thereafter, Secretary Ickes informed Gruening that Stephen T. Early, President Roosevelt’s secretary, had called and told him to relay to the governor that “the president wanted [Gruening] to lay off Byron Price.” Early and Price were good friends, and the latter apparently had appealed to the White House for help. Just before leaving for Alaska again, Gruening went to see the president, as he had on numerous previous occasions. “But this time, and for the first time, I was not permitted to see him and I could tell from General Watson’s attitude that it was pretty definite that I was not to see him under any circumstances.” Gruening was deeply hurt, feeling that if Roosevelt had known all the facts in the censorship matter he would have agreed with him. The governor realized that he had lost his access to the White House. The Senate Judiciary Committee held another hearing at which an army witness defended censorship and claimed that it was necessary for the successful conduct of the war. Very little of the testimony dealt with the Alaska situation but rather with Puerto Rico, which lay in the center of much hostile submarine activity. Many Falangists, members of the Spanish Fascist organization, lived in Puerto Rico and were suspected of relaying information on ship movements to German submarines. Precautions certainly were necessary in that case. Attorney General Biddle also spoke and stated that Price had acted legally under the provisions of the General War Powers Act, an opinion that differed from the one he had expressed to Gruening. In the end, the Senate Judiciary Committee supported Price. The Department of the Interior received no more intercepts because Price felt that Gruening had abused the confidence of the Office of Censorship. Nevertheless, censorship decreased in Alaska. After that episode, there were no more cut magazines, no more press story deletions, and the Kodachrome photo deletions became much more selective. In August , Roosevelt, on an inspection trip to the Pacific, visited Gruening in Juneau. Roosevelt intended to assuage the governor’s hurt feelings after he had refused to see him in . The president’s visit indicated that access to the White House had been restored. Yet as late as September , the governor was again complaining to Ickes about the censorship still exercised in Seattle by the Office of Censorship. The army had assured the governor that the continued censoring of inbound and outbound Alaska civilian mail was unnecessary. For example, a member of the governor’s staff had written to her family that Juneau had been having hot weather—a statement “excised by the vigilant censor in Seattle.” Gruening informed Ickes that there “are still two hundred girls opening letters, snooping into people’s private affairs, using up man-
Censorship
power or woman-power and causing the expenditure of funds which are wholly unnecessary.” The situation was totally absurd, since travel controls for Alaska had been abolished and anyone wishing to send military information could hand-carry it. Even the army mail from Alaska was no longer censored “yet civilians are subject to this unpleasant experience.” In Gruening’s view, the “whole performance” stank. That same month, the Washington Office of Censorship informed Gruening that Director Price was on an official trip and would reply personally to the complaints when he returned to the office. In the meantime, the acting director assured the governor, “we have had that little problem under serious study and have initiated action with the War Department in connection with it.” Gruening might well have thought that after three years of vigorous protests, it was about time that the Office of Censorship finally studied the matter in a serious fashion. A month later Price explained that his office had merely been following the desires of the commanding general of the Alaskan Department, last expressed on July , . At that time, the general specifically noted certain areas in Alaska where full censorship should be continued. For most of Alaska, the mail was to be spotchecked. While the general had told Gruening that he opposed censorship, he told Price to continue it. Finally, in late November, Price asked the president that he be allowed to modify or discontinue the censorship of communications between the States and the territories and island possessions. The president authorized Price to use his judgment, “after consultation with military authorities,” to modify censorship but “without imperiling security.” Roosevelt made it clear that his authorization was “intended to broaden rather than restrict” Price’s responsibilities. The end of the war in made censorship superfluous.
8
Alaska War Council
G
ruening was concerned about Alaska’s vulnerability to a possible Japanese invasion because of the incompleteness of the territory’s military defenses. In early , he visited Washington to confer with President Roosevelt and present to him his concerns about the military’s inattention to Alaska. Gruening urged that Alaska be made “impregnable” by supplying it with the necessary equipment, and he told the press that Alaska might be used as an offensive platform from which bombing raids could be launched against Japan from the Aleutian Islands and perhaps help win the Pacific war. It was a naïve plan, and the military dismissed it out of hand. Gruening visited Ickes on April , , and, as Ickes confided to his diary, told him he had heard rumors that there was a plan “to replace him with a retired general or admiral.” In the same entry, Ickes wrote that he had heard from Budget Director Harold Smith that Roosevelt was not sure that Gruening was the right man for Alaska during the war. Smith had asked Ickes whether he could suggest a replacement. Ickes reminded Smith, “Gruening had been the President’s selection, not mine.” Ickes wrote, “I had given no thought to a replacement of Gruening and I have no one to suggest. I am not so sure that I think it would be wise to make a change now.” Ickes did not tell Gruening on April of the President’s thinking, but told him, “I had no such plans—and . . . in any event . . . would not be in favor of a general or an admiral.” Ickes called Budget Director Smith a week later to ask him about “the report that I had heard with respect to an order vitally affecting the civil administration of Alaska.” Smith called back shortly to inform the secretary that, indeed, such an executive order was being prepared. Smith wanted “some of his boys to come over and talk it over with me.” So Smith sent two analysts from his agency together with one from the National Planning Board to talk to Ickes. As the secretary reported, “We were given copies of the proposed order. It simply wiped out the civilian administration and turned it all over to the War Department.” Ickes did not tolerate anyone treading on his turf—and this included Alaska. The grapevine had it that it had been the intention of the War Department to have this order signed by Roosevelt without first informing the Department of the Interior.
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“Nor can I doubt this in view of other vital orders which have been similarly issued,” Ickes angrily remarked. The secretary clearly was outraged. “And these men were young men,” Ickes stated, apparently appalled that anyone of such tender age would contemplate such a power grab. The implication was that only mature men acted in such a fashion. Ickes “tore this order apart and told these young chaps just what [he] thought of their methods and of their purposes.” The secretary was convinced that these people went “snooping about planning and suggesting ‘reorganizations’” simply to satisfy Smith that they performed their jobs satisfactorily. In his diary he wrote, “They don’t consult those who are the most vitally affected. It is a sneaking, underhanded game, and I told them that I would not take lying down any such proposal [as presented in the draft].” The budget people talked generally about “loose ends” and the need for a complete reorganization of Alaska. But when Ickes asked for specifics, the men could not come up with anything at all. They only remarked that Gruening was unpopular in Alaska—of which Ickes was fully aware. The secretary explained that any appointed outsider was bound to be unpopular in parochial Alaska, compounded by the governor’s belief that “Alaskans should pay some local taxes instead of milking the Treasury all of the time.” When asked what should be done, the secretary suggested the establishment of “some sort of a war council” chaired by the governor. The budget people, he wrote, finally “retreated in a good deal of disorder and said that they would try to work out something along the line of my suggestion.” Ickes, on his part, resolved to tell Smith that “these young fellows are running hog-wild. They are pure theorists, out of schools of administration, who set about to reorganize on a purely paper basis. They have raised enough hell,” Ickes concluded, in their attempts to tear down the Department of the Interior. The secretary was “thoroughly tired of it.” Ickes had saved Gruening’s job, but there never was any question that military considerations took precedence over civilian matters whenever a conflict between the two arose. The budget people followed the secretary’s suggestion, given urgency by the Japanese invasion of the Aleutian Islands, and on June , , an executive order organized the Alaska War Council. It was to be composed of the senior Alaska representatives of the various federal agencies; a resident chosen by the council; E. L. “Bob” Bartlett, the secretary of Alaska; and two liaison officers for the army and navy, Lieutenant Colonel Hobart A. Murphy and Commander J. R. Tate, respectively. The purpose of the council was to cooperate closely with the military authorities in putting the territory on a full war-preparedness footing. The Alaska War Council held its first meeting in June and recommended the immediate unification of the Alaskan Command, something that had already been accomplished with military commands elsewhere. The enemy invasion of the Aleutians clearly necessitated such a step. It was not long before such a unified command became a reality. The council met again in August and discussed a wide variety of topics, such as civilian traffic control, food supplies, the alleged priority given to liquor shipments
Alaska War Council
bound for the North, territorial wage scales, the competition between defense agencies for workers, and censorship. Council members agreed that the civilian traffic control to and from Alaska established by the army in July had resulted in a serious bottleneck “for no other reason than the incompetence of its direction.” In the territory, the Alaskan Defense Command had control; in Seattle, where prospective travelers had to obtain entry permits, the Western Defense Command regulated the situation. The council was of the opinion that the Alaska end of the operation functioned relatively smoothly, particularly when considering the difficulties of controlling the movement of so many people. The Seattle office, however, needed drastic improvements. For example, while the Seattle office issued blanket permits to workmen recruited by the larger defense contractors on the basis of investigations made by them, smaller contractors and other Alaskan employers were permitted to come north only after they had obtained permits through a lengthy and cumbersome procedure. Yet these employers made contributions to the war effort as important as those of the larger contractors. Even worse were the long delays encountered by bona fide territorial residents attempting to return home. Often, such residents had to cool their heels in Seattle for lengthy periods of time—entailing substantial expense and resulting in disruptive dislocations of commercial activities. The experiences of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Bond, who were visiting in Bozeman, Montana, were typical. Four days after they had airmailed their applications to Seattle, the applications came back stamped “return to writer.” Bond immediately sent the package back, only to have it return in another four days, together with a letter from the Travel Control Office stating that since their applications had been completed the form had been changed. New forms were enclosed along with the old and instructions on how to proceed. The Bonds completed the new forms, including a retaking of fingerprints and notarization. Off to Seattle went the applications, and the Bonds followed a few days later, arriving there on a Saturday. Confusion reigned in the office, and nobody seemed to know what had happened to the applications, but the Bonds were told they would be found by Monday. In the meantime, Mrs. Bond’s sister, who had been listed as a reference, phoned from Anaconda, Montana, to tell her sister that she had just received a letter from the Travel Control Office stating that the permits were held up because of unsatisfactory fingerprints. On Monday, they were told that their fingerprints were unsatisfactory. At this the Bonds balked, having already paid twice, and insisted they be retaken on the premises free of charge. This was done. Then they waited four days, and finally received their permit just a few hours after the departure of the boat on which they had made reservations. Three days later, they secured passage on a Canadian vessel to Ketchikan. They waited there six days, after which Mrs. Bond secured a place on a boat to Juneau, and her husband chartered a plane and flew home. It had been a cumbersome experience. And while the Council fully supported the policy that prospective spies and saboteurs should not be allowed to enter the territory, the functions of the civilian travel control had to be streamlined. It recommended that sole control for travel in both directions be placed
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under an officer thoroughly familiar with Alaska and responsible to the Alaska Defense Command; that persons recruited by the U.S. Employment Service at the request of an Alaska employer be issued temporary travel permits and later be cleared by the army; and that the Seattle office, in order to speed up its investigations, acquire the necessary apparatus for photographing, fingerprinting, notarizing, and identifying applicants. Another problem concerned the numerous complaints that liquor shipments to Alaska were given priority over essential goods on ships leaving Seattle. An investigation, however, revealed that no priority had been given to northbound liquor shipments. Beer and whiskey were stored on the docks, and when a vessel was about to depart and space remained after all essentials had been loaded, only then did the stevedores load liquor. Furthermore, it was the army that shipped substantial quantities of beer to its various Alaskan bases, and many complaints apparently originated because residents of ports with military installations saw large beer shipments being unloaded, not realizing that they were consigned to the army rather than to local stores. Finally, the leading wholesale distributors had offered to decrease beer and increase whiskey shipments on the theory “that the whiskey would do the desired job with a considerable [sic] smaller amount of tonnage involved.” The investigator recommended that a system of civilian priority control for shipping should immediately be worked out. It is unclear whether such a priority system was indeed established. The War Shipping Administration certainly recognized the problem and had given instructions to all operators of American flag steamers making the Alaska run that liquor and beer cargoes were to be left behind when space was needed for necessities. These instructions apparently were followed. For example, during the first half of September , some , tons of commercial cargo were shipped north; of these, thirteen tons were liquor and ninety-eight tons beer. Additional liquor shipments reached the territory on small vessels operating between British Columbia and Alaskan ports. Late in , General Buckner requested that Governor Gruening issue an order closing all saloon and liquor-dispensing establishments at midnight. The governor considered the request to be reasonable, but discovered that he had no power to accommodate military desires. Gruening quickly became concerned that if the governor’s office was unable to comply with military requests, the latter would assume this power. Gruening, therefore, requested that the president amend the executive order that had created the Alaska War Council. Specifically, he asked that the governor be granted authority to issue binding regulations in all cases where civilian federal and territorial agencies were unable to respond. Gruening thought it unwise to ask the territorial legislature for this authority because he believed that it would merely be an admission of weakness to the military branch of government. He knew that any such request would stir controversy and result charges that Alaska’s chief executive sought to obtain dictatorial powers. The governor suggested instead that his office be
Alaska War Council
endowed with greater prestige by clearly identifying it as the civilian instrument for the conduct of the war. Tying the governor’s office closely to the military, Gruening argued, would enable the chief executive to “escape most of the jealous fear felt by Alaskans that their self-government is being infringed upon anew.” Superimposing presidential and congressional veto power over gubernatorial acts under this authority would also render ineffective Alaskan arguments that the governor possessed tyrannical powers and that there was no court of appeals. Furthermore, by providing that the exercise of these powers be contingent upon the request of the military authorities would clearly identify them as necessary to meet purely military requirements. Most important, perhaps, by presenting a solution to meet this situation, the Department of the Interior gained “a psychological jump” on the military, which probably would not insist on exercising these powers itself. The Interior Department concurred with Gruening’s opinion that these supplemental powers be given to the governor rather than the council. It was also aware that the attorney general did not think it wise to confer these powers by executive order, a viewpoint shared by Delegate Dimond. The latter had suggested that the council obtain General Buckner’s support and lobby the territorial legislature to pass “some carefully limited bill.” Thereupon, the Department drafted a measure enabling the governor to meet unexpected needs in various areas affecting the health and welfare of the armed forces stationed in the North, such as the control of intoxicating liquors, the operation of amusement establishments, the control of prostitution, and the prevention of disease, among others. The governor was only to act, however, after having received written requests from the commanding officers of either the military or naval forces, or the Alaska War Council. Indeed, Delegate Dimond had already contacted territorial Senator Norman “Doc” Walker, an implacable foe of the governor, and urged him to support such a measure. Dimond had explained to Walker that such a bill was necessary to enable the governor to act during the extended periods in which the legislature was not in session; and, perhaps more important, he asserted that filling the existing vacuum would prevent the establishment of military rule in Alaska. Only if all else failed would the department consider asking Congress to enact such a measure. Gruening clearly was unhappy, and minced no words telling his superiors so. The draft bill was useless, he stated, because none of the regulations the governor might issue could “modify or change any act” of the territorial legislature or Congress dealing with the same subject. This nullified the whole measure, because the enforcement of new liquor or prostitution regulations, for example, would undoubtedly contravene existing statutes. Gruening, who knew the legislature, also predicted that it would pass no such bill. Airing the matter in Congress was futile, the governor thought, especially “in a Congress which seems to be somewhat on a rampage, particularly with regard to granting additional powers to executives.” Above all, he was concerned that taking no action would lead the military to take over civil powers as it had already done in Hawaii.
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By March , the territorial senate had passed the War Powers Bill by a vote of five to three, but the house defeated it by a vote of nine to seven. This effectively killed the measure, and since the legislature met biennially, it would not be brought up again until . Since the legislature had been given a fair opportunity to act and had failed to do so, Gruening once again pressed for an executive order giving him the ability to meet unforeseen contingencies. And when the Alaska War Council met at the end of March, it communicated the unsatisfactory nature of its mandate, its lack of authority and relative ineffectiveness and uselessness to President Roosevelt. Unless an executive order conferred adequate powers on either the council or the governor, the members argued, it remained “as a purely innocuous bit of decoration, which can recommend, suggest . . . but otherwise serves no useful function.” The president did not respond, however, and the council struggled to carry on its functions. Early in August, the council suggested to General Buckner that since the military situation had improved so dramatically, a considerable portion of the territory might no longer be designated a part of the combat area. In addition, it recommended that various restrictions upon persons and belongings, censorship of mail, and confiscation of property without compensation be abandoned. Furthermore, the large numbers of military personnel in Alaska continued to interfere considerably with normal civilian life and activities. Of particular concern to many Alaskans was the fact that “apparently every soldier in the territory is taking out a hunting license. Big game, such as sheep, caribou, and moose in all but the most remote and inaccessible places is doomed in interior Alaska. It is nothing less than a crime. These men are well and amply fed by the U.S. Government and their recreation should not include wantonly shooting game which is an invaluable asset and in some places a necessity, to the civilian population of Alaska.” In short, now that the danger from invasion had disappeared, Alaskans chafed under the military presence and the many restrictions that it entailed. General Buckner admitted that the military situation in the North had improved considerably, yet the danger of destructive Japanese raids upon the territory remained. Since he was responsible for Alaska’s defense, Buckner stated, “I would be derelict in my duty if I sacrificed safety to the temporary convenience of individuals and did not take reasonable precautions, even though these . . . might at times be irksome to certain persons.” In fact, Buckner argued, one of the founding fathers had been quoted as saying, “It is necessary for us to give up some of our liberties in order to retain any of them.” But he assured council members that certain restrictions had already been modified, such as travel controls and censorship. On November , , Buckner finally issued a public proclamation designed, as he explained, to modify various restrictions. It divided Alaska into three zones and provided for three different kinds of entrance permits. The council soon concluded that travel controls had been made more rigid, rather than liberalized. In fact, council members concluded that the army had demonstrated time and again that it held the council in low esteem, consistently “either ignored us or slapped us,” and in most cases “con-
Alaska War Council
sidered us of such little importance it simply passed us by without ever considering our existence.” And this had happened despite the fact that the council directly represented the President of the United States as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and “that it is the clear duty of the Army and the Navy to consult with us in matters affecting the security . . . of the civilian population.” Under those circumstances, council members concluded, they had accomplished very little. The council, therefore, recommended that it be given adequate authority to operate effectively or, failing that, be abolished. Neither happened, however, and increasingly not only the council but also the secretary of the interior and his bureau chiefs became annoyed with Buckner’s highhandedness and arbitrariness. Many officials in the department now referred to “the terrific waste of money, materials and men that has taken place in Alaska,” implicitly blaming Buckner, and asserted that the Alaska Defense Command simply wanted “to hang on to powers which they secured when a real emergency existed.” Under the circumstances, council members decided to hold no further meetings. A military order in May that demanded the evacuation of Helen Frye, an Alaskan resident, mother of twins, and the wife of a soldier, galvanized the council to action once again. The council sent vigorous protests to the highest level, and Mrs. Frye, with the help and encouragement of officials of the department, brought court action to enjoin Buckner from expelling her. Despite heavy military pressure against her and her husband, she refused to drop the legal proceedings, and, in fact, several other women joined the case. After some soul-searching, Buckner discovered that Mrs. Frye, under existing regulations, was not subject to evacuation at all. Many Alaskans and Interior Department officials breathed sighs of relief when they heard, in June , that Lieutenant General Delos C. Emmons had replaced Buckner as commanding general. Within days, the new commander had directed the abolition of travel controls, and thereafter the military presence diminished rapidly. In early , the Budget Bureau inquired as to whether or not the Alaska War Council still performed any functions that should be permanent or continued on a wind-down basis. Governor Gruening assured the Budget Bureau that the Alaska War Council had ceased functioning even before the end of the war. The governor, who liked to have the last word, reiterated that the executive order creating it had been poorly drawn and that, despite numerous appeals for strengthening it, nothing was ever done. In addition, General Buckner had been wholly uncooperative and refused to heed any of its recommendations. Therefore, there was no reason for the continued legal existence of the council. Experience proved that the creation of the Alaska War Council was an exercise in futility, since the military authorities had refused to cooperate with this civilian agency.
9
The Alaska Highway, the Aleutian Campaign, and the End of the War in Alaska
A
lthough alaskans and residents of British Columbia had long clamored for the construction of a highway linking the territory and province with the contiguous states, these desires had never progressed beyond the planning stage. With the Japanese military threat looming large, Roosevelt asked a committee of cabinet members to study the need for a highway. On February , , the cabinet committee met and, following the advice of the general staff, the air staff, and engineer members of the War Plans Division, recommended that the road be built along the line of already-constructed staging airfields located at Grande Prairie and Edmonton, Alberta; Fort Saint John and Fort Nelson, British Columbia; Watson Lake and Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory; and Northway, Tanacross, and Big Delta in Alaska. The committee and the military planners reasoned that the route could supply Alaska as well as the staging airfields, providing safety for personnel ferrying aircraft from the states to the territory. Next, the War Plans Division informed Brigadier General Clarence L. Sturdevant, the assistant chief of engineers, that a decision to build had been reached and instructed him to submit a survey and construction plan. Two days later, the general furnished a twophase construction plan for a fifteen-hundred-mile highway. In the first phase, the military was to build a pioneer road; in the second phase, civilian contractors employed by the Public Roads Administration would transform the pioneer into a permanent road. On February , Roosevelt approved the general plan, and on February , the army instructed the chief of engineers to proceed. Roosevelt apparently approved the road along the northwest staging route because of his concern over a January report of numerous military aircraft crashes on the way to Alaska. The decision to build the highway was not immediately made public. In the meantime, two high-ranking American officers, together with an engineer of the U.S. Public Roads Administration, went to Edmonton and visited James
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McArthur, the general manager of Northern Alberta Railways. This small railroad had one branch running northward to Fort McMurray, tapping the two-thousandmile Athabasca-McKenzie River system, and another winding through the Peace River country to Grande Prairie and ending in Dawson Creek. McArthur stated that at first he “could hardly credit” his ears, stunned by the vast project the American officers detailed—which, he knew, would completely revolutionize his railroad. Next, the three Americans went to Dawson Creek, where they inspected the Fort Saint John–Fort Nelson trail and made an aerial reconnaissance of part of the projected road. They then returned to Edmonton and headed for Washington. Discussion with Canadian officials took place to secure rights of way through Canadian territory, and on February , the Permanent Joint Board on Defense–United States and Canada recommended construction of the highway. Formal agreement between the two governments was accomplished by an exchange of notes. On March , McArthur received a wire from Washington stating that equipment and supplies had already started to roll. In the cold, bleak hours of March , , with the thermometer standing at thirty degrees below zero, Dawson Creek residents were aroused from their sleep at half-past one in the morning by the arrival of a long train. The American army had arrived, or at least a quartermaster unit, which began unloading enormous amounts of supplies. Quartermaster corps units arrived in Skagway on the Alaska coast, transferred to the railroad, and made the -mile inland trip to Whitehorse; at Valdez, farther up the coast, they reloaded on trucks and went over the Richardson Highway to Gulkana. All this was part of the army plan to build the road starting simultaneously from various points. The construction job facing the army was monumental. Participant and historian Philip H. Godsell has stated that the magnitude of the undertaking “can only be appreciated by looking back to the primitive conditions that prevailed in the United States in pre–Civil War days and visualizing the Army being called upon overnight to slash a wilderness road through forests, morasses and over mountains from New York to the heart of Kansas, or from Chicago to New Orleans.” The military did hurry the job. Seven engineering regiments, aided by forty-seven contractors employed by the U.S. Public Roads Administration, worked toward each other from various points along the route. They finished the pioneer road nine months and six days after the start of construction. The formal ribbon-cutting ceremony took place on November , , at Soldier’s Summit above Kluane Lake, Yukon Territory. Shortly thereafter, the first truck convoy, dubbed the “Fairbanks Freight,” rolled north to that town. The ,-mile pioneer road, built under extraordinarily difficult conditions and in record time, represented a major engineering feat and cost million, including related projects such as the road to Haines and the telephone system that connected Alaska and the Yukon Territory to the rest of the continent. Secretary Ickes asked Gruening to evaluate the highway. The governor delivered his lengthy memorandum to the secretary in December . Although impressed
The Alaska Highway, the Aleutian Campaign, and the End of the War in Alaska
with the engineering feat, he thought the army had made a colossal blunder in building across the prairie rather than along the more scenic coast. Gruening asserted that the Alaska Highway “will have little or no value after the war,” and argued that evidence indicated “that the Canadians will not maintain it.” Gruening then listed its defects, which were numerous. To get to the start of the Alaska Highway at Dawson Creek, British Columbia, prospective tourists from population centers such as Chicago would have to drive , miles, those from Los Angeles , miles, and those from New York City , miles. In the process, they would have to travel about “, miles through uninteresting prairie country.” The province of Alberta “maintained more or less” a dirt road that had not been upgraded to an all-weather highway. The miles from Dawson Creek to Whitehorse wound through uninteresting country, and the scenery did not really become attractive until one passed Whitehorse. This was “far too long a voyage for the average tourist” who “would be infinitely better off taking the boat from Seattle and traveling on it up the beautiful Inside Passage.” A branch of the Alaska Highway had been extended to Haines at the upper end of the Inside Passage; this afforded tourists the opportunity to take their cars on the Juneau-Haines ferry and then drive some two hundred and fifty miles through Canadian territory to reach Alaska again. Gruening maintained that the Canadians would have no interest in maintaining the Haines branch “since there is nothing in this territory but scenery; it is without population and leads only into Alaska.” The governor proposed that the federal government attempt to negotiate a land swap with the Canadian government. In order to locate the Alaska Highway branch leading from Haines to Haines Junction and from there to the Alaska border in American territory, Gruening proposed that the federal government offer Skagway and its environs to the Canadian government. Gruening believed such a swap might rectify the initial mistake of building the prairie route. Not as good as the coastal route, it would nonetheless make the Inside Passage from Seattle to Haines the major tourist route into Alaska. Haines would quickly become the major Alaska port, since it gave access to the Interior, allowing ships and boats to travel the protected waters of the Inside Passage rather than the storm-tossed Gulf of Alaska. No land was ever exchanged. Gruening was in Washington in March on one of his several annual trips to the capital to lobby for Alaska concerns. He told Ickes that he planned to return to Alaska soon, and that his wife, Dorothy, should follow him later. Ickes thereupon suggested that the governor leave his wife in the contiguous states because of the threat of a Japanese invasion of Alaska. Much to Ickes’s surprise, Gruening stated that Dorothy “wanted to be with him and that his place was in Alaska,” despite the anticipated dangers. The secretary confided to his diary, “This showed more physical courage than I thought Gruening capable of and I liked him for it.” On June and , , the Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor, and a few days later, on June , they occupied Kiska and Attu. The Japanese action did not wholly surprise the United States, for as early as May , military code breakers had flashed a preliminary alert from Pearl Harbor to Alaska about the Japanese attack plans.
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Overnight, every Alaska command had mobilized. General Buckner and the navy’s Captain Ralph C. Parker had put long-prepared plans into operation by moving merchant ships and civilians out of Alaska and appealing to Washington to send planes, warships, and troops. Gruening was in Alaska during the Japanese attack. In fact, while the enemy dug in on Kiska and Attu, the governor was the only ranking American official in the Aleutians, where he had flown to inspect the damage at Dutch Harbor. American officials were unclear about Japanese movements after the Dutch Harbor attack, because bad weather hampered reconnaissance activities. On June , American air searches discovered the Japanese on Kiska and later on Attu. It was war, and there was concern about Alaska’s civilian population. In the Aleutian environment, men and their machines were pitted against the elements, where tactical imagination meant more than brute force. In the overall picture, Alaska was at the bottom of the priority list in June , and the U.S. fought a shoestring war there. In the same month, Erwin Rommel threatened Alexandria, Egypt; Adolf Hitler’s tanks were deep in Russian territory; and President Roosevelt desired an autumn offensive against Germany. Massive convoys were needed for the support of England, Malta, and Cairo, and in the Pacific the Japanese were pushing down through the Solomons and New Guinea. In San Francisco, in the meantime, Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt asked the War Department for a joint expeditionary force to expel the Japanese from the Aleutians. All he received in the next month were two replacement bomber squadrons, hardly enough to keep up with the loss of aircraft in the Aleutians. The Royal Canadian Air Force established headquarters at Anchorage to command the several Canadian combat squadrons stationed on mainland Alaska and in the Aleutians. But even with the Canadians, the Eleventh Air Force in Alaska had a fighting strength of only a few dozen planes. So, for a period of about six months, the Aleutian campaign strategy was to harass the enemy; after that, preparations were made to retake Attu. American forces finally landed on Attu on May , , and took it on May , after heavy fighting. Governor Gruening again went to the Aleutians, this time hoping to observe a part of the decisive battle for Attu. The governor left Juneau in the middle of the afternoon on May , , and arrived in Kodiak later that evening. He observed that with the battle in the Aleutians, the military importance of Sitka, Anchorage, and Kodiak had declined and all the “Generals and the Admirals have departed” to the scene of the battle. Gruening overnighted in Kodiak, and the next morning departed on a military cargo plane bound for Dutch Harbor, where he arrived shortly before noon. Rear Admiral John W. Reeves, who had replaced Captain Parker as commander of the shore-based naval operations and patrol craft in the Alaska sector on June , , greeted the governor. He learned that General DeWitt had also just arrived, and decided to stay over at Dutch Harbor “so as to have a chance to talk with him.” DeWitt informed Gruening that the military operations on Attu had been successful, and “about ,
The Alaska Highway, the Aleutian Campaign, and the End of the War in Alaska
men had been landed under [the] command of [Brigadier] General [Eugene M.] Landrum. Both landings at Massacre Bay and Holtz Bay were effectively [accomplished] without resistance, the enemy being evidently taken by surprise.” Gruening learned that the Japanese resisted the invasion “only after our men had moved about , yards inland. The Japs were dug into all kinds of holes in the side of the mountains, and way up in the hills and were hard to get at.” The enemy literally had to be “dug out nest by nest. No prisoners have been taken. The Japs so far have given no indication of a desire to surrender.” Later in the day, Gruening crossed over to Unalaska on the ferry. He found that of the normal population of about four hundred, only thirty-eight men remained. The rest had been evacuated after the Japanese air attack in June of the previous year. He found the village looking “terribly down at [the] heels,” and was told “that most of the empty houses have been broken into repeatedly by servicemen looking for souvenirs.” The next afternoon, in foul weather, the governor departed for Adak. The pilot found the field closed and circled for half an hour. The plane’s radio operator had difficulty getting weather reports on other fields, and the pilot finally decided to try to reach either Umnak or Dutch Harbor. After seven hours in the air, Gruening finally landed at Umnak. There, Lieutenant Commander Samuel Walker, in charge of the naval air station, greeted the governor and told him that earlier in the afternoon “Jap bombers had attacked” a couple of American warships but had been driven off. That explained the difficulties experienced earlier in receiving weather reports, Gruening speculated, because the radio operators had all been “busy transmitting more important news.” When Gruening awoke the next morning, he found that dense fog surrounded Fort Glenn, located on the northeast end of Umnak Island, and that it stretched down the island chain. There was no flying that day, so the governor used the time to get acquainted with some of the troops and inspect the military installation. He found the fort “a huge place, well dispersed, well concealed, [but the] problem is still lack of a harbor” and supplies had to be lightered ashore. He thought that a harbor could be developed on the north side of the island, but that would involve construction of a twenty-five-mile haul road. The weather was still foggy on May , but it cleared somewhat and Gruening left Umnak late in the morning and landed at Adak early in the afternoon. General Buckner met the governor and took him to his quarters, where he briefed Gruening on the difficulties of the Attu campaign. The mud on the island had been hip-deep, Buckner related, and the troops had had “to climb up extremely steep and treacherous slopes. The first night they lay in their clothes. Not until the second night were sleeping bags available. No prisoners had been taken. Japs do not surrender and evidently prefer to kill and be killed.” Gruening was impatient to reach Attu and observe some of the military action, but when he asked General Buckner for permission to go, he was refused. The
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general told Gruening “he did not want anyone to go to Attu not connected with the mission until it was over.” Buckner thought the battle for Attu might last another ten days, and that perhaps the Japanese might attempt to land reinforcements. So for the time being, the governor was stuck on Adak. Not one to get bored, he visited various military units and introduced himself to officers and enlisted men alike. He also inspected the hospital, and found that the majority of the casualties from Attu had badly frostbitten feet. These men had been issued the wrong kind of boots, the governor remarked. “High logging boots which got soaked through and water came over the top. Should have had shoe packs. Boys also were trained in Mojave Desert despite General Buckner’s wish to have them trained in Alaska.” While he was making the hospital rounds, an enlisted man from Tennessee told him about a close encounter with death. The private related that he was awakened in his foxhole “by a man bending over him” who asked him whose company he was with. The private replied, “Give countersign,” which was “little lullaby”—“hard for Japs to pronounce.” The man hesitated and asked where the company commander was. Thereupon, the private shot him. He proved to be Japanese, but “his accent had been faultless.” Gruening also had a long visit with Lieutenant Colonel William J. Verbeck, the second-in-command of Colonel Lawrence V. Castner’s Alaska Scouts, a small unit of commando rangers known throughout the territory as “Castner’s Cutthroats.” Verbeck showed the governor the many Japanese trophies captured on Attu. The colonel, fluent in Japanese, had perused the documents and diaries that had fallen into American hands. The latter gave good descriptions of damage caused by American bombing raids, and listed the ships sunk and their cargo; there were also detailed descriptions of the big Japanese base at Paramushiro. Verbeck had Japanese rations, which Gruening sampled and found to be “extremely good. One can contains extract of liver, kidney, which are in fish oil, highly concentrated food rich in vitamins which would go well as a cocktail spread.” Evidence indicated that the Japanese soldiers had supplemented their diets by shooting ducks and catching “a lot of fresh fish.” They also had used local seaweed to wrap their rice and “give it flavor.” Captured equipment, such as range-finding gear and radios, showed that “cheap Jap stuff [is] chiefly for export and that they can make first class stuff for themselves.” Gruening learned that Japanese ammunition was “fully as good as ours,” and that their hand grenades had a double catch. “First pull pin out, then knock on hard object. Grenade goes off in four seconds. When our boys first found grenades they first pulled pin and threw at Japs, but these picked up grenades, touched them against their steel helmets, then fired them back.” The governor was told that it did not take American soldiers very long to learn how to use these grenades properly. On May , Buckner had Gruening flown to Amchitka and assigned quarters in a Quonset hut. The next day the governor inspected the military installations on the island and also visited the infirmary and the captain in charge of the port. This officer happened to be an acquaintance of Gruening’s from Sitka, Jack Conway. After a
The Alaska Highway, the Aleutian Campaign, and the End of the War in Alaska
full day, Gruening invited several officers “to partake of some cheer I had brought.” The weather had been bad all day with high winds and heavy rains, and no planes had been able to take off. Eventually, however, the weather cleared on May and Gruening finally got his chance to fly along on a mission to Attu and Kiska. He hurried to the field. “Fighters had already taken off and were swooping around. Got into bomber and off we went.” The flight headed northwest along the Bering Sea side of Amchitka Island, passed over the Rat Islands and then over the south end of Kiska. At Shemya the governor observed a large fleet of American vessels. From there, Gruening’s bomber flew on to Attu and circled repeatedly over Holtz, Chichagof, and Massacre bays. “Our fleet of vessels lay in Massacre Bay; one large transport in Holtz [Bay]. Saw many of our soldiers along the shore but no Japs.” Gruening related that it was easy to see why the Attu battle had lasted so long. The island was “extremely mountainous, steep, snow still deep on upper slopes.” Via radio, Gruening learned that the Japanese had launched “a final desperate counter attack on the night of the th–th, in which our lines in the Chichafoff [sic] Valley were penetrated and some medical personnel killed, the enemy force was wiped out and resistance was near an end.” On the return flight to Amchitka, Gruening’s bomber flew over Kiska Harbor “and did a little practice strafing.” The governor had been in the air for almost seven hours. On June , Gruening listened in as Lieutenant Colonel Verbeck questioned the first two prisoners taken on Attu. He reported that the two Japanese had disclosed that submarines supplied Kiska and Attu, and that it took an hour to discharge the one hundred and fifty tons of freight such a boat carried. Gruening remarked that this industriousness “should be called to our longshoremen’s attention.” Apparently, the prisoners had no clear idea of why they were fighting, and on prompting by Verbeck replied, “For everlasting peace.” This prompted the governor’s observation that “these two were not very bright. . . . They did not want their families notified. Apparently this [imprisonment] is considered a disgrace.” Finally, on June , the governor flew to Attu in a navy PBY flying boat that landed in Massacre Bay, where he transferred to a landing barge and went ashore. A threemile walk straight up into the hills brought him to the headquarters tent of Brigadier General Eugene M. Landrum. “Conditions still of field camp,” the governor related, and “supper served on tin plates around stove.” Landrum told Gruening that the battle for Attu had demonstrated “we can crack the Jap” and “that our boys can take it and they fight well.” Landrum had reached Attu on May , in order to relieve Major General Albert E. Brown, the fifty-three-year-old South Carolinian commander of the Seventh Motorized or “Hourglass” Division, which had a good combat record dating back to , when it lost seventeen hundred men in France. Between the wars, the division had languished, consisting of only a tiny cadre of regulars. In , it had called up National Guard units from the southwestern states to get to full strength. Brown
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had last seen combat at the Meuse-Argonne offensive in , where he had served as an infantry major. Unfortunately, the soldiers of the Seventh Division had trained in the desert and had not been properly outfitted for battle in the Aleutians. When the troops did not make the expected progress on Attu, Rear Admiral Thomas C. Kincaid decided to replace Brown. In his diary, Gruening noted that the inadequate footgear had caused a large number of frozen feet, that many of the men had been wet for two weeks with only cold rations, and that the decision to train in the desert had been a grievous mistake. In addition, he wrote, “the choice of a leader, a man who had never been in Alaska and refused to believe what those who knew Alaska told him, and the poor equipment constitute serious blunders which greatly increased casualties.” Gruening listened to the debate between the army and the army air force. The former “agreed that the attempt to take Kiska by landing troops would be very costly . . . and infinitely harder than Attu. There will not be a beach or landing place which will not be heavily defended by machine guns, barbed wire, artillery.” Colonel William O. Eareckson of the Bomber Command favored not invading Kiska at all, “but pounding it unmercifully from the air, shutting off the submarines which alone can henceforth supply it . . . and letting the garrison starve.” The governor also witnessed another interrogation of a Japanese prisoner. “He was a medical orderly. Knew little. Did not want his family notified that he was alive; this is the prevailing Jap attitude—it is apparently a disgrace not to die.” The captured diary of a medical officer revealed that “all the Jap wounded in the hospital were ordered to commit suicide and did so.” Gruening wrote that three nisei (native-born residents of Canada and the United States of immigrant Japanese parents)—one an enlisted man, another a sergeant, and the third a colonel—helped a U.S. captain question the prisoners. Landrum pointed out that these nisei had been “invaluable and that one killed several Japs during the final sortie.” After it was over, American burial parties counted , Japanese bodies, many of them maimed and disemboweled by their own grenades. Burial crews dug ditches for the American casualties. Chaplains sang “Rock of Ages,” and two buglers played taps while tractors rolled the damp earth over the bodies. General Buckner and Governor Gruening then placed wreaths on the Attu graves. On June , after having been delayed by poor weather several times, the governor left Attu, bound for Kodiak and Juneau. A month later, Gruening broadcast a report in which he stated that although the war was still the overshadowing fact in the territory, the recapture of Attu and the isolation of the Japanese on Kiska had ended the defensive stage of the conflict and the initiative had reverted to the United States. The success in the Aleutians had strengthened American offensive power in the Pacific and extended it “farther west in the North Pacific than ever before.” American fortifications now extended to the end of the Aleutian chain, which had become “the northern half of the Pacific pincers which will ultimately close on the Japanese enemy. Attu, astride the rd par-
The Alaska Highway, the Aleutian Campaign, and the End of the War in Alaska
allel of longitude east, has now become our farthest west military base on American soil, and, with Amchitka, constitutes our first base on American soil in the eastern hemisphere in this war.” The governor told his listeners that the westward tide of military action had diminished the importance of the military bases on the mainland of Alaska until they had increasingly become “depots for the transshipment of men, material and supplies, to the western front.” In addition, a direct overland telephone from Alaska to the contiguous states was an important accomplishment of military construction. Gruening reminded his audience that soon after the outbreak of war he had asked Congress to pass legislation permitting the organization of a territorial guard, inasmuch as the four companies of the Alaska National Guard, organized in , had been federalized. The governor reiterated his belief “that as far as possible there should be no civilian spectators, no passive noncombatants . . . and that in the event of invasion, which was deemed a distinct possibility at that time and for a year thereafter, every able-bodied person should be prepared to fight. The Alaska Territorial Guard had been authorized at , men, and units had been organized.” Gruening proudly stated that enrollment in the guard, in proportion to population, appeared “to be the largest of any state or territory.” Barrow, headquarters for the farthest north unit, was composed of one hundred men; the farthest west on Gambell, St. Lawrence Island, consisted of ninety men; and the farthest south and east at Metlakatla counted fifty men in its ranks. Gruening concluded his report by stating that Alaska had consistently exceeded its quotas in the sale of war bonds. In fact, in June , Alaska was one of five states and territories exceeding quotas, and ranked second in the nation for selling war bonds, ahead of all of the forty-eight states and second only to Hawaii. In the meantime, the Allied invasion of Kiska was set for the second week of August. In the two weeks prior to the invasion, American airmen, carrying out one of the most intensive air blitzes of the war, hit Kiska times while American surface forces shelled enemy positions fifteen times. Alaska military commanders had learned the hard lessons of Attu well, and they were determined that this time there would be a big enough force, well equipped and with the proper clothing and food, to accomplish the task swiftly. Altogether, the invasion force for Kiska numbered , combat troops, consisting of fifteen thousand soldiers from California, about half of them Attu veterans from the Seventh Division; more than five thousand men from Buckner’s Alaskan Fourth Regiment; five thousand men of the Eighty-seventh Mountain Combat Team trained to fight the anticipated winter campaign in Italy; fifty-three hundred troops of the Thirteenth Royal Canadian Infantry Brigade, some of them French-speaking; and twenty-five hundred paratroops of a guerilla unit of commando rangers, the First Special Service Force. The force left Adak on Friday, August , . More than one hundred warships supported the transports. D day was August ; soldiers prepared their weapons and studied maps. Early on the morning of August , the combat troops were awakened
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and served a steak dinner. Military planners assumed that at the end of the fight, one out of every five men in the first assault waves would be dead. At dawn, the first troop contingents landed at a beach on the far western side of the island. After combing the island, the invasion force discovered that the Japanese had evacuated their base, and by August , Major General Charles H. Corlett was confident that the enemy was nowhere to be found. On August , President Roosevelt and Canadian Premier W. L. Mackenzie King issued a joint statement announcing that American and Canadian troops had occupied Kiska without opposition from the enemy. Their statement concluded, “The occupation of Kiska frees the last vestige of North American territory of Japanese forces.” Despite close naval and air reconnaissance, the Japanese had created the illusion of defensive preparations for the American assault, and then, on the day prior to the arrival of the invasion fleet, had evacuated the entire garrison by submarine and surface ships. In fifty minutes, the Japanese had taken fifty-four hundred troops safely to Paramushiro from under the nose of the Allies. After the American victory in the Aleutians, Secretary Ickes requested that the governor prepare a critical summary of the Alaska military situation. Gruening was only too happy to comply, because he had become disenchanted with the military bureaucracy and the many blunders that its shortsightedness and plain stupidity had caused. He prepared a lengthy and detailed summary, which he opened by declaring that “the battle of Alaska has ended and it may be reasonably contended that the Japs won it.” The governor based his belief on the fact that, with the loss of a very small number of men, the Japanese “immobilized American forces about times more numerous” and tied up tremendous quantities of valuable war material and shipping. Gruening thought that many of the military construction projects and activities had been wasteful, poorly located, and badly planned from the beginning. For example, the construction of neither army nor navy bases took into account the role of air power. At the navy bases at Sitka, Kodiak, Dutch Harbor, and Fort Richardson (the principal army base near Anchorage), structures were crammed together without provision or forethought for concealment, camouflage, or dispersal. Had the Japanese invaded Alaska, Gruening asserted, these bases would have been extremely vulnerable targets. Construction had been well under way at the three naval bases “before it was realized that the Army would have to be located somewhere” to defend the installations. “The belated realization of this elementary need created serious problems, greatly added to the cost, and never produced as satisfactory a result as if allowance for a joint Army-Navy base had been made in the original plans.” Indeed, entirely different sites would probably have been selected. The case of Dutch Harbor furnished an example. Because it had been made a naval reservation years before the advent of air power, “an entirely new base had to be built on Umnak Island miles to the westward to supply the missing airport and compensate for the error in Dutch Harbor’s selection.” Everything had to be dupli-
The Alaska Highway, the Aleutian Campaign, and the End of the War in Alaska
cated on Umnak, including accommodations for ten thousand men together with all the accompanying installations. But Fort Glenn on Umnak had no harbor, so the two bases in combination, “Dutch Harbor with no airport and Umnak with no seaport, is like a team composed of a lame man and blind man—the lame carrying the blind on his back.” When construction had started on Fort Richardson in the late spring of , contractors completely cleared the forest from the site even though “it could have been useful for concealment.” Contractors had built row upon row of barracks “symmetrically aligned . . . their copper roofs glinting in the sun and representing the maximum in visibility. It would have been difficult,” Gruening remarked, “to create a more perfect target to enemy air bombardment.” Next the governor turned to Kiska and Attu. For forty years, maps of Alaska had shown Kiska as a “U.S. Naval Reservation.” The American navy never developed it, and finally the Japanese had done so. The governor speculated that had Kiska been developed at the time the navy started building its Alaska bases much farther to the east, at Sitka, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor, “the entire history of the North Pacific warfare would have been substantially different.” In short, military mistakes had been legion, Gruening asserted, all the way from planning and constructing the bases to driving the Japanese out of Alaska. It had been too costly. Now the war had departed from the North and he did not think it would return. Gruening stated that Alaska’s only future military role consisted of maintaining a moderate force at the end of the Aleutians “to keep the enemy guessing and to make occasional reconnaissance and bombing raids from there toward the Kuriles; and to serve as a transport area if and when Russia decided to allow American bases in Siberia for an attack against Japan.” The governor suggested, “Many of our military establishments in Alaska . . . should be promptly abandoned or reduced to the barest skeleton force and the territory no longer be designated as a combat area.” Although his summary had been critical, Gruening did not overlook “the countless examples of efficient leadership of great and difficult tasks admirably performed, of the devotion and sacrifice of the overwhelming majority of officers and men in the fortifying of Alaska during the last four years.” American forces had started in “virgin terrain” with very little knowledge of the conditions they encountered. They had battled a largely inhospitable climate, and “the establishment of virtually every base at the speed that was required . . . was a saga of fortitude, persistence and grit.” In conclusion, Gruening stated, “appreciation of the many splendid and heartening aspects of this achievement should not blind us to the serious errors committed.” Much could be learned from the mistakes, Gruening believed, and future ones might be avoided. Above all, the time had come to plan for Alaska’s postwar future.
10
The Tax Battle Continues
T
he battle for alaska was over after American forces defeated the Japanese in the battle for Attu and reoccupied Kiska and found it abandoned. It was time to turn attention once again to territorial issues. Gruening returned to Juneau from the nation’s capital a week before the territorial legislature convened. He immediately set to work drafting his message to the lawmakers, which, his staff had counseled, “should make no recommendations, present the problems and drop it [the fiscal problem] on the legislature’s lap.” The governor did just that, and told the legislators that there was to be a substantial deficit before the end of the coming biennium. The territorial treasurer estimated probable receipts of ,,—a decrease of , from two years earlier, and a reduction from the actual receipts for the past biennium of ,,.. The reasons for this revenue decline were obvious, the governor stated. Gold mining, not essential to the war effort, had been suspended for the duration, and salmon packing had been curtailed by the transportation, labor, and equipment shortages. Dealing with these deficits was a legislative responsibility, the governor stated, and if sufficient reductions to balance the budget could not be agreed upon, “then securing additional revenues will be necessary.” Gruening suggested areas where budget cuts could be made. For example, the legislature had appropriated , in the past biennium for the construction and maintenance of roads and airfields. Most of this money had been spent in the Interior and had been related to the gold mining industry. With gold mining suspended, it seemed reasonable to cut at least half of this item. The governor also asked the legislature to eliminate bounties for hair seals and coyotes, saving approximately ,. Gruening stated that over three-fifths of the territorial budget of ,, submitted for legislative approval went for education, various types of welfare, and the Pioneer’s Home. “In my judgment,” he stated, “it is not possible to make any substantial reduction in these three categories, although the determination as to that, of course, rests with the legislature.” The governor continued that if, in light of all the needs, the lawmakers decided “that new sources of revenue must be uncovered, the method by which these are to be found is a problem for the legislature to solve.” He did remind lawmakers that his message had dealt extensively with the whole
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matter of territorial taxes. Gruening still felt “that the program proposed was thoroughly sound and desirable.” Concluding his remarks, he commented on “what might have been.” When he had proposed tax reform in , Alaska “was at its alltime apex of prosperity.” An unprecedented million worth of gold had been mined, and the salmon harvest had been normal. Most important, a great military construction program was under way, bringing into the territory millions of dollars, “which in turn spread out to pass through the tills of merchants, motion picture houses, banks, restaurants, liquor stores, to every trade and profession. No part of this, under our rigid and antiquated tax system, went into the territorial treasury.” These lost revenues could not be recovered, of course, but a tax program enacted now would bring in substantial revenues. Gruening was pleased with the lawmakers’ response to his message. He speculated that because of the war, “the atmosphere is much less tense and hostile than two years ago,” and he marveled that several of his recommendations, “such as raising teachers’ salaries and repealing bills preventing husbands and wives from working [for the territorial government] were promptly introduced.” The territorial senate president soon declared, however, that he opposed additional taxes on Alaska’s citizens, since this would impair their abilities to pay the U.S. taxes “due to the federal government in this emergency.” The governor then took the senate president to lunch and discussed the desirability of taking advantage of the prevailing prosperity by levying a percent withholding tax on wages. The senator seemed interested and wanted to know how much revenue could be raised in this fashion. The Internal Revenue Service supplied figures for that showed that forty-three thousand individuals had received wages amounting to million. Not included in these figures were businesses employing fewer than eight people, as well as fishermen, federal and territorial employees, and domestic help. If the latter had been included, the Internal Revenue Service estimated that wage payments would have come close to million. A percent tax on wages would have netted approximately million in . “What utter chumps these legislators are,” Gruening confided to his diary, for “a tax of as little as one-half of one percent on wages, and for all others one percent of their federal income tax, would solve all the territory’s financial problems, and who would miss it [low tax amounts]?” In early March, the governor discussed the income tax proposal with Stanley McCutcheon, a member of the territorial house from Anchorage and one of Gruening’s supporters. The latter had studied the issue extensively and discussed it with numerous interested individuals. Gruening’s supporter had finally decided that the suggestion that George W. Folta, the solicitor of the Department of the Interior, had made to levy a gross income tax of percent on both wages and other income best suited Alaska’s needs. In the meantime, the governor continued to refine his own tax proposals, and in the middle of March he invited the entire legislature, along with their spouses, to attend a “musicale” at the mansion. Much to Gruening’s delight, most of the lawmakers came and stayed on for supper, and “martinis softened them
The Tax Battle Continues
up greatly and the evening turned out to be very jolly and friendly.” It also gave the governor the opportunity to talk taxes. Another Gruening supporter in the senate informed the governor that two representatives of the canned salmon industry had informed the senate president of the industry’s willingness to provide , a year in additional taxes for the territorial treasury. The legislature dutifully enacted a nickel-per-case tax on canned salmon, and on March , the governor explained to the house why he allowed the measure to become law without his signature. First, it made “a curious exception to all previously enacted tax measures,” establishing a new precedent by levying the tax “for the calendar years and only.” Gruening rejected the idea of a temporary tax, particularly since it took no special clairvoyance to see that Alaska would need more revenues in “and have fewer sources to draw upon” than it had in . Second, the chief executive disagreed with the facts presented in the tax bill’s preamble, which stated that “the war and disruption of normal business in the territory and the suspension of gold mining” had resulted in a revenue loss of more than , yearly. The governor thought “suspension of gold mining alone had caused a loss of revenue, but not the disruption of normal business.” In fact, business was “far better than normal. Wages are at an all-time high, and merchants and businesses generally have had their most profitable year in a long time.” In addition, liquor stamp taxes had been higher than ever, and because of the influx of construction workers, more males between the ages of twenty-one and fifty than ever before paid the annual school tax. Gruening bitterly observed that the salmon industry, “which in past years vigorously opposed the broadening of the territorial tax base and the modernizing of our tax structure, can of course well afford to pay an additional nickel a case.” That five cents amounted to no more than “merely one more patch of our existing patchwork tax system” and, while providing some revenue, did not contribute to the solution of “the financial problems which the territory will soon face.” Late on the night of March , the legislature adjourned. A house measure to double the stamp tax on liquor did not get out of committee. However, Gruening was largely satisfied with the session, even though tax legislation had not been seriously considered. Every recommendation he had made in his message to the legislature had been enacted into law: two acts prohibiting married couples earning more than per month from working for the territorial government had been repealed, the salaries of schoolteachers had been increased, as had those of territorial clerical help, and no essential government services had been cut. Two years later, in January , the legislature assembled for its seventeenth biennial session. The governor delivered his message to a joint session on January . Gruening reminded his listeners that the overshadowing fact now, just as two years earlier, was that America was still at war, “deeply engaged in an all-out, total war, the duration of which no one can foretell.” But at least the enemy had been forced from the Aleutian Islands, “the only part of America thus occupied.” The core of Gruening’s message then addressed the need for taking care of Alaska’s returning war
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Figure . Governor Gruening signs the pro-statehood resolution, which Representative Stanley McCutcheon introduced to the territorial legislature in . Left to right: McCutcheon; Gruening; Fred G. Hanford of Wrangell, speaker of the territorial house; and Jesse Lander of Fairbanks. No number.
veterans and those men who had served in the armed forces in the North and would decide to stay, “infusing new life, ideas and energy into the territory.” Gruening urged lawmakers to enact appropriate legislation especially designed for them in order to help transform Alaska into a land of opportunity benefiting all citizens. After dealing with many pressing issues, such as the establishment of an Alaska development agency, a referendum on statehood, land ownership, the need for a full-time commissioner of health and the serious tuberculosis problem, unemployment and workmen’s compensation, teacher’s retirement, and old-age assistance and housing, to name but a few, the governor tackled the need for revenues. He asked the lawmakers to decide how much money was needed for the coming biennium and how it should be raised. These matters were “wholly within the discretion of the legislature,” he admitted, but nevertheless it was his duty to “discuss the problem, to present his point of view, to offer some of the arguments for and against a particular course of action, and then to leave the decision to the elected representatives of the people.” He reminded lawmakers that the report of the territorial Board of Budget anticipated revenues of approximately . million for the biennium and expenditures of about ,,, leaving a prospective deficit of about . million. The legislature had no obligation to approve the estimate of the Board of Budget. Cuts could conceivably be made, but Gruening found it difficult to see how sufficient savings could be effected to eliminate the anticipated shortfall. There were still other matters to consider, all costing money. For example, territorial employees should receive salary increases of percent to equalize their pay with that received by fed-
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eral employees. Territorial workers enjoyed no retirement system, while their federal counterparts did. Clearly, there was a need to establish such a system. Gruening reminded his audience that many states had established “sinking funds,” or savings accounts “not to be touched until the postwar period, when money for public construction, for matching federal appropriations . . . will be needed.” Efforts should be made, he urged, to include Alaska in the Federal Aid Highway Act, legislation that provided federal dollars to build highways, matched by a certain amount of local funding. All states, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico participated—but not Alaska. This was because the apportionment of funds was based in part on public lands, “and because of Alaska’s vast area, our share would have been disproportionate to the territory’s . . . needs, and far beyond that of any state.” Even if not included in the act, he maintained, Alaska should set aside money for road-building purposes in the postwar period. Next, the governor dealt with the University of Alaska. University activities had been sharply curtailed in the preceding few years because of “the Army’s need for and occupation of its buildings.” Gruening predicted that the public’s demands on the institution would increase rapidly. Alaskans who had interrupted their education to serve in the armed forces would want to return to finish their college degrees. There would be veterans who were entitled under the G.I. Bill of Rights to obtain a college education, and the children of military personnel stationed in Alaska would want to study at the university. “For this surely foreseeable influx of young people— tough young people who have been disciplined, matured and sobered through the bitter experience of war—there will not be adequate accommodations, either of dormitory, classroom or laboratory space unless we plan to build them.” In addition, Gruening proposed the establishment of a southern branch of the university, at or near Ketchikan, to specialize in such subjects as fisheries, forestry, navigation, and marine engineering and architecture. Finally, he also pointed out the need to establish a trade school, perhaps in Juneau, to offer vocational training. Where, Gruening asked the lawmakers, were the revenues necessary to support these ambitious plans to come from? He reminded his listeners that some excellent studies on how to raise the monies had been available in . The analysts who had prepared these had all agreed that Alaska’s “tax structure was a patchwork that bore no relation either to the financial capacity of the territory, to its needs, or to its possible fluctuations in income.” And although the governor stated his intention of not wanting “to rehearse the whole subject here in great detail,” he did point out that his administration had in proposed a totally new tax structure, abolishing virtually all territorial taxes and replacing them with three simple and modest taxes: a personal income tax, a corporate income tax, and a property tax. Despite his intention not to dwell on the tax matter, Gruening then launched into a full discussion of the whole problem. The governor concluded that whatever the legislature chose to do, it was imperative that it “set our house in order, to prepare for the morrow and for the return of our sons.” Thereupon, the joint session of the house and senate extended a “rising vote of thanks” to Gruening for his splendid speech.
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The Daily Alaska Empire, no friend of the governor, nevertheless paid grudging compliments to his speech, characterizing it as “one of the finest pieces of expert political workmanship that has been witnessed in this neck of the woods.” The editor commented, however, that ever since assuming the governorship Gruening had “been doing his darndest to revise the existing tax system” although “it seems to be paying the bills without too much trouble to date.” The editor rejected new or higher taxes as detrimental to Alaska’s economy, and concluded that the seventeenth legislature, as with its predecessors, needed “to do plenty of trimming on this budget.” The chairman of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) Alaska Conference, which had just concluded its annual meeting in Juneau, quickly chastised the Empire for its distorted news reporting and biased editorials. Despite recognizing the right of editors “to think and to say what they think in their editorials,” he maintained that the paper’s distortion of the news “abrogated its moral license as the medium on which the people of the territory must depend for a knowledge of their government.” These distortions were particularly offensive since most Alaska newspapers, financially unable to station their reporters in Juneau during the legislative session, reprinted Empire materials regularly. Hence most Alaskans saw legislative affairs through the eyes of the Empire. The chairman of the CIO Alaska Conference summarized Gruening’s program for Alaska, pronounced it to be farsighted and constructive, and endorsed it. Gruening had long criticized Empire reporting, and he was happy to find support from the CIO Alaska Conference. He was optimistic about legislative prospects and told Delegate Bartlett, who had succeeded the retiring Dimond by winning the election, that the lawmakers had “gotten off to a wonderful start. This crowd contrasts mightily with previous legislatures—all business and with a very good spirit.” Of course, they would “not pass everything by a long shot,” he predicted, and thought that the senate would strenuously oppose his program and that votes there would be very close. On February , the senate, sitting as a committee of the whole, listened to tax counselor Alfred Harsch explain the proposed income tax measure that had been introduced in the upper house by one of Gruening’s senate supporters. Harsch, a professor of law of the University of Washington, where he taught courses on taxation, also served as a counsel to the Washington State Tax Commission and as a consultant in Alaska in ‒. He explained to the senators that the income tax bill was patterned closely after the federal income tax law, and would require Alaskans to pay about onetenth of their federal tax obligations to the territorial treasury. The proposed tax rates on individual incomes varied from percent on net incomes of , or less to up to percent of net income, with insurance companies taxed on gross premiums. The bill also contained a tax-withholding provision just like its federal counterpart, including convenient tables for calculating amounts to be withheld. Separate provisions dealt with seasonal workers who had earnings for less than five months in the territory. These workers did not have to file individual territorial tax returns, and it was the
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responsibility of employers to withhold the proper amounts from paychecks. Harsch answered many questions from the senators and emphasized the simplicity of the proposed tax system. Under questioning, he estimated that the measure was expected to yield between , and , annually, from which about , had to be deducted for credits for federal license taxes paid, as well as some other deductions for administrative costs and various minor credits—leaving the territory a net gain of about , a year. William R. Carter, the editor and manager of the Daily Alaska Empire, studied the tax measure and then wrote a series of editorials highly critical of the whole concept. He was particularly opposed to one aspect of the plan, which was designed to penalize the owners of Alaska’s fishing industry who resided outside the territory. Heavy taxes on this “outside capital,” Carter stated, would simply halt that investment in Alaska’s fishing industry. That would be disastrous, because very little of the required funds could be raised locally. In fact, “even today our western states must seek capital from the east for new ventures.” The editor concluded, “The development of Alaska’s resources initiated by outside capital has strengthened the position of the residents of Alaska, has brought them employment and purchasing power— has made possible the tax returns which have enabled us to develop the territorial structure of government we have today.” A few days later, Carter stated that Gruening’s proposed budget was an example of “how to create an impending deficit in the territory’s financial position in easy lessons.” The governor’s budget included enough new agencies, bureaus, and highsalaried positions “to run any state into debt.” The editor conceded that many of these proposed expenditures were worthwhile, but added, “no governmental unit in the world has ever satisfied all of its needs.” In fact, “every proposal that would increase or add taxes should have unquestioned necessity as its basis. Mere desirability is not enough.” And what was necessary was up to the lawmakers to decide. When the legislature adjourned in March, Gruening praised its achievements and pointed to the “satisfying” list of measures enacted which he had requested at the start of the session. These included an Alaska development board, a referendum on statehood, a land registration act, an antidiscrimination bill, measures providing for a fulltime commissioner of health with a modest appropriation to combat tuberculosis, a department of agriculture, and a housing authority. The legislature had also approved a teachers’ retirement measure and one to increase their salaries—as well as those of all other territorial employees—by percent, and it had increased old-age assistance from to per month. Unemployment compensation, rejected by the two preceding legislatures, had passed the house. The house had been “a model of what a legislative assembly should be. It was hard working, thoroughly conscientious, progressive and fully aware of the needs of the territory.” In short, the house had been “outstanding, not only in its ideas and attitude. . . . It wasted no time; it worked hard, long and late, it indulged in little bickering.” This was all the more striking because eighteen out of the twenty-four members were serving for the first time.
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Figure . At the governor’s dinner in Anchorage (), Gruening recapped the legislative session before a friendly audience. Left to right: Evangeline Atwood, Gruening, Robert B. Atwood, unidentified individual. Acc. no. -.
While praising the house, the governor vigorously criticized the senate. It had done nothing to improve the tax structure, and in fact had killed the income and fish tax measures and failed to consider a property tax bill passed by the house. Perhaps worse, not enough money had been appropriated for the coming biennium, and except for a -cent-per-gallon tax on motor fuel and a slight increase in liquor taxes, no new revenue measures had been enacted. The legislature had added additional commitments, but no means of meeting them. The governor clearly was worried about the future. Yet shortly after the legislature had adjourned, Gruening still was pleased by the accomplishments of the session. He told Delegate Bartlett that the two floor leaders had “carried the ball alternately with marvelous efficiency and corresponding results.” Equally outstanding had been four other representatives, including Frank Peratrovich, a Native and Democrat from Klawock. As a matter of fact, Gruening stated, “no one will ever be able to point to ‘Natives’ hereafter as unqualified.” The governor awarded the “booby prize” in the territorial house to Alaska Stewart Linck from Fairbanks, “whose entire performance was one of attempted obstruction and sabotage of every worthwhile move. Her efforts were wholly useless.” In the senate, Gruening praised the efforts of four Democrats who “went right down the line for progressive measures.” The governor approved of a Fairbanks Republican senator “who made an excellent showing.” The Democratic senator representing western Alaska, however, had been “completely captured by the opposition and formed part of the obstructive block.” Gruening related that he would find it “difficult to know to whom I would assign the booby prize” among the latter group. The governor was keenly disappointed by Senator “Doc” Walker, who had “turned against all he presumably had stood for in the past early in the session.” According to his contemporary George Sundborg, Walker, a Ketchikan druggist, was “a terrible demagogue of dubious intellect and integrity.” Early in his term,
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Sundborg asserted, Gruening had been roundly condemned “on all sides for his newfangled cheechako ideas,” and apparently was so “hungry for any sign of support or even human kindness” that he was easily “taken in by any show of friendliness, even when it was transparently false.” According to Sundborg, Walker obviously had fooled Gruening “into thinking that he was a political friend and supporter,” although he was nothing of the kind, but rather “a plant by the canned salmon industry.” Soon after the seventeenth legislature had adjourned in March , Senator Walker responded to Gruening’s criticism. He characterized the governor’s statements as a “harangue,” and remarked that Gruening always condemned those who did not follow his advice blindly or take his orders. The senator stated that he had consistently supported the governor during the past four years, but that his admiration for the chief executive had “turned to contempt after his repeated acts of duplicity in breaking his given word.” Walker concluded that when the recently deceased president “looks back on his record of glorious achievement, his appointment of Governor Gruening will hardly be one of them. The Holy Book of Law records that even our Savior erred in trusting Judas.” A few days later, Walker told Gruening that from Fairbanks to Ketchikan, organized and unorganized labor, big and small business, the clergy, veterans’ organizations, and “even some Indians” criticized the governor for the conduct of his office. Walker suggested that Gruening change the way in which he operated the governorship, or resign. Some time later, in a guest editorial, Walker stated that Gruening just did not understand economics or the capitalist system, which, properly regulated, created jobs, paid wages, and produced wealth for an abundant life. “The governor’s idea is to tax, tax, tax, with the idea that more bureaucrats can be supported who, in turn, will promulgate more rules that hinder and harass industry.” In his memoirs, Gruening recalled that shortly after the legislature adjourned, “I finally woke up to the unpleasant truth that Senator ‘Doc’ Walker had been double-dealing with me.” Gruening recounted that Walker had befriended him early on in his term and volunteered “to assist me in every way.” This offer had been accepted in good faith, and considering Walker an experienced legislator, Gruening wrote, “I had asked his advice and discussed my ideas with him. He had expressed unqualified support for my tax program; yet it was he who had moved to postpone the income tax bill indefinitely after it had passed the house.” Now Gruening discovered that the canned salmon industry had financed Walker’s and campaigns and assisted him financially during the Depression, when his drugstore was in difficult straits. After that session, Gruening recalled, Walker became “a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, charming and gracious one moment and vicious beyond reason the next.” Gruening concluded that his relative passivity during the legislative session had secured him respite from the organized hostility of the canned salmon industry and those who did its bidding. He had not issued a “Message to the People of Alaska” after the session.
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After the session, however, he decided to prepare another one. In it, he once again reviewed the performance of the legislature, praising the enactment of important measures and criticizing those who defeated bills that he deemed necessary. Once again he named those legislators who had voted for and against key bills. Gruening was particularly caustic in his remarks about the offer of the canned salmon interests to pay an extra levy for a limited period. Stated the governor: “It was improper and undignified for the territory to put itself in the position of ‘accepting’ as a gift a crumb which the canned salmon industry graciously offers the people of Alaska from its sumptuous banquet table. . . . The chief lobbyist for the canning industry [ Judge Winton C. Arnold] comes to Alaska, surveys the situation and tells the legislators how much, or rather how little, they may spend, and graciously offers to make up the modest deficit provided only it is modest enough. He is to be the judge; and his pliant and compliant emissaries in the legislature accede to his estimates. This is a wholly unworthy and humiliating position for a great territory which aspires to be a sovereign state.” Territorial lawmakers, Gruening observed, had a responsibility to determine necessary expenditures and then impose the necessary taxes. It would have been degrading for the territory to have accepted the industry’s offer, the governor concluded, for “it would be selling its birthright for less than a mess of pottage.” The record of the legislature had been fair, but in Gruening’s estimate, it had failed to enact measures designed to aid Alaska’s veterans. Opponents to veterans’ legislation in had reasoned that since the war was not over, there was no need to hurry. Soon after the end of the territorial legislative session, however, the enemy collapsed. Victory in Europe (VE Day) came in May, and victory in Japan (VJ Day) followed in August. That nullified the legislators’ arguments, so the governor decided to call a special session to convene in March , when most of the soldiers “would have returned and would be breathing down the legislators’ necks.” This, Gruening reasoned, would help accomplish the desired goals. The special session of the seventeenth assembly of the Alaska territorial legislature convened on March , . As customary, the governor addressed a joint session. Gruening stated that postwar Alaska confronted pressing problems that required immediate attention and could not be delayed until the regular session in . He wanted the legislators to deal with two major issues, namely the menacing tuberculosis situation and veterans’ legislation, and one minor one—revision of highway traffic laws. The governor reminded the lawmakers that “the incidence of tuberculosis in Alaska is approximately eight times greater than in the United States.” It was propitious to act now because the end of hostilities made available army and navy hospitals and medical supplies that could be used for the hospitalization and care of tuberculosis patients, and he asked for an appropriation of ,. Gruening came to the heart of the reason for the special session when he reminded the lawmakers that Alaska remained the only territory or state that had not passed any veterans’ legislation. “Other states and territories began passing such
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legislation four years ago,” the governor stated. “At each successive legislative session, their legislators have added to it, until now a great body of legislation, designed to assist our returning boys (and girls), has become law.” The reasons for passing such legislation were obvious, Gruening stated. Congress had passed the G.I. Bill of Rights, but that needed implementation by states and territories to make it workable. One aspect of the federal legislation dealt with loans. Returning veterans were entitled to a loan of ,, of which the federal government guaranteed ,. The loans were to enable veterans to establish businesses or purchase homes. The Veterans Administration reported that no such loans had been made in Alaska because territorial banks were unable to comply with the prescribed percent interest rate and instead continued to charge the customary Alaska rate of percent. Gruening recommended that the legislature make provisions to enable the five to six thousand Alaska veterans to secure loans and “to back their loans with the funds of the credit of the Territory of Alaska.” The governor also urged that the lawmakers provide a cash bonus for those veterans not needing loans. The G.I. Bill of Rights also contained educational provisions allowing veterans to return to school or college or secure additional education, technical training, or training of any kind in preparation for a job. Each returning veteran was entitled to attend educational institutions, with tuition and a monthly stipend paid by the federal government equivalent to the time spent in the armed services. Many of the educational institutions, however, were filled to capacity. The limited facilities of the University of Alaska Fairbanks were crowded already, and Gruening therefore suggested the construction of a southern branch in Juneau. Perhaps most important was the question of how to finance these programs. Various methods of raising revenue had been proposed in recent years, “many of them sound and desirable, that there should be no difficulty in choosing from them.” Gruening considered all methods of raising revenue desirable, and only objected to the sales tax because it “would fall, almost wholly, upon the resident Alaskans . . . but would be largely evaded by those who come up here during the summer season and take away substantial earnings from mining operations and the fisheries.” The governor conceded that a thirty-day session was too short to enact an income and a property tax; dealing with taxation also would engender “dissension and difference of opinion.” He therefore proposed to “bond” the territory. Although congressional authorization was needed to sell bonds, Gruening was certain that Congress would speedily pass the required legislation. Even better, bonding would allow lawmakers “time to consider between now and the next regular session . . . what revenue measure may be needed to meet the interest and amortization on those bonds.” Perhaps he hoped that selling a hefty bond issue would force legislators to reform the tax system because it would be nearly impossible to pay the interest and amortization out of already inadequate revenues. In conclusion, the governor stated, “the great body of acts and statutes steadily issuing from the capitols of the states and other territories, indicate the interest and solicitude which the legislative authorities of those areas have given to the care and
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assistance of their returning veterans.” Alaska had done nothing so far. The time had come “to write on that blank page a stimulating and constructive chapter of our legislative history.” The men and women who had served in the armed forces and “made every possible sacrifice” did “not fail us when the call came,” he continued. “Shall we fail them now?” Gruening confided to Bartlett that he feared a tough fight in the legislature, but nevertheless hoped “that some veterans’ and tuberculosis legislation would emerge.” The senate had “established a steam roller” and removed sympathetic Republicans “and the other liberals from the major committees,” thereby creating a functioning anti-Gruening majority of ten. Toward the end of the special session, Gruening reported that despite a senate memorial asking the president and the secretary of the interior to remove Alaska’s governor from office at once, and a house memorial praising him as the best chief executive the territory had ever had, much progress had occurred in other areas. A workmen’s compensation measure he had dubbed “pretty good” had passed, as had several bills dealing with the control of tuberculosis. A veterans’ measure provided for a bonus of ten dollars a month for every month of service, and a , personal and , farm and business loan limit. If a veteran chose the bonus, he could get a loan later by repaying the bonus. Gruening thought that this was “probably the most generous and useful veteran’s bill enacted anywhere.” After having labored for thirty days, the legislature adjourned on April , . Once again, the governor reported to Alaska’s citizens and evaluated the accomplishments of the legislative session. Gruening stated that the extra session had been outstanding. Not only did the lawmakers pass all the recommended health measures, including an appropriation of , for combating tuberculosis for , but they also had approved a basic science act designed to secure higher standards in the health professions. Most of all, however, he was pleased with the veterans’ bill. It created a revolving fund financed by a sales tax and administered by a board of five to be appointed by the governor, subject to confirmation first by the board of administration and subsequently by the legislature. The board appointed a commissioner of veterans’ affairs acting, in effect, as the board’s executive. Gruening remained unhappy with the use of the sales tax to finance the provisions of the veterans’ bill, but was confident that future legislatures would remedy this shortcoming. The special session had passed other beneficial measures as well: one bill raising the salaries of schoolteachers again, and a few tax measures raising additional revenues from liquor, amusement devices, the salmon pack, trap-caught fish, and fish traps. The governor was particularly happy with the last bill, which established the principle that the territory had the right to secure increased monies “in exchange for monopolistic privileges.” Considering that the extraordinary session had lasted only thirty days, “its achievement will . . . rank as high as that of any legislature in Alaskan history,” Gruening concluded, and for “this accomplishment,
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the members of the legislature and the people of Alaska are to be warmly congratulated.” Still, Alaska had no adequate tax system, while its public needs continued to grow. This bothered the governor, and he continued to make inquiries as to what kind of system would suit the territory’s needs best and also stand a chance for legislative approval. Repeatedly he was told that simplicity was the key, for the easier it read, “the easier it was to adopt in a bitter, all-night, conference session (where most such bills die or come to life as law).” All of those interested in producing adequate revenues for territorial needs recommended the adoption of two essential taxes: ) an Alaska personal income tax levied on all individuals receiving all or part of their taxable income in the territory if they were required to pay any federal personal income tax. The amount payable was to be a certain percentage of the federal income tax; and ) an Alaska corporation and partnership tax, to be levied on all partnerships, general partnerships, and corporations, foreign and domestic, if they were required to pay a federal corporation tax. In December , the Chicago Tribune ran an article titled “New Dealers Seek to Double Alaska Burden; Gruening Ignores Voters’ Economy Views.” William Strand, the author of the piece, stated that the Gruening administration had proposed a new biennial – budget doubling expenditures from the slightly more than million for the – biennium to almost million. This proposed budget, Strand noted, “would require drastic increases in the tax burden on the residents and their limited industries.” In fact, Gruening’s policies had followed the pattern established by the national budget of the New Deal administration. Under his leadership the territorial biennial budget had increased from about . million in – to the present peak of million. Taxes had been increased proportionately, and the salmon industry, the backbone of the Alaska economy, had borne the chief burden. Strand asserted that despite Alaska’s lack of industrial progress, Gruening repeatedly had attempted “to increase the levies on the meager Alaskan industries.” In fact, his political opponents blamed the governor’s tax policies for retarding the development of new industries. The Strand article was misleading in various respects. Gruening had little to do with the – biennial budget that the many territorial departments presented to the Board of Budget. The latter consisted of two elected territorial officials—the auditor and the treasurer—as well as the governor. When the budget presentations were made, Gruening was in Washington, so the secretary of Alaska, acting as governor, sat on the board. The board, with minor exceptions, approved the departmental requests, but of course they were subject to legislative approval. Strand wrote other pieces highly critical of Gruening that were examples of shoddy, inaccurate reporting. His anti-Gruening slant could perhaps be explained by a series of events that had occurred in the s, after Gruening returned from Mexico and was writing his book about that country. At that time, the Chicago Tribune had published a fantastic story written by a correspondent in Mexico, who had described a Bolshevik conspiracy to turn over the entire hemisphere to
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Moscow—and alleged that Gruening was an “important cog in this machinery.” Walter Pollak, Gruening’s attorney, demanded that the Tribune retract the piece because a story of that kind “becomes a matter of record and, apart from the damage that it does originally, is apt to be located in newspaper ‘graveyards,’ and is likely to bob up again in subsequent articles.” The publisher himself replied to Pollak’s request, stating that while he would listen to Gruening’s story, he would not grant him newspaper space for a refutation. Thereupon, Gruening sued for libel, an expensive undertaking. Before long, somebody at the Tribune discovered that the information on Gruening had been erroneous. The paper settled out of court for , and published a retraction drafted by Pollak. The Tribune held a grudge, the governor believed, and was “happy to get even” with him, and since “a public official is fair game for even the most malicious and dishonest kind of reporting,” that was, indeed, “the kind of reporting which it is now engaging in through its correspondent William Strand.” In any event, Gruening believed that it was useless to “reply to a paper so venomous and so dishonest.” What Gruening could not know was that Strand would become manager and editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in February . In his new position, Strand gave the paper a decidedly anti-administration tone. That was in the future, however, and for the time being Gruening observed that he had survived his fifth legislative session “unperturbed, the only change being a somewhat thickened epidermis.” The eighteenth territorial legislature convened in Juneau in January . The Republican majority elected one of its members from Anchorage as speaker of the house, a move supported by the eleven Democrats. As a result, committee appointments were evenly distributed, with Democrats receiving “a goodly share.” In the Republican senate, a struggle ensued between those supporting Doc Walker, a Democrat, and those supporting Fairbanks Republican Andrew Nerland for the senate presidency. Much to Gruening’s delight, Nerland won. The governor, though a Democrat, considered Nerland to be a fair and evenhanded individual and hoped that his program would fare better under the Republican’s leadership. On January , the governor delivered his annual message to a joint session of the legislature. He opened his remarks by stating that this was his fifth time, and in all probability his last time, to address the legislature, for he hoped that Alaska would be a state of the union in and that an elected governor would address the state legislature. In the meantime, however, there existed serious problems that the territory had to face. Transportation in all its forms—maritime, air, and overland highway—was one of these. Unfortunately, these problems were largely decided “by distant agencies and unseen men,” and often not in Alaska’s interests. After dwelling on these problems, Gruening quickly came to the heart of his major concern: territorial appropriations and revenues. In these fields the legislature was able to exercise authority and assume responsibility, subject only to certain limitations imposed by the Organic Act and other federal legislation. A financial crisis loomed, Gruening warned the legislators. Various territorial agencies had submitted budget estimates
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for the biennium totaling ,,, but revenue projections for the same period amounted to only ,,, thus leaving a shortfall of ,,. One aspect of the financial problem was indisputable—the necessity of balancing the budget. How a balanced budget could be achieved, however, would raise differences of opinion between territorial agencies and the legislature. Gruening asserted that all expenditures could be reduced to meet expected revenues, or additional revenues might be raised to meet stated needs. But between these two extremes existed a number of possible variations. The governor discussed in some detail the request of the various agencies, and also pointed out the opportunity to participate in a variety of federal aid programs that had to be matched with territorial dollars. For example, the territorial highway engineer had asked for , to provide Alaska’s percent participation in the seven-year Civil Aeronautics Administration program, for which million had been allocated to the territory. In order to take full advantage of these federal funds, Gruening pointed out, the legislature would have to appropriate . million over the seven-year life of the program. Congress had also adopted a three-to-one matching formula for road construction money, and after years of very meager appropriations, the Bureau of the Budget had earmarked . million for the coming fiscal year. Gruening assumed that a like amount would be forthcoming for the following year, boosting to . million the funds available in the next biennium. To get this money, however, the legislature had to earmark . million for its percent matching share. The governor next related a variety of pressing needs that required legislative attention. For example, the territorial government should establish a retirement system for its employees. The commissioner of education had stated that there was a deficit of , for the – biennium, and that he needed , for the biennium to increase teachers’ salaries to competitive levels. Then there was the University of Alaska, “a grand little institution . . . that every Alaskan has a right to be proud of,” which had struggled along for too many years. In order to take care of increased enrollments, the university requested , for new construction, included in a total budget of ,, for the biennium, up from just , for the preceding one. Where was the necessary money to come from? the governor asked. He claimed that the legislature would have no difficulty in finding the answer, which had been available for years. Gruening reminded his audience that several authoritative territorial tax studies had revealed “the great gaps in Alaska’s revenues.” The governor listed some of these. Construction was not taxed, and while millions of dollars had been expended in the defense building boom, “not one cent of this unprecedented windfall reached the territorial treasury.” There was no withholding tax, so thousands of construction workers employed at wages “two or three times as high as they had ever enjoyed before” went untaxed. And while the first chance to tax had been lost, opportunity knocked again because the cold war defense construction program had gotten under way.
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Other activities likewise went untaxed, Gruening continued. Transportation companies did not pay a cent in taxes to the territory, and neither did lighterage companies. Banks, oil companies, radio stations, newspapers, logging operations, and automotive and marine repair shops did pay small fees. Other business categories paid “only an arbitrary and nominal license fee.” The governor wondered why “all lawyers, all dealers in non-alcoholic beverages and all undertakers in towns of less than , population” paid the same license fee of a year. The examples were numerous. The fact was that Alaskans were not taxed burdensomely and “that individuals and businesses deriving substantial livelihoods from the territory pay nothing at all. That is not as it should be.” Next, Gruening told the legislators from what sources the territory derived its revenues. An analysis of the anticipated funds for the next year showed that the salmon industry was the largest taxpayer, with , or percent of the total; next in magnitude was the liquor tax, with ,, also percent; motor fuel oil taxes were estimated to net , or less than percent; miscellaneous business taxes brought in , or percent; mining yielded , or percent; automobile licenses were to bring in , or . percent; and all other tax revenues yielded , or percent. Only five activities brought in percent of the total revenues. That situation, Gruening explained, clearly showed a lack of diversification and flexibility in the territorial tax system, “if it can be called a system.” The governor then reminded the legislators once again that he had recommended tax reform in his message to the legislature in . His recommendation had gotten nowhere then. This time Gruening made no recommendation, simply closing his address by stating, “The responsibility, as well as the opportunity, is yours. You have the chance . . . to plough some of the wealth, which collectively has for years been taken from Alaska, back into Alaska, for its health, for its welfare, for its education, for its growth, for its development, for its happiness.” In his diary, Gruening expressed satisfaction that his message “was universally well received,” and that he had been able to “say in a delicate way ‘I told you so.’” The session got off, in his view, to an “inauspicious start” when a senate and house Republican each introduced senate Bill , to create the office of administrator general, designed to strip the governor of all the power conferred upon him by the legislature. Gruening did not worry about the measures. “I really expect it to be defeated,” he observed. “It’s really intended as a smear proposition.” Several senators jabbed at Gruening by introducing a measure to eliminate the Alaska Development Board, which was close to the governor’s heart. Gruening hoped the measure would not pass. Gruening estimated that the Democrats would be divided between pro- and antigovernor factions, but the Republicans were likewise split between those loyal to Al White, the general counsel of the Republican Party in Alaska, and those opposing him, who were called the “Black Republicans.” The governor observed happily that the Natives had one senator and two representatives in the legislature, and that the wife of one of the senators was a Native, as was the spouse of one representative. This
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the governor considered “real progress toward the one type of democracy which had been lacking in Alaska.” Gruening was disappointed with the progress of the legislature. Already in its third week, it had done virtually nothing on any revenue measures. The governor’s aide, economist George W. Rogers, had drafted a streamlined income tax bill, which tax consultant Al Harsch of the University of Washington had approved. The territory’s attorney general had “further doctored” it. Still, Gruening was apprehensive that there would be no discussion of the revenue problem at all. At the end of February, Gruening learned that the lobbyist for the mining industry had told the territorial commissioner of health, “All you fellows are going to be allowed to spend is ,,. That’s going to be the budget.” The canned salmon industry lobbyist had set a biennial budget figure for Alaska in the session and then had graciously offered to “work out a few modest taxes to make up the difference if any.” It outraged the governor that any special interest group presumed to dictate to the people of Alaska what they might spend for a biennium. There were bright spots, however, as when the chief lobbyist for the canned salmon industry, Judge Arnold, suffered his first defeat when the senate passed a bill providing for a fish trap referendum by a vote of eleven to five. The house had already passed the measure by a margin of nineteen to five. An amendment to lengthen the period of abolishing fish traps from five to ten years also passed, and the house accepted it. The cannery operators had long built fish traps near the mouth of salmon spawning streams. A trap was essentially a large box constructed of logs with an opening facing the ocean. Long nets, anchored with weights, stretched on both sides of the box for some distance. Salmon attempting to reach the stream swam along the nets and were funneled into the trap. When full, the trap opening was shut and a scow came alongside. Workers transferred the salmon to the scow, opened the trap gate, and started the process all over again. It was the most economical way to catch large numbers of salmon with a minimum number of employees. Cannery operators had staked hundreds of the best trap sites and, although they held no legal title, rebuilt the traps in the same locations each year. Alaskan fishermen resented the traps because they reduced the markets for their fish. They also represented the economic and political power of what Gruening called the “outside-based” Alaska canned salmon industry. The governor felt that the importance of the fish trap issue had been greatly exaggerated by both resident Alaskans and the salmon industry, but he appreciated the symbolic value of the fish traps, representing “outside control,” which he pointed out in many speeches, and rejoiced that the salmon lobby had “suffered a major defeat.” By March, the legislature had dealt only piecemeal with the problem of taxation. senate Bill had passed both houses, raising the excise tax on malt beverages from five cents to ten cents per gallon, liquor with an alcoholic content of less than percent by volume from fifteen cents to twenty-five cents per gallon, and all other liquor from two dollars to three dollars per gallon. The measure was to raise an estimated ,
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per year. Another measure, senate Bill , also passed both houses, strongly supported by the mining industry. It repealed the gross gold tax and the net income tax on all mining. There had been arguments over whether it was good policy to discontinue the gross gold or severance tax, which compensated states or territories for the permanent loss of the tax base due to the shrinkage of the nonrenewable resources being exploited. Beyond these arguments, senate Bill was open to criticism because it did not define gross income. Net income, upon which the tax was computed, was defined as gross income less “allowable deduction,” and the depletion allowances were stated as a percentage of gross income. No provisions had been made to deal with capital gains and losses or the carryover of losses, and there was no basis for the amortization of development costs. In short, operators had been given the greatest flexibility for evading taxes; that had been the intent of the measure. In fact, the measure had been drawn so loosely that it was impossible to estimate revenues. None of the other revenue bills, dealing with a variety of minor tax schemes, had passed both houses. In an angry editorial, the Daily Alaska Empire took umbrage at a package of three tax measures introduced by two Democratic senators—namely the tax on properties outside incorporated towns, the net income tax, and a general licensing tax based upon the gross business of firms operating within Alaska. If enacted, the editor warned, these bills “would give the people of this territory one of the biggest fleecings yet.” Thus, “while most of these new taxes would be levied on business concerns,” he concluded, “the average man of the street is not so dumb that he doesn’t realize who will pay the bill in the end—Mr. John Q. Public.” Gruening soon agreed with University of Alaska president Bunnell, who observed that “this was the worst legislature the territory had ever had” and he had seen them all. There had been much sniping against the governor, consisting of half a dozen bills curtailing his authority. The governor sarcastically remarked that one Democratic senator had “elegantly expressed himself ” before his colleagues: “I want that bird off every board.” Gruening was confident that none of these bills would pass, and even if some did, he would exercise his veto power. He kept his optimism and remarked, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast and I feel there is going to be stronger public reaction [to the conduct of the legislature than] at any time since I have been here.” Gruening hoped that this reaction would extend to the voting booths and result in the election of legislators sympathetic to Alaska’s fiscal needs. At the end of the session, Gruening came down with the flu. George Sundborg wrote that he and Katie Alexander, the governor’s secretary, carried messages and bills that the legislature had completed to the governor “lying flat on his back, in a big bed on the second floor of the house. Some of them required his attention and signature that night.” The two had to rouse him several times that night “from a feverish sleep . . . he looked the papers over one by one, asked some knowledgeable questions about their details in a croaking voice, and signed or refused to sign each according to his beliefs.” Their last trip, he wrote, was probably around a.m., “while the wind howled and the rain pelted down. He was still in command even if too ill even to sit up.”
The Tax Battle Continues
Finally, following this all-night session wrestling with the general appropriation bill, with the usual bargaining between the house and senate in the free conference committee, the eighteenth Alaska territorial legislature adjourned. The general appropriation bill turned out to be the biggest in Alaska’s history, authorizing territorial expenditures during the coming two years of nearly . million. This was supplemented by approximately . million in revenues from the doubled motor fuel tax, earmarked for roads and airfields, as well as miscellaneous appropriations made during the session that added up to another million, for a total biennial outlay Figure . Territorial Governor Gruening on the cover of Time, June , , in recognition of the exceeding million. Most terristrategic role played by Alaska during the cold war. torial government agencies fared well in the final bill. The governor’s office lost a stenographer and its printing fund, and the entertainment fund was cut from , to ,, which was retained just in case the president should come north for a visit—perhaps this was meant as a joke. Gruening quickly prepared his “Message to the People of Alaska,” and released it to the news media on April , . The governor criticized the lawmakers for having made appropriations “in excess of million dollars and provided revenues which will not far exceed three-fifths of that amount.” In fact, the legislature had established a new precedent in the thirty-four years of Alaska’s legislative history by incurring a potential deficit of approximately . million. Since the anticipated revenues lay in the future, one could argue about the extent of the deficit, but Gruening did not believe the statement made by the chairman of the senate Finance Committee on the last night of the session that there were ample revenues for the biennium. The governor was convinced “that even with the best possible turn of events—such as an excellent fishing season, and the consumption of unusual quantities of liquor—our deficit at the end of the biennium will run into millions of dollars.” The legislature had seen fit to add taxes only to the fishing industry and the liquor business, plus an extra -cent fuel tax, and that would not generate the needed additional revenues. The governor next carefully reviewed the figures, and pointed out that the lawmakers had failed veterans by not providing adequate funds to carry out the territorial
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Figure . Governors of the Western States meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, November . Gruening is on the far right. Acc. no. --.
veterans’ act and had forfeited federal three-to-one matching funds for airfields. The governor alerted Alaskans to the fact that the legislature had violated the territory’s Organic Act requirement not to incur a deficit, and he asserted that legislative action had come “pretty close to being a collapse of responsible self-government.” The governor finally had to call on the Board of Administration to freeze all expenditures while the administration attempted to decide how to spend the meager funds. The governor was particularly critical of how legislators had treated Charles Bunnell, the president of the University of Alaska. Legislators had “heckled and sneered” at Bunnell’s proposed budget, which included , for longdelayed construction. Ultimately they appropriated only half of the . million request. The lack of territorial funding almost forced the university to close during the – biennium. Without the personal intervention and contributions of the members of the Board of Regents, the school would have collapsed. Regent Cap Lathrop gathered a total of , in private loans; personally, he contributed ,, and Regents Andrew Nerland and Harriet Hess both contributed ,. In short, the University of Alaska and the territorial government experienced a severe financial crisis for the next two years. As the governor had hoped, the delinquent legislators began to hear from their constituents, and soon several of them asked Gruening to call a special session to meet the crisis. He refused, however: “Hopeful that by waiting we’ll get a legislature that will do what you now promise to do. I haven’t forgotten all the promises you’ve broken in the past.” The governor had become discouraged, however, and privately wondered whether he had wasted his efforts for the past seven years. He could not know then that his efforts were to bear fruit in the legislative session. In the meantime, however, he had to worry about his upcoming reconfirmation for another term in office.
11
The Struggle for Reconfirmation
G
ruening was a strong executive, and it was inevitable that he would make numerous enemies within the Alaska business community— many of whom had resided in the territory for decades, and some of whom were members of the territorial legislature. The governor, one acquaintance recalled, operated like a “trip hammer, he broke up everything that was in his way, he bored through it, he had the determination of sixteen men, and a mind that was sharp and quick and ruthless.” Once he made up his mind, he seldom changed it. He was also a very athletic individual who, at times, exerted himself physically almost to the point of collapse, as if to show his strength to prospective opponents. Gruening’s swimming stunts in cold mountain lakes, his hiking expeditions with a string of panting and exhausted bureaucrats trying to keep up with him, and his fast tennis matches soon became legend in Alaska. When renominated for a second term in , Gruening was readily reconfirmed by the U.S. Senate. There had been no Alaskan opposition. In his customary fashion, the governor embarked on a new term in office with great vigor. While Gruening conducted the governorship with vigor and intelligence, his wife, Dorothy, took an active interest in her husband’s political adventures and at the same time launched various well-intended enterprises of her own. During each legislative session, for example, she would go each day and sit in the front row of the gallery, keeping her hands occupied with knitting and crocheting but taking in every word, many of them excoriating her husband. When she learned that working mothers in Juneau during wartime were handicapped by the absence of child-care facilities, she opened a nursery on the unused third floor of the governor’s house and staffed it with volunteers she recruited. It turned out to be a highly successful effort. She also initiated the Alaska Music Trail, which brought many talented musicians to still-remote Alaska, founded a Juneau branch of the League of Women Voters, and served as a nurse’s aid during the war. The first lady also helped her husband to open the governor’s house to the town as no chief executive had done before. Juneau’s social life soon centered on the mansion. The Gruenings both loved parties and had a talent for giving them and using them as an instrument of statecraft. Juneau was a very small town, with a population
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of , in , and that would grow by only a couple of hundred souls, to , by . Political ambitions, jealousies, and maneuverings in Juneau’s small arena contributed gossip and backbiting. The Gruenings, especially the governor, loved to play bridge, and they spent many of their evenings at the mansion or at the homes of friends pursuing this pastime. The Baranof Hotel, which had opened early in , was another social center. A string quartet played there for Sunday dinners, which the Gruenings often attended. The Scottish Rite Temple held a dance once a month, a dress-up affair that the Gruenings and Juneau society attended. Events in far-off Washington in began to create problems for Gruening. During the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in mid-July , President Roosevelt indicated that he preferred Harry S. Truman of Missouri as his running mate and opposed the renomination of Henry A. Wallace. Many liberal members of Roosevelt’s administration, however, were attracted by Wallace’s vision of a worldwide New Deal, postwar international cooperation, and a full-employment, mixed economy in the United States. For them, Wallace seemed the best hope for rekindling the New Deal, which had suffered during the war. Among those supporting Wallace was Oscar L. Chapman, under secretary of the interior since and a Gruening friend. In fact, Chapman served as one of Wallace’s floor managers at the convention, along with such men as senators Claude Pepper of Florida and Joseph F. Guffey of Pennsylvania and labor leaders David Dubinsky and Sidney Hillman. The convention turned into a lively battle over the future of American liberalism. In the end, however, the convention nominated Truman on the second ballot. Gruening, a loyal Roosevelt follower, backed the president’s choice. Secretary Ickes had also supported Wallace, if belatedly. When Truman succeeded Roosevelt in April , the political careers of both Ickes and Chapman became uncertain, for in Truman’s view, both had backed the wrong man in . Ickes quickly determined that the new chief executive did not particularly like him, and the secretary often sent Under Secretary Chapman or Assistant Secretary Abe Fortas to cabinet meetings in order to avoid confronting Truman. By the summer of , rumors circulated throughout the capital that Ickes’s resignation was imminent; the secretary himself began to look for the right moment to depart. Washington was filled with speculation about Ickes’s replacement. Delegate Bartlett learned from an attorney representing the canned salmon industry that Mon Wallgren, governor of the state of Washington, would be named secretary of the interior before the end of . Bartlett advised Gruening: “If this should occur, you and I had best resign and take off for the Great Unknown quick, or some similar place, because the Washington State fish crowd would run us absolutely. I would rather—infinitely rather—have Ickes stay in than to have Wallgren succeed him.” Rumors also began to circulate in Washington about Gruening’s replacement. Two men were mentioned, both close Truman associates: Walter Walsh, who had received a Marine Corps commission at the beginning of the war with Truman’s help,
The Struggle for Reconfirmation
and Fred Canfil, a U.S. marshal in Kansas City who had actively worked in one of the new president’s state campaigns. Gruening’s Alaska enemies were not idle, and in the fall of territorial senator Allen Shattuck sent President Truman a petition for Gruening’s removal. Signed by nine fellow senators, the document charged the governor with interference in governmental affairs, lack of cooperation with the Democratic party, and the constant creation of dissension and discord among Alaskans. The legislators also complained that the governor had been building “a personal political machine for the purpose of securing the election of ‘yes men’ who will be subservient to his will.” Shattuck charged that Gruening had been causing confusion by his interference in the legislature ever since his first session in . He had vetoed more bills in three sessions than all the governors in the previous fourteen sessions, since . In fact, Gruening seemed “to take pleasure in vetoing bills passed by the legislature, often giving reasons without any real foundation.” Worse yet, “he wines and dines at territorial expense enough members so that it is generally impossible to override a veto.” The list of grievances was a long one. In the end, the senators urged the president to appoint Thomas J. Donahue, a forty-three-year-old Alaskan-born attorney practicing in Anchorage, to the governorship. Gruening was well aware of the changes that had occurred in Washington after the death of President Roosevelt. Harry Truman’s leadership was quite different from that of his predecessor. In February , Truman nominated his friend Edwin W. Pauley, a California oil man, to be the under secretary of the navy. Pauley had been the treasurer of the Democratic Party in and a leading conspirator in the intrigue to replace Henry Wallace with Truman for the vice presidency. The president was convinced that Pauley was intelligent and tough enough to keep the admirals in check. Ickes and most liberals viewed Pauley very differently. Nominating an oil man to have jurisdiction over naval oil reserves brought back troubling memories of the Teapot Dome scandal. Summoned before a Senate committee to testify on Pauley’s qualifications, Ickes implied that Truman had asked him to whitewash Pauley. Ickes recalled that in , Pauley had suggested that the Democratic Party could reap several hundred thousand dollars in campaign contributions if the Interior Department dropped its efforts to assert federal control over offshore oil fields. Truman’s temper flared. He was sensitive to the fact that many people in early were comparing his administration to that of Republican President Warren G. Harding, which had been scandal-ridden. Slanted jokes were making the rounds, such as “to err is Truman.” The president defended Pauley, telling a news conference that “Mr. Ickes can very well be mistaken the same as the rest of us.” On February , Ickes sent a seven-page letter of resignation to the president, effective March . One day later, the president demanded that Ickes leave office in seventy-two hours, at the close of business on February . The secretary left the Department of the Interior triumphantly, after playing to a packed press conference. Some years later, Truman observed that “Honest” Harold Ickes had “never been for anyone but Harold, would
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have cut F.D.R.’s throat—or mine for his high minded ideals of a headline—and did.” Gruening, who had not gotten along with Ickes, shed no tears at the secretary’s departure. In the meantime, the governor had called a special session of the legislature to convene in March . The legislature had passed most of Gruening’s proposals in its thirty-day session. Although the governor had been pleased with the territorial legislature, he was alarmed by a senate memorial that asked the president and Julius A. “Cap” Krug, the new secretary of the interior, “to remove the present governor from office with all possible dispatch.” The memorial passed the territorial senate by a vote of nine to six. Steve McCutcheon, a Gruening supporter in the house, then introduced a long memorial praising the governor, which passed the house by a vote of sixteen to seven. “The opposition,” Gruening confided to Delegate Bartlett, “are going to do everything to smear me in Washington.” Bartlett, however, reassured the governor that he “should not attach any particular importance to any Senate memorial so far as its influence here [in Washington, D.C.] is concerned.” Gruening, of course, knew “the law was specific that the governor of Alaska, once confirmed, could be removed only for cause.” And he felt certain that if he were able to present his side of the story, the president would support him. The last few days of were trying ones for Gruening, “nauseating” in fact, after the territorial senate had hurled “all kinds of charges” at him. The senate president described senate Memorial No. “impeaching” Governor Gruening as “packed with dynamite.” The senate discussed the memorial before overflowing galleries. Two senators from Nome were Gruening’s most vocal critics. One recounted that during the legislative session, the governor had given the then-house member an ultimatum—either to vote for a controversial bill providing for the construction of armories or to have a measure authored by him vetoed. The senator recounted that he threatened to air the whole matter before the entire house, whereupon Gruening had backed down. The other senator recounted that Dillingham trader “Tubby” Griffin had told him about a conversation with the governor. The trader had asked about the purpose of all the Alaska Territorial Guard activities, to which Gruening had replied that it was “time the Natives learned about politics, and this is a fine way for them to find out.” The governor had his defenders, however, and one of them was Senator Howard Lyng from Nome. He maintained that Gruening was responsible not only to the federal government but to the people of Alaska as well. The governor, therefore, had a right to try to achieve the goals of his administration. In fact, Lyng asserted, “the average citizen of the territory considers Gruening the greatest benefactor in the position of governor the Territory of Alaska ever had.” Invited by the senate to defend himself, the governor appeared before “jammed full” galleries and opened his remarks by declaring that he was “glad to be accorded the usual privilege of being present at his own execution.” The charges were that the
The Struggle for Reconfirmation
governor had used his office for political purposes. Senator Norman Walker produced a salmon troller who had furnished an affidavit published in the Alaska Daily Empire accusing Gruening of talking politics with him instead of discussing fish prices. Gruening told the senators that the story was wholly manufactured, and when consulting the United States attorney about possible action, he discovered that the man had a long criminal record under three aliases and had served time for forgery. In fact, the Associated Press reported, “after a big buildup, the [territorial] Senate’s hearings on charges brought against Governor Gruening proved a flop. The chief executive was able to show that most of the sallies launched at him were based on opinion or trivialities.” Undeterred, however, the senators sent their memorial to Washington. Gruening’s detractors complained to the president that the governor had consistently used his appointive powers to place Republicans in office. For example, he had chosen four Republicans for the Alaska Development Board, and selected another as director. In fact, not a single Democrat was on the Alaska Development Board. More serious yet, the governor had never followed the usual procedure of submitting names of proposed appointees to the Democratic organization. Furthermore, the January territorial Democratic convention meeting in Fairbanks had defeated a resolution commending the governor—a sure indication of how party regulars felt about the chief executive. In March , the Anchorage convention of the Alaska territorial Federation of Labor had defeated a similar expression of appreciation. The territorial commissioner of the Department of Labor told Robert E. Hannigan, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, that the governor had done everything to split the Democratic Party in Alaska. “Put in anyone, but get rid of this ‘pinko’ who has no ties in Alaska,” he counseled. The commissioner resented Gruening for a variety of reasons, including his leadership style and unwillingness to fill positions based on party affiliation alone. Despite sniping from various quarters, the governor survived in office. When talk about his replacement was revived late in , Bartlett persuaded Robert S. Allen of the Boston Daily Globe to analyze Gruening’s predicament. Such an article, Bartlett hoped, would help to force the president’s hand. On January , , the Globe carried a piece titled “Next on List of New Dealers to be Dropped by Truman?” Allen stated that Gruening, one of the few Roosevelt appointees still holding high office, had at best an outside chance of reappointment. “As of now,” Allen claimed, “President Truman does not intend to rename Gruening.” That could change, he continued, because the governor had strong Alaska backing as well as powerful administration support, both in and out of Congress. However, he faced “equally powerful Democratic opposition,” most of it centered in Washington state, particularly in Seattle. For years the governor had been at loggerheads with Seattle business and transportation interests, accusing them of exploiting the territory like a colonial possession. Washington’s governor, Mon Wallgren, and Nick Bez, a Seattle shipping and fishing magnate—both Truman cronies—led the opposition to Gruening. The president faced a dilemma, Allen concluded, for he needed West Coast
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support in the upcoming election. Replacing Gruening, however, would upset the New Dealers, whose support Truman needed as well. In early , the territorial convention of the Democratic Party passed a resolution commending Gruening “for his untiring work on behalf of Alaska and urging his reappointment as governor of the territory for another term.” One of the delegates assured Truman that a cross-section of Alaskans had attended the convention and passed the resolution by a more than three-fourths vote. The few dissenters were those who previously, as members of the territorial legislature, had supported the politics of the salmon industry, which had always opposed “every liberal and progressive movement to develop Alaska.” Gruening’s administration, the delegate asserted, represented the best interests of the territory, while the fishing lobby, like other powerful outside industries, existed “to enrich the selfish few against the good of the many.” It may have been the piece in the Globe, the support of the Alaska Democratic Party, Krug’s conclusion based on travels he made throughout Alaska soon after taking office, or the combination of all three that prodded the interior secretary to see the president and urge the reappointment of Gruening. In any event, on March , Truman sent Gruening’s name to the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee for confirmation. Bartlett was happy. “I won’t forget ever,” he told Krug, “that you went to the White House today and successfully urged President Truman to reappoint our friend, Ernest Gruening, as governor of Alaska.” Unhappily, however, an informal poll of the committee revealed that a majority favored “pigeonholing action until after the November election.” One Republican member of the committee summed up majority opinion succinctly: “Why should we give a Democrat—and an ardent New Deal Democrat at that—a four-year term, when after the presidential election we could put in a good Republican?” The Republicans were certain that one of their own would replace Truman, who was an unelected president, in the elections. They had reason for their optimism. Many Democrats assumed Truman could never be elected in his own right. The Democrats even toyed with drafting General Dwight D. Eisenhower, a retired general and college president, but finally nominated Truman at their convention in Philadelphia in July . The Democratic convention adopted civil rights measures that led the South to bolt the party and form the states’ rights Democratic Party, or the Dixiecrats. This party nominated J. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina as presidential candidate. Truman also faced a liberal challenge in the north in the form of Henry Wallace, an old FDR crony Truman had fired as secretary of agriculture in for being “soft on Communism” and generally a pest. The convention did not allow Truman to pick his own running mate but selected instead “old man Barkley.” Truman was undeterred by public opinion surveys, which predicted an easy victory for Governor John Dewey of New York, and he campaigned vigorously. The Chicago Tribune went to press on election night with the front-page headline “Dewey Defeats Truman.” Truman, elected president, held the paper aloft in triumph the next day.
The Struggle for Reconfirmation
Territorial Republicans, however, were not satisfied with mere delays. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, owned by Alaska’s foremost entrepreneur Austin E. “Cap” Lathrop, long a Gruening opponent, urged that the governor be denied a third term. Lathrop argued that Gruening had enjoyed ample opportunities to prove himself and failed. Instead of fostering a sound legislative program for Alaska during the last five sessions of the legislature, he had “tried to promote tax legislation which was not acceptable” to the legislators. As a result, the territory’s finances “are now as near complete disorganization as they have ever been.” Even more disturbing, biennial territorial appropriations had increased from a modest . million in –, before Gruening took office, to a record . million. In short, Gruening had attempted “to use the power and prestige of his office and the resources of the federal government to transfer to himself the initiative and law-making powers of the citizen.” Lathrop did not specify how the governor had appropriated to himself all of these powers. In fact, Lathrop’s editorial was transparently self-serving, for he was a chief beneficiary of Alaska’s inadequate tax system. His many enterprises, ranging from banks to motion picture theaters, and from construction companies to a coal mine, paid only negligible taxes to the territory. The anti- and pro-Gruening forces quickly assembled for battle. While Lathrop urged his friends and associates to communicate their opposition to the Senate committee, the pro-Gruening forces also gathered support. Lathrop, for example, praised territorial Senator Charles D. Jones for the fine (and negative) letter he had written to U.S. Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, a member of the committee considering Gruening’s confirmation. Lathrop was convinced that a sufficient number of protests had reached the senators to convince them that “right or wrong, he [Gruening] has engendered so much bitterness and dissension in the territory that very little of a constructive nature can be expected until there is a new governor.” Foremost among Gruening’s friends, Bartlett solicited support for the governor. Among many others, for example, he asked the Rt. Rev. John S. Bentley of the National Council of Protestant Churches to lend his help in the impending confirmation struggles. Despite all Bartlett’s efforts, Senator Hugh Butler (R-Neb.), the chairman of the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee and no friend of Gruening’s, decided to allow the governor’s nomination to die. In the meantime, however, territorial finances had run into trouble. On December , , the general fund contained only about six thousand dollars, and the auditor held legitimate claims against the territory amounting to three quarters of a million dollars. The territorial legislature had been derelict in fulfilling its duties to the citizens of the territory. The governor had rejected calls for a special session, hoping that angry citizens would vote delinquent legislators out of office. Gruening’s hopes were largely fulfilled when Alaskans trooped to the polls in October and “threw the rascals out.” At that point, the governor summoned the newly elected legislature into a special session. This new legislature was mostly sympathetic to Gruening’s tax program, and its only task was to consider the tax bills that territorial Attorney General Ralph
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Rivers had prepared in his capacity as legislative counsel. From the extraordinary session that convened on January , , and the regular one that followed on January , there emerged, at long last, the first comprehensive tax system for the territory. Gruening was jubilant. The special interests were furious. When word reached Alaska that Senator Joseph O’Mahoney (D-Wyo.), the new chairman of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, intended to hold hearings on Gruening’s confirmation, a number of former legislators asked the committee to postpone any action until the territorial legislature had adjourned. Residents of Alaska, they maintained, should be given an opportunity “to present evidence and data supporting contention of many substantial citizens of the territory that [the] present governor’s policies were not only definitely destructive to territorial development but will almost stop [the] flow of badly needed investment capital from stateside sources.” These disgruntled ex-legislators also asserted that the “present session being quarterbacked by [the] governor is [a] travesty of [the] American tradition and legislative procedure.” In the middle of March, senators appointed a subcommittee, headed by Clinton P. Anderson (D-N.Mex.) to investigate the various charges against the governor that had been accumulating in committee files. These ranged from bossism to the misuse of public funds, and from the refusal to permit an audit of territorial offices to furthering the spread of communism. Hearings on Gruening’s confirmation were to be held on April , . Cap Lathrop planned to charter a plane and bring a number of witnesses to Washington to oppose the governor. When this mission became known, Stanley McCutcheon—legislator, Gruening friend, and Anchorage attorney—gathered forty-four individuals sympathetic to the governor. This group also chartered a plane to testify at the Washington hearings as well. Reactions to McCutcheon’s flight were immediate. One Gruening foe advised the Senate committee to “carefully screen the bunch of political dregs named as holding reservations” and not to “let this lot of grafters stay in Washington too long because it will be shameful to stink up the atmosphere by their presence.” The critic had unkind words for most of the pro-Gruening witnesses. Zack Loussac, mayor of Anchorage, for example, supported the governor only “because the latter is persecuted by anti-Jewish feeling and being Jewish Loussac attaches great importance to that fact.” Audrey Cutting, an Anchorage realtor and insurance agent, was characterized as being “a plain thief. She has cost the taxpayers plenty in the numerous court actions against her for swindling. Her husband was tried, convicted, and sentenced for stealing federal property, and is serving a year-long sentence.” Wendell Kay of Anchorage was “a tin horn lawyer who owes Gruening a favor,” while Pearl Gibson was “a nice old crow” and the “head of the local clerks’ union, which in less dignified words means a labor racketeer.” Simeon Oliver was a “good Eskimo” who liked to travel, well liked by everyone. “He’s out for the ride and will make a nice speech for Gruening if they can keep Simeon sober long enough.” So it went, the critic painting a less-than-flattering picture of Gruening’s witnesses. Although all this drivel went into the committee files, it failed to persuade any of the senators.
The Struggle for Reconfirmation
According to the Washington Evening Star, Gruening’s supporters “whooped” into town aboard a giant airliner, dubbed “Ship of State, our Skipper Governor Gruening” to break the glad tidings that everything was fine up their way, that the territory had launched a great development program and was preparing to realize its manifest destiny. Despite the hoopla, the delegation did not make a ripple: there were no pictures in the capital’s papers and no names, in part because of the competition from the cherry blossoms and the eleven delegates in town from overseas to sign the Atlantic Pact. When the hearings opened, the publicity had filled the large caucus room in the old Senate Office Building to capacity. Eleven out of the thirteen committee members attended. The anti-Gruening witnesses were the first to be heard. Frank Angerman, a Fairbanks machinist and member of the territorial house, accused the governor of buttonholing legislators and trying to convince them to support his program. Senator Eugene Milliken (R-Colo.) asked if Angerman charged Gruening with corruption. Angerman replied in the negative. Was there any charge that Gruening lacked intelligence for the job? Milliken persisted. Again the witness replied no. Was there any charge that he tried to influence legislators other than by talk? “No, not to my knowledge,” Angerman stated. Milliken asked the same or similar questions of the next two witnesses, and received the same answers. George Miscovich, a house member and a Fairbanks placer gold miner, accused the governor of building the most powerful political machine ever seen in Alaska. Through his appointive powers, Gruening doled out territorial jobs and promised political favors “to selected individuals irrespective of party.” This had practically destroyed the two-party system in Alaska. Perhaps worse, he charged, Gruening was attempting to establish a planned economy and was also encouraging radical elements. Milliken asked if Miscovich challenged Gruening’s patriotism. Miscovich replied, “I certainly would like to, although I am not familiar with the routine procedure, and I do not know that it would be my duty to do it.” Senator Bert Miller (D-Ind.) thereupon admonished witnesses to confine themselves to facts about Gruening’s fitness for office. Charles D. Jones of Nome charged the chief executive with lobbying for his legislative program, and, when that failed, “he plied the legislators with cocktails and cultured conversation in the Governor’s Mansion amid surroundings more luxurious than most of these unpretentious Alaskans from mining and fishing communities and Eskimo villages have ever seen before.” Jones then discarded his prepared statement and told the committee that this language was not his own, that the testimony had been prepared for him by Lathrop’s secretary, and that he wanted to talk in his own words. Encouraged by Senator Anderson, Jones stated that Gruening “takes them up and give them plenty of booze and lots of conversation. Let me tell you, brother, the way he’s throwing it out, you know we have an expression, that what he peddles makes the grass grow on the Kougarok. He’s got it. Dairy farmers know what it is.”
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Lathrop testified that Gruening had failed miserably as governor. “Never in my years in Alaska have I seen the strife between parties and within parties, the friction between labor and capital, and the class and racial hatred that exists today— largely because of Gruening’s leadership.” Lathrop charged that the governor’s policies “almost without exception, have been motivated by personal or political considerations—certainly not by a constructive and sincere interest in Alaska.” Nevertheless, Lathrop stated that Gruening was a very intelligent and fine man. “I like Governor Gruening in many respects. I like him because I get ideas as well by talking with him.” The rest of the opposition witnesses elaborated on various points, contending that Gruening’s opposition to absentee ownership and vested interests had prevented risk capital from coming into Alaska, that he used dictatorial methods, and that he campaigned with Alaska Native Service officials among the Natives, asking them to support his favored candidates for the territorial legislature. To a man, the seven witnesses asked the committee not to inflict Governor Gruening on Alaska for yet another term. Nine of the forty-four Gruening supporters testified next. Their spokesman, Stanley McCutcheon, claimed that his group represented a good cross section of Alaska citizens. All asserted that Gruening had been a good, progressive governor who had the interests of the people at heart. They all approved of the tax program that had just become law: the added revenue was urgently needed for the rehabilitation of the school system, the public health program, and expansion of various other, vitally needed territorial programs. In short, the governor had transformed Alaska from a wilderness into a thriving and progressive community in the brief span of nine years. The opposition witnesses had been given the lion’s share of the available time, but they had not used it to advantage. The seven were frequently on the defensive, thanks to the Republican members of the committee. Impatient at times because of the petty criticism offered, Senator Milliken repeatedly asked if there had been any corruption in the Gruening administration. The answer had always been no. Bartlett did not speak but later wrote to his friends Hugh Wade and Herb Hilscher that he supported Gruening “spiritually” when the opposition testified, but then “became almost acutely ill to [his] stomach when the proponents had their turn,” because they were so sickening in their lavish and uncritical praise of Gruening. Nothing the proponents could have done, however, could have been “so infantile as the opposition,” Bartlett remarked, “for they were stupid, no less.” A. H. Ziegler, a Ketchikan attorney and legislator, had headed the opposition. “I have always thought,” Bartlett stated, “that Ziegler was a man of at least medium ability, but canceled that judgment” after his performance at the hearing. “If he were paid for the job, he should be thoroughly ashamed of himself.” After the witnesses had been heard, the committee asked the governor to take the stand. Gruening denied all charges. He stated that he had pressed for the enactment of his program for the development of Alaska, but had much less influence over the legislature than was generally assumed. In fact, Alaska’s appointed gover-
The Struggle for Reconfirmation
nor had less power than his Hawaiian counterpart. All important territorial officials were elected, not appointed, and therefore wholly independent of the governor. Finally, Gruening stated that it was his duty to tell Alaskans what he thought. The legislature had the responsibility to modify, adopt, or reject his views. With that, the hearings concluded late in the evening. The following Monday, April , , territorial representative Robert Hoopes, a Fairbanks filling station operator, filed a statement with the committee accusing Gruening of having helped Mexican President P. Elías Calles to foment world revolution. Hoopes asserted that Gruening had received a , payment from the Mexican government for his services. When the accusation surfaced, the committee decided to hold an executive session on April to give Gruening an opportunity to respond to the charges. The governor told the senators that the documents were forgeries and had been exposed as such. Gruening summarized his involvement with Mexico in some detail. The committee promptly recommended Gruening’s reappointment by unanimous vote, and the Senate confirmed it by a voice vote. In conscience, the senators could hardly do otherwise; the governor’s opposition had brought no substantial charges. In fact, journalists reporting the proceedings and the senators listening to the allegations thought that Gruening’s opponents had made fools of themselves— although the governor’s supporters were a bit foolish themselves in being so lavish in their praise. Gruening had acquitted himself superbly before the senators. An eloquent speaker and a man of achievement, he had refuted all of the opposition’s arguments. He had demonstrated to the committee that many of the people who protested his confirmation had been retired from public office only because they had opposed the governor’s program. The voters had made the decision.
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The Creation of a Modern Tax System
O
n may , , the Alaska Weekly, headquartered and published in Seattle yet boasting that it was “Alaska’s Only Territorial Newspaper,” ran an editorial titled “An Obvious Conclusion.” Editor E. W. Knight asserted that his publication had “very largely refrained from any comment on the recent legislative session” other than factually reporting the proceedings. He regretted that for too long legislative functions had been controlled “by feuds between Governor Gruening and the legislators and between legislators themselves,” so that the idea that a territorial legislature “should and could act for the good of the Territory without regard to such animosities” seemed to be “an archaic notion of an old fogey.” Knight doubted that any thoughtful Alaskan disagreed with Gruening’s claim, made years earlier, that the territory’s system of taxation was both “antiquated and unsound.” The editor thought that continued failure of the legislature to enact a modern tax system could be blamed on Gruening’s “efforts to dominate the legislative branch of the territorial government,” which had killed “much constructive legislation which would have otherwise been passed.” He concluded that this state of affairs would continue “so long as Ernest Gruening occupies the Governor’s office.” Gruening, an attentive reader of the press, was quick to protest to Knight that the editorial was inaccurate. A number of recalcitrant legislators had stymied reforms for years, while Gruening had done his best to persuade the lawmakers to pass needed legislation. Knight responded that the editorial had solicited comments from other individuals as well, and he mentioned two Seattle businessmen with extensive territorial holdings who had censured him severely for “being over friendly to you.” These individuals bitterly resented the governor for his “consistent attacks on Seattle” and the monopoly position it occupied in the Alaska trade. The editor assured Gruening that he did not blame him entirely for the legislative deadlock, but reminded him that “territorial legislative assemblies have been marked by dissension between the executive and certain of the legislators.” Knight told Gruening that the tax situation probably could have been resolved a long time ago, had the governor agreed to a proposed legislative tax commission to study the problem; this would have allowed the lawmakers to bring in a program of their own, for “some of the best brains in [the] legislature were pretty much in accord with [his] thinking.” But
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Gruening had stubbornly insisted on his own program and thereby, in the editor’s opinion, lost it all. In short, Knight believed that only “an entirely new legislature as well as a new governor” could dissolve the political deadlock. In the meantime, the financial plight of the territory worsened. In October , the Anchorage city council addressed the governor in the form of a resolution, asking that the taxing powers be revised and new sources of revenue found, so “vital and necessary to the welfare, progress, stability and advancement of the Territory and its municipalities.” The council members also requested that Gruening call a special session of the legislature to revise existing tax statutes and provide additional revenues in order to end the financial crisis. Gruening pointed out that Congress had partially limited the taxing powers of the municipalities. Relief could only be obtained by having Congress amend the Organic Act of . He cautioned city council members, however, by stating that efforts had been under way for years to secure badly needed reforms in the Organic Act—all unsuccessful. The governor had pleaded with every legislature since to reform Alaska’s tax system. Despite numerous opportunities, the lawmakers had refused to act. Gruening did not feel that convening the same legislature in special session would remedy the situation, for those “who blocked appropriate action were experienced legislators. They knew what they were doing.” In fact, they might well aggravate the situation, and the territory could not afford to spend the , needed for a special session “on another legislative fiasco.” Not all members of the legislature should be blamed, for in the Senate there had been “a public-spirited, public-minded minority” that presented a tax reform program, and the House had been about evenly divided between those who favored reforms and those who opposed them. Together, however, they had been unable to overcome the opposition “to do what was necessary for the welfare of [the] Territory.” Although he sensed that Alaska voters were fed up with the legislative obstructionism that had controlled events in the session, Gruening was never one to leave matters to chance. He assigned his principal assistant, George Sundborg, to visit Alaskan communities and call attention to the sins of the legislators who had opposed his tax package and other programs. Sundborg had first arrived in Alaska in late to be editorial writer and government reporter for the Daily Alaska Empire. He had held a variety of positions, including one with the Alaska office of the National Resources Planning Board. Sundborg moved to Portland, Oregon, in and returned to the territory in March as general manager of the Alaska Development Board (ADB). This board, while promoting industrial development in Alaska, had retained special counsel to oppose an announced increase in Alaska Steamship Company rates. This incurred the wrath of stand-pat members of the business community and legislature. Although unsuccessful in abolishing the ADB in , the legislature eliminated any appropriation for the forthcoming biennium. Still able to operate on a balance left from its appropriation, the board, which Gruening chaired, continued its work. It hired Sundborg at a nominal fee as a con-
The Creation of a Modern Tax System
sultant. Simultaneously, the governor gained approval from the Department of the Interior, with the concurrence of territorial attorney general Ralph Rivers, to employ Sundborg as executive assistant to the governor—a federal position. Sundborg spent much of and early , prior to the primary and general elections, speaking to civic groups all over Alaska and on radio stations, as well as to groups in villages and towns, about the behavior of the legislature and the fiscal aftermath. Finances were uppermost in the thoughts of many politicians and public figures. Early in December , the Democrats of southeastern Alaska held their divisional meeting and resolved that in order to meet the territory’s expanding financial needs, the legislature should pass a general net income tax and a percent tax on land and improvements. They rejected a general sales tax as regressive. While leading Democrats throughout Alaska prepared for their upcoming territorial convention, the governor worked behind the scenes to ensure that all divisions fielded strong tickets for the October elections. Gruening was delighted with the election of three Natives from southeastern Alaska to the territorial legislature— two Democrats and one Republican. All three were “splendid legislators giving devoted and conscientious service of the highest order.” He thought that Natives from the second division should run for office, and suggested Percy Ipalook of Wales and Roy Ahmaogak of Wainwright. Both had been ordained as ministers and spoke excellent English. They would make good legislators. Gruening also mentioned Abraham Lincoln of White Mountain. Perhaps Lincoln could be persuaded to file as a Democrat. While scouring Alaska for acceptable legislative candidates, Gruening also received support from many people for his refusal to call a special legislative session. Among those was the senator from Klawock, Frank Peratrovich, who told Gruening that demands for a special session came from those lawmakers who had been delinquent in their duties in the session. Now these individuals were “worried of [sic] their chances of re-election and are willing to spend more of the tax payers [sic] money so they can take the credit for passage of very much needed revenue measures” that they defeated in the regular session. This was particularly true of Senator Doc Walker, Gruening’s nemesis from Ketchikan, who had spearheaded the drive for a special session. Walker realized that “unless something is done between now and time for election, he is thru [sic].” In short, the irresponsible Democratic members of the legislature were all trying to stage a comeback. It was up to Gruening’s followers “to prevent them from doing so if we [are] ever going to get anywhere in this Territory as well as within our party.” On December , , Senator Walker formally requested that the governor call a special session of the legislature “in order to cope with the serious financial difficulties in which the territory finds itself.” Walker claimed that two of the senators who had opposed the tax reform in now promised to support it. Spending , on the special session, the senator asserted, was a small sum when “compared with the benefits that should accrue.” Walker warned Gruening, however, that the
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governor should not construe his request “as an olive branch,” telling him, “I give you credit for having as much interest in the welfare of Alaska as I have, but to date our ideas of advancing the welfare of the territory are vastly different. I am just as anxious to see a new Governor as you are to see a new senator take my place.” Gruening refused the senator’s request, but confided to a sympathizer, “If the entire Walker bloc were to give me written assurances that they would pass the necessary tax legislation . . . I would feel duty bound to call such a session.” Up to that point, however, only Walker had made the request. By March , Gruening had become convinced that Alaska’s voters, fed up with most of their lawmakers, would elect an “extremely progressive” legislature “thoroughly committed to an income tax.” Accordingly, the governor was eager to call a special session of the legislature after the October elections and before the end of the calendar year. Lawmakers, he predicted, would be under terrific pressure to raise revenues quickly. Proponents of the sales tax would use the emergency legislature to push their scheme. Therefore, an income tax measure would have to be passed immediately, making percent of the federal income tax paid in immediately due to the territory. This would make sufficient funds quickly available to pay all the bills. There were other factors to be considered in calling a special session. There was the question of whether it was legal to call the legislature, with its newly elected members, into a special session. The governor had received differing legal opinions. One held that a legislator’s term began when taking the oath of office. This meant that the defeated senators and representatives “would hold over until the fourth Monday in January.” Another legal opinion, however, found that “a great preponderance of cases . . . indicated that a legislator’s term begins when . . . elected, or at least . . . [when the] election is validated.” Alaska’s Organic Act contained nothing about legislative terms, merely stating that senators were to serve four-year and representatives two-year terms. Gruening had been prepared to call a special session in the fall, but then discovered that in the canvassing board did not issue certificates of election until December , although the law stated it should meet no later than the tenth of that month. Even worse, in , when the elections of the senators whose terms expired in the fall of were validated, the canvassing board did not certify them until December . This complicated matters, and Gruening believed that opponents might seize on this technicality and challenge the legality of tax legislation. The governor, therefore, asked Delegate Bartlett to correct the situation by adding an amendment setting December as the certification date to a measure changing the property tax conditions in the Organic Act. As Gruening and Sundborg had hoped, in October the electorate threw most of the rascals out. Thus encouraged by the election results and determined to solve the territorial financial crisis, which consisted of more than million in unpaid bills, Gruening called a special session to begin on January , , two weeks before the regular one was to meet. The proclamation convening the special session asked the
The Creation of a Modern Tax System
lawmakers to consider and act upon legislation “to provide revenues sufficient to remedy Alaska’s critical financial plight.” The House wasted no time in getting to work. House Bill No. , introduced on the second day, levied a net income tax, followed minutes later by House Bill No. imposing a property tax. In the Senate, a deadlock developed over the election of a president, with three senators contending for the post. Finally, after four days, the senators compromised by choosing Democrat Frank Peratrovich, a Native whom the Anchorage Daily Times called “a stable legislator, progressive in thought and keenly interested in the best interests of Alaska,” to serve as Senate president, while tapping a Republican, one of the original contenders, a man “too liberal in his thinking to stir enthusiasm from some of the stubborn reactionaries among the Republican senators” to occupy that position during the regular session. The governor waited until the Senate had organized before addressing a joint session. He did so on January , explaining that calling the third extraordinary session in Alaska’s history had become necessary in order to solve the territory’s serious financial plight. On December , , there had been a cash balance of , in the general fund. On that same date, the auditor of Alaska held back, for lack of funds, about seven hundred claims against the territory exceeding three-quarters of a million dollars. These claims covered the “whole field of territorial responsibility from the cradle to the grave.” The governor listed institutions and services in dire
Figure . Department of the Interior representatives headquartered in Alaska. Kenneth Kadow (seated, far right) chaired the committee; Rex Lee (standing, far right) was director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions. Gruening is seated second from left. Acc. no. --.
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need of funds, and stated that some of the organizations and individuals represented by these claims faced actual hardships. Gruening stated that he had been criticized for calling the special session, since the problem could have been resolved in the regular session. He pointed out, however, that no Alaska legislature had ever dealt with revenue measures until the end of the session. Rather than imposing further hardships on the territory’s creditors and postponing the receipt of needed revenues for another quarter, he had decided to call the special session to solve the problems. The governor concluded, “This session is appropriately named ‘extra-ordinary’ in that it finds itself obliged to meet extra-ordinary needs and consequently extra-ordinary expenditures to make up for past and continuing omissions.” The legislature did work diligently to make up for past omissions, passing net income and property tax measures. The governor was satisfied with the performance of the lawmakers because, in addition to tax legislation, the special session provided for the long-overdue compilation of laws and initiated studies of revenue measures to be presented to the regular session. But there had been some anxious moments. Before the start of the special session, several Republicans had expressed doubts about the legality of any legislation to be enacted, and several senators contended that the terms of the new legislators did not start until the opening of the regular session on the fourth Monday in January. Therefore, the governor should have called the members of the legislature to convene a special session. This view challenged the Democrats’ contention that terms of office began after the canvassing board certified the election of new members. Called upon to clarify the issue, the territorial attorney general told the Senate that “all court rulings” supported the certification theory. Since the old senators were certified to four-year terms on December , , their terms had expired on January , ; House members were certified December , , so their two-year House terms expired on December , . In any event, the trend to modern democratic procedure had been “to shorten the terms of ‘lame duck’ officers” if the voters failed to return them to office. The Senate defeated the Republican-sponsored memorial challenging the legality of the special session. A day later, on January , legislative committees once again concentrated on the tax bills under discussion. When addressing the regular session of the territorial legislature on January , , Gruening praised the performance of the special session. “They are,” he stated, “entitled to the greatest credit for enacting the first basic, comprehensive tax measure to become law in the years of territorial self-government.” The tax legislation, retroactive to January , , affected various categories of businesses and groups of individuals who for years had “been deriving substantial incomes from Alaska” and yet paid little or nothing toward the territory’s support. In short, members of the special session had “written an important chapter in the history” of Alaska, and they had “taken a long step forward toward economic stability and responsible self-government.”
The Creation of a Modern Tax System
In his hour-long message to the joint session, Gruening described the million budget as modest in view of the territory’s long-accumulated needs and untapped revenue sources. Legislators and visitors in the small but crowded gallery applauded the governor enthusiastically. Gruening reiterated the importance of statehood, which would end federal discrimination in appropriation matters. He also suggested numerous governmental projects and social services for the legislature to consider, such as the refinancing of veteran’s aid, a continued effort to obtain statehood, expansion of the highway patrol and extension of its authority to fill a gap in law enforcement, creation of a fisheries commission, alcoholic beverage controls, the creation of a territorial retirement system open to municipal employees, strengthening of the workmen’s compensation act, and equal pay for women. Gruening also called for the construction of new territorial schools and the remodeling of old ones. The only university in Alaska was inadequate because it had not received enough money, and furthermore, he said, “in physical appearance the University of Alaska” was “probably the most drab and dingy institution of higher learning under the American flag . . . more closely resembling a reformatory or correctional institution than an institution of higher learning for a free people.” Gruening recommended new construction and adequate salaries for its grossly underpaid faculty. The governor covered the vast field of accumulated and neglected needs in his message, and reminded lawmakers that their task was “unprecedented in scope, size and urgency. Conscientious and effective action on what already has been presented will make this legislative session the most memorable and important in Alaska’s history.” He concluded by reminding the lawmakers that their actions would “shape Alaska’s destiny for generations to come.” In response, the nineteenth territorial legislature enacted measures to respond to all of Gruening’s recommendations. On April , , the closing night of the nineteenth biennial session, Norwegian-born senator Andrew Nerland—a veteran of twelve legislative sessions, president of the University of Alaska Board of Regents, and Alaska’s elder statesman—summarized the accomplishments of his colleagues by stating, “The Nineteenth Legislative Assembly did what eighteen previous legislatures were unable to do.” The legislature had enacted general property and uniform business license taxes, a tobacco tax, an augmented fish trap license tax, and raw fish taxes, and increased fisherman’s license taxes. These measures tapped revenue sources previously unused or underused. The new basic tax program consisted of the net income tax, the general property tax, and the uniform business license measure that was to become effective on January , , following the repeal of the long-obsolete miscellany of federal license fees. Delegate Bartlett introduced legislation that was to accomplish this purpose. The new uniform business license measure was designed to correct existing inequities in Alaska’s license tax system, which had allowed some businesses to escape license taxes altogether and others to make only token payments, while still others paid more than their share. The fixed-fee licensing schedule that both Congress and the territorial
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legislature had supplemented from time to time could not accommodate the growth and changes that occurred in the territory’s business community. Furthermore, the license fee schedule had been long overdue for a revision. The new measure was sufficiently flexible and adaptable to keep abreast of Alaska’s growing economy. In his subsequent “Message to the People of Alaska,” the governor summarized how the nineteenth territorial legislature, among its other constructive achievements, had finally put the territory’s financial house in order. Gruening pointed out that “by establishing a comprehensive, while wholly moderate tax structure,” lawmakers had ended a long era during which most businesses and individuals “deriving substantial profits in Alaska had not returned one cent in taxes to the Territory for public purposes.” More shocking yet, of the approximately billion extracted from the fisheries, minerals, and furs of Alaska during its eighty-two years under the American flag, next to nothing had been returned to develop the territory and serve its citizenry. A concomitant of this “purposeful neglect” was the transient nature of the territory’s population. Except for the aboriginal Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts, Alaska’s population, by and large, consisted of those who came to Alaska to seek their fortune and take it “outside.” In this respect Alaska differed from earlier frontiers that settlers had gradually transformed into stable American communities. In Alaska the practice of “get it and get out” prevailed, “with little invested in civic improvements, health and welfare, in roads, in community facilities,” thus offering migrants scant opportunities to make permanent homes. The governor concluded, however, that the nineteenth territorial legislature had “turned a new page in Alaskan history.” The lawmakers had decided “to make Alaska henceforth a creditable example of the American way of life. Their legislation spelled out the desire of an ever-increasing number of Americans to consider Alaska their home.” The basic tax measures all became law, yet Gruening and others who fought so long for these essential reforms still had only a tenuous hold on victory. On June , , the territorial treasurer reported a deficit of slightly more than ,. In order to put Alaska’s budget in the black, the territorial Board of Administration froze . million of the appropriations the legislature had authorized. The territorial treasurer then devised a plan to borrow million to meet the deficit. Although the estimated yields of the new tax measures would more than offset the accumulated deficit and permit the expenditure of all funds authorized by the legislature, there were various delays. For example, the raw fish tax was not due until January , , while the uniform business license act did not become effective until Congress passed legislation repealing the jumble of license taxes. Court litigation also hampered the collection of the remaining taxes. Temporary injunctions restricted the territorial tax commissioner, and numerous firms had decided to defer payment of their taxes until court decisions had clarified the whole matter. The lobby that had prevented tax reform in the past now waged a coordinated attack in the courts on the new tax laws. The Alaska Steamship Company challenged the net income tax, the E. P. Harris Company of Seattle sued over the fish trap tax,
The Creation of a Modern Tax System
and the Fishing Vessel Owners Association and the Pacific American Fisheries of Seattle challenged the nonresident fishermen’s licenses. Federal district court judge George Folta of the First Judicial Division upheld the validity of the net income tax law, but the plaintiffs decided to pursue successive appeals up to the United States Supreme Court. In addition, these groups planned to supplement these legal actions with other injunction suits, based on legal issues other than those contained in the original lawsuits and to be filed by other principals of the Alaska lobby group. The strategy was to tie up the collection of taxes long enough to force the governor to call an extraordinary session of the legislature to enact an emergency general sales tax to bail out the territory. The litigation initiated by the shipping, canning, and mining interests wound its way through the district and circuit courts and for a time impeded the administration and collection of these new taxes. In the end, however, the courts, with minor exceptions, upheld the new tax laws. Gruening’s long battle for a modern tax system had been successful. The governor perhaps best expressed his sentiments when he wrote that Alaska, at long last, had turned the corner. What he meant was that finally territorial citizens could prepare Alaska for statehood, an issue that had been close to his heart since he assumed the governorship in .
13
The Statehood Issue: to
I
n his inaugural address in December , Gruening predicted that Congress would take its own good time before extending statehood to the first noncontiguous territory. When and if it finally did, he said, Hawaii would probably be the first rather than Alaska, for the obvious reasons of its larger population and more stable economic base. He reminded his listeners that anything the chief executive and the territory’s citizens, working together, could do to bring statehood for Alaska closer would be desirable. Alaska’s Delegate Dimond disputed the governor’s prediction and contended, “Alaska is just as much entitled to statehood as Hawaii and we’ll beat them to it yet if we can.” On March , , Dimond introduced two resolutions in the U.S. House of Representatives. One directed the Committee on the Territories to conduct an investigation of conditions in the territory, including its fitness for statehood and its ability to pay for it, while the other authorized , to pay for the inquiry. The House ignored both resolutions. Delegate Dimond had supported statehood for some time, and before he retired from Congress in late , he introduced his own statehood measure. The executive departments most closely concerned with Dimond’s bill all submitted reports. None opposed the idea on principle, but most suggested that wartime was inopportune for admission, a view with which Dimond agreed. The secretary of Alaska, E. L. “Bob” Bartlett, raised the issue again in when, encouraged by Gruening, he ran in the Democratic primary to succeed Dimond. He made statehood his platform, much to the discomfiture of the governor, who believed that the majority of Alaskans still opposed it and that Bartlett would lose the race. Much to the governor’s surprise, Bartlett prevailed in the Democratic primary, and he won the delegateship in the general election in October . In his biennial message to the territorial legislature in January , Gruening reminded the lawmakers that the platforms of both territorial political parties and the two candidates for delegate to Congress had favored statehood in . Gruening asserted that few, if any, Alaskans rejected it on principle, but he proposed a referendum on the question. The voters needed information on the subject, which, he urged, should be compiled impartially, published in pamphlet form, and then
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Figure . Generals Alfred M. Gruenther and Dwight D. Eisenhower on a visit to Alaska, probably . Left to right: Gruening, Gruenther, and Eisenhower. Acc. no. --.
distributed widely to both civilian and military voters. Gruening lobbied Generals Gruenther and Eisenhower on Alaska statehood when the two visited the territory in (Figure ). Responding to the governor’s request, territorial Senator Walker submitted legislation providing for a referendum at the general election. Voters were to be asked if they were for or against statehood. After some debate, Walker’s bill passed the senate and, a few weeks later, the house as well. In the fall of , several groups of congressmen toured Alaska. The first visitors were members of the House Subcommittee on Appropriations for the Department of the Interior, chaired by Jed Johnson of Oklahoma. The subcommittee made news when it returned to the states. Representative John Rooney of New York declared that Alaskans were not ready for statehood because they allowed the fishing industry to take out an annual catch valued at million while returning only million in taxes. Rooney maintained that absentee fishing and mining interests controlled the legislature—as Gruening had long argued—and he blamed Alaskans and their elected representatives for this state of affairs. Delegates Bartlett of Alaska and Joseph Farrington of Hawaii were responsible for the visit of yet another group of congressmen to the territories, including Hugh Peterson of Georgia, the chairman of the House Committee on Territories. Like their predecessors, both delegates complained about a lack of attention and understanding on the part of Congress. Visits by congressional committees were admirably suited to make lawmakers more aware of territorial problems, and many later took an active interest in Alaskan and Hawaiian problems. The Committee on the Territories visited Alaska in the early fall of . Representative Homer Angell of Oregon stated that the hearings were designed to acquaint congressmen with Alaska and enable them to deal knowledgeably with
The Statehood Issue
Alaska legislation. Bartlett and Gruening, wanting to put the guests in a receptive mood, carefully planned the itinerary to include excursions to scenic places. The governor even went to Seattle to accompany the group north in the capacity of tour guide. The congressmen spent some time fishing for salmon, but much of it they devoted to inspecting various interesting localities, taking testimony, attending meetings and banquets, and listening to Alaskans. During their two-week tour, the twelve congressmen listened to testimony at Ketchikan, Juneau, Anchorage, and Fairbanks. Many topics were discussed, including the questions of statehood and revision of the Organic Act. Much of the testimony was ill prepared, but it gave the congressmen thousands of facts and impressions about the vast territory, if not a comprehensive understanding. Approximately half a year after returning to Washington, the committee submitted its report to the House. In it, committee members reported that statehood had been discussed extensively at every session of the hearings and at meetings with citizens. The committee, however, made no recommendation for or against it, basically because members felt that statehood would soon be granted to Hawaii and “[they] felt that [they] should await the plebiscite in Alaska before [they] passed upon statehood for that territory.” Although it had left the statehood issue in abeyance, the committee considered interim possibilities, among them a revision of the Organic Act, which had hardly been changed since . Committee members recommended that Congress consider expanding the powers of the territorial government. The issue had been fruitlessly discussed for years both in the territorial legislature and, to a lesser extent, in Congress. Nevertheless, Gruening got the Division of Territories and Island Possessions to draft a measure that contained desired changes. The Alaska public, however, received the idea poorly, and Delegate Bartlett decided to scrap it and instead “go all out for statehood and statehood now.” The Department of the Interior issued a statement on August , , declaring that statehood was “the only form of self-government appropriate to the circumstance of Alaska.” Statehood would link Alaska more closely with the nation—resulting in economic development, capital investment, and an influx of new settlers—and give Alaska a voting voice in Congress. Gruening was elated by the department’s announcement and told the Anchorage Daily Times that Congress would admit the territory if its citizens voted affirmatively in the referendum. The territorial legislature had indeed authorized a referendum on statehood, but had made no provisions for preparing and disseminating an informational pamphlet. Gruening suggested that the legislature create a territorial development agency and have it perform the task. Others thought that the political science and economics faculties of the University of Alaska, together with a public research bureau in the contiguous states or officials from Wyoming and Nevada, should produce a statehood study. Various newspapers and individuals discussed a number of schemes to conduct such a study. On August , Ralph Bartholomew, a member of the Ketchikan
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Chamber of Commerce, proposed that the governor appoint an all-Alaska committee to study the pros and cons of statehood and publish the findings. The governor had read about Bartholomew’s plan and thought that each community needed a committee to collect funds for research, “to handle a certain assignment in the statehood study, then to make public its findings through a territory-wide plan.” The governor hoped to appoint members to a territory-wide committee very soon, but he did not act because he realized that his opponents would charge him with packing the committee with pro-statehood advocates. In the late fall, Gruening discussed an alternative to the Bartholomew plan in a speech before the Anchorage Rotary Club. He suggested the creation of an Alaska Statehood Association charged with compiling and disseminating information on the problems and responsibilities of statehood. The governor stated that five-dollar memberships would suffice to carry out the project. Evangeline Atwood, the wife of Robert B. Atwood, the publisher and editor of the Anchorage Daily Times, responded to Gruening’s suggestion and asked prominent Alaskans in various communities to organize local chapters of this association. Her organizational efforts at first proved largely futile except in Anchorage. In March , the Alaska Statehood Association formed its central organization in Juneau. By now approximately members belonged to the local chapters. They elected Evangeline Atwood president and authorized her to hire George Sundborg to prepare the statehood report. When approached by Atwood and Gruening, Sundborg agreed to undertake the study. He faced a difficult task, for materials on which to base the work were scarce and disorganized. However, Sundborg, an efficient writer and researcher, completed the report in June and sent it for review and suggestions to Gruening, Bartlett, Dimond, and others who had supplied ideas and information. After revision, it appeared as a pamphlet called Statehood for Alaska: The Issues Involved and the Facts About the Issues. His report received wide distribution. The Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle printed it as a newspaper supplement, and offered it free of charge to all other Alaska newspapers. The author’s preference for statehood was unmistakable, for he devoted a mere six pages in a fifty-five-page pamphlet to the arguments against statehood. The essence of the anti-statehood argument, Sundborg wrote, was that Alaska’s economy was “not sufficiently diversified, its population sufficiently large or its experience in exercising governmental responsibility sufficiently broad to make statehood desirable at this time.” Sundborg considered all of these points debatable, and maintained that there were “others which can be automatically proved to be false.” “All these arguments require careful consideration,” he wrote, and then went on to examine the advantages of statehood. Combined with debates, speeches, meetings, and radio broadcasts, Sundborg’s report stimulated wide public interest in the issue. In October , Alaskans went to the polls in the general election and cast , votes for and , against statehood. It was a crucial referendum, for its outcome gave direction to the territorial politicians and government for the next twelve years.
The Statehood Issue
After the referendum, most territorial politicians began to support statehood, some because of strongly held political beliefs and most others because they wanted popular approval and desired reelection. Other attractions for politicians were the prospect of multiplying public offices, both elective and appointive, and promising opportunities for gaining honor, influence, and power. For example, there would be judgeships, a congressional delegation, an elected governor and lieutenant governor, numerous positions in the executive branch, and perhaps even an increase of seats in Alaska’s senate and house. County governments promised additional positions. Many voters were concerned about who would be elected. Governor Gruening, most agreed, deserved to hold some political office because he was a hardworking New Deal liberal; opponents pointed out that Gruening often polarized territorial residents. In fact, he evoked feelings of respect, even adoration, among his followers and bitter hostility among his opponents. The governor was assertive and independent, and his admirers considered him a dynamic leader who had long championed social, economic, and political progress before both the territorial legislature and the federal bureaucracy. Gruening’s followers credited him with having alerted Alaskans to the undesirable influence exercised by absentee corporations. The governor’s opponents considered him an outsider who dared to lecture them on how to run their own affairs. Gruening himself had become an issue in the statehood movement because both Republicans and Democrats aligned themselves as either followers or opponents of the governor. Some Democrats refused to back statehood if it meant sending “‘that man’ Gruening down to Washington.” A bush pilot, for example, remarked that he believed “in statehood now,” and continued, “The only thing I have against it is the gang that’s for it. I don’t like their social ideas.” The governor was aware of these sentiments and once half-jokingly remarked to newsmen, “The people of Alaska would vote overwhelmingly for statehood even if it was just to get rid of [me].” Gruening was pleased because the affirmative vote proved that a majority of the territory’s residents wanted Alaska to join the union as a state. The vote also made clear that Alaskans were not satisfied with federal rule. Delegate Bartlett probably best expressed the sentiments of territorial politicians when he declared that if Alaska did not gain statehood in the near future, Congress likely would revise the Organic Act “and then no further move towards statehood would be made in the next or so years.” While a majority of Alaskans voting in the referendum favored statehood, an even larger proportion of Americans approved the admission of Alaska into the union. On September , , George Gallup, the director of the private American Institute of Public Opinion, released a poll showing that percent favored admission, percent opposed it, and percent were undecided. Most Americans favored statehood for Alaska because they believed the area to be “vital to the defense of the nation” and because it deserved “equal representation in the body of states.” If Congress had reflected public opinion, both Alaska and Hawaii would easily have been admitted. But partisan and sectional interests, rather than national
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camaraderie, motivated members of Congress. They were, in effect, being asked to dilute their own power, especially the ninety-six senators. Gruening understood this, and also understood that partisan considerations were important because of the nearly even balance in the Senate between Democrats and Republicans. Consequently, the admission of the territories might shift control from one party to the other. Furthermore, how would an Alaska congressional delegation vote on matters of national concern, and would it be interested in problems affecting eastern urban areas like New York or Boston? After all, Alaska was an underpopulated and underdeveloped area, and many eastern members of Congress were afraid that Alaska would merely add to the western bloc that constantly asked for appropriations for public works. Many southern members of Congress worried about how Alaska senators would vote on motions to cut off filibusters on civil rights. Finally, some wondered who the first two senators would be. Bartlett could well be one, but it was Gruening to whom U.S. Senator Hugh Butler (R-Neb.) referred when he stated that there was no chance of getting statehood by “a movement led by an outsider . . . who is appointed to the governorship and then proceeds to try to shape everything so he can become one of the first senators.” In April , the House Subcommittee on Territorial and Insular Possessions held hearings on Bartlett’s statehood bill in the capital. Eight congressmen testified, as did numerous Alaskans—among them Gruening, who flew to Washington for the occasion. The governor began his statement by observing that statehood was desirable and necessary not only for Alaska but, more important, for the nation. Only statehood would make economic development possible and enable the North to “fulfill its destiny as an area of great strategic and economic importance to our Nation.” Gruening then eloquently summarized Alaska’s history since its purchase in , characterizing it as one “of neglect insofar as the relations of the federal government and Alaska are concerned.” The lack of continuity in both the legislative and executive branches dealing with territories bothered the governor, because few individuals had an opportunity to develop territorial expertise with the constant turnover on committees and in agencies. The Department of the Interior and its secretary, for example, profoundly influenced Alaska affairs, Gruening observed, but unfortunately, he said, “we have had Secretaries of the Interior [for example, Ickes] whose policy in Alaska was entirely different than that desired by the people of Alaska.” Statehood would give continuity to northern affairs because an Alaska congressional delegation would provide it. Furthermore, executive agencies paid more attention to two United States senators and one representative than to a mere delegate. Gruening disagreed with the opinion offered by some witnesses that federal administration was superior to anything the territory or future state could provide. For example, the governor pointed out, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had seriously mismanaged Alaska’s once-bountiful salmon resources. State management, he assured the congressmen, would provide the necessary funds and expertise to restore the salmon.
The Statehood Issue
Despite pleas from Alaska’s various delegates to Congress, Gruening noted, the territory had not been included in the Federal Aid Highway Act, which had enabled the states to build an extensive transportation network. There were many other examples of federal neglect and discrimination. Perhaps worst of all, he said, Alaskans had developed a kind of “colonial psychology, a sort of inferiority complex as a result of finding all the time that we do not seem to get the things that we believe we are entitled to.” In fact, the delegates and the governors who had tried to accomplish something for Alaska often spent much energy in preventing Congress from passing legislation harmful to the territory or to amend statutes inimical to Alaska’s well-being. In conclusion, Gruening argued that statehood was the solution to Alaska’s many problems, and that it was in the national interest. “Democratic policy . . . [the same policy that the United States was] asking to have apply in Bulgaria and Rumania and that we have applied in the Philippines and are seeking for every backward country of the world, namely the fullest self-government, should apply to Alaska.” In short, all Alaskans were asking for was “good old American citizenship.” In the course of the hearings, the idea of partitioning Alaska and admitting part of it was also discussed. Congressman Arthur Miller, a conservative Republican from Kimball, Nebraska, fretted that the territory’s sheer size presented “almost impossible administrative problems.” When he questioned witnesses about this idea, they were either unprepared to respond or hostile to it. Robert Atwood outright rejected it, but stated that if division was the price of admission, then the Yukon River or the sixty-fourth or sixty-fifth parallel should constitute the boundary. It should be understood, however, that the excluded area “could join the State of Alaska if the people of both the State of Alaska and the Territory of Tundra” so desired. Subcommittee members did not elicit Delegate Bartlett’s ideas on the subject, but he shared Gruening’s sentiments. A couple of months earlier, Bartlett had told the governor, “[I am] willing to be persuaded on one point where I formerly resisted very strongly: if statehood can be had only by drawing a line and including in the new state the more heavily settled sections, I think I would be ready to go along.” Both men agreed that such a partition would actually be welcome, because the areas left out of the state would pose economic problems if included. In any event, eight days after the hearings ended, the subcommittee voted eight to five to defer reporting the measure until after visiting Alaska personally. In the summer of , two congressional subcommittees visited Alaska to conduct hearings. One of them was the Subcommittee on Territorial and Insular Possessions. Of its twenty members, only Bartlett and four Republicans—Chairman Fred Crawford of Michigan, Jay LeFevre of New York, William Dawson of Utah, and Edward Jenison of Illinois—made the trip. Like all visiting members of Congress, Alaskans suspected that they had come north merely using their prerogative of the junket. Many observers were surprised, however, when the subcommittee members vacationed very little and instead worked long and hard hours traveling and listening in order to understand Alaska.
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Between August and September , the subcommittee members listened to testimony from ninety-two people in various Alaska towns. No witnesses spoke against statehood in Anchorage or Seward, but in Fairbanks half of the witnesses told the subcommittee that Alaska was too economically underdeveloped to support it. Judge Arnold, the representative of the Alaska Canned Salmon Industry, Inc., a trade organization representing the powerful Alaska fishing interests, pointed out that Alaska residents had failed to support their territorial institutions by taxing themselves adequately. Instead, they had been content to extract revenues from nonresident sources. As late as , Alaska derived percent of its revenues from the fisheries and another percent from the excise tax on liquor. How, he wondered, could these people support statehood with their aversion to self-taxation? From Fairbanks the subcommittee made short trips to Barrow, Nome, Kodiak, and Cordova, and then flew to Juneau. Members next listened to testimony at Petersburg, Wrangell, and Ketchikan, where Gruening delivered a persuasive and eloquent address on statehood. The governor opened his remarks by complimenting committee members for their diligent efforts to learn about Alaska. In the process, he acknowledged, they had become aware of the territory’s many problems and formed ideas on how to solve some of them. On returning to Washington, he told the lawmakers, “you will be immersed, you will be submerged, with overwhelming problems of national scope. You will be engrossed and deeply buried in the immediately pressing problems of your own constituencies, your own districts, to which you owe your first and prior obligation. In dealing with Alaskan matters, you will have the gigantic task of transferring your impression to your numerous colleagues, who will be too busy to give much time to hearing you and very few of whom will have the time to read the full printed record. Even if they do—and a very few possibly will— they will not begin to get the first-hand impressions that you have gotten. And after the six months which alone remain in the th Congress, changes will take place— some of you will be on other committees, some of you conceivably may not be in Congress the next session.” Gruening observed that some of the subcommittee members might feel that Alaska was not ready for statehood. But, he pointed out, after some eighty years of American ownership, Alaska was still without adequate roads, airfields, tuberculosis hospitals, and dependable shipping at reasonable costs. Congress had failed to deal with aboriginal rights and made the acquisition of homesteading lands difficult. These issues had not been resolved in the past, nor would they be accomplished in the future, he said, because of “the system by which a distant and changing personnel in Congress and in the executive agencies tries through the complexities of government, to help us without giving us the essential tools which alone will enable us to help ourselves. These tools are two United States Senators and a Representative in the House with a vote.” The governor cited numerous examples of discrimination and neglect on the part of Congress and the federal government. He repeated his contention that it was in
The Statehood Issue
the national interest to admit Alaska into the union. Territorial residents were familiar with and aware of the strategic importance of Alaska. This interest and insight Alaskans could better convey to the nation’s councils if they were adequately represented in Washington. In addition, Alaskans were youthful, independent, hardworking, and robust pioneers. These qualities would impart vigor to the nation in both houses of Congress. The subcommittee members were much impressed with Gruening’s testimony. Bill Baker, the editor and publisher of the Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, admiringly remarked that Gruening “has the tongue of the spell-binder, the logic of Socrates and much of the charm of the late F.D.R. He has a way of making things seem important and getting others to see them that way.” While subcommittee members had come to Alaska inclined toward statehood in principle yet dubious that its residents were willing to pay for it, they left with the belief that statehood was a more justifiable and compelling cause. The fiscal situation had not changed, but the information they had acquired about the territory’s economic potential, minimum taxation, and the potential for a modern system of taxation allayed many of their earlier concerns. Gruening had a busy summer in . He divided his time among the House Subcommittee on Territorial and Insular Possessions, the Committee on Public Lands, and other groups of visiting congressmen, among them Senator Butler and three other members of the Senate Public Lands Committee. Butler did not support statehood for offshore areas, but he did not oppose changes in the status of such areas, suggesting that Puerto Rico could be made a county of Florida, and that serious consideration should be given to his proposal to make Hawaii a county of California. Although Alaska was part of the North American land mass and not an offshore area, Butler’s unenthusiastic attitude toward statehood for the territory became apparent during the three weeks he spent in the North. It was an informal trip, but he and other senators did hold hearings, although no official record was made. On their way to the states, the group stopped in Prince Rupert, where Butler told the local chamber of commerce and the editor of the Prince Rupert Daily News that Alaska would certainly gain statehood in ten years. Less time would elapse if the legislature enacted a general system of taxation. After some debate and revisions, the House Committee on Public Lands unanimously approved the Alaska statehood bill in April and reported it to the House. There the Rules Committee held it up. Thus Alaska statehood died as far as that session of Congress was concerned. However, much had been accomplished: territorial citizens had been given the opportunity to be heard, they had discussed the statehood bill under consideration, and the national press had given considerable attention to the issue. Gruening was optimistic, because a congressional committee had held hearings on the subject for the first time and unanimously approved a statehood measure—a historic first. In the November general elections, the voters returned the Democrats to control of both houses of Congress and to the White House. Gruening was cheered when
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the Democratic Party, at its convention, pledged itself to “immediate” statehood for both territories, while the Republicans had promised at least “eventual” admission. Bill Baker of the Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle noted that changes had also taken place in the North, for “nothing effective now remains of the group of anti-governor, antistatehood, anti-progress members who in all the legislative sessions from through blocked the enactment of basic tax measures for the Territory.” While tax reform was important, so was the creation of the Alaska Statehood Committee. An abortive effort had been made in , but on March , , legislation establishing the Committee passed both houses of the territorial legislature. The Alaska Statehood Committee was to have several functions. It was to hire a researcher to act as the committee’s executive and carry out its directives. It was to provide “fully detailed information and analyses” for use by a constitutional convention drafting the state’s constitution, recommend to the first state legislature organizational legislation necessary to implement initial operations of the new state, and carry out several other tasks. The governor was to appoint eleven members, to be approved by the two houses of the legislature meeting jointly. As an indication of its bipartisan character, no more than six of the nominees were to belong to the same political party, and the governor, present congressional delegate, and last delegate were to be ex officio members. The governor nominated six Democrats and five Republicans who supported statehood and his progressive agenda. Many Republicans criticized the governor for his choices, and, indeed, all but one of the Republican members of the Alaska Statehood Committee were known as “Gruening Republicans.” The governor was obligated to call a meeting of the Alaska Statehood Committee, but since prospects for the passage of an enabling act looked so promising early in , he postponed doing so. Only when it became apparent late in the summer that no congressional action on a statehood measure would be forthcoming did he summon the members of the committee. One of the first obstacles to this new statehood strategy arose when the territorial board of administration froze the , appropriation for the committee, along with other funds. This action was necessary because the legislature had failed to provide the revenue to meet the expenditures it had approved. Undeterred, the members of the committee advanced their own expenses and met in Juneau late in August to organize and plan strategy. At this meeting, the committee concluded that the road to statehood was still a difficult one, and members decided that their main task lay in publicizing the issue and educating the public on statehood, both in Alaska and in the contiguous states. Governor Gruening recommended the employment of a public relations firm in Washington to do lobbying on behalf of statehood and suggested the names of a number of available firms. On the national scene, Under Secretary of the Interior Oscar L. Chapman, a close Gruening friend, was very helpful in promoting Alaskan statehood. As early as , he helped to convince Secretary of the Interior Julius A. Krug of the necessity of
The Statehood Issue
statehood for both Alaska and Hawaii. In that same year, Chapman put Gruening in touch with Randolph Feltus, a Washington, D.C., lobbyist. Chapman also worked to ensure that the Democratic Party platform included a strong stand in favor of statehood. At Krug’s direction, Chapman assumed major responsibility for the statehood campaign in the Department of the Interior in . Besides working closely with Congress, Chapman, aided by a consultant, mapped an extensive publicity campaign for statehood. He planned for Gruening to make numerous radio and television appearances, arranged to plant newspaper and magazine articles, and encouraged the formation of a national Alaska Statehood Committee, an idea developed by Gruening. The committee enlisted more than one hundred luminaries in government, the military, the arts, business, and journalism in the crusade. Members included Eleanor Roosevelt, Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, actor James Cagney, novelists Rex Beach and Pearl S. Buck, author John Gunther, General Douglas MacArthur, philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr, and historians Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Jeannette Paddock Nichols. In August , Senator Warren G. Magnuson of Washington appealed to the Alaska Statehood Committee for aid. The Air Force had decided to move the Boeing plant, a large employer in the area, to Wichita, Kansas, where it would be out of reach of Russian long-range bombers. The pending move threatened to relocate between fifty and seventy-five thousand jobs and spelled economic disaster for Seattle. The Alaska Statehood Committee responded by sending messages to the governors and congressmen of the Pacific Northwest states, urging their aid in resisting the move. A committee consisting of Gruening, Baker, and Atwood was appointed to prepare an extensive reply. In it, the three men stated that Alaskans did “not believe in hoisting the white flag in our determination to prevent the advance of the red flag. . . . Nor can we fail to emphasize our conviction that were Alaska a state with two United States Senators to help our west coast and Rocky Mountain neighbors, this situation would never have arisen.” The Seattle Chamber of Commerce called a meeting of all concerned to see what, if anything, could be done. Nat Rogers, the president, invited the governor of Alaska to attend, and Gruening accepted. The meeting took place in the large ballroom of Seattle’s Olympic Hotel, where Stuart Symington, the secretary of the air force, explained the decision to the assembled luminaries. All received the news glumly and voiced only plaintive protests. According to his own account, the governor was not awed by military decisions, having seen “at close range the stupidities committed by our military planners in Alaska.” When called upon to speak, Gruening repeated the message of the Alaska Statehood Committee. It was folly to contemplate moving Boeing, the governor declared, because if Russian bombers had a range of , miles in , it would not take them very long to increase that to , miles, the distance to Wichita. Furthermore, Grand Coulee and Bonneville dams, important to the defense effort, could not be moved. What did the federal government plan to do with
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the atomic energy plant at Hanford, in eastern Washington state? He continued, “I am shocked that it is the Air Force, supposedly the striking arm of our military establishment, that is initiating this turn tail and run behind the Rockies policy. I am amazed that the flying branch of our armed services, instead of emulating the eagle, the American symbol of air power, should follow the example of lesser birds and pursue a policy that is both ostrich-headed and chicken-hearted.” Symington was becoming uncomfortable listening to the governor, but Gruening was not finished yet. He continued taunting the air force, declaring, “I’m thinking of shifting my allegiance to the Navy whose slogan is still ‘Don’t give up the ship’ and has no plans that I am aware of to move the Bremerton Navy yard up the Mississippi River. I have never appreciated as much as I do today the wisdom of Clemenceau’s dictum that ‘war is too important to leave to the generals’!” In his memoirs, Gruening described himself as next turning to a wall map of North America placed there to illustrate the Boeing problem. He grabbed a pointer and swung it around the northern and western coasts of Alaska, declaring, “If there were a radar screen all along this coast to warn of the approach of Russian planes, and if we had plenty of interceptor planes in Alaska, the Russians would never be able to fly across Alaska, heading this way. Their planes would be shot down. They would have to fly southwest around the Aleutians and then southeast again, and Puget Sound would then be just as far away as Wichita.” Boeing was not moved, and three months later the U.S. Air Force announced that it would start construction of the Distant Early Warning System (DEW line) along Alaska’s Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea coasts, and east across the Canadian Arctic. Gruening wrongly claimed credit for originating and causing the air force to build the DEW line. In March , the sponsors of Alaska and Hawaii statehood bills managed to bypass the Rules Committee and bring both measures to the floor of the House, where the Alaska bill passed by a vote of to and the Hawaii statehood bill passed to . Only after the House had acted on the Alaska statehood bill did Joseph O’Mahoney’s Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs schedule hearings on the matter. In order to present the case effectively, the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce chartered a plane to fly interested Alaskans to the nation’s capital. The group arrived in Washington on April , . The delegate told the group that opponents would probably propose extensive and controversial amendments that might improve the measure but were designed to retard its progress. Senators must be urged to approve the House bill with few, if any, amendments. Later that day, Gruening and Oscar L. Chapman, who had recently replaced Krug as secretary of the interior, traveled to New York to debate statehood on Eleanor Roosevelt’s television show with representatives Leroy Johnson of California and Frederick Coudert of New York. The most productive hearings held on Alaska statehood to that point began on the morning of April . In the absence of Senator O’Mahoney, his colleague Senator Clinton P. Anderson of New Mexico took the chairman’s seat. The star witness was the representative of the Alaska Canned Salmon Industry, Inc., Judge Wenton
The Statehood Issue
C. Arnold, who brilliantly analyzed the bill. The essence of his testimony was that the contemplated land grant was totally inadequate and that the aboriginal land claims would thoroughly confuse the situation. On the final day of the hearings, the senators granted Gruening two hours to testify. The governor was uneasy—a rarity for him. The time limitation, the habit of senators to interrupt with questions, and the need to respond to the allegations of the salmon industry all put Gruening on the defensive. He stated that only about two million acres were potentially suitable for crop production and another four million acres usable for livestock grazing. He maintained that a large proportion of this agricultural land would eventually be subject to state jurisdiction through land selection and homesteader land patenting. The governor pointed out that it was advantageous for a state to have large, federally owned tracts of land because the Federal Aid Highway Act matching grant formula was based on the amount of public land within a state—the larger the acreage, the greater the matching funds accruing to Alaska. Gruening admitted that Alaska’s land problems were numerous, but not comparable to California’s in . That state had received a land grant of two sections per township, and none of it had been surveyed. In addition, California had been forced to deal with aboriginal claims and Spanish land grants, problems far exceeding those faced by Alaska. The testimony of the representative from the salmon industry, however, had disturbed Gruening. He discussed the matter with Chapman, who told him that the land grant of forty-two million acres in the statehood bill seemed to be more than the state could use for some time. Additional lands would pass under state jurisdiction and individuals would obtain patent to it under the federal land laws, the secretary continued. A larger land grant would undoubtedly impose considerable administrative and financial burdens upon the new state. Still, if the senators increased the land grant to eight or sixteen sections per township, the department would not object because it was most important that Alaska gain self-government. Chapman also reminded Gruening that surveying public land was a federal responsibility dependent on congressional appropriations. Therefore, Gruening asked the senators to authorize the funds for that purpose. He told them that Oklahoma had received a cash grant of million upon admission, and that Alaska should receive an equal or greater amount of money. Gruening did not mention that Oklahoma had been given the grant in lieu of land from the Indian Territory. He also suggested that the committee could aid the new state by providing for the payment of royalties to Alaska from oil produced from federal reserves. Although no longer satisfied with the statehood bill, Gruening was eager for its enactment, hoping that future Congresses might repair its defects. He suggested that the land grant provisions of four sections per township remain. After congressional passage of the bill, the House Lands and Senate Interior and Insular Affairs committees could meet jointly and decide whether more land should be transferred to the state.
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The senators eventually decided that the new state should not receive numbered section grants, but rather be allowed to select up to twenty million acres of land in reasonably compact tracts from the public domain almost immediately after admission to statehood. Gruening and Bartlett supported a proposal by Senator Butler that all orders issued by the secretary of the interior establishing Native reservations in Alaska be rescinded and that the authorizing legislation be repealed. Butler suggested that, instead of the reservation authority, the secretary be empowered to issue patents to Native “tribes and villages of individuals for the lands actually possessed, used, or occupied for town sites, villages, smokehouses, gardens, burial grounds, or missionary stations.” At the urging of Senator O’Mahoney, the committee compromised by providing that no additional Native reservations be created in the North pending the proclamation of Alaska’s admission into the union—a delay expected to last about two years. The suspensive clause quickly brought protests from the National Civil Liberties Clearing House; Oliver LaFarge, the president of the Association of American Indians; former Secretary Ickes; the Nation; and John Rainier of the National Congress of American Indians. All declared that Native property rights were being denied. Traditional statehood bills had granted four or more sections of land per township to the western public land states, resulting in scattered state land ownership. Recognizing how important land and its resources were to the future economic viability of the state, allowing Alaska to choose resource-rich lands in large, compact blocs furthered that goal. In short, by the time the senators finished their deliberations, they had taken a very traditional statehood bill and refashioned it to fit Alaska’s peculiar needs. Soon thereafter, the committee voted to approve the Alaska measure eight to two. The question now was, how would the entire Senate view the statehood question? Unfortunately, both the Alaska and Hawaii statehood bills got lost in the rush for a pre-election recess. The outbreak of the Korean War in June rapidly shifted priorities, and as a result, the Alaska statehood issue became a secondary concern. Gruening lobbied for Alaska statehood at the forty-second annual Governors Conference in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, in (Figure ). These were lean years for the statehood forces until , when Bartlett told members of the Alaska Statehood Committee that he had received assurances that the Alaska bill would receive favorable consideration in the Senate. The Hearst papers and the Scripps-Howard chain had promised editorial support, and all the national organizations that so far had supported the cause had promised to do so again. Bartlett surmised that if the Alaska bill came to a vote in the Senate, it would win by a safe, albeit small, margin of victory. The delegate accurately predicted that the anti-statehood forces in Congress would try to prevent such a vote so that they would not be forced to go on record against a popular measure. One way they could accomplish this objective, he concluded, would be to send the bill back to committee for further study, or filibuster it to death.
The Statehood Issue
Figure . Forty governors standing in a map of the United States taped on the lawn of the Greenbrier Hotel, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, June . The governors were attending the forty-second annual Governors Conference. No number.
While waiting for the Senate debate to begin, Bartlett, Gruening, and two members of the Alaska Statehood Committee lobbied Republican and Democratic senators, asking them to make speeches for the cause. When a senator agreed to do so, the Alaska Statehood Committee asked George Sundborg, who headed the Alaska Development Board, a territorial agency, to ghostwrite the speech. Sundborg performed this task capably, sometimes on less than a day’s notice. Debate continued intermittently throughout February . It soon became apparent that a majority of Republicans and Democrats would vote to send the bill back to committee for further study, although there was enough support to pass the Hawaiian measure. As soon as this became known, Bartlett, Gruening, Hawaii delegate Joseph Farrington, and Senator O’Mahoney agreed that the Hawaii measure should be scheduled first. The men thought that if the Hawaii bill passed, enough Democrats opposed to Alaska would change their minds in order to continue the Democratic majority in the Senate. But the Democratic Policy Committee, composed of the sixteen chairmen of the Senate’s legislative committees, decided to put Alaska first. Ten of the sixteen opposed Alaska’s admission. After much debate and political maneuvering, the Senate returned the Alaska measure to committee by a vote of forty-five to forty-four. As in , a coalition of conservative Republicans and southern Democrats had successfully killed Alaskan statehood for another session of Congress. Under those circumstances, the House saw no reason to act at all. Not long after Congress convened in , the Alaska Statehood Committee met in Juneau. Governor Gruening attended the meeting and recognized the criticism
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that had been leveled against the enabling bill. The governor suggested that Congress grant some million to build a capitol and a mental health institution and pay for surveying the land grant during the first fifteen years after admission. But he warned that at some point those who complained about a lack of congressional generosity would admit that Alaska was unready to assume the burdens of statehood, given the state’s refusal to pay such expenses itself. Twenty-three million acres of land, Gruening stated, was a very large area, and any additional acreage would burden the new state financially in its early years. Gruening concluded that it would be detrimental to the cause “if we allowed the impression, which is pretty widespread,” to persist “that this bill is no good and that somebody, who has a larger and better concept of what Alaska needs, is going to draw the right kind of bill.” The next day, the committee met with members of the territorial legislature in order to draw attention to Gruening’s points. At the meeting, Bartlett explained the measure he intended to introduce, and stated that he would try to double the contemplated land grant. Gruening would not be able to stay in office throughout Alaska’s attempt to transcend territory status. With the change of presidents in , Gruening lost the governorship. He did not, however, lose his interest in statehood for Alaska, and continued to be an effective spokesman for the cause. He also wrote a book, The State of Alaska: A Definitive History of America’s Northernmost Frontier, published in , about Alaska’s relationship with the federal government. It was a brilliant polemic for statehood.
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B
y the early 1950s, the Democrats had been in control in Alaska, as well as in many of the contiguous states, since . It was no great surprise, therefore, that there appeared to be great sentiment for a change at the local and territorial levels. The Republicans, in essence, promised to do the same things the Democrats had been doing for so long—only better and more efficiently. The Republicans particularly appealed to those who disliked the changes Alaska had been experiencing, who fretted about the increasing bureaucracy, the growing budgets, and the demands for more governmental services, and especially those who were apprehensive about statehood. When Alaskans voted in the open territorial primary on April , , they set a new turnout record. Republicans garnered so many votes that observers gave them a good chance of electing most of their ticket in the October general election. In fact, Democrats lost heavily at the polls. Many factors were responsible for the Republican victory, foremost simply the voters’ desire for a change. Voters also had the perception that the Democrats, over the years, had appointed incompetent candidates to territorial positions. Furthermore, Alaska, despite its stupendous physical size, constituted a relatively small community where waste and inefficiency could be personally observed and criticized. Any state or federal agency in New York, for example, could be employing a hundred more people than necessary and millions of citizens would not know the difference. Territorial or federal employees in Juneau doing their shopping during business hours were noticed and resented by taxpayers. The Democrats had committed many blunders, and the Republican press had been quick to capitalize on these and feed the suspicions of the Alaska electorate. As expected, national and international problems did not play much of a role in the ensuing campaign. Alaskans were intensely interested only in local and territorial issues. Democratic candidates reminded the voters of the tremendous job that had confronted the party when it had taken office in the depth of the Great Depression twenty years earlier. Since then, the federal government had appropriated some . billion for various Alaska projects. The territory had been fortified militarily and made secure from attack, resulting in additional federal expenditures of about billion. Many improvements had taken place in Alaska since , ranging from new
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airports, airstrips, and roads to housing and a hydroelectric plant at Eklutna. Territorial Democrats had worked in unison with Democrats in Washington, D.C. This team, responding to territorial demands, revised and completely modernized the chaotic and outdated tax system, built schools and airports, provided improved medical care, and helped Alaska’s old-timers to live their last years in dignity. Indeed, the Gruening administration had heeded the demands of the citizenry. In June , Governor Gruening, in order to aid the Democratic ticket, began a series of twenty-six weekly radio broadcasts of approximately twelve minutes each. The Alaska Broadcasting System relayed the “Report to the People” every week throughout the territory. Its purpose was to acquaint both sourdoughs (longtime Alaska residents) and cheechakos (new arrivals) with the functions and operations of the territorial government. Various business enterprises sponsored the series. In his first broadcast, Gruening summarized Alaska’s history, saying, “[In order] to understand the present, to grasp why we of this generation are as we are, one has to look back into the origins of a community, of an area, of a nation, and to analyze the factors that made us so.” The governor characterized Alaska’s history under the American flag as one “of flagrant neglect and indifference on the part of the federal authorities.” Since , however, the territory had experienced fundamental changes. Gruening declared, “What was stagnation has become action. What was immobility has become advance.” Where once had been defeatism, now was a growing optimism. There was a new spirit of hope and faith in the territory’s future prospects, and a “new prosperity” had developed “in varying degrees in different parts of Alaska.” Still, the governor was worried about the coming elections. Toward the end of June, Gruening told Delegate Bartlett that he had called his friend Richard Neuberger, a Portland journalist, who told him that he was convinced that the GOP would nominate Eisenhower and that he would be unbeatable. Bartlett thought that perhaps Neuberger was right, because on June a newspaper “carried accounts of sudden new optimism in the Eisenhower camp. Whether they really have something or whether it is psychological warfare remains to be seen.” In any event, Eisenhower had the best press “any potential candidate” had ever enjoyed. The delegate thought that the top political reporters attached to the Eisenhower camp had “abandoned altogether any pretext of objective reporting.” On August , Joseph W. Kehoe, the secretary of Alaska, resigned his office. He told Delegate Bartlett that his reason for resigning was “entirely personal.” He asked to be relieved as soon as possible, “but realizing that an election is imminent and that I have obligations to the Democratic Party, I do not want any false impressions as to my reasons for resigning to be entertained by the public or the press,” he said. Kehoe obviously did not want to give the impression that he was deserting a sinking Democratic administration. Governor Gruening was surprised and dismayed about the timing of the secretary’s resignation, speculating that Kehoe’s wife was unhappy and wished to return to their residence in Seward. The governor had suggested that
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Kehoe wait until after the election, because it would be difficult to find “the proper successor with the uncertainties arising from a change of administration,” although, he hastened to add, he was “reasonably confident that there will be no such change.” Still, Gruening suggested “the White House withhold any action on it [the resignation] until a new appointment could be announced.” Upon Gruening’s recommendation, the president appointed Burke Riley, the governor’s assistant, to the position Kehoe had vacated. Alaskans went to the polls on October , , and elected twenty Republicans and four Democrats to represent them in the territorial house, and eleven Republicans and five Democrats in the senate. A day before the November , , national election, Bartlett told Gruening that despite the firm findings of his personal poll, “there is a remote possibility that tomorrow’s election may signify the end of an era.” National columnist Drew Pearson had reluctantly predicted that Eisenhower would win the presidency. That, of course, meant that a Republican governor would replace Gruening. Bartlett and Gruening had worked closely together since . It was Gruening who had pushed the uncertain Bartlett into the delegate race. Their political and personal relationship had been very rewarding for both men, and Bartlett became a little sentimental. The two men had been too busy all through the summer and fall to be able to see much of each other socially. “Nonetheless,” Bartlett stated, “on account of what may happen tomorrow, and what did happen in Alaska, I am going to make an attempt here to throw away my customary Pennsylvania Dutch reserves to note that our association, which has gone on for years, minus only a single month and two days, has been for me exceedingly pleasant and highly educational and most useful.” Bartlett wanted Gruening to know, he said, “once more that your policies have been good policies for Alaska and you meant them only as such. More importantly, I want you to know beyond all doubt that my feeling toward you transcends esteem, and that stands for the future as well as the past.” The governor was deeply touched by the delegate’s expression of esteem and affection and replied, “I greatly treasure your letter and will always do so. I had no doubt of your feelings and I know you have none concerning mine. It has been a grand relationship and will continue to be so.” Gruening told Bartlett that it was evident now that what happened in the October elections in Alaska “was simply part of the nationwide trend and that Alaska again was a true national barometer and an uncannily accurate one.” Fortunately, members of Congress like Bob Bartlett, Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Mike Mansfield, Stuart Symington, and John F. Kennedy, all good Democrats, had survived the Republican landslide. The situation, therefore, was less depressing than it had first appeared. The governor was optimistic “that the tide will begin to ebb shortly,” because the Republicans confronted terrific problems and would find it impossible to redeem their campaign promises. Gruening hoped that Presidentelect Eisenhower would succeed in ending the Korean War, for the sake of the nation. If he failed, he predicted, the voters would react more angrily than normal because of the high hopes he had kindled.
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Alaska’s Republicans were jubilant and celebrated their national and territorial victories enthusiastically. In Juneau, for example, more than Republicans and friends jammed the Gold Room of the Baranof Hotel to overflowing and listened to their leaders call on the GOP to bring about a return to “Americanism.” R. E. Robertson, a loyal Republican and prominent Juneau attorney, labeled the victory “spiritual rather than political” and outlined a program that, he suggested, the new administration should adopt. He declared that the maxim “to the victor belong the spoils” must be practically applied by the Republicans if the party was “to restore our country, after the past years of New Dealism, to the sound basis of a Democratic Republic.” The policy recommendations included the following: insist that every individual elected or appointed to office be of high repute, unimpeachable integrity, assured reliability, and imbued with the principles of the American constitutional form of government; be a bona fide Alaska Republican; end the war in Korea; destroy communism in government service; and abolish unnecessary taxes and wasteful, useless expenditures of tax monies. The Eisenhower victory spelled the end of Gruening’s tenure as Alaska’s governor. Normally, his term of office should have ended on December , . President Truman had renominated Gruening for a third term on March , , and sent his name to the Senate on the same day. The Republicans, however, had allowed Gruening’s unconfirmed nomination to die in committee. Confounding the Republicans, the Democrats won the elections and on April , , the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs held hearings on Gruening’s nomination and the Senate confirmed it by a voice vote. That lengthened Gruening’s term until April , . Although newspapers in Alaska unfriendly to the governor suggested that he resign and allow the new president to fill the position promptly, Gruening felt otherwise: “I should show my appreciation of the Eightieth Congress’s inaction by my completing the term it had unintentionally granted me.” Besides, he reasoned, “April was a much better time than December to move into the cabin,” which he and his wife had built at Eagle River Landing near Juneau. Ernest Gruening had become a lame-duck governor, but he still had to deal with the twenty-first territorial legislature. His term of office did not end until it had adjourned. According to custom, therefore, the governor addressed a joint session of the legislature, his last, at the beginning of the session. He presented his views on the condition of the territory, reviewed pertinent developments since the last session, and told the lawmakers about his ideas on the desirability of measures to meet existing, or pending, problems. Mindful of criticism leveled at him that he attempted to unduly influence legislative decision making, Gruening emphasized that in “all relations between executive and legislative branches of our government, the executive proposes, but the legislature disposes.” He told the lawmakers that it was a pleasure to see so many new faces, evidence of the rapid changes symptomatic of the times. The legislators had sixty days, he
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reminded them, to make changes that were synonymous with continuing progress and with the development of Alaska’s human and material resources. In the lifetime of those present, there had occurred the greatest changes witnessed since the beginning of time. “The governor graciously saluted senate president Jones, “who has been a pioneer in more senses than one,” but particularly since he had been a member of the first territorial legislature in , which had created the territorial structure of laws and institutions. Jones had been a member of the house, and Gruening told the joint session that the first legislature had truly been a pioneering one. “It was not merely abreast of, but ahead of its time . . . its very first act . . . was to give the franchise to women. Thus, Alaska anticipated the national act by seven years, when the Constitutional Amendment to provide equal suffrage was finally adopted.” The governor then summarized the history of these changes for his audience. One of the great problems of these rapidly changing times had been, he said, “to adapt our thinking and our practices to the implications of that change.” Alaska, the last frontier under the American flag, was also the first frontier to be equipped with modern means of communication, transportation, electricity, and bulldozers, which made post- pioneering a new and very different kind of undertaking. Modern communications had ended Alaska’s isolation and remoteness, while the Second World War and the cold war had revealed the territory’s strategic importance. Alaska’s population had more than doubled in the preceding ten years, from , in to an estimated , in . This increase had brought about a certain permanence and stability. The days when many came north only to make a stake and then leave were disappearing. “A second and third generation are growing up who consider Alaska home and have no thought or desire to live anywhere else.” The governor cited sundry other statistics that emphasized the growth Alaska had experienced. Most striking was the increase in territorial school enrollments, up from , in – to , in –. In short, he declared, Alaska’s growth had just begun. Gruening reminded his audience that any legislative program consisted of two broad categories that often overlapped. The first was maintaining existing services such as education, public health, and welfare; and the second was the protection of life and property. Other categories of legislative concern dealt primarily with development, creation of new sources of industrial and business activities, enhancement of opportunity, and the expansion of the economy. The governor pointed out that Alaska’s economy needed to be diversified because fisheries and mining, long the mainstays of the territorial economy, were only seasonal and unable to provide the needed additional jobs. Agriculture, although of definable limits, should be supported. The pulp mill under construction near Ketchikan promised to provide yearround jobs, as did the plywood mill being built near Juneau. The tin lode mine and mill on the Seward Peninsula and the scheduled exploratory drilling for oil in various locations around the territory represented a diversification of the economy. Gruening urged the lawmakers to support the Alaska Development Board, which had worked hard and efficiently to attract these new industries. Two years before, the
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legislature had appropriated , for the newly formed Alaska Visitors Association, with equal funding to be derived from private subscription. Tourism could provide a lucrative income to the territory and Gruening asked that the effort of the Alaska Visitors Association be supported. Alaska’s finances were in better shape than they had ever been, the governor continued. On April , the end of the current biennium, the treasury promised to show a general fund surplus of million. Gruening urged lawmakers to preserve and increase the surplus, in order to guard against possible future rainy days. Furthermore, he argued, if Congress granted Alaska statehood, such a surplus would make the transition to the new status painless. He warned lawmakers not to reduce the present and prospective tax revenues, for it was his “belief that while the present territorial tax structure is comprehensive and ample, it is likewise not unreasonable and not burdensome.” The governor also cautioned lawmakers on the abolishment of the Alaska property tax, a move some people considered. The percent property tax applied only to areas outside municipalities and school districts. In the latter more developed localities, the property taxes levied were credited against the general Alaska property tax, thus avoiding duplicate taxation. In addition, the levy enabled the territorial government to determine ownership in case of foreclosure, sale, and use of abandoned properties. Unfortunately, the roads, airfields, water, and harbor facilities fund, which received the bulk of its monies from the motor fuel tax and automobile operator license fees, could not meet the demands made upon it. Gruening pointed out that, since , the territory had benefited under the terms of a cooperative agreement negotiated annually with the Alaska Road Commission (ARC). Under the terms, the ARC assumed the costs of road construction, as well as the expenses of maintaining the necessary administrative structure. The territory shared only a small percentage of the total cost. In , for example, it received . million in federal aid for road construction and contributed only ,, or . percent. In fact, territorial contributions had decreased in recent years, and it was becoming very difficult to justify large federal outlays before congressional committees, when Alaska’s contribution continued to fall below the average share borne by the various states. The governor warned that the continued reluctance on the part of Alaskans to maintain an adequate participation standard in this program threatened the curtailment of federal appropriations for this purpose. Gruening suggested that the lawmakers reassess the structure and purpose of the fund; he also urged them to raise the motor fuel tax. At two cents per gallon, it was the lowest among all the states and territories, where the average tax amounted to about five cents per gallon. He suggested Alaska’s fuel tax be increased to four cents per gallon. The governor estimated that the increase would yield about million, instead of the current . million, each biennium. Gruening urged legislators to support the territorial department of aviation. It maintained airports and seaplane facilities, while continuing to build new ones and improve existing ones. He advocated the creation of a territorial land office to
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combine the scattered functions and to efficiently administer the growing territorial domain. Such an office, he said, “would gain a running start on statehood. It would anticipate the land problems of statehood and be prepared to meet them. It would, meanwhile, have adopted procedures and would have gained experience before being confronted with the greater problem of administering extensive statehood grants.” Alaska lacked adequate school facilities, the governor continued, a problem that his administration inherited and that became worse during the war years, when virtually all construction not directly related to the war effort had ceased. A growing population aggravated the problem, as enrollment continued to outstrip school facilities constructed and projected for the immediate future. The legislature had passed a tobacco tax earmarked especially for school construction, with the funds to be returned to the communities where they had been collected. The legislature strengthened the act, and passed another one empowering school districts to levy a sales tax for school purposes, subject to voter approval. Gruening suggested that the legislature create a territorial school construction authority with full bonding power, able to back communities financially, especially the small ones that had no ready access to bond markets. This authority would be a public corporation; its bonds would be paid from revenue alone. Its income source would be from a lease arrangement with the local community secured by assignments of money from the tobacco tax. Gruening was deeply worried about the decline of the important fishing industry. Yields had reached an all-time low for a thirty-year period and gave every indication of going lower. He suspected that the federal government mismanaged Alaska’s greatest natural resource. Recognizing the problem in , the legislature had established a territorial department of fisheries. Within a tight budget and federal limitations, the agency had accomplished much, “including valuable research, which should have been done long ago by the Federal government, the development of new spawning grounds,” and enforcement assistance. The governor sketched out the attempts by previous legislatures, going back to , to gain fishery management responsibilities from the federal government, all in vain. For years, Alaska’s delegates to Congress had tried unsuccessfully to transfer this function to the territorial government. In , Alaska’s residents had voted , to ,, nearly six to one, in favor of the question: “Should complete control and operation of the Territorial fisheries be turned over to the Territory of Alaska by Congress?” Gruening suggested that the legislature back this overwhelming mandate by another memorial to Congress, although that had done no good in the past. He urged lawmakers, however, to enhance the responsibilities of the territorial department of fisheries “and give it what it needs to help our poor Uncle Sam preserve our fish.” The governor made a variety of other suggestions to the assembled lawmakers, such as the extension of benefits for World War II veterans to those Alaskans serving in Korea. For the benefit of the legislators, he summarized the history of the
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program since its creation in and emphasized that it had been successful in aiding almost four thousand veterans. He also urged support for the Alaska National Guard and civil defense. He told lawmakers that they might want to create allpurpose governmental units that would include such adjacent and suburban areas as were colloquially known as the “Greater Anchorage Area” or the “Greater Fairbanks Area,” to name a few. In these new units would be placed existing ones, such as the school, public utility, road construction and maintenance, and policing districts. Such units could be structured to eliminate the overlapping of various local taxing authorities. In effect, what Gruening proposed was the creation of counties. Although Congress expressly prohibited the formation of counties in Alaska without federal consent in the Organic Act of , the governor had no doubt that Congress would promptly ratify such legislation. Gruening also proposed a variety of ideas designed to streamline the territorial government, including taking certain basic steps to improve the fiscal and accounting procedures; providing pre- and post-auditing of territorial accounts; making an interacting check system between the treasurer’s and auditor’s offices; and creating a system of territorial accounting, which would enable members of the legislature to quickly determine actual territorial income, expenditures, and obligations. He also asked that the legislature eliminate the governor from all boards, except perhaps the Board of Administration and the appeal board. In addition, he said, the election laws needed revision and the legislature should be asked to establish a salary scale for territorial officials, making possible the recruitment of the best talent. At the least, salaries paid to territorial department heads should be on par with those of federal officials performing comparable duties. The governor told his audience that he had not covered or even touched upon many fields of interest that legislators might want to address, such as vocational rehabilitation, mental health, the western regional education compact, and the creation of a legislative reference bureau, to name but a few. In conclusion, Gruening reminded his listeners, “We are a part of a great purpose, a great cohesive force, a great movement—to demonstrate by our actions that whatever may be its faults, the democratic system is the best system yet devised by man.” Uniquely among all areas under the Stars and Stripes, Alaska was located most closely to the Soviet Union, which he described as “the police state which represents a way of life wholly antithetical to ours and repugnant to everything we hold dear. Our response to that challenge is not to be found in verbal denunciation . . . but in the creation of contrast, in the determination to establish within the view of all mankind a living and vibrant demonstration of the American system, with its clear manifestation that it is more productive of human happiness, and therefore more enduring than any totalitarian system.” It was a very good speech. Gruening saluted the senior lawmakers, praised the efforts of preceding legislatures, discussed territorial problems and suggested solutions, and offered his vision of a future Alaska. Even the harshest critics had to admire the governor’s facility with words. The question was, would a Republican
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legislature heed a Democratic chief executive? Mildred R. Hermann, a lawyer and reporter on legislative activities, thought not. She wrote that Republican legislators, accompanied by a few Democrats, “stormed into Juneau” with the slogan “Repeal, Abolish, Undo, Reduce.” They caucused and selected their party leadership and expounded policy, took their oath of office, selected their leaders for the session, “and settled down to the serious business of law making or unmaking.” The Republicans had targeted the Property Tax Act of and the Reorganization Act of for repeal, and planned to abolish the Alaska Development Board and the Alaska Statehood Committee. Proponents of abolition planned to transfer the functions of the former to the newly created All-Alaska Chamber of Commerce, largely dominated by the Alaska Canned Salmon Industry, Inc. Republicans had expressed their determination to undo much of what had been done in the last twenty years. Herman declared that little had been accomplished in Alaska during the first ten years of the Democratic administration. Congress extended the Social Security system to Alaska in , a positive step. The most progressive legislation had been produced during the last ten years. She doubted “if Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Citizen . . . want much of it undone. They will go on record for the elimination of waste in the administration of public affairs, but most of the services they receive as citizens they are anxious to retain.” Finally, the Republican leadership wanted to reduce appropriations, but she predicted that would be difficult to achieve. The University of Alaska asked for million—and deserved the money in order to build a good-quality institution—while the Alaska Visitors Association put in for half a million dollars, and teachers demanded and deserved pay increases. All other expenditures had to be geared to the highest cost of living in national history, she stated, and she predicted that legislators “are apt to put their ears to the ground where the grass roots murmur and decide that the cacophony they hear is not a demand for reduced appropriations.” The Republicans had an excellent opportunity to build on the achievements of the preceding two Democrat-controlled legislatures, and to benefit from the mistakes of the past twenty years. However, they largely did not do this. After the end of the session, Herman observed that the motion to adjourn sine die was the most important one made. “At least it guaranteed for awhile that the boys and girls would attempt nothing else of destructive nature.” In the house, the session was messy to the bitter end. She reported, “Only a triple plated optimist could hope to salvage anything from the wreck of the st [territorial legislature] by a special session,” which she opposed. She charged that the Canned Salmon Industry, Inc. controlled the session, and that legislators did what the industry wanted. Surprisingly, the Alaska Statehood Committee, the first target in the battle against the boards, survived intact and held on to the remains of its appropriation. The various votes on the matter, however, clearly identified the proponents of statehood and those who followed the anti-statehood position of the Alaska Canned Salmon Industry, Inc. In fact, the battle against the boards turned out to be a bust. The house made a determined effort to abolish and re-create all territorial boards, but thanks to the moderation of the
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senate, it succeeded only with two, those being the Employment Security Commission and the Dental Board. The effort to reduce taxes for the benefit of the ailing fishing industry suffered a setback when the governor pocket vetoed the measure, which would have provided for a reduction in the raw fish tax. The Canned Salmon Industry, Inc. had expected to save an estimated , with this measure. Gruening pocket vetoed three other bills that reached him late in the session: a lengthy banking bill, a bill dealing with the incorporation of public utility districts, and a bill legalizing the appointments of members of the legislature to territorial boards and commissions. The legislature passed a measure that created a legislative examination and investigation committee, which was empowered to investigate the activities of all territorial officers and their offices. A McCarthy-like committee, it allowed investigators to request resignations of public officials and file complaints against them. Gruening vetoed the bill, pointing out that it infringed on the powers of the executive branch of the government and usurped the duties and functions of the attorney general and the U.S. attorney. The lawmakers, however, overrode his veto. The lawmakers, unwisely, also repealed the property tax. The legislature passed the largest appropriations bill in territorial history, amounting to approximately . million for the biennium. Lawmakers accomplished a few constructive things, in Gruening’s estimation. They raised teachers’ salaries straight across the board by per year; increased old-age pensions to a maximum of per month; improved benefits to workers under the Employment Security Act; and passed the Agricultural Act, carrying an appropriation of , and recognizing the potential importance of agriculture in Alaska’s economy. Lawmakers also heeded the governor’s suggestion to create a territorial land department. The last days of the session were chaotic. House Speaker George Miscovich, notorious for his drinking habits, presided. In the last few days of the session, the speaker openly poured whiskey, taken from a desk drawer on his stand, into his coffee cup. After an all-night session, the house adjourned. Gruening wanted to bid farewell to the senate. When the governor arrived in the senate chambers, Democratic senator Howard Lyng, no friend of Gruening’s, moved to deny him the privilege of addressing the upper chamber. Judge Thomas Stewart recalled that Senator Paul Robinson, an Anchorage Republican and a young and able lawyer, arose “and made a very gentlemanly, but rather impassioned, plea that this would be a most improper thing to do to the man who had served as governor for years” and that the senate should reject Lyng’s request. Gruening was allowed to speak and gave a short, “somewhat emotional, but as usual, very literate statement closing his years in responsible public office.” On Gruening’s last day in office, about fifty Alaskans were present as Tom Morgan of Juneau presented him with the license plates and title certificate to a Chrysler automobile. His admirers had chipped in to buy the car. Morgan referred to the wish of Gruening’s supporters throughout Alaska to recognize his long, devoted career in
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public service. To the surprise of all those present, the visibly moved Gruening, never before at a loss for words, announced that he was speechless. He finally told the crowd that he was thankful for both the gift and the friendship it represented. On the same day, Robert B. Atwood, the editor and publisher of the Anchorage Daily Times and a longtime friend and admirer of the governor, published an editorial titled “Alaska’s Greatest Governor.” Atwood praised Gruening’s efforts to teach Alaskans “that they need not always be peons under the remote controls of the bureaucrats at Washington or business interests in Seattle.” Gruening eloquently presented Alaska’s needs to the nation’s leaders and helped to put Alaska into the national spotlight. Although Alaskans had been suspicious and distrustful of Gruening the outsider, “his actions as champion for constructive progress won for him the admiration and respect of the people.” Until Gruening became Alaska’s leader, the territory’s citizens accepted the inadequacies of the status quo, the neglect of the federal government, and the dominance of absentee-owned business interests. These had “dictated to their territorial government what tax monies they could have and what appropriations they could make for new roads, new schools, and all other facilities needed so badly throughout Alaska.” Gruening changed all that by cataloging Alaska’s needs and identifying the forces that blocked progress. His targets were not idle and had lambasted him as a “carpetbagger,” a “Bureaucrat from Washington,” or a “mouthpiece for [Secretary of the Interior Harold] Ickes,” but eventually most citizens came to support the governor’s efforts. He prodded the federal government to eliminate many discriminatory practices. The governor revitalized the territorial bureaucracy and encouraged the legislatures to consider the welfare of all Alaskans, rather than cater to the special interests. Atwood saw a bleak picture ahead, because already Alaska’s federal budget had been cut by percent and appointees to various offices administering Alaska’s affairs showed conservative attitudes boding ill for the territory’s future. Perhaps even worse, the twenty-first territorial legislature that had just concluded had shown “signs of capitulating once more to the sinister control of the Seattle lobby.” The editor hoped that Gruening’s departure from office would not mark the return of federal neglect and the resurgence of Seattle business control. Atwood predicted that Gruening would loom large in Alaska’s affairs as a private citizen. Above all, he concluded, “nobody will ever forget Ernest Gruening. Especially the thousands of Alaskans who had the privilege of working with him.” It was a very generous editorial, and Gruening was obviously pleased by it. Gruening had served a total of thirteen years, four months, and five days. On April , , he turned his job over to his successor, former regional forester B. Frank Heintzleman.
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G
ruening left the governorship with few, if any, regrets. There had been some progress on statehood and, during the election, both parties endorsed statehood for Alaska. President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower was also on record as favoring it, although in his first state of the union message in January , he mentioned statehood for Hawaii but not Alaska. Later that year, Senator Hugh Butler (R-Neb.), a foe of Alaska statehood, announced plans to hold hearings on the matter. In an obvious swipe at Gruening, he stated, “We are going where we can get the reaction of the little people—not just a few aspiring politicians who want to be Senators and Representatives.” Gruening was disappointed that the statehood movement fizzled after its promising start in the early s. He also was troubled that his successor, B. Frank Heintzleman, opposed statehood. When Gruening left the governorship, he and Dorothy moved to a cabin they had built at Eagle River Landing, some twenty-six miles from the mansion. George Sundborg visited the Gruenings there one summer. While at the cabin, he accompanied Gruening to the back porch, where he wanted to get something out of the big, oldfashioned icebox (the cabin had no electricity, so they could not have a refrigerator). Before Gruening could open the icebox door, Sundborg wrote, “Ernest patiently untied a big rope that was tied completely around the old vertical ice box.” Sundborg was surprised at the size of the rope, “a regular hauser, about ½ inches in diameter.” He asked Gruening “if he used it to keep bears out of their food.” Gruening replied, completely seriously, “No, chipmunks.” Sundborg wrote that the Gruenings lived like people below the poverty level “and did it cheerfully.” After the move, Ernest and Dorothy took a seven-week vacation. They stayed ten days in New York, a few days in Boston, and then drove west, passing through Buffalo, catching a glimpse of Niagara Falls, and driving on through Ontario to Port Huron, Michigan. They spent some time with an old friend on the east shore of Lake Michigan; they then crossed the lake on a ferry and followed Route north, arriving eventually in Seattle, where they embarked for Juneau on the Princess Louise. Their first week back home, Gruening wrote, was very busy, “trying to compress ourselves and belongings into the cabin.” Gruening told Bartlett he was “getting all the
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exercise that [he] need[ed], what with cutting wood, carrying water . . . and various other odd jobs around the place.” Gruening had called his successor, who had told him that he was “suffering considerably over some of the unexpected and extracurricular aspects of governorship”—presumably the necessity of making appointments that antagonized one group or another and the social aspects of the chief executive’s job, which Heintzleman did not relish. Gruening was now sixty-five years old. Retirement, however, did not interest him. He was out of federal government service for the first time in two decades. Before he had taken off on his vacation, he had obtained a contract from Random House to write a book portraying “Alaska’s case and the record of its long neglect and discrimination . . . objectively and authoritatively.” Such a volume, he anticipated, would be helpful to the statehood cause. Historian Robert David Johnson has written that Gruening wanted to write “what he immodestly termed ‘the definitive story of Alaska,’” a work he promised would “stand up for a couple of generations”—or at least long enough to help gain statehood for the territory. Initially, he titled the volume Alaska: Four Score and Seven Years to remind readers that Alaska had failed to achieve “the equality that Lincoln said our nation had been dedicated to.” His editor objected, anticipating readers’ reaction to the connection between Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Alaska’s neglect by the federal government. Gruening and the editor disagreed throughout the project, not only about the title but also about Gruening’s propensity to write at excessive lengths, but eventually the two men compromised. Soon after the Gruenings returned to Juneau, the former governor, who had started the volume, reported to Bartlett that he expected to be back working on the book within the next few days, as soon as they got settled. Gruening and Bartlett, who had worked closely together for many years, continued their collaboration, particularly in the quest for statehood, and also because Bartlett supplied much of the research material for the book. The two kept a lively correspondence flowing, although Bartlett knew that Gruening’s former secretary, Katie T. Alexander, continued to give him “secretarial assist.” Bartlett mused about the changes that the transition in administrations had brought, not the least of which had been the end of a direct “line of communication to the Governor’s office.” The Department of the Interior, which loomed large in Alaska affairs, had never been perfect to work with, but now it had become “a house of mystery.” Personnel had changed in the department, cutting both Gruening’s and Bartlett’s sources of information, which were vital in either pushing along or torpedoing departmental initiatives. In their correspondence, the men kept each other informed on national and territorial affairs, shared political gossip, commented on the failures of the Republican party and its representatives at both the national and territorial levels, bemoaned the fate that befell their Democratic friends in the Eisenhower administration, and generally shared their expectations, hopes, and fears with one another. For example, Bartlett told his friend that he had been able to speak but for a few minutes with Senator Guy Cordon
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(D-Ore.), the chairman of the Senate Territories Subcommittee, before which were pending a number of Alaska measures. Cordon told him, Bartlett wrote, “if he were abrupt occasionally with him there was nothing personal . . . about it at all, but he is just so busy he just hasn’t time to discuss these Alaskan subjects with me.” At the end of the one-minute meeting, however, Bartlett reported that Cordon had volunteered, “I think you people need a bit more seasoning yet before you are ready for it [statehood].” As Cordon spoke, Bartlett mused, “it occurred to me that during this priceless moment of his time there was a very real demonstration of the need for statehood.” Gruening filled Bartlett in on the selection of a new president for the University of Alaska. The regents had received sixty-one applications but selected Ernest Patty, who had not been a candidate but had made such a fine commencement address that the regents had decided he was their man. Patty, a devout and vocal Republican and a former dean at the university, had not yet accepted the position. He held a ,-a-year job representing Canadian and other mining interests, and had just completed and was about to move into a , house in Seattle. Taking the presidency would be a great sacrifice, but the regents had given him until October to make a decision. Gruening expected that Patty would accept and that this would “meet with widespread approval.” Patty knew the university “and stands extremely well with the Seattle crowd.” Gruening also continued asking the delegate to supply information for the book he was writing, although he wanted to make sure that it did not consume too much of Bartlett’s time. “Occasionally, some of these things would be done for you by the legislative reference service, and if that can be done, I should be glad of it.” As a start, he needed the Democratic and Republican platforms on Alaska from to , inclusive. He also noted that Bartlett’s measure to permit the Ninilchik Hospital Association to secure five acres of land had passed Congress. “How many such special bills to acquire land for boy scouts, Catholic Bishops, etc., have you put through?” Gruening asked. He wanted all of them to be listed in his chapter on lands, as an example of the contortions the delegate and Congress have to go through “when this type of acquisition should be automatically possible.” Gruening’s gubernatorial terms had been marked by controversies and confrontations. More often than not, the press had been negative. Bartlett was thus surprised that Heintzleman enjoyed better press than any other man in public life in Alaska. “Every time he hits a town,” he told Gruening, “there are published pictures of him arriving, staying and going. His very limited repertoire is magnified, so that each utterance is cast in the mold of a major speech by the newspapers.” The Anchorage Daily Times carried the ultimate in such stories when it reported that Heintzleman “was blinded by lights” at a banquet in Fairbanks where he was the featured speaker. As a result, he “could not consult his notes,” Bartlett continued, “but with incredible courage and matchless bravery he made an informal talk anyway! Most men in such a situation,” the delegate observed, “would have sat down, I suppose.” On the regents of the University of Alaska offering the presidency to Patty, Bartlett opined that the man lacked research qualifications, and said he had heard “doubts
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expressed long ago as to his competency in geology, which he was teaching. But he is a fine chamber of commerce performer,” the delegate concluded, “and would be the perfect appointee in these times.” At the end of June, Gruening told Bartlett, “Strange as it may seem, I do not have half enough time for writing as one would imagine what with chopping wood for the fireplace, filling the water out of the barrel—we have had such wonderful weather our roof supply ran dry until gratefully we had a rain storm yesterday—putting kerosene into the stove, pumping up the Coleman, helping to light the lamps and other jobs. I find I am reasonably busy with extracurricular duties. It’s all a lot of fun.” Gruening had heard on the radio that Congress was once again considering deleting the percent differential pay for federal employees in Alaska, which it had granted years ago to compensate for higher Alaska living costs. He remarked sarcastically, “My heart bleeds for all those good Alaskan office holders who voted [for the Republicans in the last election].” By the end of June, Gruening also acknowledged the receipt of “innumerable and invaluable material” from Bartlett for use in writing his book, such as a list of special bills for land transfers and withdrawals, along with several copies of congressional hearings. Bartlett suggested that Gruening try his hand at writing a newspaper column to air his views and supplement his income. The idea had occurred to Gruening as well, but he told his friend that the steady disappearance of newspapers had made this type of work highly competitive. No syndicate was willing to take on a new columnist unless there was “a reasonable chance of selling him to a substantial number of major cities.” The very large city of Philadelphia, for example, twenty years ago had four morning as well as four evening newspapers, but now had only one morning and one afternoon paper. The story was similar in other large metropolitan areas. Competing for a relatively small number of newspapers were a bevy of both liberal and conservative columnists, such as Drew Pearson, the Alsop brothers, Fulton Lewis, and Westbrook Pegler. The field was just too full, and although he did not think himself “affected with undue modesty,” he doubted if he “could break into it and make it economically self-sustaining for [himself ] or the syndicate.” At the end of July, Gruening confided that his assistant, Katie T. Alexander, had to leave Juneau for more than a month on family business, and it was “a blow” because she had begun to type up his finished chapters and he didn’t “want to entrust them to anyone else.” He had heard other bad news as well. For some time, Senator Hugh Butler had planned to come north and hold hearings on the statehood issue. Gruening told Bartlett that he had heard from a reliable source that Governor Heintzleman had been “trying to dissuade the committee from coming and if they do, not to hold statehood hearings. He’s afraid,” wrote Gruening, that “the pro-statehood folks will move-in and take over the hearings while ‘the little fellow’ who is out in the hills working hard for a living will not be heard and of course he [the little fellow] is against statehood!”
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Besides working on his book, Gruening continued to act as Alaska’s unofficial spokesman, touring the contiguous states on lecture engagements where he advocated statehood and extolled Alaska’s physical beauty and economic promise. He also wrote articles, which appeared in such national magazines as Harper’s and Atlantic, urging the territory’s admission as the forty-ninth state. He closely followed statehood bills in Congress, about which Bartlett regularly consulted him on specific provisions of particular measures. In January , Bartlett asked him about land provisions of a bill under consideration. Gruening advised the delegate that the two-million-acre Kenai National Moose Reserve should be cut by , to , acres, making possible development and settlement in the area into which Anchorage was very likely to expand. He thought the bill should also abolish the Chugach National Forest altogether and turn it over to the state for homesteading and other development uses, but, barring this, it should be substantially reduced in areas around existing towns such as Seward, Cordova, and Anchorage. Katmai National Monument should be cut percent to leave what was once the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and the Katmai crater, making possible trapping, hunting, and the mining of pumice. Glacier Bay National Monument should be cut, to delete the area added to it in , including the large flat area of Gustavus and Dundas Bay, which would in no way diminish the scenic value of the park. Although he thought the Tongass National Forest was too large and should be reduced, he did not know by how much. If some additional pulp and paper enterprises were “just around the corner,” nothing should be done to endanger these or “give the opposition a chance to say they are jeopardized.” Gruening thought that the current U.S. Forest Service management team, however, was developmentminded and he suspected “that the new state will have enough troubles and problems without taking on forestry management” in addition to all else. As a matter of principle, however, , acres, or percent, should be cut from the Tongass and made available to communities located within it for expansion. He suggested that the military reserves around the towns of Fairbanks and Anchorage be substantially reduced and the land turned over to the future state, although this was a delicate problem and should be arrived at by mutual agreement between military commanders and future state officials. Naval Petroleum Reserve No. should become state property, since the navy had halted its exploration program there in . He also suggested that “some of the Indian reservations should be abolished,” but, he added “It would be strictly most unwise to raise this issue. It would provoke a storm and would not in any sense be worth it.” The same was true with Mount McKinley National Park, where some land could easily be shaved off, but he thought that tampering “with this particular park would arouse the conservationists” who “won’t know anything about the Alaska situation” but would organize in opposition nevertheless. In , Gruening also became involved in Delegate Bartlett’s reelection campaign. The opposition, he said, consisted “of those forces which for the last years have tried to keep the Territory under a blanket.” Having been unable to defeat
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Bartlett in the general elections, they now tried to defeat him in the primary by entering Democrat Neil T. Moore, the territorial auditor. The Democrats were divided, Gruening wrote, and many Republicans would probably vote in the Democratic primary for Moore, “either because they like him better than Bartlett or because they consider him easier to defeat in the general.” Gruening considered Moore unqualified for the position and appealed to his friends to support Bartlett. At the end of April , Bartlett wrote Gruening that there had been a Democratic sweep in the primaries and that he had received an overwhelming vote of confidence. Bartlett was ecstatic, and a few days later told his friend that the total returns reported in the Anchorage Daily Times showed him with , votes and Moore with ,, while Republican Barbara Dimock received , votes. Gruening congratulated Bartlett on the primary results, but advised him to keep them “as dark as possible in Washington while statehood hangs in the balance” because, he wrote, “it nullifies our propaganda that Alaska is a doubtful state and might elect Republicans! Still, we could offer the hope that in the event of Statehood the other Senator could be a Republican.” At the time, Gruening was visiting the East Coast, as he had spent a few weeks in Washington and in May was in New York. He wrote Bartlett asking him if he knew Reuben G. Gustafson, the former president of the University of Nebraska and now the head of Resources for the Future, Inc., a branch of the Ford Foundation. In the letter, Gruening asked Bartlett to endorse a proposal he had made, in December , to Resources for the Future to underwrite his plan to study Alaska’s resources, “whose development under the present administration . . . looks less than promising.” If necessary, and if an interest in financing the undertaking existed, he was willing to return to Washington. Gruening told Bartlett that while in New York, he had thought of a good title for his now-completed book: The State of Alaska. The final sentence of the last chapter would read, “They [Alaskans] knew through unchanging experience that the state of Alaska would not improve appreciably until the State of Alaska came into being.” When Gruening returned to New York, he met Gustafson and discussed his proposal with him. He sketched Alaska’s geography and pointed out that, as of , the territory had a population of approximately ,, or less than one inhabitant for every three square miles. The population of the United States and its other territories had grown steadily, while “Alaska alone has lagged far behind.” It was underdeveloped, yet abounded in natural resources—including the greatest undeveloped hydroelectric potential on the North American continent. The resources of vast areas of the world were unavailable to Americans and other free peoples, and it therefore seemed “to be not only the part of wisdom, but almost imperative to turn to Alaska with a view to developing its resources and augmenting its population.” Gruening argued that there were also moral and spiritual reasons, in addition to material ones, why this should be done, because just fifty-four miles across the Bering Strait, “behind the iron curtain,” lay the Soviet Union, “another system, antithetical to ours in philosophy and purpose.” The Soviets had made great strides. They had pushed
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agriculture farther and farther north, and had developed industry by “utilizing the abundant raw materials of that region, integrating industry and agriculture, colonizing and strengthening economically, and militarily, the very area which corresponds to Alaska in latitude, climate, and physiography.” The American democratic system, portrayed to the world as a preferable alternative to the totalitarian police state, had failed to progress similarly in its own subarctic and arctic territory. Scandinavia and Finland, with a climate similar to Alaska’s, had long established “a high civilization and a stable economy.” They were the only free peoples to date to have achieved this. Gruening continued that the United States was challenged to perform similarly in Alaska. The national interest, as well as that of the free world, demanded that the United States develop “a shining example of the American way of life” juxtaposed to the Soviets. In addition to being a bulwark of defense for the western hemisphere, Alaska should also become “a citadel of freedom and well being in the far north.” Alaska’s failure to progress “in consonance with other American areas” was not due to climate but rather to several causes, some of them political, which the attainment of statehood would alleviate. Gruening suggested that Resources for the Future undertake an intensive effort to catalog Alaska’s resources, ascertain the possibilities for their development, and analyze the economic, social, and governmental obstacles and problems to such development. At its conclusion, such a study could be presented to the territorial and federal governments, private enterprise, and foundations, alerting them to the territory’s resource potential. In short, he argued, Alaska held “a vast treasure house of ‘resources for the future,’ which needed to be appraised, conserved, wisely utilized, and applied for the contemporary and future needs of free men now.” Gruening told Bartlett that he had talked with Gustafson and discovered that the foundation expected to receive approximately million to be expended over a fiveyear period. So far, it had not done much of anything, however, and he thought that his project was “a damn good one, and probably better than anything else that [would] be done with the money.” On June , , Gustafson acknowledged the receipt of Gruening’s proposal, but there is no record that the foundation ever funded it. In the middle of June , the Gruenings arrived back in Juneau on one of the Alaska steamship vessels, after an absence of five and a half months. The governor proudly related to Bartlett that he had established “some kind of record.” He had driven across the continent to the East Coast and returned to the West Coast, a total of nearly twelve thousand miles, “all without a flat tire.” They had now settled back into their little cabin and took care of the three grandchildren, “a full-time job for both ‘Dodo’ and ‘Pop,’” while his oldest son, Hunt, and daughter-in-law Betty had gone to Seattle for a short vacation. On June of that year, Gruening told his friend that he had experienced “a weekend of tragic and shocking news.” First, he had heard on the radio that U.S. Senator Lester Hunt (D-Wyo.) had died, and then that Hawaii’s delegate to Congress, Republican Joseph R. Farrington, who had served as his territory’s delegate since ,
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had died. Apart from the personal tragedies and the sorrow of those left behind, Gruening thought that both deaths seemed to have considerable political consequences. Hunt’s death, he speculated, made “the election of a Republican Senator from Wyoming almost a certainty,” unless Democrat Joseph C. O’Mahoney, who had served in the Senate from to , could be persuaded to run again. With a Republican Senate, Hugh Butler, the Republican from Nebraska and a foe of Alaska statehood, would remain chairman of the important Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, dooming the territory’s chances for admission as a state. Gruening was convinced that Farrington’s death “definitely kill[ed] off what slender chances there still might have been for Hawaiian statehood.” In fact, he wrote, “Butler et. al. will be the first to recognize that with Joe Farrington gone, the chance of electing a Republican delegation from Hawaii is substantially diminished.” He suggested that perhaps the time had come to persuade Senators Clinton P. Anderson (D-N.Mex.), Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Wash.), and others to drop their opposition to enacting Hawaiian statehood alone and find out whether the Eisenhower administration, as promised, would push the territory’s case in Congress. As it stood, the political differences between Democrats and Republicans doomed both territories. Furthermore, if Congress admitted Hawaii as the forty-ninth state, Alaska’s statehood chances would greatly improve. Bartlett admitted that Gruening’s plan “would probably advance the cause of Alaska statehood in the long run.” But neither Senator Anderson nor Senator Jackson would “permit willingly that which they view only as a partisan Republican move against Alaska.” He was convinced that the southern senators would discuss the issue at great length if a measure came back from conference with Title II, Alaska statehood, removed. In addition, the delegate feared that Farrington’s death had taken the drive out of the Hawaii statehood effort. In late June , Clayton Fritchey, the deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, informed Gruening that Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic presidential standard-bearer, planned a trip to Alaska in July. Fritchey asked Gruening to put together a draft speech for Stevenson’s visit. This he did, sending eleven pages of what he called “the second part of the candidate’s speech dealing with national policies as they related to Alaska,” as well as calling for Alaska’s admission as a state. Stevenson should deal with national and international problems in the first part of his speech, since “Alaskans are no less keenly interested than other Americans.” The candidate’s Alaska visit bolstered Democratic spirits in the territory and gave Stevenson a chance to listen to the concerns of Alaskans. Gruening’s State of Alaska appeared in , at a cost of ., and was slightly more than six hundred pages. The first part of the book traced Alaska’s history through the end of the author’s gubernatorial term, while the second part dealt with Alaska’s pending problems, which only statehood could resolve. The key issues as he saw them were land, Indian policy, conservation, and transportation and regulatory matters.
The Battle Continues
On July , Gruening told the delegate that he had just heard on the radio that Senator Butler had “gone to his reward.” Gruening commented, “Better late than never . . . the old scoundrel did us plenty of dirt; Alaska plenty of damage before he departed.” Gruening referred to Butler’s staunch opposition to Alaska’s statehood aspirations. He worried about the revival of the commonwealth proposal, which Senator A. S. “Mike” Monroney (D-Okla.) had first considered, instead of statehood for both Alaska and Hawaii, as early as . In March , he revived the idea in association with three southern colleagues, Democratic senators George Smathers, William Fulbright, and Price Daniel. Monroney introduced the proposal as an amendment, in the form of a substitute bill for the tandem Alaska-Hawaii measure that would have granted commonwealth status to both territories. Essentially, commonwealth advocates proposed to grant all the rights and responsibilities, except national representation, to Alaska and Hawaii. To sweeten the bait, the two territories were to be granted exemption from federal income taxes, and all the revenues gathered within their borders were to be used locally. Residents of Alaska and Hawaii were to enjoy the complete protection of the Constitution. They would share the benefits of Social Security, unemployment compensation, federal housing, and similar legislation. At the same time, they would have the full obligations of selective service, but could not participate in presidential elections. The concept had gained supporters in the territories. Unfortunately for the scheme’s proponents, Alaska and Hawaii were both incorporated territories and therefore ineligible for commonwealth status. Historically, statehood was tied to the territorial classification. Complications had arisen when the United States acquired the Hawaiian Islands and then other noncontiguous lands resulting from the Spanish-American War of . Alaska, although acquired by purchase in , was noncontiguous, remote, and contained an Indian, Eskimo, and Aleut population of modest size. It was grouped with the new lands. The question soon arose as to whether these new acquisitions, populated largely by alien aboriginal people, were eligible for eventual statehood. The U.S. Supreme Court attempted to give an answer in a number of decisions, known as the Insular Cases, which distinguished between two types of territories, incorporated and unincorporated. In one of these cases, Downes v. Bidwell, the court dealt with the question of whether the constitutional requirement that duties, imports, and excises should be uniform throughout the United States applied to Puerto Rico. Specifically, would it invalidate a provision in the island’s Organic Act, which established a schedule of customs duties on its merchandise entering the continental United States? The court decided that Puerto Rico was not a part of the United States for the purposes of this constitutional provision because it had not been incorporated into the United States. Secretary of War Eliha Root reportedly said of this nebulous distinction the court had established, “As near as I can make out the constitution follows the flag—but doesn’t quite catch up with it.” After the Insular Cases, statehood was specifically tied to the incorporated status. Most important, the act of incorporation was consistently looked upon as a
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commitment on the part of Congress to ultimately admit the incorporated territory as a state. To Gruening, unaware of the Insular Cases, the “sudden effervescence of the ‘commonwealth’ proposal” had all “the stigmata of a Fifth Division professional job. Viz. identical displays in the Anchorage [Daily] News and [the Daily Alaska] Empire, simultaneous editorials and the Empire in its usual nasty vein.” Gruening used the term “Fifth Division” to refer to the Seattle business interests who opposed Alaska statehood, because it would deprive them of their monopoly control over the territory’s economy. The publication of twenty-five thousand booklets in Anchorage advocating commonwealth status for Alaska was “further evidence of canned salmon origin,” and he suspected that it was as an “effort to forestall and confuse the purpose of the next [territorial] legislature to provide for a constitutional convention.” He thought that if “this effort can be traced to its source, pinned on the external enemy of Alaskan self-government, it would be extremely useful.” Gruening was pessimistic about the prospects for Alaska statehood. “Even with a return of the Democrats to office in ’,” he observed, “it will take time and much effort to get rolling again.” He marveled at the support the Department of the Interior extended to his Republican successor, Governor Heintzleman, who floundered in his job. The Republican administration wanted him to look good, which accounted for Interior’s efforts. Not in all of his nearly fourteen years in office, he wrote, could he recall a time “when the Governor of Alaska received such militant support from the Secretary of the Interior, as [Heintzleman] is now receiving.” In the fall of , Gruening applied, unsuccessfully, to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for a fellowship, in order to research and write a companion volume to The State of Alaska. In the application, he proposed to examine the present and prospective relationship of Alaska to the federal government, the possibilities of Alaska’s political and economic self-development, and the effective utilization of its vast area and resources. Gruening closely followed the activities of the session of the territorial legislature. He hailed the introduction of a measure creating a territorial business manager. The idea behind it was to recapture some of the powers that the lawmakers and their predecessors had delegated to the federally appointed territorial governor over the years, such as appointments to boards and commissions. In fact, he observed, the idea was not novel in Alaska politics. As early as , territorial legislators had introduced a so-called comptroller bill with the same objectives. It failed, and was reintroduced in , , and , but each time failed again. Gruening considered the “comptroller” or “business manager” proposal a desirable one, for it would increase self-government in Alaska and be as close to any kind of elective-governor measure “that Alaskans will ever get.” Gruening and Delegate Bartlett had been unable “to get Senator Butler to agree to such a bill in the th Congress [–] after [they] knew statehood was dead.”
The Battle Continues
Although he favored such a measure, Gruening told Robert B. Atwood of the Anchorage Daily Times that it would not pass. Perhaps it was too late for half-measures by now. He recommended that “Alaskans should start raising hell” and “dump tea or its present equivalent in the harbor, go before the United Nations and shout about colonialism at the top of their lungs.” The Alaska Statehood Committee, created by the territorial legislature in , should arrange to have “Operation Statehood,” a group of Anchorage citizens formed in , “act as a sort of commando operation, kneeing the opposition, gouging in the clinches and doing other unrespectable things which a dignified and official agency” could not do. Gruening had not lost his faith in self-help, but wondered about its effectiveness when the federal government continued to keep Alaskans “chained to the ground,” and continued its legalized discrimination in such statutes as the U.S. Maritime Act ( Jones Act) and Alaska’s exclusion from the Federal Aid Highway Act. Not only did the federal government keep the shackles on, he continued, but it added weight by “cutting down on essential services which are clearly Federal obligations and are extended to the States and other territories.” Gruening continued that Alaskans were such good Americans that they prized even their second-class citizenship “and the idea of seceding, setting ourselves up as an independent country, does not appeal to many if indeed to any of us.” It did not appeal to Gruening “at this juncture” either. Alaska’s history, he claimed, was one “of protest against the arbitrary acts, discriminations and stupidities of distant despots, legislative and bureaucratic.” Gruening modestly stated that he had submitted these facts in The State of Alaska. However, if circumstances did not change, he wrote, “if we’re going to be indefinitely doomed to the frustrations and oppressions of absentee government, absentee labor and absentee industry,” then perhaps Alaskans, in a referendum, should decide if they wanted continued colonialism or independence. Indeed, it was worth considering “whether a free and independent Alaska, peopled by men of the pioneer breed, deeply American in tradition and spirit, and with their love for America undiminished might not make a greater contribution to the strength, the welfare and the destiny of both Alaska and the forty-eight states as a sovereign and equal country rather than as a vassal.” Gruening’s list of discriminatory actions on the part of the federal government and various business groups was extensive. In June , he sent a check to renew his subscription to the New York Times International. The Times edition had notified its subscribers that because of delivery delays and greater mailing expenses caused by shifting the printing of the Times International to Lima, Peru, it no longer accepted new subscriptions or renewals from individuals living in U.S. possessions in the Pacific and Alaska. The ex-governor was angry, remarking that he would not object to discontinuing the international edition, raising its price, or making any modifications economics required, but he protested “emphatically against the unique exclusion limited to Hawaii and Alaska. For the inference is clear that just about everybody on this planet, in foreign countries or under the flag, can get the International Edition except
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the second-class citizens of Hawaii and Alaska.” Gruening recited the discriminations the two territories had suffered for years, and asked that the subscription department bring the matter to the attention of the publisher, Arthur Sulzberger. To be on the safe side, he sent a copy of his letter to the publisher, and was pleased when the New York Times reversed itself on its decision no longer to deliver its paper to Alaska and Hawaii. In the meantime, Gruening found it hard to make ends meet from writing and lecturing. He received only a small retirement income from the federal government, and soon found himself in straitened economic circumstances. Bartlett was aware of the ex-governor’s financial plight, and arranged for Gruening’s employment by the Alaska Statehood Committee as researcher and writer. The committee allocated , for the project, a sum that was to include stenographic services as well. After deducting services, Gruening was to receive a day until the money was gone. The exgovernor still was, and would remain, a Figure . The Gruenings’ Christmas card very controversial figure in Alaska polifrom . No number. tics, and the delegate knew that giving him a job might elicit criticism. He noted, “No publicity will be given Gruening’s employment in the hope that there won’t be any public comment prior to the adjournment of the legislature.” Thereafter, “Neil Moore [auditor of Alaska and a bitter enemy of both men] may choose to make a cause célèbre of it, but by then he will have little but the Empire [ Juneau’s paper] as a sounding board.” In any event, Bartlett concluded, there would not “be much room for contention that the treasury has been ruined by this operation,” and he was prepared to “defend the arrangement without a single blush.” Late in , tragedy befell the ex-governor and his wife. Word reached them that their son Peter, general manager of United Press in Australia and New Zealand, was missing in Australia. Gruening called his son Hunt, an airline captain in Juneau, who at once flew to Australia. When he got there, authorities told him that Peter’s body had been found in his car on a little-traveled road some miles from Sydney. He had
The Battle Continues
taped a tube to the car’s exhaust and taken his life, apparently despondent over the dissolution of his second marriage (Figure ). The Gruenings were in anguish, deepened by the incredibility of it all. Peter’s marriage clearly had been a mistake, but his many Australian friends had assured them in the months preceding the tragedy that he had recovered from the experience. Always a hard worker, Gruening became even more deeply involved in his many projects, in part to forget his sorrows. Earlier he had aspired to become Alaska’s Democratic National committeeman after Figure . Peter and Nancy Gruening many friends had approached him and returning from vacation, fall . Their urged that he become a candidate. Bartlett marriage dissolved within a matter of opposed this for a number of reasons, weeks. Acc. no. --. among them that the ex-governor was such a controversial figure and that he had stated his intention to operate from Washington, D.C., where he owned a house. This would open him to criticism that he was an outsider. Above all, Bartlett was afraid that Gruening would antagonize the various factions within the party, rather than pull them together. Gruening was terribly hurt and offended when he discovered Bartlett’s opposition and the fact that the delegate supported Alex Miller of Fairbanks for the position. On December , , Gruening sent a short communication to his supporters, telling them that in order to win the office he would have to enter a contest to be decided by the rank and file of the Democratic Party in the primary elections, in April . Wanting to avoid intra-party conflict and desiring that the Democratic Party conserve its energies and efforts for the general election in October, he released those delegates who had supported him. Success at the polls in October was of the utmost importance in order to “bring back the days of progress and prosperity that marked twenty years of Democratic administration, and to end the four years of retrogression in Alaska that have characterized Republican rule. For that worthy objective,” he continued “we should preserve all our belligerency.” Miller won the post, and Gruening suspended all communication with Bartlett. Early in January , the delegate felt as low in spirits as he could ever recall: “I am distressed. No word has come to me from Ernest whatsoever during all the time he has been in Alaska. This is one of those times when I could crawl underneath a dachshund without his knowing it.” In the meantime, the territorial legislature, after much deliberation, passed a constitutional convention bill, together with an appropriation of , for its expenses. Alaskans elected fifty-five delegates, and Robert B. Atwood of the Alaska
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Statehood Committee hired the Public Administration Service of Chicago, a nonprofit organization associated with the Council of State Governments, to conduct the necessary background studies and aid the delegates. The legislature limited the work of the delegates to seventy-five days and designated the University of Alaska near Fairbanks as the meeting place. The delegates opened their deliberations on November , , in the new student union building on the campus, which the administration renamed Constitution Hall. The next day, Gruening addressed the delegates in a fiery speech titled “Let Us End American Colonialism!” When he returned to Washington in mid-January , he did not pay his customary visit to Bartlett’s office. Instead, the delegate found that Gruening had asked Congressman James Roosevelt to insert his colonialism speech in the Congressional Record. Bartlett was afraid “that a friendship, no less, which has been so long in existence, may be on the point of dissolution. Out of all the tribulations of all the years in politics and in government,” he wrote, “none has come close to making my heart so heavy.” A few days later, Bartlett moved to reconcile with his friend. He called Gruening, and after an exchange of the usual pleasantries, the exgovernor informed Bartlett coolly that he was “as well as he could be considering the fact that he had lost his boy and his best friend in Alaska [who had] stabbed him in the back.” The two met that afternoon in Gruening’s house and had a long talk, at the end of which the two, if not completely reconciled, had at least established the framework for making such a step possible. The year proved to be an important one for Gruening, leading to his reentry into Alaska’s political life. George H. Lehleitner, a lifelong resident of New Orleans and the owner of a successful floor-covering business, had become interested in the question of statehood for Hawaii and Alaska. In , he had read a paper by Dr. Daniel Tuttle Jr. of the University of Hawaii, on the Tennessee Plan, named after the procedure Tennessee had used to become the first territory to gain admission as a state. When initially denied statehood, Tennessee elected its congressional delegation anyway and sent these men to Washington without waiting for an enabling act. There, the Tennessee delegation made a strong plea for admission and, finally, on June , , Tennessee became the sixteenth state of the union. Since then, six other territories had elected senators and representatives before formal admission. In each case, statehood was hastened from a few months to several years. Lehleitner sold the delegates to the Alaska constitutional convention on the scheme. They adopted it by unanimous vote in the form of an ordinance attached to the proposed state constitution to be voted on separately by Alaskans at the same election in which they would vote on ratification of the constitution. In April , Alaska voters approved the Alaska-Tennessee Plan by a vote of , to ,. Gruening became a candidate for one of the two Alaska-Tennessee Plan U.S. senatorial positions.
16
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I
n may 1956, robert b. atwood, of the Anchorage Daily Times, wrote to Gruening, wondering what would happen now that voters had approved the Alaska-Tennessee Plan. He thought that Alaska’s statehood prospects seemed “rather bleak no matter which party wins the presidency, which party controls Congress or what the combination of the two may be.” Gruening was more optimistic and thought the appointment of Fred Seaton as the new secretary of the interior “may be a break” for Alaska. In , upon his appointment to the U.S. Senate to fill the term left vacant by the death of Senator Kenneth Wherry (R-Neb.), Seaton had delivered his maiden speech in support of Alaska statehood. Gruening, who had persuaded Seaton to support the territory’s cause, had written that speech for him. He told Bartlett that although they both had “learned to [their] sorrow that men’s declarations do not necessarily mean consistent action,” he wanted to believe that Seaton was “no dishrag” like Douglas McKay, former governor of Oregon and now the secretary of the interior, and that he would “do what he [could] to persuade Ike of the desirability of giving Alaska statehood a green light.” By early , the Gruenings had bought a home at West Beach Drive in Washington; Gruening’s frequent travels to the capital on business made this a good business move. Perhaps Gruening may also have thought about his political future. In June, Bartlett told his friend J. Earl Cooper, the chairman of the Third Division Democratic Committee in Anchorage, that “at the risk of being presumptuous,” he wanted to “express a personal belief ” that the Democrats should nominate Ernest Gruening as a candidate for one of the Alaska-Tennessee Plan U.S. Senate seats. Bartlett explained that Gruening was “entitled to such nomination and subsequent support in the campaign because of his devotion to statehood,” his long advocacy of the cause, his intelligence, and his familiarity with the capital’s political scene. In the early summer of , the Democrats and Republicans nominated their candidates for the Alaska-Tennessee Plan positions. The former selected Gruening for one of the U.S. Senate seats. He was to run against Republican John Butrovich, an insurance agent and territorial senator from Fairbanks. Gruening told Bartlett that many of his supporters had assured him that the race would be a “pushover,” but he did not share that view, for “Johnny Butrovich is a popular guy with an attractive
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personality” and had long been before the territorial public, winning elections for eleven years. Additionally, it had occurred to Gruening that the canned salmon industry was “raising a large fund to beat” him, and he knew what influence money wielded in an election and he unfortunately did not have it. He intended to campaign hard and “to the limit of [his] capacity.” In July, Gruening wrote Bartlett that he needed “a little advice— from a veteran, a surviving veteran, of many campaigns—to a novice.” He and his wife had planned to attend the Democratic National Figure . Gruening at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago (Figure ) Convention, Chicago, August , . Left to right: in August, and then visit various Hugh Wade, Bob Sachis, Katherine Nordale, Jim von der Heydt, Bill Egan, Alex Miller, Gruening, and friends in New England and end George McNabb. No number. up at his home in Washington on September , the day the lease of his summer tenants expired. That plan now was dead, since he felt it necessary to go back to Alaska and campaign. What he wanted to know was whether he should be back before September . In the meantime, he had cards and posters printed that he intended to distribute in Alaska before leaving for the convention. Bartlett told his friend that he had an “ample supply” of opinions but little advice. Historically, candidates had ended their campaigns in the First Judicial Division, in southeastern Alaska, but he thought that candidates “ought to dwell longest where the most votes are” and that made Anchorage, the headquarters of the Third Judicial Division and Alaska’s most populous city, the place to wind up the vote gathering. Alaska-Tennessee Plan candidates, he thought, “should strike out on the campaign trail on their own” in order to avoid taking stands “on ever so many local matters having no remote connection with the proper subject matter of the Tennessee Plan endeavor.” Bartlett was convinced that a September start would give Gruening ample time to campaign. He would “want to reach as many of the small communities as possible as a gesture of good will and to shake as many hands as possible,” but radio and television had to deliver his main pitch. “There is such a thing as overdoing it,” Bartlett stated, and that simply turned voters’ attention off. Gruening was worried that he would not get many votes in the Fourth Judicial Division, headquartered in Fairbanks and embracing the vast interior region of the
Lobbying for Statehood
territory. Territorial senator John Butrovich, he thought, would carry Fairbanks, but Gruening wanted to garner votes in the outlying villages and settlements. He asked Bartlett to write to individuals he knew in scores of communities in the interior asking them to support Gruening. Bartlett was glad to oblige, and contacted many friends in the Interior’s outlying communities, praising Gruening’s outstanding record as governor of Alaska, his national reputation, and the fact that he had remained in the North at the end of his gubernatorial term—important to Alaskans who heartily disliked would-be leaders whom they could call “outsiders” or “carpetbaggers.” Alaskans certainly could not elect anyone better qualified to advance the cause of Alaska statehood. Bartlett closed by stating that he tremendously admired and respected Gruening for his abilities and as a friend, and urged his supporters to aid Gruening in the coming campaign. In the October , , general elections, the voters chose Gruening over his rival Butrovich by , to ,, and elected two other Democrats to the AlaskaTennessee Plan delegation. William A. Egan was elected to the U.S. Senate seat, and Ralph Rivers, who had served as territorial attorney general, territorial senator, mayor of Fairbanks, and as second vice president of the Constitutional Convention, to the U.S. House seat. Before the meeting of the Democratic convention, Bartlett, Robert B. Atwood, George Lehleitner, and Ernest Bartley, a professor of political science at the University of Florida and a member of that state’s constitution advisory commission, met to plan the execution of the Alaska-Tennessee Plan. The Alaska Statehood Committee had engaged the services of the nonprofit Public Administration Service of Chicago (PAS) to help the efforts of the constitutional convention through various studies. The PAS had hired Bartley as a consultant to the Alaska constitutional convention. One of the two elements of the Alaska-Tennessee Plan consisted of lobbying. Gruening, Egan, and Rivers would visit every member of Congress and try to win support for the statehood bill. Part of this work involved tabulating the voting records of members of Congress on statehood and related issues. Bartley donated his time to the project and the Alaska Statehood Committee agreed to reimburse him for his expenses up to ,. Bartley decided that those who had voted consistently against it would not be investigated further. But for those who had been erratic, seemed to be wavering, or were recently elected, Bartley decided it was worthwhile to search into their personal background, determine the social and economic characteristics of their districts, their views, activities, and associations, and pinpoint the individuals in their districts as well as other members of Congress influential with them. The second element of the Alaska-Tennessee Plan was a public relations campaign. Bartley wrote that successful battles in Congress were not fought “simply because right and justice were on your side.” The novelty of the Alaska-Tennessee Plan would soon wear off and therefore the issue had to be kept before the public eye, even if stories about it would have to be manufactured. It was necessary to
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engage a media-savvy individual to get the Alaska-Tennessee Plan delegation on national television, have the national press corps interview them, and place articles that Gruening and others wrote in national magazines, among other steps. It was necessary to begin such a campaign no later than July , because many national television shows and magazines had lead times as long as six months. The Alaska Statehood Committee could probably pay such a media expert , per month, only a fraction of the fee such an individual usually received. Therefore, such an individual had to be attracted to the cause and also the opportunity to perform an important public service. George Lehleitner began the search for such an individual, and eventually hired John Adams, who had broad experience in newspaper and electronic media on the national level. Lehleitner hired him on September , on his own, without any commitment from the Alaska Statehood Committee for reimbursement. Eventually, the committee paid Adams and he was to reimburse Lehleitner. Once the election was over, senator-elect Gruening flew to Washington while the two other members of the delegation, Ralph Rivers and William A. Egan, drove their cars over the Alaska Highway in the December dark of winter and through the capitals of the states that had used the Tennessee Plan. After a difficult journey, they arrived in Nashville, Tennessee, where Gruening joined them. The three men and their wives enjoyed an official reception at the capitol, and the governor honored them at a dinner at his mansion. The delegation arrived in Washington on December . Delegate Bartlett received and greeted them, and afterward they spent nearly an hour before television, newsreel, and press cameras and then answered questions from reporters. On January , , Senator Spessard L. Holland (D-Fla.) introduced Alaska’s delegation and read the memorial from the constitutional convention asking to seat the men. Nevertheless, despite a grand introduction, Congress did not officially seat or recognize the Alaska-Tennessee Plan delegation. This refusal did not deter them from pursuing their task as lobbyists. Gruening had intermittently kept a diary over the years, and he resumed the practice on June , . This record gives a good picture of his energetic efforts on behalf of Alaska statehood. Not only did he lobby the Senate membership, but, together with Ralph Rivers, he endeavored to contact as many members of the House of Representatives as possible. On June , for example, the two men called on Representative Carrol D. Kearn (R-Pa.), who told them “he was not only for statehood but would do what he could to help us.” Representative John Bell Williams (D-Miss.), probably “the most states’ rightist and Dixiecrattist of Congressmen,” and his colleague, William Arthur Winstead (D-Miss.), talked amiably with the two Alaskans for nearly an hour, but stated that they could not vote for statehood. Williams objected based on Alaska’s noncontiguity, but both stated that “they wouldn’t fight us hard and felt a lot of sympathy for us.” As usual with Southerners, probably because of the prevailing racism at the time, Gruening observed, “they expressed a great preference for Alaska over Hawaii.” Overton Brooks (D-La.) was pleasant, but
Lobbying for Statehood
noncommittal. Gruening suspected that he would vote against Alaska. As it stood, four of Louisiana’s representatives would vote for statehood and the other four refused to commit themselves “but are probably against.” Gruening thought that if they could get “one of the four, [they would] be doing well.” James Curran Davis (D-Ga.), Gruening wrote, “told us pleasantly that he could never vote for statehood for either Alaska or Hawaii,” but after a while admitted that he was less opposed to Alaska than Hawaii. Howard H. Baker (R-Tenn.) promised to support the cause, while Carl Thomas Durham (D-N.C.) indicated that he was favorably inclined, but added that he never made commitments in advance, as did L. Mendel Rivers (D-S.C.). Gruening wrote that, normally, he “would count him as certainly opposed, but in view of [their] previous contacts” he thought there existed a - chance of winning him over. Wilbur D. Mills (D-Ark.), the second-ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, had been reported opposed to statehood. He said nothing to indicate this, “although the whip poll taken a fortnight ago so recorded him.” Gruening suspected that Mills was like many southerners, who, if convinced that admitting Alaska posed “a menace to the southern way of life,” would oppose Alaska statehood. But if a more tolerant spirit prevailed and the merit of the issue played a part, Gruening concluded, then “[they should] get substantially more southern votes then before.” Next, they visited Thomas Gerstel Abernethy (D-Miss.) who questioned why Alaska wanted to be admitted to statehood and said “he wished Mississippi could get out.” He advised the Alaskans to secede. Gruening worked hard at his job. On June , he gave a cocktail reception for Alaska’s governor, Mike Stepovich, who had replaced Gruening’s successor, B. Frank Heintzleman, who had never felt comfortable in the chief executive’s job and had resigned. Gruening invited four hundred people to his house and two hundred came, including nine senators, mostly with spouses, as well as twelve representatives. It was a time to lobby and get acquainted. Gruening reported that the invitation was for : p.m. to : p.m. but nobody left at the appointed closing time, an indication that everyone enjoyed the affair. On July , Gruening wrote that his private poll indicated that Democrats and Republicans had agreed to support the Alaska statehood measure. The remaining seventy-odd Democrats were southerners, “since with not more than half a dozen exceptions, the Northern Democrats [would] be solidly” for statehood. However, if the Eisenhower administration applied pressure, it could add another sixty or seventy Republicans to the yes vote and thereby “make a better Republican than Democratic showing.” If that happened, Gruening concluded, it could become a potent argument in the next electoral campaign in Alaska. The next day, he reported that he and his Alaska-Tennessee Plan colleagues had “now pretty well covered the House,” and that it was politically smart to wait until the House Rules Committee had scheduled the Alaska statehood measure and it was possible to tell House members that it would “hit the floor on such and such a date.”
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Gruening had planned to leave the capital on August , drive across the country to Seattle, and take a ship to Juneau. However, it appeared possible that Congress might remain in session until September because of an expected Senate filibuster against civil rights legislation. This made definite plans impossible, but he thought he should fly back to Alaska in September and remain until January, “covering the Territory as thoroughly as possible,” for if he had to run again for the Senate seat in , as seemed certain, he would “certainly need to mend . . . [his] fences in Alaska.” The Alaska Democratic Party was in shambles, Gruening observed, and it was clear to him that the appointment of Mike Stepovich as governor was designed to rebuild the Republican Party in the North, groom him as a candidate for elective office in , and in all probability oppose Gruening in the U.S. Senate race. Gruening knew that Stepovich would be a formidable candidate, having two years to prepare for the race, “going around the Territory making speeches and meeting people.” Gruening had been “pretty much out of Alaska during the last four years” and he felt it imperative, therefore, “that [he] make the rounds.” On July , Gruening found out that Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn (DTex.) had advised postponing House action on the Alaska statehood issue until the next session. Gruening acted as spokesperson when the Alaska-Tennessee Plan delegation went to Rayburn to protest. The speaker simply told the Alaskans that he knew the temper of the House as well as anyone, and said, “They are fighting mad, at each other, at the President, and at everyone.” They had dealt with much controversial legislation during the session, including the civil rights bill, which they had to reconsider when it returned from the Senate in an entirely different form; the school construction bill, which had just been defeated in a very close vote; and the foreign aid bill, to name but a few. He refused to bring up the statehood measure, but assured them, “[W]hile hitherto . . . opposed to statehood, I am now for it. I will support it in the next session and aim to have it brought up early.” The Alaskans were disappointed and wondered whether this amounted to yet another runaround. On July , , Gruening wrote that, “[Today] is our dear Peter’s birthday. He would have been today. The pain does not seem to diminish even nearly two years after his death. We still find it hard to believe that he will not re-appear although we know better.” Their son’s suicide had deeply affected the Gruenings and, in fact, Dorothy never accepted the reality of Peter’s death. George Sundborg wrote that she “became quite flaky” after her son’s death. A young Australian who had known Peter started to write to her, “reminiscing about his friend.” She took up her end of the correspondence avidly, “and soon they frequently exchanged letters.” The young Australian, it turned out, “was a most peculiar fellow.” Dorothy convinced herself “that he was really her dead son Peter. He did not deny it.” Dorothy showed his letters to others and “talked about him at dinner parties.” Gruening’s reaction always was “a kindly turnoff to other subjects.” By August , , Gruening had decided that since House action on the statehood bill had been suspended until , it was proper to resume work in the Sen-
Lobbying for Statehood
ate. He set about calling on those individuals not yet contacted, except the Southerners who were still deeply involved in the civil rights fight and who could not objectively consider the issue since they linked it with civil rights. He and his AlaskaTennessee Plan colleague Egan talked with Senator Charles Edward Potter (RMich.), who was sympathetic but doubted that the territory could afford statehood. The two convinced him that Alaska was capable of supporting the new political status, and he promised to support the measure. “We put him down as favorable,” Gruening wrote, “making my count of Senators now committed to statehood at of whom are Democrats and Republicans.” On August , Gruening and his colleague called on Senator Robert S. Kerr (DOkla.). He told the men that he could not vote for statehood for an area as big as Alaska, but upon questioning what size had to do with statehood, he did not make this clear beyond stating “that Texas had entered into an arrangement when it joined the U.S. by which it could be divided into five states.” Gruening asked him if he would vote for statehood if such an arrangement could be obtained for Alaska, to which Kerr merely replied “that in a couple of centuries we’d know so much more about the resources of Alaska that it would be possible to see how many states could be made out of it.” Gruening concluded, “We were not favorably impressed with Senator Kerr.” A couple of days later, Gruening wrote in his diary that journalist Robert Smith had wired a story to Alaska’s major newspapers that had upset the Alaska-Tennessee Plan delegation. In essence, it stated that the delegation believed that Congress would pass a statehood measure in , and that the three Democrats planned to leave the capital to return to Alaska in a few weeks and spend their time campaigning for office. Gruening denied this, acutely aware that Republican support was crucial for statehood to succeed. Smith’s article was certain to rile Republicans, and Gruening accused Smith of having jumped to unjustified conclusions after talking to Gruening and Egan. Neither of the two Alaska-Tennessee Plan senators “had the slightest intention of politicking,” Gruening wrote. “We have kept the whole statehood fight on a nonpartisan plane and intend to continue to do so until statehood is achieved.” Gruening concluded, “Whatever damage has been done is water over the dam.” In September , Egan relayed to Gruening that “Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton had extracted from Republican Mike Stepovich a promise to run for the U.S. Senate in case Congress granted statehood before agreeing to appoint Stepovich governor of Alaska.” Gruening wrote that Stepovich would “have had a most pleasant taste” of the governorship for two years, without any of “the antagonisms which a governor is bound to generate during a legislative session” since Seaton had been smart enough to hold Stepovich’s appointment till after the legislature adjourned. He enviously observed that Stepovich would have two years to travel the territory “dedicating schools, laying corner-stones, attending and being the principal speaker at conventions, shaking hands and getting acquainted generally.” Gruening surmised that, given these facts, Stepovich “[would] be a hard man to beat,” particularly since
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he himself had been out of touch with the majority of Alaskans since his retirement from the governorship, especially during these years in Washington. Added to this was that under statehood, eighteen-year-olds could vote and Stepovich’s youth “[would] strongly appeal to them.” In October, Gruening returned to Alaska. He landed in Ketchikan and worked his way north, visiting every major settlement, meeting officials as well as groups of citizens, and listening to complaints and suggestions. In Petersburg, the manager of the fur experiment station, part of the University of Alaska, complained that the Agricultural Experiment Station attempted to close down the operation to save ,. Gruening thought this to be a very stupid idea, for “the fur station [was] a unique project and should not be sacrificed merely to give somewhat more to agriculture” in the Anchorage area. On the evening of October , Gruening had dinner at the Episcopal church in Petersburg and talked to a crowd of about seventy people about the similarities between Alaska and Scandinavia, “an appropriate subject” in a town that Norwegians had founded. Gruening remained part of the next day in Petersburg and went to lunch at the Rotary Club, where he gave a talk discussing the personalities of the towns in southeastern Alaska and the changes he had seen in his years in the North. Next, he went to the Moose Lodge, where the annual convention had assembled. He gave them a statehood resolution he had drafted, listened to his potential rival Stepovich make the opening speech, and then was asked for, and gave, a short speech. The next stop was Sitka. His itinerary was as it would be in every town—breakfasts with supporters; lunches with newspaper people, Soroptimists, the Alaska Native Brotherhood, and union people; and dinners at various fraternal lodges. From Sitka he returned to Ketchikan for more meetings with the Alaska Loggers’ Association, speeches in local schools, and attendance at the Democratic precinct caucus at the American Legion Hall. From Ketchikan, he flew to Juneau and home. Gruening went out to his cabin and found it in good order, although the roof leaked in a couple of places, which did not surprise him after all these years. The next day, he and Bartlett flew to Haines for unofficial campaigning; the following day he visited Skagway, returning to Juneau the same day. From southeastern Alaska Gruening went on to Anchorage for talks, cocktail parties, and tours of the town. Anchorage had grown greatly since his last visit, and Gruening was much impressed by its progress. He observed that the city was “full of outsiders,” and that it really was “the dynamo of Alaska.” The air force gave him a tour of Elmendorf Air Force Base, where he saw the new F jets, equipped “only with rockets; no guns, not even machine guns anymore!” Pilots were dressed “in real space suits, protecting them against heat, cold, thin atmosphere . . . in true Buck Rogers fashion.” Truly, he wrote, the space age “is upon us, what with the Russians’ launching of Sputnik and Muttnick!” As in southeastern Alaska, Gruening met a wide variety of citizens, addressed many groups, and attended a number of official conferences. Everywhere he went,
Lobbying for Statehood
he endeavored to meet as many people as possible and raise his public profile. November was a typically busy day. Gruening attended the Governor’s Housing Conference and listened to speeches by Governor Stepovich and other officials. He wrote in his diary, “All govt. officials primed to blow smoke at Mike [Stepovich] but carefully omit credit for any of Bob Bartlett’s achievements.” He also talked with Phil O’Rourke of Phillips Petroleum, who feared that Secretary of the Interior Seaton might prohibit oil exploration and drilling in the Kenai National Moose Range. Gruening observed that the secretary was “under great pressure with the theoretical and fanatical conservationists and their powerful lobby exercised through such groups as the National Wildlife Federation, the Institute of Wildlife Management, the Wilderness Society, the Izaak Walton League, the Sierra Club,” and others. Although these groups might not know the particulars about any one situation, they could be “mobilized instantly to shower protests on whoever is supposed to need them.” Gruening vowed to do what he could to prevent Alaska being “robbed by stupid bureaucracy and false conservationism of its great oil resource [as it had been] in the first decade and a half of the century of the right to mine coal—a blow which set Alaska back incalculably.” Gruening alluded to President Theodore Roosevelt’s withdrawal of Alaskan coal lands on November , , from location and entry. In , Congress passed legislation that provided coal lands on the public domain and in the forest reservations in Alaska to be leased in tracts not to exceed , acres. By December , Gruening was back in Washington, D.C., preparing testimony favoring oil and gas leasing on the Kenai National Moose Range. He presented his testimony on December at the Department of the Interior, at length “and as a conservationist,” and numerous individuals in attendance told him later that he had been very effective. In the end, the secretary permitted exploration and development under stringent environmental restrictions on the Kenai National Moose Range. A couple of days later, Gruening went to the National Archives to research the events leading to the establishment of the Kenai National Moose Range. He discovered much opposition to the executive order of December , , that had established the range exclusively for moose. Numerous Alaskans had argued that the land, suitable for agriculture, should be kept open for settlement. Gruening’s first impulse was to “extend and revise” his remarks into the record of the December hearings in order to make this material publicly available, “thereby intensifying [his] effort to start thinking along the lines of abolishing the Kenai National Moose Range.” However, he realized that doing so would infringe upon the delegate’s function. Gruening found much other interesting material, including correspondence he had originated, and he promised himself, “One of these days I shall accumulate more evidence that I have always been a conservationist, although not a fanatical one.” The next day Gruening met Bob Patton, who represented Shell and worked for the oil companies with interest in the western United States, at the Cosmos Club. He wanted to solicit Patton’s advice on how to enlist the aid of Oklahoma and Texas oilmen in helping overcome the opposition of the congressional delegations of these
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states to Alaska statehood. Patton remarked that, in his opinion, a much more favorable climate for oil and gas exploration and development would exist under statehood than under territorial government. During the remaining days of , Gruening busily contacted staff members of uncommitted senators and representatives and asked them for help on statehood. In Gruening’s mind, scheduling the measure early enough for consideration was crucial for success, and Lyndon B. Johnson, the Senate majority leader, held the key. A majority of members of both houses favored Alaska statehood, Gruening wrote, “according to their statements to us, but Lyndon could achieve or kill” it. He could do so by postponing; by finding that other matters were more crucial, such “as the collapse of our international prestige, our flop in defense;” or by arguing that it would be too late in the session and “it would be easy to say ‘we can’t bring it up now.’” Gruening had feared all along that he would do just that, for Johnson had “never shown the slightest favor for the statehood cause.” On December , Gruening lunched with Oscar Chapman, who offered to help the statehood cause through his oil industry contacts. He told Gruening that the latter’s Kenai National Moose Range testimony had created a favorable impression in the industry. Chapman hoped to follow up and win over senators Robert Kerr and Lyndon B. Johnson. He also promised to enlist the aid of Washington lawyer Clark Clifford, who represented the Kerr oil interests. Gruening hoped that Chapman would pursue this, and if he did and was successful, he wrote, “it will cinch statehood, which continues to be doubtful as long as Lyndon remains lukewarm or hostile.” In January , the Alaska-Tennessee Plan delegation once again assembled in the capital and resumed its lobbying activities, but failed to persuade the Senate to take up the Alaska statehood bill. However, on May , Wayne Aspinall moved that the House resolve itself into the Committee of the Whole House to consider H.R. , the Alaska statehood bill. Various members objected, but Speaker Sam Rayburn overruled all of the objections, and then the House voted to to consider the measure. Gruening was gratified that of the aye votes, were Democrats and Republicans. The Republican leadership voted negatively, as did the South with few exceptions. Most of the Massachusetts delegation voted against, but, outside of that state, only three northern Democrats opposed Aspinall’s motion. Gruening observed, “The first skirmish . . . was won.” For the next several days, the House debated the Alaska bill. On May , Gruening noted that this was Der Tag, German for “the important day.” After several amendments had been disposed of, there were a couple of motions to recommit, but they failed, and the measure passed to . Of the ayes, were Democrats and Republicans. With great satisfaction Gruening wrote, “The work of a year and a half and the intensive effort paid off.” That night, Gruening and numerous friends celebrated the victory with a party where “everyone was very happy.” After the House victory, the Alaska-Tennessee Plan delegation once again turned its attention to the Senate, and on June , acting majority leader Mike Mansfield
Lobbying for Statehood
asked his colleagues to take up the statehood bill. For the next seven days, senators discussed the pros and cons of the measure. A number of Alaska Republicans— including Robert B. Atwood, John Butrovich, and Mike Stepovich, among others— flew to the capital to, in Gruening’s words, “‘help’ put over statehood.” The Department of the Interior called and asked for the loan of the Alaska-Tennessee Plan delegation’s forty-nine-star flag so that Secretary Seaton and Governor Stepovich could be photographed for Life magazine. Time photographers had previously borrowed the flag for the same purpose and the picture appeared in the issue that featured Stepovich on the cover. Gruening observed that Life photographers were “busily photographing these Republican arrivals” and he suspected the issue would be clearly “slanted to indicate that this is a Republican achievement.” He was certain that there would be no mention of the Alaska-Tennessee Plan delegates. By the second day of the debate, Gruening had become convinced that “barring the very unexpected the bill will pass.” On June , Gruening felt “victory was in the air.” He listened to the debates throughout the day and in the evening went to a cocktail party with George Lehleitner. “There is the man,” Gruening commented, “who above all others is entitled to every honor Alaskans can bestow. He is the intellectual author of our use of the Tennessee plan.” On June , the opponents argued that section of the statehood bill, giving the president the right to withdraw the northern half of Alaska either in whole or in part if required for military purposes, was unconstitutional. Gruening wrote that all had known that the proposal “was phony and put in as a face saving device for the President,” who had insisted on it. Actually, the provision was useless because the president already had the power to make defense withdrawals. The southerners opposed to statehood argued that the section was vital to national security but that the courts surely would invalidate it, leaving the nation defenseless. They moved to recommit the measure to the Armed Services Committee for clarification. That, Gruening stated, “obviously would have killed the bill.” As voting on the motion took place, it became clear that the opposition had made a dent into statehood support—but not enough, for the senators defeated it fifty-five to thirty-one. Gruening wrote that this “was the high tide of the Confederacy. That was Gettysburg!” The vote had shown who really supported or opposed the bill, and “thereafter it would be a band wagon vote.” Then, in the evening of this historic day, “the zero hour was on hand. We knew we had won,” a jubilant Gruening wrote. The final vote on the measure was sixtyfour to twenty, with thirty-three Republicans and thirty-one Democrats voting affirmatively (Figures and ). “It seemed too good to be true,” wrote Gruening. “At long last. The galleries burst into prolonged applause,” which Senator Richard Neuberger, the presiding officer, did not stop. After the vote, the Alaskans present went to the House chapel for a Thanksgiving service. “Thus ended a year colonialism against which I had battled intensively for years—ever since the referendum,” Gruening concluded his diary entry.
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Figure . Backers of Alaska statehood congratulate each other on the House passage of a statehood bill, May , . Left to right: Representative Wayne Aspinall; Governor Mike Stepovich of Alaska; Representative Leo O’Brien; E. L. Bartlett; John Saylor; and Gruening. Acc. no. --.
Celebrations followed and congratulatory telegrams poured in, but Gruening was miffed at the ever-increasing partisanship in the publicity surrounding the statehood victory. The recent Newsweek issue, he wrote, had a lead article titled “Alaska, the Real Story,” which had Secretary Seaton “quietly ‘masterminding’ the House victory.” Commented Gruening: “Imagine Seaton masterminding Sam Rayburn!” Soon, wrangling over who had done the most to bring about statehood destroyed the last vestiges of the bipartisan effort. Shortly after the measure had passed the House, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner under its Republican editor and publisher Bill Snedden published two editorials, which Snedden had probably authored, praising everyone connected with the victory, from President Eisenhower to novelist Edna Ferber, whose recent novel Ice Palace had helped publicize the territory. They excluded the Alaska-Tennessee Plan delegation, however, and this neglect left the former governor “so agitated and so concerned and so childishly hurt,” Bartlett commented, “that I continue to feel very sorry for him despite a few invisible (I hope) bobbings of my Adam’s apple as I sat across from him at the coffee table and heard him declare himself as Mr. Statehood.” After Senate passage, columnist Drew Pearson came to Gruening’s aid, writing: “A lot of Johnny-come-latelies such as Gov. Mike Stepovich are now claiming credit for making Alaska the th state . . . but the man who unobtrusively, but consistently, badgered senators, buttonholed congressmen, maneuvered in the smoke-filled
Lobbying for Statehood
Figure . Members of Congress who led the fight to make Alaska the forty-ninth state join Alaska’s governor and congressmen-elect in celebrating the passage of the statehood bill in the Senate. Shown with a forty-nine-star flag, one of several hundred designs submitted for adoption, are (left to right, front row) Senator Warren Magnuson, Gruening, Senator Frank Church, Senator Thomas Kuchel, Governor Mike Stepovich, Senator Harry M. Jackson, and Representative-elect Ralph Rivers. Acc. no. --.
rooms to bring statehood to Alaska is . . . Ernest Gruening. He more than anyone else is the father of the th state.” Gruening immodestly noted that this was true, “but it is about the first public recognition of that fact.” President Eisenhower signed the statehood into law on July , (Figures and ). On July , Governor Stepovich announced that candidates for political office had until July to file. The primary election was to be held at the end of August. Forty-one days elapsed between the governor’s proclamation and the primary elections. There was no Democratic primary contest for the U.S. Senate, because Democrats Bartlett and Gruening ran unopposed. The Gruening-Stepovich contest dominated the thirteen-week campaign. In his autobiography, Gruening wrote that he had “an underdog complex” because Stepovich had received , more votes in the primary than he. Gruening knew he would have to work extremely hard to win, and he launched a well-organized campaign. Stepovich, however, was no match for Gruening, either in experience in public life or intellectual abilities. He knew it, and so stressed his Alaska birth, youth, and family. Gruening challenged Stepovich to a debate, but he declined. The Anchorage Daily News supported his decision, and in a lead editorial questioned why Stepovich should waste his time debating a man who was “perhaps the best-qualified public speaker in Alaska. Would the Golden Gloves champion accept a match with the world heavy weight?” The Gruening campaign used the editorial to ask: “Would it
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Figure . Admission Day. President Eisenhower signing the statehood proclamation on January , . Vice-president Nixon and House Speaker Sam Rayburn flank the president in the White House Cabinet Room. Standing, left to right: Congressman Ralph J. Rivers; Senator Gruening; Senator E. L. Bartlett; Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton; Waino Hendrickson, acting governor of Alaska; David Kendall; Mike Stepovich, former governor of Alaska; and Robert B. Atwood, editor and publisher of the Anchorage Daily Times and chairman of the Alaska Statehood Committee. Acc. no. --.
be bad for Alaska to have that kind of man speaking up for the new state in the United States Senate?” Although the Republican campaign attempted to portray Stepovich as an early and enthusiastic supporter of statehood, his legislative record in the territorial House and Senate showed that he avoided supporting it on every possible occasion. For example, in the session, seven Democratic members of the House had sponsored a memorial requesting immediate statehood. Referred to as the Special Committee on Statehood, of which Stepovich was chairman, it never emerged. In the same session, Stepovich sponsored a memorial for an elective governor designed to kill off pro-statehood action. Again, in the same session, he had voted to table a Republican bill to appropriate , for the work of the Alaska Statehood Committee. His record in the and sessions on the statehood issue was similar. The Democratic Third Divisional Committee had researched Stepovich’s record and published it in a flyer titled “When and Why Mike Stepovich Shifted to Statehood.” These facts made Secretary Seaton’s efforts to identify his candidate with the statehood cause unsuccessful. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner endorsed the Republican and carried his speeches from around Alaska, but snubbed Gruening’s campaign in its news
Lobbying for Statehood
Figure . The new forty-nine-star flag unfurled in the White House immediately after the proclamation-signing ceremony. Left to right: Congressman Ralph J. Rivers, Robert B. Atwood (holding flag), Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton, Gruening, E. L. Bartlett, Mike Stepovich, and Waino Hendrickson. Acc. no. --.
columns. In its editorials it blasted the Democrat, charging that he was “in danger of self-inflation if he makes the mistake of reading the publicity about him.” It accused Gruening of often challenging opponents to debates but never taking part in an actual contest, and attacked his claim of Alaska residency, calling him “nothing more than a carpet-bagger from Washington” and labeling his home at Eagle River Landing north of Juneau as nothing but a summer cabin. The paper even criticized a grade-school newspaper for endorsing Gruening, stating that partisan politics had no place in the schools. The paper declared, “In totalitarian countries the schools are used almost as educational prisons where captive audiences composed of youngsters are brain washed.” At stake was a major principle, the paper maintained, closely tied to American freedoms. In short, the paper’s coverage of the election campaign was anything but objective. Vice president Richard M. Nixon, Secretary Seaton, and senators John F. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Frank Church (D-Idaho) all campaigned for their parties’ candidates in Alaska. Nixon appeared in Juneau, Anchorage, and Fairbanks, where he stated that Stepovich’s “friendships combined with his vigorous, young approach to problems” would make him a most effective member of the U.S. Senate. Kennedy stumped for Gruening and Bartlett and reiterated that Washington knew and respected both men.
Figure . President-elect John F. Kennedy at the door of his Georgetown home with Alaska’s senators, E. L. Bartlett (center) and Gruening (right), December , . Acc. no. --.
Figure . Signatures of the members of Alaska’s first state house and senate and Alaska’s congressional delegation, .
Lobbying for Statehood
The Fairbanks paper continued its negative reporting about Gruening, accusing him and his allies of mudslinging: “Little -year-old Ernest Gruening of all people has recklessly led his band of mud slingers into battle, perhaps without realizing that if his opponents were interested in the same tactics, the poor little fellow would undoubtedly be hopelessly buried in mud up to his eyebrows.” On election eve, it called him “stormy” and “abrasive,” and accurately observed that “the spry old gentleman [was] not troubled by undue modesty.” Gruening beat Stepovich by , votes, which led the FairFigure . Former President Truman congratulates banks paper to concede that he Gruening, the new senator from Alaska, at the “campaigned tirelessly, with the Capitol, January , . Acc. no. --. energy and enthusiasm of a man half his years.” The Democrats swept the governorship as well as the two U.S. Senate and one House seats, and won overwhelming majorities in both houses of the state legislature. One observer remarked, “We might as well face it—Alaska has just joined the solid south.” The statehood proclamation signed by President Eisenhower specified that Alaska’s congressional delegation be treated equally with those of the existing states; namely they began their terms at the same moment as those from the other states did. Gruening and his colleague Bartlett, whom Alaskans had also elected to the U.S. Senate, took the oath of office on January , . Their terms were staggered to assure they would not leave office the same year. Each man drew a slip of paper from a box to determine the length of his term. The box held slips for two-, four-, and sixyear terms. Bartlett drew the two-year and Gruening the four-year term, while the six-year term remained in the box. Gruening had realized his dreams of many years to gain a seat in the U.S. Senate (Figures –). The septuagenarian had put boundless energy and determination into his campaign, advertising his own great abilities and accomplishments and highlighting his opponent’s conservative voting record. He was ready to tackle the challenges facing a United States senator.
Figure . Freshmen senators of the Eighty-sixth Congress at a barbecue at the home of Senator Frank Moss, August , : E. L. Bartlett (second from left), Mrs. Lyndon Johnson (standing, center), Senator Johnson (holding hat), and Gruening (standing, far right). Acc. no. --.
Figure . Left to right: Senators Alan Bible, Oren E. Long of Hawaii, and Gruening, August . Acc. no. --.
17
A U.S. Senator at Last
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rnest gruening came to the senate when that body was in the throes of a fundamental transition. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the popular Republican, was midway through his second term as president but constitutionally barred from seeking a third term. In , twenty-one Republican and thirteen Democratic seats were up for election. Traditionally, midterm elections favored the party out of power. Despite Eisenhower’s tremendous popularity, his party had lost control of both the Senate and House in , and had been unable to regain control in . By , President Eisenhower had dealt with a Democratic Congress for four years. The margin of difference in the Senate had been slim, with forty-nine Democrats and forty-seven Republicans. However, a coalition of conservative senators from both parties often supported the president’s program and blocked measures he opposed. Both Senate Democratic leader Lyndon B. Johnson and House Speaker Sam Rayburn had cautiously accommodated the president, making for relative political stability. The elections changed all this. The Republicans gave the Democrats several issues on which they campaigned successfully. These included a severe economic recession that year; national anxiety over the Soviet Union’s spectacular launch of the first earth satellite, Sputnik; the White House scandal that forced the resignation of presidential assistant Sherman Adams, who was accused of accepting favors from those doing business with the government; the Republican failure to amend the TaftHartley Act as the party’s platform had promised; and doubts about the administration’s civil rights program. The Republicans lost thirteen Senate seats in the elections and three of the four new Senate seats from Alaska and Hawaii. The Senate ratio increased from fortynine Democrats and forty-seven Republicans to sixty-four Democrats and thirty-four Republicans. Every Democratic senator who ran for reelection won. The election had increased the ranks of northern and western over southern Democrats and had given Democrats their most liberal complexion in years. The most senior Democrats were mostly southerners and mostly conservative, but a few were independent and progressive. No longer, as in the early and mid-s, did power barons such as Robert Kerr (D-Okla.) and Richard Russell (D-Ga.) dominate the Senate. To be successful,
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members had had to conform to the established Senate culture, which meant deferring to senior senators; concentrating on the issues with which a member’s committee dealt; and doing the necessary legislative work out of the public eye. Majority leader Johnson skillfully orchestrated the work of the Senate, but he left the leadership position and became vice president when John F. Kennedy went to the White House in . His successor, Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.), ran a very relaxed institution, which modern transportation and the media made more accessible to the average voters. In addition, Senators became more individualistic, hired expert staff members, and vied for public exposure. Gruening had achieved a cherished goal with his election to the U.S. Senate. He was lucky that the established Senate culture had changed so that it was no longer necessary to defer to senior senators and struggle with cloakroom politics. Gruening would have had great difficulty fitting into the old Senate, but the new Senate suited him perfectly because it encouraged its members to appeal directly to national audiences on issues of particular interest to them. He also found that the Senate emphasized two activities that he had mastered—namely, bureaucratic battles and speech making. The Eighty-sixth Congress convened on January , . While official procedures existed for determining the length of Gruening’s and Bartlett’s first terms in the senate, there was no established procedure for determining who would be the senior and junior senator. Each man considered the matter vital and had been maneuvering for weeks trying to get the other to yield voluntarily. Gruening was the senior in terms of age, had held many important public offices, and had been territorial governor for more than thirteen years. On the other hand, Alaskans had elected Bartlett to Congress seven times and finally had elected him overwhelmingly to the U.S. Senate. Neither man understood why the other did not come forth and make the obviously correct offer to stand aside in the matter of address. Finally, they agreed to a coin toss in Gruening’s drab, temporary office in the Old Senate Office Building. The first toss would resolve who would draw lots first on the Senate floor to determine the length of their respective terms. A second toss would determine who would be the senior senator. Gruening tossed; Bartlett called heads. It came up tails, giving Gruening first draw on the Senate floor. The coin was flipped again, and this time Gruening called heads. The coin rolled on the floor, and everyone bent down to peer at it. Since it was tails up, Bartlett became the senior senator. To give photographers a chance at a good picture, Associated Press correspondent Frank Vaille and the two senators repeated the ceremony several times, getting down on their knees and examining the coin. The posed photograph looked “like a three-cornered crap game,” observed one of the reporters. On the Senate floor on January , Gruening drew a four-year term, while Bartlett received a two-year term. Gruening took to the senate as a fish takes to water. Committee assignments were important to his political future. He gained positions on the Public Works and Interior Committees, which dealt with Alaskan affairs. He also tried to obtain a seat on
A U.S. Senator at Last
Figure . Left to right: Mrs. Avrahan Harman, Ambassador Harman, and Senator and Mrs. Gruening on the thirteenth anniversary of the state of Israel, June , . Acc. no. --.
the Foreign Relations Committee, reminding majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson of his long familiarity with Latin American affairs and explaining that he could help repair relations with that part of the world, which had deteriorated during the Eisenhower administration. He also told Johnson that such an appointment would aid him politically, since Alaska was interested in mutually gainful relationships with Canada and in further developing commercial ties with Japan. What Gruening was actually interested in was a return to international affairs (Figure ). Johnson refused Gruening’s request despite the fact that it was his policy to name junior senators to prestigious committees. The majority leader reserved such appointments for senators he thought held political promise, such as Frank Church (D-Idaho); in Johnson’s eyes, Gruening did not fit the bill. In the end, Gruening gained a spot on the minor Government Operations Committee in addition to his two major committee assignments. Gruening then set about recruiting a staff. He hired Herb Beaser as his legislative assistant. Beaser, a Harvard Law school graduate, had gone to work in Washington, D.C., early in the New Deal and had developed extensive contacts among the federal bureaucracy. George Sundborg, the only staff member who addressed Gruening by his first name, became the senator’s administrative assistant and also remained Gruening’s closest personal confidant and political advisor. It was Sundborg who directed the work of most of the twelve-person staff, housed in the cramped corridor of the Old Senate Office Building. The staff handled casework and answered constituent correspondence. Sundborg, with his long newspaper experience, oversaw the production of the senator’s weekly newsletter, “From the
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Nation’s Capital,” which Gruening considered essential to communicate with his constituency. Antoinette (Toni) Freedman, who had served on the White House staff during the Truman era, became the staff counsel. It quickly became apparent that although Gruening welcomed suggestions from the staff, he insisted on retaining control over his Senate speeches. He frequently requested drafts for speeches or statements for his testimony to congressional committees, but staff quickly learned to submit clean copy because corrections in the text awakened Gruening’s editorial instincts, and often he would rewrite the entire speech. Before Gruening’s election to the Senate, the couple had bought a home in Washington at the tip of Rock Creek Park. They now settled into the house, and soon Ernest and Dorothy, as they had done in Mexico and Juneau, began to entertain actively, with at least one small dinner party each week with anywhere from six to a dozen guests. The drinks and food were always superb, and the conversation, which the host dominated, lively and of a high caliber. Gruening knew that his narrow victory gave him only a mandate to concentrate on Alaskan issues, of which there were many, but the temptation to involve himself in national and international issues proved irresistible. On his second day in the Senate, the membership went to the House to listen to President Eisenhower’s State of the Union message. Gruening and his fellow Democrats thought that Eisenhower’s call for economy and a balanced budget were unrealistic because of the recession, “the .-billion-dollar deficit for that fiscal year,” and the president’s call for a tax reduction, especially since Eisenhower also called for a billion defense program. The president talked largely about defense, mutual security, and foreign aid, which he asked to be increased substantially. At the same time, he warned that new programs and proposals would be examined critically. Gruening soon learned that this meant “no new starts.” As the Democrats studied the proposed appropriations for essential services for the American people—such as education, health, housing, airports, and highways—they found them totally inadequate. Gruening had a foreboding that the coming session would develop into a contest between the congressional majority to obtain funds for essential services on the domestic front “and the presidential veto or threat of veto to curtail Congressional efforts.” This is exactly what happened, and it was of particular interest to the Alaska delegation because it “keenly felt the need of catching up with the rest of America to compensate for the near century of flagrant neglect,” as Gruening had once characterized the period of American ownership of Alaska between and the present. Also in the first days of the session, there was a running battle to curb the filibuster by amending Senate Rule XXII. Liberal senators Paul Douglas and Clinton P. Anderson wanted an amendment to impose cloture by majority vote. Majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson’s compromise amendment provided cloture by two-thirds of “those present and voting.” Gruening, a longtime member of the NAACP who
A U.S. Senator at Last
considered Southern filibusters to block civil rights legislation intolerable, voted for the Johnson amendment. He rationalized that extended debate was necessary “to prevent hasty decisions in moments of national hysteria” and that a state like Alaska, with its small congressional delegation, needed “to protect itself against majority action detrimental to its interests.” In his first few days, Gruening also cosponsored measures for Hawaiian statehood, for improvements of the Federal Aid Airport Act, to stimulate the production and conservation of coal, and for federal school support. Gruening also addressed the Senate in support of an amendment by Pat McNamara (D-Mich.) to extend the time for receiving unemployment compensation. At the time, Alaska had a percent unemployment rate, higher than any other state’s. Gruening thought that a treaty with Japan, negotiated several years earlier, had aggravated the employment problem in Alaska. Federal negotiators had been ignorant of the pelagic habits of the Pacific salmon and had fixed “the meridian up to which high-seas salmon fishing was permitted too far east.” This had allowed the Japanese to catch large numbers of Alaska-spawned salmon, necessitating the closure of Alaska’s Bristol Bay area, the richest fishing grounds in the state. The amendment passed. Gruening championed increased federal assistance for Alaska, which prompted some of his fellow senators to dismiss him as parochial. Gruening believed, for example, that the administration’s plan to transfer the authority to make loans to Rural Electrification Administration (REA) cooperatives from the agency’s administrator to the Secretary of Agriculture and increasing the percent interest rate on these REA loans would wreck the program. This New Deal program had revolutionized American farm life, but privately owned utilities still bitterly opposed it twenty-five years after Congress had created it. As governor, he had fought hard to bring the REA program to Alaska, where several cooperatives had been formed. Gruening participated vigorously in the debate and helped override the president’s veto. Gruening also tried to obtain subsoil rights for homesteaders on the Kenai Peninsula. Shortly before the Swanson River oil discovery there, the United States Geological Survey had classified all lands on the Kenai Peninsula as prospectively valuable for oil and gas, where previously they had been classified agricultural-only. The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management had thereupon required the homesteaders to submit waivers for their subsoil rights within thirty days or forfeit the right to patent or ownership. Gruening introduced remedial legislation that included other areas where similar conditions existed. After overcoming bureaucratic delays, the House tacked on an amendment that limited its effect to the Kenai Peninsula. The president signed it and it became Public Law -, benefiting some two hundred homesteaders. Gruening considered the congressional enactment of an Alaska Omnibus Bill, “the session’s single most gratifying action from Alaska’s standpoint.” It was legislation required to adjust Alaska’s transition from territoriality to statehood. As early as July , the Bureau of the Budget had suggested to the president that a study was needed
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of the fiscal and administrative effects on federal legislation and activities of Alaska’s admission to the Union. Similar studies had led to measures that had become law after the admissions of Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona. Since federal-state relations had been much simpler at that time, the bills reflected that simplicity. In May , the Bureau of the Budget presented the results of its studies to the House and Senate Interior and Insular Affairs committees. Basically, the recommendations were designed to put Alaska on an equal footing with the other states. Among other things, the apportionment and matching formulas of various federal grant-in-aid programs had to be revised. Equality of treatment also required that the federal establishment cease developing policies for and conducting governmental functions in Alaska that were exercised by state and local governments elsewhere. The Alaska congressional delegation realized that equality would cost money, as did the Bureau of the Budget, which recommended assistance of . million in the form of transitional grants over a five-year period. The federal government had built nineteen airports in Alaska, including the two largest, the Anchorage and Fairbanks international airports. Maintaining and operating the nineteen airports was expected to cost ,, a year while earning ,,, producing a deficit of , a year. The two international airports were expected to earn most of the revenues, but were unable to accommodate jet traffic. Major improvements were needed, at a cost of about . million. By using . million of the transitional grants, the state was able to obtain . million in matching funds, enough for the needed construction, under the Federal Aid Airport Act. Road construction and maintenance loomed as large items in Alaska’s state budget. The Alaska Omnibus Bill turned over to Alaska the highways, rights-of-way, and whatever real estate and equipment it owned to build and maintain roads. Excluded were roads in Mount McKinley National Park and in the national forests, and equipment used for their construction and maintenance. The Omnibus Bill provided million for each of the fiscal years , , and . Equality with the other states required that Alaska match . percent of federal monies with . percent of state monies. In other words, if the state put up ,, a year for road building, it would receive ,, in federal matching funds. Included in the transitional grant of . million was about . million for mental health and general health care, which Alaska already managed. The Omnibus Bill also provided that the state could ask the president for continued federal operation of various functions until the state’s staffing needs had been met and the functions could be transferred to state operation. Transitional monies were to be used for such operations. The state also had the option of contracting with the federal government on a reimbursable basis to provide needed services. In addition, the measure gave the president until July , , to lend or transfer outright to the state federal property that had become surplus because of the termination or curtailment of federal activities in Alaska. The state was also to receive , in unspent fines and fees that
A U.S. Senator at Last
the federal territorial district courts had collected, funds that could be used to help establish the Alaska court system. The Omnibus Bill also eliminated inappropriate statutory references to the territory of Alaska and included the state within the “continental United States.” While Congress considered the measure, members added several amendments, among them one by Representative Ralph Rivers (D-Alaska), which increased the transitional funds from . million to . million. Senator Gruening credited the excellence of the act largely “to the solicitude of Harold Seidman of the Bureau of the Budget.” In April , Gruening and his colleague Senator Bartlett protested Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton’s withdrawal of , acres of public domain near Fairbanks as a missile testing range. He thereupon transferred the land under a license to the Defense Department. Seaton had violated the Engle Act, which forbade the withdrawal of any area in excess of five thousand acres for military purposes without the consent of Congress. The protest, however, was in vain and the withdrawal stood. Both Gruening and Bartlett opposed Secretary Seaton’s proposed legislation to withdraw nine million acres in the northeast corner of Alaska and create the Arctic National Wildlife Range (ANWR). The idea originated with George L. Collins and Lowell Sumner of the National Park Service, who surveyed Alaska’s arctic region and subsequently proposed it as a wildlife sanctuary in the early s. Both men committed themselves to realizing their dream. Sumner’s report of the survey suggested that the federal government withdraw “a sizeable chunk of the Arctic Slope and Brooks Range as an inviolable wildlife sanctuary.” The two recruited Dr. Olaus Murie for their plan. Murie, a nationally prominent conservationist and wildlife authority, had made a number of trips into the Brooks Range between and as an employee of the Bureau of Biological Survey to study the fauna of the area. Collins and Sumner also enlisted the help of other prominent conservationists and organizations in trying to protect the Arctic. Soon the Wilderness Society, the Conservation Foundation, the Western Federation of Outdoor Clubs, and the Sierra Club supported the proposal. These organizations recorded their support for an arctic wilderness “which may be preserved [as] good examples of the wildlife and wilderness terrain now characteristic of Arctic Alaska.” In referring to a wilderness designation, the conservationists had gone considerably beyond Collins’s and Sumner’s recommendations because such a classification was far more restrictive in use than a wildlife range. Withdrawal advocates anticipated a struggle but hoped to win more friends than foes. When Alaskans got wind of the discreet lobbying efforts, the first objections came forth. Al Anderson, acting manager of the Alaska Development Board, a territorial agency, advised the National Park Service in October that the area under consideration “should be thoroughly surveyed to determine what the natural resources of it are before any consideration whatsoever should be given to the establishment of a park in the area.”
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The National Park Service quickly moved to smooth ruffled feathers. Collins assured Governor Heintzleman in October that the National Park Service had always scrupulously remembered Alaska’s need for industrial development. All supporters were fully aware that “in any plan to give public protection to any area in the Arctic, prospecting and mining activities, hunting by Natives for subsistence purposes, and, of course, such defense activities as conditions and circumstances require, would have to be freely permitted.” By the late fall of , a number of conservation leaders, among them A. Starker Leopold, Olaus Murie, Richard Leonard, and Howard Zahniser, called for a meeting of interested Canadian and American officials at the March Wildlife Conference to “discuss the political angles of setting up such a wilderness reserve.” The arctic wilderness proposal had been launched. Finally, on January , , the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife filed its formal withdrawal application with the Fairbanks office of the Bureau of Land Management. Between March and May , when Senator Warren G. Magnuson (D-Wash.) introduced the legislation to create ANWR, opposition to the concept mounted, primarily by the mining interests. Public support for the idea, however, also grew steadily during this period, thanks in large part to the efforts of Olaus and Margaret Murie and the Wilderness Society. Senator Magnuson appointed Senator Bartlett, the chairman of the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Subcommittee, to hold hearings. These Bartlett held in June in Washington, D.C., and in October in Ketchikan, Juneau, Anchorage, Seward, Cordova, Valdez, and Fairbanks. In Washington, Bartlett called his colleague Gruening as his first witness. Gruening identified himself as a conservationist, but objected to the establishment of ANWR. Too much land had already been withdrawn in Alaska, he asserted, an astounding “total of ,, acres in which wildlife is under Federal protection, which is an area larger than the combined totals of Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.” The Alaska congressional delegation, Governor William A. Egan, and the state legislature all opposed the withdrawal because approximately million acres of land were already in various federal reserves. Among many economic reasons, they opposed the continued federal presence and decision-making role in Alaska. At the Alaska hearings, residents testified before the subcommittee and seventy-three of these represented state organizations that favored ANWR. Fiftythree individuals testified against the measure, and twelve were either for or against the proposal provided certain changes were made. In February , the House passed the measure, but Gruening and Bartlett blocked it in the Senate. In September , Governor Egan proposed to establish a wildlife management area within the boundaries of the proposed ANWR. “State laws and regulation,” the governor wrote to Secretary Seaton, “provide the necessary flexibility to manage this area in the interest of true conservation.” The Chamber of Commerce of the United
A U.S. Senator at Last
States speedily endorsed Egan’s proposal because it entailed no expenses for the American taxpayer. Seaton did not reply or respond to the offer. In the national elections in November , Democrat John F. Kennedy defeated Republican Richard M. Nixon in the presidential race. Facing mounting public pressure and with only a short time remaining in office, Secretary Seaton signed a public land order on December , , which created ANWR and closed it to entry under the mining laws of the United States. Secretary Seaton had prevailed. In the meantime, Gruening had become interested in the country’s foreign programs and found them wanting. On various occasions, he had offered numerous amendments to foreign aid bills under discussion but rarely did the Senate accept these. After the Eighty-seventh Congress adjourned in October , he traveled to the Middle East “to study [the U.S.’s] foreign-aid program in ten countries.” Gruening selected the following countries for the study: Turkey, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Greece, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. The investigation took sixty-one days of hard work and resulted in a -page report. It analyzed “how, why, when, and to what extent these programs had succeeded or erred.” The report also included twelve pages on how to correct these errors. Gruening claimed that had the recommendations been implemented, the foreign-aid programs “would have been vastly improved and the growing disillusion with the programs at home and abroad largely averted.” He blamed the two committees responsible for them for “virtually unquestioning acceptance of the programs” that the executive branch presented. These were the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Gruening admitted that the executive branch had the responsibility to conduct foreign policy, except that the Senate gave its “advice and consent” to treaties and confirmed nominations of foreign service officers. The senator, however, had found that for the first time in American history vast sums of money were used as instruments of foreign policy, “and this new element should, under Congress’s constitutional ‘power of the purse,’ have made it an equal partner with [the] executive.” Gruening had urged Congress repeatedly to assume its responsibilities—but in vain. Gruening listed “twenty-three other spigots, apart from the annual foreign-aid appropriations, through which American dollars were funneled to foreign countries.” To his surprise, he discovered that most of his colleagues were unaware of their multiplicity. In his memoirs, Gruening detailed the weaknesses in each country he visited, and concluded that “Israel was the best qualified to receive [aid] and had made the best use of it.” Upon his return from the Middle East, Gruening went to Alaska, where he faced reelection. He was surprised to find that Bob Atwood and his Anchorage Daily Times had started a campaign to move the state capital from Juneau to western Alaska. The senator immediately, and forcefully, denounced the idea, for “it would be needless, costly, wasteful and arouse sectional bitterness.” This earned him an editorial attack
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from the Anchorage Daily Times and its publisher, and the cooperative relationship that had existed between the two men throughout the war and the statehood movement was rent. In his posthumously published autobiography, Bob Atwood’s Alaska, the publisher had written that he “felt the loss of [his] leader who was such a great influence for years or more.” After Gruening’s election to the U.S. Senate, Atwood claimed, he had arrived in Washington seemingly “to take on the whole world for reformation into his own image.” Atwood considered Gruening Alaska’s greatest governor, an erudite scholar of government and history. He was recognized as an authority on many subjects “and his energy, enthusiasm and devotion to all his causes were truly spectacular.” But after a shot as senator, Atwood wrote, Gruening became “a world statesman more than a guardian of his Alaska constituency.” Gruening’s reelection campaign would be a difficult one.
18
Running for a Six-Year Term
G
ruening’s first campaign for the U.S. Senate in had been an uphill battle all the way; his campaign, by comparison, was a breeze. George Sundborg, the senator’s campaign manager as well as administrative assistant (Figure ), recalled that after a trip to Alaska in , the state’s senior U.S. Senator, Bob Bartlett, had stated that Gruening was “strong as tiger’s piss” in the North. This comment, from a veteran campaigner and politician, must have pleased the senator and his campaign manager. Gruening’s challenger was Theodore F. Stevens, who had served in the U.S. Army Air Corps before earning a law degree from Harvard University in . Stevens wound up in Alaska in , where he served as a district attorney in Fairbanks, leaving in to take a job as assistant to Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay, who resigned a couple of weeks after Stevens’s arrival. His successor, Fred Seaton, retained Stevens, who eventually rose to become the department’s top lawyer. In , he quit his federal job and returned to Alaska, where he settled in Anchorage and opened a law practice. Sundborg recalled that Gruening conducted his campaign “in what might be called the old way only familiar in Alaska,” the way in which the likes of Anthony J. Dimond and James Wickersham had campaigned. The candidate spent much time traveling to cities large and small, “speaking at meetings arranged by his supporters, shaking hands, running a few newspaper ads, and seeking opportunities to be interviewed on radio” and television. By standards, not much money was involved; Sundborg estimated that this campaign spent approximately ,. Operating from a leased office in Anchorage, Sundborg recruited individuals in various cities and villages to form a statewide campaign organization. He opened offices, scheduled trips for Gruening, wrote his advertisements, and designed his posters and mailing pieces. He also raised campaign funds, helped plan strategy in dealing with issues, and handled attacks by opponents and critics. Another important function of the campaign director was to keep the candidate “cheered up, so he always faces the voting public with confidence and the aura of impending victory.” Gruening was seldom glum, but occasional bad news did upset
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Figure . Gruening, Warren A. Taylor, and George Sundborg in the Senate Dining Room, September . No number.
him. Sundborg recalled that usually he was able to calm and put the senator back into his optimistic mood by saying, “All is well, Ernest, all is well.” Gruening’s reelection team introduced “a few sophistications beyond what had been seen theretofore in Alaska election campaigns,” including the state’s first a-plate fund-raising dinner, held in Anchorage. Another “sophistication” was big color billboards made from silk-screened paper sections readily transportable by airplane, boat, or car. At their destinations, they were unfolded and pasted on four-byeight-foot plywood sheets, readily available everywhere. The campaign team also put together a twenty-five-minute documentary film about Gruening, using footage Sundborg had obtained from Alaska photographers. He recalled that he “burned the midnight oil many a night writing the script, and cutting and piecing together the film on an old splicing machine borrowed from Alaskan artist Fred Machetanz.” Before the election, Sundborg flew to Washington, D.C., to narrate the film in a professional studio and have copies made. The film ran on all state television stations as a paid commercial in the weeks preceding the election. The senator worked hard on his campaign. On September , , he was in Juneau and talked to John Simpson, one of the volunteers, about the need for getting the big “Growing with Gruening” posters up. “This is the only city where they have not been and it’s time—past time.” Later in the day, he mingled with the Alaska Federation of Labor delegates and asked for their votes. That night he had dinner at the house of his son, Hunt, eating “some of the venison in the family larder.” He noted with pride that his grandson, Clark, had “already got his four deer—the limit— as well as a goat.”
Running for a Six-Year Term
The next day, the senator went to a rotary luncheon and spoke for an hour at the Alaska Federation of Labor (AFL) convention about the public works bill. This bill was important for Alaska, as the Democrats in both the Senate and House had supported it, but the Republicans in both chambers had bitterly opposed it. Indeed, senators Everett Dirksen and Charles E. Halleck had denounced the measure. He also reminded his audience that it was important to keep two Democrats in the Senate, for in thirteen out of seventeen states that had a divided delegation, the senators split and canceled each other’s votes on most measures. In the evening, he attended a dinner that the culinary workers had put on, but he and other politicians, including Governor Bill Egan, Secretary of State Hugh Wade, and Representative Ralph Rivers, had to leave early in order to make a campaign pitch on television, followed by a radio performance in the Gold Room of the Baranof Hotel. Later that night, Gruening heard that his opponent Stevens had also been on radio, “bringing up ‘the Governor’s road’ [a public road built to, among other places, the Gruenings’ cabin] and saying that he could run six times and not [yet be] as old as I am.” On September , the Republican candidates, Stevens among them, spoke to the State Federation of Labor. Gruening wrote in his diary that he considered his opponent’s speech “incredible in its venomousness and . . . usual falsehoods.” Stevens had stated that if through some mischance Gruening was elected, he “would not live through . . . [his] term.” The speech hurt Stevens, Gruening observed: “the delegates were disgusted.” After the meeting, the president of the AFL convention apologized and observed that nobody had ever made such a personal attack. Governor Egan, who had listened to Stevens’s remarks, issued a chastising statement: “Seldom have I heard a speech that could compare with the one made today by Ted Stevens for its viciousness and lack of basic decency. He stepped far beyond what reasonable people would consider ‘campaign oratory.’ I was deeply shocked at the nature of his personal attack on Ernest Gruening, [who will] not only serve the people of his state and nation for the next six years, but also for the term after that.” Furthermore, Egan said, Stevens had “engaged in a lot of silly speculation” about Egan’s thoughts and wishes. “To free Mr. Stevens from need for further speculation, I will tell him that I have tremendous respect and admiration for Ernest Gruening. I believe there has never been an Alaskan who has accomplished more for our state” than Gruening. If Egan had one hope regarding his future, he said, it was that Gruening “would seek reelection to the United States Senate so that all Alaskans could benefit from his experience, knowledge and courage.” Gruening noted that among Stevens’s misstatements were comments that he had been a paid consultant to the Alaska Constitutional Convention in –, which he had not been, and also that he and Sundborg, who had been a delegate to the constitutional convention, had been responsible that the “location of Juneau as the capital was not placed in the regular body of the Constitution, but in the transitional article.” This was Article XV, which established the legal continuity between the
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territory and the state government. Once the state of Alaska functioned, this article was no longer a working part of the constitution. Gordon S. Harrison, a political scientist and student of the constitution, wrote that Section of Article XV declared the capital to be Juneau. Placing this in the transitional article, rather than in the body of the constitution, had been a major compromise for the delegates. They finally agreed to postpone the issue by putting Section into the transitional article, but the consequences of doing so were not clear at the time. It required a court case (State v. Hagglund) to establish that the provisions of Article XV could be changed by statute, rather than the constitutional amendment process. In this case, the question was whether the people could change Section by initiative, and the state supreme court said they could. Gruening traveled in southeastern Alaska from September until September . He visited Petersburg, Wrangell, Kake, and Hoonah, where he met residents, made campaign speeches, and listened to local problems. In Hoonah, he met with Frank Lee, the owner of one of the three general stores, and a half dozen community leaders, which was the “Indian equivalent of [a] large meeting.” Gruening addressed high school students and walked through the new grade school, meeting teachers and classes. The community needed a new high school and adequate housing, especially for its fourteen teachers; its boat harbor was inadequate, and the village water supply was polluted. An access road to the local White Alice station (part of an army early warning defense system, using a more advanced receiving antenna rather than the older line-of-sight systems) crossed the settlement’s water supply. Dirt washed into the water, and sludge contamination added to the problem. To demonstrate, Lee drew a glass of water and offered it to the party. It was brown, and nobody touched it. Gruening made notes of these problems. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was responsible for the school system, and he intended to prod the agency into action. Furthermore, the White Alice station was a federal site, so he could provide help in cleaning up the water supply. Back in Juneau, Gruening caught up on his mail and made several fifteen-minute campaign tapes with Vernon M. Metcalfe, then the publicity agent for the Democrats in the state legislature. One of these tapes documented the senator’s long fight to end discrimination against Alaska’s Natives. Gruening left Juneau on September . He visited Cordova and spent the afternoon “going up and down the main street, entering stores, bars . . . and shaking hands together with fellow Democrat Bob Ditman, running to hold a seat in the state house of representatives, and Harold Hansen, contending for a state senate seat.” After dinner at the Moose Lodge with his friends, he spent the night at the house of Merle “Mudhole” Smith, the well-known bush pilot. The next morning, Gruening was off in a Cordova Airlines Widgeon bound for Chenega, an Alutiiq fishing village on the southwestern end of Chenega Island. Greeted by the villagers, he distributed buttons and posters and visited the school with its fourteen students. Gruening also
Running for a Six-Year Term
campaigned for his friend Ditman, who had won the primary by defeating Louise Banta. The latter, however, was waging a write-in campaign, and the senator predicted that Ditman had “a tough road ahead.” From Chenega he flew to Whittier, where there was little activity. The only businesses in the settlement were a branch of Columbia Lumber, Union Oil, and the Koppers Co., which treated hemlock ties for the Alaska Railroad. From Whittier he flew to Tatitlek and then Valdez. Again, he spent the afternoon “going up and down the streets” with his friends, greeting voters and shaking hands. He also called on Alaska pioneer Margaret Keenan Harris, a former educator and U.S. commissioner whom he found “as spry as ever” at age ninety. Gruening concluded, “Everything seems in good shape here politically.” The men left Valdez early on the morning of September and drove up the Richardson Highway, stopping at every roadhouse. On the way to Chitina, he stopped at the homestead of a Mrs. E. R. Bultain, a former Oregonian. She complained about the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which demanded procedures that made obtaining title to her acres difficult. The senator offered her a Gruening button, but she told him, “I don’t wear no Democrat button.” Stops at other homesteads produced similar complaints about the BLM, and Gruening took notes and vowed “to follow this up.” At the Copper Center Inn, he encountered Dolly Mendenhall Spencer, an Eskimo from Kotzebue whose husband worked for Radio Corporation of America (RCA). She credited Gruening with making her marriage possible after he interceded with her husband’s former employer, the General Electric Company, which had objected to the marriage. The senator did not remember the episode, but noted that she was most grateful. Next on the agenda was an evening visit to the Catholic boarding school at Copper Center, where he was greeted by two priests. They produced a map that showed the church had built the school on part of Section , which belonged to the University of Alaska. The priests blamed the BLM for the mistake. Gruening observed that he could not understand how the school was built on University of Alaska land when it owned some six hundred acres between Tazlina and Copper Center, but he promised to look into the situation. The senator visited Harry Herntz, a bar, grocery, and motel owner in Glennallen who was also the Democratic precinct chairman. The main discussion involved the lack of water and sewer disposal for entrepreneurs in the Copper River and Glennallen section. For example, Reuben Oswald, owner of the Grizzly Gift Shop in Glennallen, had to carry water to his lodge and shop, and William Rosert, owner of a bar, restaurant, and motel, dug a well down feet at a cost of , and got salt water. Gruening determined to get the U.S. Geological Survey or the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare interested in helping solve the problems. This ended a long day, but the senator discovered that all the accommodations in Glennallen were taken. He drove back
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to the Copper Center Inn, where all the rooms were taken as well. He slept in the men’s dormitory at the inn. On September , he bade farewell to his friends Ditman and Hanson and flew to Anchorage, where he had to take care of a mountain of accumulated mail. Early in the afternoon, the senator addressed about fifty Cook Inlet set-netters at the Carpenter’s Hall. The news media telecast his fisheries speech. Finally, he went to dinner at the home of Gene and Colleen Roguzha, who had invited numerous supporters. At the end of another full day, Gruening wrote that he had “a really crowded schedule from now on with the days packed with ‘coffees,’ ” television appearances, and meeting constituents and listening to their concerns. Gruening spent the next eighty days in Anchorage and environs attending many “coffees,” events that individuals put on to which they invited their friends to meet their candidate—and, they hoped, make financial contributions and gain their votes. He visited local schools as well as Alaska Methodist University and talked to students and staff. He made television appearances, such as the one with local host Frank Brink in which the two discussed conservation and the Kenai National Moose Range. On another occasion, the senator related the part he played in the Alaska Highway story to a television audience. Among the many coffees he attended was one hosted by Zula Swanson, a “colored woman who has accumulated a bit of real estate and has become wealthy,” Gruening wrote. He continued, “Most of those present were colored . . . and I told the story of my relation to the colored people, natives.” Gruening distributed campaign materials and buttons, and shook many hands. The senator also found time to drive to Palmer, the state’s agricultural center some fifty miles north of Anchorage, and went from farm to farm with Jim Hurley, a Democratic stalwart. In the afternoon, he attended a four-hour coffee “where many came and went.” He also visited the Alaska Agricultural Experiment Station, talked to the employees, and noted that the living quarters needed enlargement and that the station needed better funding for its research projects; in fact, what was essential was the establishment of a center “for research in cold weather agriculture.” On October , the senator flew to Ketchikan for a couple of days and another round of intensive campaigning. He addressed the Lions at a dinner, went to the Elks Club for handshaking, spoke at a chamber of commerce luncheon, and spoke to a packed auditorium of local high school students, where he talked about the duties of citizenship and the pursuit of excellence, and presented six achievement certificates. He continued his visits, including a stop at nine bars. The senator found the town’s people uniformly friendly. He also went out to the pulp mill at the end of the day shift to introduce himself and shake hands with the workers. On October , he received news from his Washington staff that Congress had approved the Snettisham hydroelectric project for Juneau. Gruening exulted: “That completes my program. Everything that I have sponsored has been approved.”
Running for a Six-Year Term
The next day Ernest and Dorothy, Governor Bill Egan and his wife, Neva, and a couple of other people flew for quick campaign stops to Hydaburg, Klawock, Craig, and Metlakatla. Gruening found Hydaburg a sad place. When he had first visited it, twenty-five years earlier, it had been “a tidy, well-kept community,” but the federal mismanagement of the fisheries in the last years before statehood had exacted a toll. The houses were “shabby, falling to pieces,” he wrote. “The school is a disgrace. It leaks badly. The floors are sagging. The heating system is totally inadequate.” In short, it was just another example of just how much Alaska needed to catch up to the living standards taken for granted in the contiguous states. Klawock was “also pretty miserable,” but then it had “always been shabby.” At Craig, the party found seven cases of hepatitis. Gruening thought that the big water tank supplying the town was probably at fault and needed cleaning. But Craig, he noted, “being partly a white town seems to be a little better off.” The senator considered Metlakatla to be “far and away the most prosperous native community.” After a short stop and some hectic campaigning, the party returned to Ketchikan to attend a buffet at the coast guard base. Thereafter, it was to the Elks Club for the Pioneers old-time costume ball, and thus ended another long day. The senator left Ketchikan for Sitka, where he arrived in the evening in pouring rain. Mayor John O’Connell drove him to the Alaska Native Brotherhood hall for a welcome dinner. As principal speaker, Gruening gave what he considered a nonpolitical speech, although it had a few references to his achievements. Gruening flew to Juneau and on to Anchorage the next morning. He had enough time to make two fifteen-minute tapes for the local Juneau television station before continuing to Anchorage, where he “had just time to change clothes and go on TV with Edna Thomas” (a local television hostess) and then to a cocktail party hosted by residents Bourke and Wilda Marston. After four exhausting days in Anchorage, Gruening and his party drove down to the Kenai Peninsula for more campaigning, returned to Anchorage on October , and flew to Fairbanks. The same sequence of events occupied him there, with meetings, speeches, and listening to constituent problems. The senator made a joint appearance with Warren Taylor, a local lawyer, legislator, and Democrat, who relayed that one Charlie Jones at Craig had caught Ted Stevens and Lowell Thomas Jr., the Republican candidate for the lone U.S. House of Representatives seat, “pulling down [his] posters and stopped them.” Jones made them put the posters back and warned that if he caught them again, “he would give them something they would remember all their lives. They fled.” After seven days in Fairbanks, Gruening returned to Anchorage on the evening of October . Gruening and his party visited all the supermarkets in the city, among other activities, and the senator estimated that in two days he had shaken the hands of twelve hundred people. On November , it was back to Juneau for more campaigning. The next morning, Gruening wrote, he slept until ten in the morning, the “first time in months that [he had] permitted [himself ] that luxury.” Then he and
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Figure . Gruening and Ted Stevens, probably during the campaign. Acc. no. --.
Dorothy drove out to Tee Harbor to cast their votes in the Lynn Canal precinct and repaired to their son Hunt’s house to hear the election returns, together with a group of friends. Gruening’s majorities mounted slowly through the evening, but Anchorage returns did not come in until after midnight. He stayed up until five in the morning and then finally went to sleep, only to be interrupted by congratulations on his reelection from his Washington office. Gruening had garnered , votes to Stevens’s ,. It had been a sweet victory (Figure ).
19
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W
hen gruening arrived in the u.s. senate, he already had a reputation as one of the great liberal crusaders of the twentieth century. His autobiography details his long list of progressive accomplishments: director of publicity for the LaFollette presidential campaign in , managing editor of The Nation, advocate of public power and birth control, longtime New Deal bureaucrat, and reform governor of the territory of Alaska for nearly fourteen years. In addition to Gruening’s other credentials as a liberal, he always considered himself to be a staunch conservationist. A campaign biography, sponsored by Gruening during what was to be his unsuccessful reelection campaign in , listed the many conservation causes he had supported in the Senate and the numerous areas he saved from destruction by “advancing bulldozers and sub-dividers,” such as the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Cape Cod National Seashore, Fire Island National Seashore, Canyonlands in Utah, and the Ozark National Scenic Parkway in Missouri. In Alaska, however, Gruening could not wait for the bulldozers to roll quickly enough to begin his pet project: Rampart Dam. For years, Gruening championed construction of a huge dam at the ramparts of the Yukon; it was one of his major personal political priority during his nearly ten years in the U.S. Senate (Figure ). Conservationists claimed Rampart Dam would have been an environmental disaster: the dam would have flooded the Yukon Flats, a wetlands larger than the Florida Everglades, and would have created a lake bigger than Lake Erie or the state of New Jersey. The reservoir would have taken twenty years to fill. It would have drastically changed the local climate, and probably would have destroyed the salmon runs on which the people of the Yukon Valley in part subsisted. The story of Gruening’s battle for Rampart Dam illustrates one of the basic laws of western politics and conservation: it is easy to support conservation measures when they affect voters in other districts, but it is much harder to see the validity of environmental concerns in one’s own backyard. Gruening’s interest in public power convinced him of the need for the government to strongly support hydroelectric projects. He once said that low-cost
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Figure . A visit to Rampart Canyon on the Yukon River as part of a study by the U.S. Army Engineer District, Alaska. Gruening is standing in the center of the front row. Acc. no. --.
electricity was a necessity of modern life that “should be made available to the public without private profit and at a price sufficient only to meet the costs of investment and operation.” In the s, Alaska had none of the huge hydroelectric power dams common elsewhere in the West, but it had plenty of potential. In a report, the Army Corps of Engineers identified some two hundred possible sites for major dams. The most promising was on the Yukon River at Rampart Canyon, where the river cuts a deep, narrow trough through a range of mountains. The canyon, one of the most beautiful and spectacular on the Yukon River, is located downstream from the vast Yukon Flats. The head of the gorge formed a natural dam site, where in the corps proposed to build a dam that would have dwarfed giants like Grand Coulee or Boulder Dam. It envisioned that the billion Rampart Dam would generate nearly five million kilowatts of electricity, twice the capacity of Grand Coulee and enough to power a city of four million inhabitants for a year. Gruening and other proponents of the dam thought this vast supply of cheap power would revolutionize the economy of Alaska and bring economic benefits to match the political gains that the territory had achieved with statehood in . When he began his first term as a U.S. senator in , Gruening became a powerful advocate for Rampart Dam. It was Gruening who in secured funds to enable the corps to undertake the first feasibility studies concerning Rampart, and in the same year he presided over Senate subcommittee hearings in Alaska to determine the state’s hydropower need. The Rivers and Harbors Act included a million appropriation for a fouryear feasibility study of the project by the Corps of Engineers, including its impact
Conservation Battles
on fish and wildlife. In February , the corps created the Rampart Economic Advisory Board (REAB) composed of prominent Alaskans. In April, the corps hired the Development and Resources Corporation (DRC) to undertake the economic and market components of the study. It became the REAB’s main task to review the progress of the DRC study. In April , the DRC issued its report and endorsed the view that hydroelectric power generally, and Rampart in particular, offered Alaska the best basis for a secure economy. The consultants claimed that the power would attract light metal and alloy industries to the region and result in the processing of local iron, copper, lead, and zinc. A local wood pulp industry would develop at the dam site, as would a cement industry, they predicted, and agriculture would be stimulated. Japan was to be the principal importer for these products. The authors estimated that these various enterprises would generate , jobs, not including the workers employed during construction. The consultants anticipated the extension of the Alaska Railroad to the dam site and the construction of a road as well. Rampart power production was expected to reach maximum capacity in , at a time when the total American population would have increased by one hundred million. Based on this assumption, DRC calculated that Rampart would supply only . percent of the total national capacity required in thirty years. The advisory board unanimously approved the report, and the information it provided and the opinions it expressed became the main source for advocacy as Rampart steadily gained the support of most of Alaska’s politicians and its economic community. Rampart Dam advocates emphasized that a big land needed a gigantic project. George Sundborg, Gruening’s administrative assistant, had worked as an industrial analyst for the Grand Coulee administration and authored a volume titled Hail Columbia: The Thirty Year Struggle for Grand Coulee Dam (), which elevated dam building to the level of an art, complete with references to the epic struggle between man and nature. In , he boasted that Alaska had supplanted Texas as the biggest state and now proposed the construction of the world’s biggest hydroelectric project, nearly three times as big as Grand Coulee and producing more energy than all of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s dams combined. Gruening recruited poet Robert Service and enlisted frontier romance in his cause by quoting the well-known lines from Service’s “The Law of the Yukon”: Wild and wide are my borders,
stern as death is my sway; From my ruthless throne I have ruled alone For a million years and a day; Hugging my mighty treasure, Waiting for man to come . . . And I wait for men who will win me And I will not be won in a day.
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Gruening observed that the men for whom Service’s Yukon had waited a million years had come, but it was true that the Yukon could not be won in a day. Once conquered, he predicted, “its mighty treasure will build cities leaping to stature as it pours the tide of its riches in the eager lap of the world.” Gruening and fellow members of the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee visited the Soviet Union in the spring of . The senator praised Soviet hydroelectric policy and compared its bold approach to the timid one of the U.S. government. “In contrast with Russian dreams which are now projects,” he stated, “the United States has not even begun to dream of the things which may be accomplished in Alaska.” While campaigning for the presidency, John F. Kennedy supported the Rampart Dam, but he was the only national politician to do so. From its inception, the project attracted a wide range of governmental and private opponents, both locally and nationally, who attacked it for economic, social, environmental, and various other reasons. Conservationists and Alaska Natives were the main critics, although protest was not limited to these groups or to the project’s implications for wildlife and indigenous peoples. Floyd E. Dominy, the commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, had voiced the strongest objections to Rampart throughout the hearings. He acknowledged Alaska’s power needs, but questioned the logic of Rampart unless advocates could prove that a market existed for the power. He favored his agency’s more modest Devils Canyon Dam, at a cost of million and producing , kilowatts of power, versus Rampart’s more than billion and . million kilowatts. Dominy also believed that it was not possible—and not desirable—to force the pace of Alaska development. The Fish and Wildlife Service also recommended Devils Canyon as a more economically viable and environmentally responsible alternative to Rampart. Various private Alaska groups joined these federal critics, among them the Alaska Conservation Society and the Alaska Sportsmen’s Council. In the fall campaign for the state legislature, politicians running for office supported Rampart virtually unanimously. Advocates realized, however, that the important battleground was national and they recognized the growing strength of the opposition. In , Gruening had already warned a supporter, “One of the obstacles we will face is the opposition of a group of fanatical conservationists.” He even alleged that United States Fish and Wildlife Service agents were in the Yukon Flats bent on sabotage. In the fall of , Anchorage mayor George Sharrock and Fairbanks mayor Darrell Brewington organized a conference, held in the McKinley Hotel at Mount McKinley National Park on September and , in order to form an organization responsible for selling Rampart to Alaskans, the public in the contiguous states, and Congress. Over one hundred prominent civic leaders, politicians, and businessmen from the rail-belt area attended, and in his luncheon address Governor Egan declared, “We can only win if we are completely united, as we were for the statehood effort itself. All geographical areas of Alaska, all economic and other interests in
Conservation Battles
Alaska, must speak with one voice.” The governor indicated that Alaskans had always confronted congressional hostility and indifference in efforts to secure federal assistance, due to the persistent image of Alaska as an icebox. Advocates also spent a good part of the conference attacking conservationists, whose criticism of the dam’s environmental impact was the only form of protest they acknowledged. George Sundborg addressed the group, warning, “Rampart has its enemies, waiting with a loaded shot gun and a red-hot mimeograph machine.” He intended to expose a conspiracy against the proposal by fanatical conservationists who put the interests of ducks above human needs, referring to the Yukon Flat’s . million wildfowl. Sundborg told his listeners that the area contained “not more than ten flush toilets,” possessed no “scenic wonders,” and challenged his listeners to “search the whole world over and it would be difficult to find an equivalent area with so little to be lost through flooding. . . . In fact, those who know it best say the kindest and best thing one could do for the place is put it under ’ of water.” Sundborg was particularly critical of Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, who had shown no enthusiasm for the project. Senator Gruening, in turn, lambasted Ira N. Gabrielson, the director of the Wildlife Management Institute, identifying the former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (–) as the source of the germ that had spread to infect the entire conservationist community. Gruening stated that these troubles had started in the spring of , when Gabrielson denounced Rampart as being “synonymous with resources destruction.” Gruening’s attacks on Gabrielson continued unabated for the rest of the decade. The senator also accused the members of the Wildlife Management Institute, the National Wildlife Federation, the Izaak Walton League, Ducks Unlimited, the National Audubon Society, and the Outdoor Writers Association of infiltrating state fish and game commissions throughout the nation, the University of Alaska faculty, and the upper echelons of the Department of the Interior. In the state legislature, Senate president Bob McNealy asserted, “If Gabrielson and his followers had their say earlier, only Indians and bison would inhabit the United States outside New England and perchance a few Seminoles and alligators in Florida.” Rampart boosters realized that Alaskans’ protests against the project were damaging, especially in the eyes of Congress. A few days after Professor William O. Pruitt of the University of Alaska had made critical remarks about Rampart at the Northern Development Conference at Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada, on March , , Warren Taylor, a member of the state House, asked, “Are we maintaining at the University . . . people who are opposed to a development % of us are for?” He suggested “an investigation to find out if this is the policy up there. If it is,” he continued, “perhaps we ought to cut their funds and get these people out.” Operation Rampart, an official lobby organization, emerged from the conference. Theodore F. Stevens, a trustee, who had lost to Gruening in the senatorial election, explained that this was a “group of public-spirited citizens who have donated their time.” In October, the city of Anchorage and the Fairbanks Public Utilities Board both voted to contribute , to get the organization functional.
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Figure . A meeting at the White House after the disastrous Alaska earthquake of March , . Seated, left to right: Edward A. McDermott, director of the Office of Emergency Planning; Senators Bartlett and Gruening; and President Lyndon B. Johnson. April , . Acc. no. --.
In November , the lobby group was renamed Yukon Power for America (YPA), and C. W. Snedden, the editor and publisher of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, was elected president. Alaska’s congressional delegation became ex officio members. YPA’s motto was “Build Rampart Now,” even though the Interior Department’s studies were only half finished, and the group wanted to include the project in the Rivers and Harbors Omnibus Bill for . Alaska’s senior U.S. senator, Bob Bartlett, was one of the very few Alaska politicians who counseled patience and thought that the chances for immediate success were slim. By the fall of , the proponents and opponents of Rampart had established the patterns of their arguments from which neither side would depart for the next two years. Rampart’s opponents made major efforts to influence the Interior Department and the nation at large. Sundborg presented the case for Rampart to the Wilderness Society soon after the McKinley conference. Conservationists feared that the dam would block a salmon run of , important to the Native subsistence economy. Sundborg maintained that the run had no commercial value, and, in the unlikely event of a loss, introduced species would provide the basis for a large-scale commercial fishery. He questioned the accuracy of United States Fish and Wildlife Service duck statistics, insisting that the number produced in the Yukon Flats annually was closer to half a million than to a million and a half. The probable loss of forty-six hundred moose was not important because they were abundant in other parts of Alaska. In fact, he claimed that moose had impeded economic progress in the Matanuska Valley. The Native lifestyle was not worth preserving, he argued, and in any event resettlement and job opportunities created by construction, pulp mills, fisheries, and electro-processes would tremendously improve the living standards of those displaced. In time, Rampart won some national support: the AFL-CIO endorsed the project in , and the American Public Power Association, the Inland Empire Water-
Conservation Battles
ways Association (covering Washington, Oregon, and Idaho), and the Pacific Northwest Public Power Association (Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, and Alaska) followed suit. Governor Egan told President Johnson that construction and subsequent operation would create an estimated sixty to eighty thousand jobs, and he envisioned a site city of ten thousand as well as a doubling of the state’s population brought on by the growth the project would stimulate. By and large, however, the project failed to engage President Johnson’s attention or that of other influential national interests. Indeed, the leading national sportsman’s Figure . Vice-president Hubert H. Humphrey and Senator Gruening, . magazine, Field and Stream, came out in Acc. no. --. opposition in the summer of , and more and more sportsmen feared that the flooding would destroy prime duck-breeding habitat. Gruening and Sundborg searched the media for any criticisms, no matter how trivial, and immediately rebutted them. The senator also seized every opportunity to discredit his opponents. He decried the type of conservation, for example, practiced by sportsmen who only wanted to save ducks in Alaska in order to shoot them later in the contiguous states. Was there, he wondered, “no nobler and higher form” of conservation? In February , the Bureau of Land Management held hearings in Alaska to consider a United States Geological Survey request for an .-million-acre power site classification for Rampart. Fort Yukon, located in the center of the area to be flooded, had a population of seven hundred residents, many of whom sustained themselves partially by trapping. In preparation for the hearings, they organized Gwitchya Ginkye (Yukon Flats People Speak), a group that denounced the dam as a threat to their way of life. Don Young, a Caucasian schoolteacher and former Californian who was president of the local council and the husband of a Native woman, launched his political career on an anti-Rampart platform that gained him a seat in the state house in . (Young was later elected to the state senate, and then in won Alaska’s lone seat in the U.S. House, which he still occupies today.) In April , a United States Fish and Wildlife Service report concluded that Rampart constituted “the greatest single threat to wildlife values of any project ever suggested in this country.” Numerous Canadian and American conservation groups, as well as state departments of fish and game, joined the critics in the wake of the report.
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In order to counteract the growing Native discontent, Gruening again visited the Yukon Flats in the summer of , confirming his belief that the Athabaskans lived “miserably” and merely “eked out a meager subsistence.” He asserted that only one elderly Native opposed the project. By the end of , a survey conducted by the Tundra Times (the only statewide Native newspaper) showed that the seven villages that would be inundated voted against Rampart, and another four downstream villages were also opposed. Nulato was neutral, and only Kaltag favored the project. Furthermore, an analysis of the correspondence GruenFigure . Gruening in Adler’s Book Shop, Fairbanks, with his volume The Battle for Alaska ing received on the issue between Statehood, published by the University of Alaska and reveals that his mail ran three Press in . Standing are B. G. Olson, executo one against the dam. tive editor of the press, and Dave Adler, propriPaul Brooks, editor-in-chief at etor of the bookstore. Acc. no. --. Houghton Mifflin of Boston, summarized the opponent’s case eloquently in an Atlantic Monthly article in May titled “The Plot to Drown Alaska.” Brooks labeled Rampart speculative, an economic boondoggle without recreational potential, ecologically disastrous, and an attack on the Native subsistence lifestyle. Gruening demanded, and was granted, the opportunity to reply. In “The Plot to Strangle Alaska,” he rested his case, unchanged since . In his memoirs, the senator wrote that to his surprise “the Atlantic gave Brooks a chance for a further reply in a piece which followed my article but denied . . . [my] request for a rebuttal.” In other articles and speeches, Gruening portrayed the Yukon Flats as “nothing but a vast wasteland . . . notable chiefly for swarming clouds of mosquitoes.” He praised recently completed Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell in the Southwest for having redeemed the “dreary” desert of Arizona. He argued that Rampart’s reservoir, like Lake Powell, would provide many popular recreational opportunities, such as picnicking and even waterskiing. Gruening continued to demand that the proponents be heard on all occasions. For example, the Ecological Society of America sponsored a symposium called “Ecological Considerations of the Rampart Dam.” Gruening unsuccessfully requested that Sundborg be included on the panel together with such distinguished wildlife biologists as A. Starker Leopold. (Given that the senator always maintained that conservationists were not qualified to discuss the economic aspects of Rampart Dam,
Conservation Battles
Figure . Gruening at the South Pole, Antarctica. Left to right: George Wallace; Senator Frank Moss (D-Utah); James R. Reedy, commander of the Naval Support Force, Antarctica; Gruening; and R. B. Black. Official U.S. Navy photograph by James M. Long, USN, January , .
this was perhaps just.) In fact, support for Rampart had never been widespread in the contiguous states, and in , the New York Times called Rampart the “World’s Biggest Boondoggle.” While the United States Fish and Wildlife Service report had undermined Rampart on environmental grounds, another soon attacked its fiscal soundness. The Natural Resources Council of America (NRCA) had sponsored a report published in March that concluded that Rampart’s cost was economically prohibitive. The Pacific Northwest, the nearest market, was two thousand miles distant and already had adequate power supplied by dams like Grand Coulee. In short, Rampart promised to be “the most expensive gamble ever suggested in hydroelectric development.” For most of the critics and the New York Times, the NRCA’s report represented the last nail in Rampart’s coffin, while Gruening resented the report’s influence in the Interior Department and denounced it as “nothing but propaganda for a highly specialized point of view.” In June , Interior Secretary Udall finally recommended against the construction of Rampart Dam. He pointed out “the availability of favorable, less costly alternatives,” and also explained that “the fish and wildlife losses which could result . . . are of such significance that if the other factors of concern . . . were favorable, there would be questions as to the appropriateness of any recommendation.” Most proponents and opponents alike had expected this decision. As early as May of that year, Gruening had told Udall that an adverse decision would not be
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Figure . Gruening and Senator Jennings Randolph in Cartago, Costa Rica, on highway inspection, January . Acc. no. -.
unexpected, since it had been “perfectly clear for many years that Alaskans could never expect an unbiased, objective report” from his department. In short, Udall’s attitude had been that he could not “afford to antagonize the sportsmen.” The Washington Post agreed with the Interior Department, however, calling Rampart “beyond the fringe of economic rationality.” In , Rampart suffered its final two blows. Mike Gravel defeated Gruening in the Democratic senatorial primary, and the Prudhoe Bay oil discovery extinguished whatever appeal the project retained for Alaskans. Gruening, however, never accepted the dam’s defeat. He reassured the few remaining proponents that “contrary to rumor and pessimistic reports the Rampart Project is very much alive.” In his memoirs, Gruening wrote that the conservation-versus-development question was one of the paramount issues confronting the American people. Gruening considered himself a “fervent” conservationist, but he disagreed with the conservationist “extremists” because they omitted “the human element.” He continued: “They are interested in preserving the habitat of a variety of feathered, fluffed, and scaled creatures. That’s good. But man requires a habitat too, and without a viable economy does he have one? Conservation and development can and must be reconciled.” Gruening portrayed Alaska as “a land of infinite beauty” but the Yukon Flats as “anything but beautiful.” Perhaps more important, Alaskans were entitled to lowcost electricity, an essential ingredient of modern life, while hydroelectric reserves were essential “to avert the power shortages in our country that are now upon us.” Rampart could supply some of these needs. Even though the Corps of Engineers had shelved the project in , Gruening went to his grave believing that “one of these days . . . it will be built.”
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T
houghtful americans have long been troubled about the nation’s eternal so-called Indian problem. The white man’s conquest of the North American continent left Native Americans in a precarious situation. They were denied citizenship rights and confined to reservations. From the beginning, federal Indian policies fluctuated dramatically. Francis Paul Prucha, noted historian of American Indians, has characterized the earliest policy as paternalism; it flourished because the Indians were dependent and “became more and more dependent as the nineteenth century unfolded.” However, paternalism did not work, so in , Congress passed the Dawes Severalty Act, which specified that reservations be divided into homestead-sized parcels and distributed among the Indian residents. Congress hoped that the incentive for private farms to be maintained, developed, and handed down to their children would cause Indians to be assimilated into the economic, social, and political life of the nation. Nevertheless, assimilation failed, too. Allotment made the Indians federal wards in what Prucha called “a new and more persuasive sense.” Having exchanged their share in communal lands for plots they could neither lease nor rent without specific permission, and to which they could obtain title only after twenty-five years, the Indians were more than ever controlled by the government. In short, most Indians did not become self-supporting farmers or ranchers, and the Indian Office did not fade away. Efforts to acculturate, assimilate, and Americanize the Indians were largely unsuccessful. By the s, two schools of thought about the Indians’ place in society struggled for dominance. Assimilationists, who were primarily members of the Indian Rights Association and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), sought to eliminate special treatment for special groups. Reformers, who wanted to preserve Indian cultures and rights, based their efforts on a secular and scientific basis. John Collier, whom President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed commissioner of Indian affairs, epitomized the move to reestablish tribal power and authority. He began an “Indian New Deal,” which culminated when Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act, incorporating fundamental provisions for Native Americans’ political self-government and economic self-determination.
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The Alaska Reorganization Act (ARA) of amended that law in an attempt to address the unique needs of the territory’s Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts. Unlike Indians in the contiguous states, Alaska Natives lived in isolated villages, and there were few large reserves. The ARA permitted the Secretary of the Interior to designate lands occupied by Natives as new reservations or additions to existing ones, and to issue charters of incorporation to petitioning tribes. It provided for village selfgovernment and allowed Natives to borrow federal money in order to survive the Great Depression. Within the department, there was consensus: Secretary Harold L. Ickes, Commissioner Collier, attorney Felix S. Cohen, and other officials agreed that reservations were essential for the preservation of Indian cultures. Reservations would define Alaska tribes by identifying particular groups with the land they occupied, establish geographical limits of jurisdiction for Native governments, and enable the federal government to segregate land and resources in order to protect the Natives’ economic rights. Governor Gruenin disagreed with the experts in Washington, however. Few reservations existed in the far north because they had never been necessary, he claimed. Its huge size and miniscule population had spared Alaska many of the white-Native conflicts over land and resources that had made reservations standard in the American West. Gruening had fought for the Natives on the civil rights front, eliminating discrimination and establishing voting precincts in the bush, the more than two hundred villages in Alaska not connected to the road system and occupied predominantly by Native Alaskans. He considered himself the best friend of his Native fellow Alaskans. Though assimilation may have been unsuccessful elsewhere, it would work in Alaska; in fact, Gruening stubbornly insisted, segregation of Indians on reservations there would be a disastrous mistake. Although he would undoubtedly have denied it vociferously, his views on aboriginal claims were consistently negative. Along with most white Alaskans of that era, Gruening believed that the Native peoples were citizens like any other and not entitled to special compensation by virtue of aboriginal rights. Generally, the Alaska Native population was quiet on the subject of reservations. The protests that occurred, Gruening believed, were instances of agitation by such individuals as James E. Curry, an Indian rights lawyer whom he detested and believed to be something of a shyster. Gruening’s view, though popular in Alaska, was not accepted in government circles. United States law decrees that Indians hold “aboriginal title” to lands they have at some time occupied. Aboriginal title is not in fee simple—that is, the Indians cannot sell, barter, or trade these lands except to the federal government or its agents. Occasionally, aboriginal title has included fishing sites in coastal and river waters. Congress can, and in times past has, extinguished aboriginal title either by purchase or by expropriation. Courts have held that this extinguishing is legal and not necessarily compensable, but that Indians may sue for damages suffered from such losses. The courts have also held that Indians have “possessory right” to lands they actually
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use or occupy, even if the federal government has not confirmed such title, but possessory title is made more secure by federal treaty or statute. Although Indians were historically prohibited from taking cases of treaty violations or mismanagement of tribal resources before the U.S. Court of Claims, Congress has occasionally authorized an extension of that court’s jurisdiction. It is generally accepted, however, that the lands Indians once used but subsequently abandoned title to, which the government had not formally recognized, fall to the government to dispose of as it desired. Federal policy since the earliest days of the Republic had been to dispossess Indians of their lands through war, treaty, and purchase and to confine them within evernarrower boundaries. Between and , the government had forced Indians to cede part of their lands in exchange for modest annual payments. The areas they did not give up were reserved for their exclusive use and occupancy and held for them in trust. Congress passed the Alaska Reorganization Act in , a series of amendments meant to place Alaska Native land ownership and governmental authority on the same footing as that of other Native American reservations. Secretary Ickes listed three reasons for establishing Alaska reservations. First, they would define Alaska “tribes” by identifying particular groups with the land they occupied; second, they would define geographic limits of jurisdiction, so that Alaska Native communities could exercise powers of local government; and third, they would enable the United States to segregate Native lands and resources, thereby preserving the “economic rights” of the Natives. Once Congress passed the ARA, the Department of the Interior undertook a vigorous campaign to organize Alaska Native villages under the act’s constitution and business charters. By early , thirty-eight Native groups had incorporated for the purpose of self-government under the Alaska amendments, but none of these were associated with reservations. It was not until that news of the type of reservation proposed under the measure reached Alaska. That year, the Department of the Interior announced creation of the Venetie Reservation, encompassing . million acres just north of the Arctic Circle, for the benefit of some twenty-five Athabaskan families living in Venetie, Arctic Village, Kachik, and Christian Village. Secretary Ickes based the size of the reservation on the assumption that this area was necessary to sustain the hunting and trapping activities of these families. What alarmed Gruening, and many white Alaskans, was that some one hundred similar reservations were planned, from which all but the local Natives were to be excluded. The size of the Venetie Reservation raised the fear that as much as half of the territory would be thus preempted. About the time he announced formation of the Venetie Reservation, Ickes promised a prominent member of the Alaska Native Brotherhood, an organization of Tlingit and Haida Indians of southeastern Alaska, that the department would make a preliminary investigation into the status and character of Native claims. In June , he assigned the task to Felix Cohen, associate solicitor of the Interior Department and chief architect of the Indian Reorganization Act, who traveled widely in southeastern Alaska and interviewed Natives and territorial and federal
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officials. Only the Indian community of Metlakatla, which had a history reaching back into the nineteenth century, impressed him. Reverend William Duncun was one of many who believed that the answer to Native problems was conversion to Christianity. He sought to demonstrate the effectiveness of conversion and assimilation by creating a model community. In , he had brought a thousand Tsimshian followers from Fort Simpson in British Columbia, where his superiors in the Church of England had condemned his views on theology, to Annette Island in southeastern Alaska. There, on land obtained through a congressional grant, he built a new Metlakatla designed to make the Natives self-sufficient. They were trained in trades such as carpentry and engaged in other enterprises. They lived in neat and orderly homes. Over the years, government officials had visited Metlakatla and uniformly loved what they saw—an orderly, neat, productive, assimilated Native community. Cohen was no exception. Possessing a land and water base adequate for their economic existence, Metlakatlans had “constructed a civilized community . . . within the secure economic framework of the original reservation.” Cohen saw Metlakatla as a kind of model, and he believed that Alaska had fifteen or twenty tribes, or bands of Natives, whose territories could be defined and protected against white encroachment. A clear administrative advantage to this plan was the need for the Interior Department to deal with a few groups, rather than thousands of individual Indians. Actually, Metlakatla was the kind of assimilated Indian community that Collier and the Indian New Dealers deplored. It had become a showplace of acculturation, widely publicized and well known to all travelers, tourists, inspection teams, and the like. In the view of Collier, Department of Interior officials, members of the American Indian Defense Association, and even Cohen himself, Metlakatla was not Indian enough; it was an example for assimilation rather than preservation of, or return to, older Indian cultures. In his report, Cohen urged that aboriginal rights be defined with regard to establishing reservations in Alaska. He proposed that the Department of the Interior clarify its promise both to “protect Indian property rights, whatever they may be, against trespass on the part of third parties” and to “give the same respect to property rights based on aboriginal possession as . . . to rights based on express treaty, agreement, or executive order.” In his mind, that promise meant endowing the Natives with a land base. He claimed to have discussed this plan with a number of officials, including Governor Gruening and the newly elected territorial delegate, Bob Bartlett, and all had informally approved. Gruening, however, was quick to protest. At no time had he endorsed a “statement of general policy.” In fact, he believed, “the whole policy relating to the ‘Natives’ in Alaska, particularly in the matter of the proposed reservations, has been insufficiently thought through” and was “likely to do far more harm than good” because it would impede the Natives’ assimilation, acculturation, and economic progress. He considered Natives to be “true” Alaskans; they had been in the north from time immemorial, and more important, they would “always . . . be here, representing,
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generically, not only the one great group of . . . permanent Alaskans, but the one group of months out-of-the-year residents.” Thus, Gruening applauded the department’s intention to recognize Indian fishing rights. Removing non-Natives’ fish traps and canneries or compensating the Natives for such incursions into their water would help correct Alaska’s absenteeownership problem and also give the Native population, which represented one-half of the total, a better economic opportunity. However, he opined, establishing reservations would not address these matters. Rather, by closing large areas, formerly open to all, and restricting them to one racial group, the department would foster discrimination. He was certain that such a policy would provoke “retaliation in some form or other,” such as compensatory legislation excluding Natives from certain areas, and accentuate “race prejudice and cleavage.” In fact, if the Interior Department heeded Cohen’s counsel, it might become necessary to create “reservation Indians” and “free Indians.” Gruening asserted: “No one in the Department of the Interior or anywhere else has yet sufficient knowledge of the consequences of the policies which seem to be in process of formulation in Alaska, to justify their crystallization into action without a great deal more investigation. At present any steps taken would, in my view, be ill-considered, premature, half-baked and, I fear, in many unforeseen aspects, disastrous.” Gruening called for a thorough study of the Alaska situation. Territorial newspapers, particularly those in the southeast, wholeheartedly supported the governor. For example, the Alaska Fishing News complained that the “Ickes Blight,” as it called the plan to create Native reservations, ruined “our hopes of capitalizing on natural resources.” The editor did not object to Indian legal rights, but declared that they should be compensated through the U.S. court of claims, not through agency edict. Other regional papers echoed these sentiments. The U.S. secretary of agriculture was also opposed to Cohen’s recommendations. He worried that recognizing the Natives’ moral and legal claims would jeopardize “non-Indian rights, equities, and interests” in the most populous and highly developed parts of the territory. He urged, simply, financial compensation to extinguish Native claims to land not actually occupied and currently in Indian use. Before long, the Bureau of Indian Affairs was compelled to justify the evolving reservation policy. Backing down somewhat, Commissioner Collier’s assistant declared that the bureau merely wanted “to define clearly the areas of Native use and occupancy and to secure these lands in the name of the Native group”—or, alternatively, in the name of the U.S., to be held in trust for the Natives. Creating huge reservations, he said reassuringly, was not the way to do that. However, New Deal officials in the Department of the Interior, according to the analysis of one historian, “pushed ahead with plans to establish reservations and determine the validity of Native claims.” Yet they neglected “to consult with Congress or gain needed grassroots support,” and thereby delayed social justice for Alaska’s Natives. Secretary Ickes then announced that Judge Richard Hanna, a champion of Indian rights and former chief justice of the Supreme Court of New Mexico, would act as
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presiding officer at hearings to be held at Hydaburg, Klawock, and Kake in September , in relation to “aboriginal fishing and other occupancy rights” of the Natives of these communities. Both Natives and those affected by their claims would have an opportunity to be heard. As soon as he had the judge’s recommendations, Ickes promised, he would “review them and make a decision, weighing the evidence on both sides impartially.” Gruening did not wait for Ickes to reach his decision. Writing to the secretary late in , he charged that the impetus behind the evolving reservation policy came from the BIA and from certain members of the Interior Department solicitor’s staff. In fact, in , when Congress was debating the Alaska amendments to the IRA, Ickes had asked permission to establish “reservation-only” as a device to permit Natives to secure charters, loans, and other economic benefits. The department’s proreservation policy involved not only the well-being of Natives but also “the present economy of Alaska and Alaskans” and “all postwar development” in the territory. Governor Gruening told Ickes that the original purpose of the ARA had been “largely perverted.” He pointed out that Ickes’s public stance was at odds with his actions. Only that summer, the secretary had assured a congressman that he had used his power to create Alaska reservations very sparingly. He stated also that he favored compensating Natives for “those lands and fishing areas to which their possessory claims have not been extinguished, but which from the standpoint of a sound economy, should be open to public development, instead of being reserved for exclusive Native use.” Gruening wrote the secretary stating that in addition to the seven reservations already established, proposals for twelve others—totaling . million acres— were pending in the department. Gruening told Ickes that although he thought that aboriginal land rights should be extinguished in an orderly fashion and in return for fair compensation, he considered it more important to ensure Indian citizens “full political, economic and social equality, and opportunity in a land of expanding vistas.” In conclusion, he once again asked Ickes to suspend action relating to reservations until unbiased individuals could study the problem. Early in , Gruening wrote to Delegate Bartlett, expressing his belief that the department would create Alaska reservations in areas where they did not interfere with commercial interests. “No one really cares up there,” he wrote, and “then the camel’s nose will be in the tent again and pushing farther in.” Southeastern Alaska might escape the reservation policy, Gruening thought, because of the strong opposition of the fishing interests. Nonetheless, he urged Bartlett to be “particularly vigilant and try to head [reservations] off before they are announced, to make the most vigorous kind of a fight on the matter.” Henry Jackson (D-Wash.), who headed the House Indian Affairs Committee, opposed reservations in southeastern Alaska primarily because many of his constituents fished there in the summer. The governor suggested that perhaps Jackson could be enlisted to fight reservations in northern Alaska. On March , , Ickes received Judge Hanna’s findings on the Hydaburg, Klawock, and Kake claims case. The record included twenty-seven hundred pages
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of testimony, together with numerous maps, texts, and other exhibits. Hanna upheld only percent of the claims, those relating to land adjacent to the settlements. He also rejected exclusive claims to the ocean waters but acknowledged the Natives’ “right to hunt, fish, trap, and gather wild produce in common with other persons in [the] greater portion of [the] area claimed so long as such areas remain in public ownership.” Hanna found that “where Native occupancy has been continuous and exclusive in certain beaches, submerged land, inland waters and bays” close to village sites, it was protected by law. Furthermore, he determined that Natives who were “traditionally organized along tribal lines,” living in villages, had the right to assert aboriginal claims. Gruening was happy with the judge’s recommendations, but Department of the Interior officials were not. Although Hanna championed protection of Indian possessions, his advice was “too indefinite and general to be of very much help in bringing existing controversies to a conclusion.” Perhaps worst of all, he had failed to draw boundaries for the claims and instead proposed yet another investigation to accomplish this. Taking advantage of this setback for the department’s reservation policy, various Alaska chambers of commerce adopted resolutions either to extinguish Native claims or to settle them legislatively, “once and for all.” A few months later Ickes announced his decision. Inhabitants of the three villages were entitled “to the exclusive possession of approximately acres per capita . . . and [that] which has remained in their possession since before our sovereignty attached.” The federal court of claims was to determine the amount of compensation due the Natives for lands in which their exclusive ownership had been extinguished. Apparently, the secretary had substantially backed away from the idea of creating huge reservations in Alaska. The acres he now granted each villager only slightly exceeded the traditional -acre homestead. More important, Ickes had succeeded, temporarily, in shifting the claims issue away from the Department of the Interior and into the purview of the judiciary. The Natives of the three villages, and numerous cannery operators who stood to lose their industrial sites, immediately petitioned for a rehearing. The department twice extended the time for submitting new evidence, and on January , , Ickes issued the final order, slightly adjusting the acreage granted in recognition of aboriginal claims. Most other Indian communities in the region also filed petitions to have their aboriginal rights determined. BIA and other Interior Department officials wrestled with the complex issue, and not until the summer of did the department codify hearings on Native claims to lands and waters. Quite detailed, the rules permitted Alaska Native groups to file claims based on a number of federal statutes, but they had to do so before December , . Meanwhile, within the department discussion raged over a reservation at Barrow, proposed several years earlier, where officials of the Alaska Native Service (also known as the BIA in Alaska) had drawn the boundaries of the proposed ,-acre reservation in consultation with the Natives. There was little
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agreement on the matter. The Division of Territories and Island Possessions disputed the need for so large a reservation as the one contemplated. Its director, Edwin G. Arnold, found support from Gruening in the conviction that protecting Barrow Natives from “undesirable whites and . . . the sale of liquor in or near the village” could be accomplished by withdrawing an “area not larger than the strip of land along the coast from Barrow Village to the northern tip of Point Barrow, and possibly a short distance to the eastward,” not exceeding ten miles long and one mile wide. On August , , the Department of the Interior withdrew lands at Barrow and Klukwan, “for classification and proposed designation as reservations.” Hearings were held in October in both locations. In the Klukwan case, Natives who had favored creation of a reservation withdrew their support when they learned that the government would retain title to the land. All residents demanded “confirmation of their possessory claims to the land held by them since time immemorial.” In December, Irwin W. Silverman, the hearing officer as well as chief council for the Division of Territories and Island Possessions, advised against the reservation and recommended that Natives’ possessory rights be determined and they be given fee simple title to the land. In the Barrow case, officials of the Alaska Native Service had drawn the boundaries of the proposed reservation in consultation with the Natives. Only the shoreline of the area was valuable as a base from which to hunt seal, walrus, and whale; “otherwise the reservation as proposed is of little economic value, because it supports only some egg-gathering, geese and duck shooting, and a small amount of fishing and trapping.” In fact, Native subsistence activities extended throughout the North Slope. None of the Natives had favored the proposed reservation, although the community desired “to protect itself from traffic in liquor and trading by outsiders” and to prevent white encroachment. Once again, Silverman recommended against creating a reservation; he urged the Alaska Native Service to consult with the Barrow Eskimos on setting boundaries for an area large enough “to permit the Natives, through village ordinances, to regulate trade and liquor traffic and to assure them the exclusive use of the Barrow–Pearl Bay shoreline.” Governor Gruening had worked closely with Silverman and endorsed these recommendations. A week later, the new secretary of the interior, Julius A. Krug, approved the recommendations. Krug’s approval steered the Interior Department toward a restricted-use arrangement, instead of reservations. In the meantime, a problem of development versus Native rights had arisen in the Tongass National Forest. Early in , Colonel Henry W. Clark, general manager of the Juneau-based Alaska Development Board, which the territorial legislature had created in , informed the Interior Department that a financial group had expressed interest in establishing a million pulp and newsprint mill in southeastern Alaska. There was one hitch, however: attorneys for the investors were concerned about the unsettled status of Indian claims in the area. Chapman, the under secretary of the interior, who served as acting secretary for the period between Ickes’s resignation and
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Krug’s appointment, was worried, and he remarked, “It would be most unfortunate if the proposed development, undoubtedly the most significant . . . on the Alaska horizon, should be blocked by reason of any such uncertainty.” Indeed, according to Gruening—like all western governors a committed advocate of economic growth—the pulp and paper mill would be Alaska’s first year-round industry, a “third economic prop” to supplement the territory’s declining salmon runs and languishing mining operations. Natives living in the area would get first chance at the jobs; shipping companies would have cargoes for the southward haul, reducing freight rates and thereby the cost of living. Only statehood, Gruening gushed, was more important than this proposed mill. A measure designed to clear the path for the developers was introduced in Congress. The Tongass Forest Bill gave the secretaries of the Department of Agriculture and the Interior Department the authority to dispose of land and timber in the Tongass National Forest, with the proceeds of all sales held in escrow until Native claims were determined. It soon stalled in Congress. Gruening was convinced that Felix Cohen and Ted Haas, chief counsel of the BIA, had sabotaged the bill from within the Interior Department. They were, he believed, “the promoters and the abettors of this aboriginal rights agitation,” and he was probably correct in assuming that they had furnished information to the Natives and their counsel and encouraged them to oppose the bill. The governor was frustrated. Whenever he conferred with Natives, they favored the proposal, with the prime qualification that the determination of Native rights be by the courts, not Congress; but out of his presence, they staunchly opposed it. Claiming aboriginal title to some of the lands in question and calling for a percent royalty on timber sales from disputed lands, they demanded that ownership be determined first and that any development in the Tongass occur in accordance with the owners’ wishes. The new commissioner of Indian Affairs, William A. Brophy, told Chapman, “The Department should avoid being pressured into hasty action, which will adversely affect these Native rights.” Brophy was ill, however, and not in the capital, and no one in the Bureau of Indian Affairs was able to oppose the advocates of the pulp and paper mill. Gruening was disappointed to learn that a Native delegation had testified against the bill in Washington. Natives, he believed, would benefit from the measure, for it would create new jobs for them. If it failed, the Indians would lose and “the chief beneficiaries will be the attorneys who can cut themselves in.” Largely responsible for this fiasco were “those misguided, if well-meaning, people in the Office of Indian Affairs and the Solicitor’s Office,” the governor concluded, “whose philosophy, as far as the aborigines are concerned, is that they want to do ‘em good, but do ‘em good my way.” But Gruening’s perceived beneficiaries vigorously opposed the pro-development bill. The Alaska Native Brotherhood charged Congress with expropriating Native property and called the Tongass Forest Bill “Alaska’s Teapot Dome,” after the notorious scandal in the Warren G. Harding administration. The Alaska Native
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Sisterhood dramatically declared that the thirty-five thousand Eskimos, Indians, and Aleuts who made up half of the territory’s permanent population “had to watch our children die of diseases that come from cold and lack of food. Our homes and lands, our fisheries and trees, our trap lines and reindeer, everything we possess is being seized or threatened by unscrupulous white men, who tell us that what they are doing to us had been approved by Washington.” Ickes, though out of office, spoke out against the bill, various newspapers criticized it, and the National Congress of American Indians opposed it. In the late fall of , Gruening learned that a member of the James E. Curry law firm, which represented numerous Native groups in the north, had visited southeastern Alaska and urged residents of Kake and other communities to take possession of their lands. An East Coast company “would buy all their timber, supply all expenses of taking it out, and pay them”; in return, Natives were “to tie up all the timber for this company.” Gruening speculated that Curry and his associates wanted “to create a violent situation” that would “scare off the prospective pulp and paper people.” However, the lands in question did not belong to the Natives, he reasoned; Ickes’s order pertaining to Hydaburg, Klawock, and Kake had not given the land to the claimants but to the BIA, “thereby merely transferring title from one federal agency to another.” Gruening’s assertion brought an angry refutation from Cohen, who declared that Ickes’s decision “constituted an administrative adjudication as to the extent of areas held in Native ownership,” under Alaska’s Organic Act of . Cohen concluded that the Department of the Interior had “repeatedly indicated that such ownership is not different in character from ownership by white individuals, associations, or corporations under the same act, which ownership has been recognized by the Alaskan and federal courts as amounting practically to fee simple title.” Obviously, confusion and disagreement about aboriginal claims had not abated in the department. Warner Gardner, assistant secretary of the interior, handled most of the negotiations on the Tongass Forest Bill, and he was disappointed in what he had to defend. The measure altogether failed to address the validity of aboriginal claims, providing only that proceeds from land and timber sales be held until the claims were settled. In effect, it offered a way out of a dilemma created by the Justice Department’s insistence on a bill extinguishing Native title and by the Agriculture Department’s opposition to recognition of aboriginal claims. The measure passed both houses of Congress, and President Truman signed it, presumably clearing the way for the establishment of a pulp industry in southeastern Alaska. However, according to Gruening, opposition continued after the Tongass Forest Act became law. Natives’ lawyers, particularly Curry, threatened interested pulp and paper companies with lawsuits if they obtained leases and cutting rights in the Tongass National Forest from the U.S. Forest Service and not directly from the Natives through their attorneys. Krug, the new Secretary of the Interior, took Gruening’s charges, namely that these threats delayed the establishment of a pulp and paper industry, seriously. He ordered an investigation that revealed “in no instance” did the Natives
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and their attorneys use “the matter of aboriginal rights as an excuse, and in every instance it appeared obvious that the primary reason behind the delay was an economic one.” (The first pulp and paper mill did not operate in Ketchikan until .) Despite pledges of a prompt resolution of the aboriginal claims questions, the Interior Department did little. Moving ahead with the Hydaburg reservation proved impossible; the BIA got the approval of the Bureau of Land Management after some negotiation, but the Forest Service insisted that the Natives agree to federal supervision of reservation timber and that they waive all possessory claims beyond the reserve. The Department of Agriculture had other suggestions, and soon the various agencies, each representing its own constituency, forced the Interior Department to back down. In fact, it had become necessary to clarify land titles further, provide for economic stability on the proposed reservations, and plan for the management of Indian forest reserves. Bartlett and Gruening were angry about the course of events. The delegate claimed that Alaskans, Natives and whites alike, opposed reservations and that the Interior Department was wrong to consider them any longer. The governor observed that the issue of aboriginal rights clouded almost every territorial development scheme. Although the courts might decide either for or against Native claims, he was certain “that the Natives have been led to believe that they have rights and a good deal of recent history would support their belief to that effect.” Thus, he proposed that a substantial part of the timber sales receipts from the Tongass National Forest be used to benefit Native communities. He foresaw construction of housing, water, power, health, and recreational/commercial facilities, such as small boat harbors, docks, and airports. He suggested that funds be made available to villages for purchasing nearby canneries and for building small industries, such as woodworking shops and processing plants for sea products besides salmon. His proposal, the governor asserted, “would avoid the tedious, costly, and wholly unpredictable judicial process” and “be a fine example of weighing the possible rights of the Indians, which may or may not prove valid with the undeniable desirability of rehabilitating their economy, furnishing them with healthful surroundings, and the other concomitants of proper living.” Gruening obviously was convinced that Alaska’s Natives were no different from other disadvantaged minorities in the New Deal coalition. Late in , Irwin Silverman found it necessary to remind his Interior Department colleagues “that the establishment of a reservation under the Act has nothing to do with Native ownership of land . . . [and] that the department should not at this time be concerning itself with reservations.” He acknowledged opposition to reservations from within and outside the department, and recommended that the department turn its attention to resolving the question of aboriginal title. Cohen, as he left office in December, also discussed Alaska Native claims. The U.S. government, he observed, had acquired more than percent of the public domain from the Indians of the contiguous states, by either treaty or agreement. He felt it reasonable that Alaska Natives insist on governmental negotiations with them.
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Although it was difficult to estimate the costs of a settlement for all of Alaska, he noted, “the cost of the land subject to Native title that we should want to acquire from the Native groups will be much greater years from now than it is today. Prompt action is likely to be the most economical one in the long run.” Early in , the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs held hearings on two measures. One was to rescind Indian reservations in Alaska, and the other dealt with transferring the administration of laws affecting Natives to the territorial government. Neither bill passed. The Department of the Interior, which had pleaded with Congress for help with the Native-claims issue, returned to the notion of resolving the matter by creating reservations. Finally, in June, the Truman administration’s own bill “to settle and extinguish land claims to the public domain in the Territory of Alaska” emerged. Under its terms, Natives were to receive “grants to lands and of interest in lands or waters”— excluding all oil, gas, and mineral rights—to enable them to maintain an adequate standard of living. In return for surrendering all claims based on possessory rights, Natives would receive title to all land grants, except those in the national forests, which were to be held in trust and administered by the Forest Service. Natives would also receive a certain portion of the income derived from national forests, the amount to be determined by the secretary of the interior. The measure put several restrictions on land titles, however, and it specified that after four years all claims except to community lands would be extinguished. Native communities or individuals “aggrieved by the extinguishments of possessory rights” could appeal to the courts for relief. The Native Claims Settlement bill did not pass Congress. Accordingly, the secretary of the interior proceeded with plans to establish reservations in Alaska. In November, he conferred with representatives from all interested agencies; the nineday conference covered a wide range of Alaska subjects. Gruening reiterated that a reservation bill discriminated against the Natives, who were rapidly integrating into the larger territorial society and beginning to elect representatives to the legislature. Reservations would keep the Indians wards of the BIA and “tenants of the Forest Service.” He opposed the communal ownership provisions of the administration’s failed bill. “I think it fundamental,” he stated, “[that] we should start emancipating the Natives from . . . government control. We should get them out of swaddling clothes and let them be free men.” Tax exemption of Natives’ lands for periods of up to twenty-five years was undesirable as well, for he saw no reason “whatever for exempting anyone from taxation on the basis of race.” After noting that neither he nor Bartlett were consulted on the claims bill, Gruening pointedly observed, “It would be wise policy for the department to let the delegate and the governor at least see and comment on Alaska bills before they [are] introduced.” At the end of the conference, participants, including those from the Interior Department, decided to support the administration’s Native Claims Settlement bill, amended to meet Gruening’s objections. It seemed, finally, preferable to, or at least
Gruening and Alaska Native Claims
less objectionable than, the ARA’s provision for creating reserves to solve the Alaska situation. Accordingly, the solicitor’s office was instructed to redraft the measure. Conferees agreed that no public announcement be made, undoubtedly fearing that renewed debate would make passage of the legislation much more difficult. In April , about five months after the conference, the Department of the Interior submitted a revised version of the Native-claims measure to the Bureau of the Budget for clearance. As Gruening had recommended, the bill now contained provisions for loans and grants to Natives designed to aid their economy. But it did not grant title to lands in national forests, a deficiency that drew immediate criticism from the department’s Advisory Committee on Indian Affairs. It thought the measure was a sham: even though its stated intent was to settle land claims, two parts of the bill explicitly extinguished all claims of Native communities or individuals based on aboriginal title, and the parts relating to land grants and titles were so evasive and conditional as to be meaningless. In short, the committee found the bill totally lacking in merit. The department quickly abandoned the measure. President Truman also found it unsatisfactory, and he asked Krug to draft something that would “approach a fair settlement of this unsolved situation.” Interior Department personnel prepared several versions of a settlement measure, but none satisfied everyone involved. In November, the National Congress of American Indians appealed to the president, asking him to “intervene to help break the bureaucratic log jam that has kept Alaska Natives in poverty for years.” That group called for reservations “clearly fixing the boundaries of the Indians’ land and protecting it from encroachment by whites.” Many non-Native organizations, among them the Women’s Society of Christian Service, the American Friends Service Committee, and the American Civil Liberties Union, indicated their support for a settlement of Alaska Native claims. Apparently acting without instruction from the president, Secretary Krug, on the eve of leaving office in November , signed four orders establishing land reserves for Barrow, Shungnak, Kobuk, and Hydaburg. They would become effective “only upon . . . approval by a majority vote of the natives residing in the . . . area.” When they learned of the order, Bartlett and Gruening were appalled. Gruening, complaining that the Department of the Interior never listened to him, immediately asked Chapman, now Secretary of the Interior in his own right and an old friend, to postpone the voting. Then he urged a Senate committee to spur Congress, not the Interior Department, to establish some means for settling aboriginal claims speedily and let the Natives “either own the land outright or receive monetary compensation, whichever they prefer.” He continued, “But I cannot see any justification for this reservation status. It is a completely reactionary policy.” Will bureaucrats, he wondered, “divide up Alaska into a lot of tight little empires, where only the people of one village are allowed to fish and hunt?” At an election in Barrow on February , , Native voters rejected the reservation scheme to . In April elections, Shungnak Eskimos rejected the reservation by
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a vote of to ; Hydaburg residents, after heavy lobbying by BIA personnel and Felix Cohen, voted to in favor of the reservation. There was no vote in Kobuk. The Hydaburg Natives may have been swayed by the bureau’s promise to expropriate the fish traps operated by whites within the reservation boundaries. Keeping its promise, the BIA requested that Libby, McNeill, and Libby, one of several companies that dominated the fishery, vacate the waters or negotiate a use agreement with the Indians; when the company refused to cooperate, the Interior Department sued. On October , , in federal district court, Judge George W. Folta found that the Hydaburg Reservation had not been validly created. He disqualified the case against the packing company on half a dozen counts. Unless a higher court reversed it, Gruening happily observed, Folta’s decision would “end the establishment of reservations of the type proclaimed by Secretaries Ickes and Krug for the purpose of disposing of aboriginal or possessory claims.” The Department of the Interior did not appeal. The six-month-old Hydaburg Reservation was no more. Clearly, Secretary Chapman was changing the direction of Indian policy. Although he affirmed the department’s “long-standing policy . . . that the land rights of the Indians and other Native groups in Alaska must be protected as long as protection is needed,” for some time he had been drifting away from the New Deal philosophy of self-determination and cultural pluralism. Any determination of Native land claims in Alaska ran the risk of antagonizing Natives, whites, or both. The passage of time would make an eventual resolution only more difficult, yet political inertia prevailed. The actions of the early s foretold the future. Alaska, on becoming a state in , began to select the lands granted it under its statehood act. Conflicts soon arose with the Natives. In , the BIA formally protested the state’s filing for patents on . million acres near Fairbanks that were already claimed by four Native villages. Soon, Natives claimed millions of acres across the state, and in late , Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall, in order to preserve the status of Alaskan lands until the Native claims were settled,” put a moratorium on patenting state selections. Earlier that year, in April, the Tundra Times, a statewide Native newspaper, quoted Gruening on the subject of land claims based on the “dubious grounds of aboriginal rights.” The BIA’s encouraging Native protest against land selections, he said, was “intolerable to the State of Alaska and a repudiation by fiat of an executive agency of provisions of the statehood act enacted by Congress.” The Department of the Interior, Gruening argued, had usurped the functions of Congress by refusing to patent state land selections. It should allow no further Native protests and either dismiss those pending or draw up legislation to settle them immediately. The snail’s pace of progress in sorting out Native claims apparently convinced Gruening that Congress should act decisively. The following week, the Tundra Times printed a letter criticizing Gruening from William Hensley, an Eskimo student at the University of Alaska, who would soon emerge as one of a group of articulate young Native leaders. The senator responded,
Gruening and Alaska Native Claims
declaring himself in favor of giving the court of claims jurisdiction over Native claims or, alternatively, of drafting legislation to settle specific claims. He also agreed to introduce whatever type of legislation the Department of the Interior desired. Natives, voting as a block, had traditionally supported Democrats in elections. However, in the summer of , Hugh Nichols, a leader of the Arctic Slope Native Association, wrote that Gruening “should not consider [Natives] to be like the faithful dog, who having been given a few pats and kind words remains wagging his tail, while his master swings a few well aimed kicks at his head.” Nichols acknowledged that Gruening had pushed through a number of stringent antidiscrimination laws as territorial governor, but observed, “The native people have begun to grow up . . . and what they would accept gratefully without question forty years ago, they will not do so now.” In the following years, as the state selected lands, the Natives filed claims. Finally, in , Secretary Udall stopped the transfer of Native-claimed lands to the state, until Congress had settled the land-claims issue. Udall’s action followed Native protests against state plans to sell gas-and-oil leases on the North Slope, on lands tentatively approved for patent to the state. In , Senator Gruening introduced S., the Department of the Interior Native Claims Settlement measure. It authorized the Secretary of the Interior to convey to each Native village title of up to fifty thousand acres of federal lands. The bill also authorized Natives to file a lawsuit in the court of claims to obtain monetary compensation for the extinguishments of their aboriginal title to those federal lands. The secretary of the interior would hold legal title to the Native lands in trust for twenty-five years. Either the secretary or a trustee elected by the village residents would control land use, subject to the secretary’s approval. The measure required the court of claims to use , the year of the U.S. purchase of Alaska from Russia, as the date for putting a dollar figure on aboriginal title. In addition, Alaska’s attorney general, rather than Natives themselves, was to file the court of claims lawsuit. The Natives protested and demanded that Gruening introduce the measure that a statewide Native meeting had approved in October . Eight months later, he had still failed to do so. However, with his reelection campaign less than a year away, Gruening finally introduced S. “by request,” which meant that the sponsor did not support the measure’s enactment. S. required the court of claims to award money as compensation for the value of federal lands that were subject to Native aboriginal title when legal title was already conveyed to third parties. It directed the court of claims to award Alaska’s Natives legal title to all federal lands subject to Native aboriginal title whose legal title the federal government still owned. Gruening opposed the measure. Since he served on both the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs and on the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs, he possessed veto power over the terms on which Congress eventually would settle the Native land claims.
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After Gruening lost his reelection bid in , he continued to work for various causes. Native claims, however, was not one of them. In , Congress passed, and President Richard M. Nixon signed into law, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). It granted Natives title to forty million acres of land, surface and subsurface, to be divided among villages and twelve Native groups designated as regional corporations. Congress compensated the Natives for lands relinquished with . million. In his autobiography, Gruening allowed that the ANCSA was so complex that its effectiveness could not be determined for some years. How well the law worked would “depend in large part on the integrity and intelligence of Native leadership,” but in any case, it “provided an opportunity that Alaska’s Native population had too long been denied.” Few things are ever settled with finality, and this is true of the ANCSA as well. Thirty-three years later, it is considered either the most generous settlement of aboriginal rights Congress ever enacted, or the most cynical and massive sellout of Native Americans in U.S. history. However, Congress has amended the law on a number of occasions. Many different factors made the ANCSA of possible, including the civil rights revolution in the United States in the s and the discovery of oil on the Kenai Peninsula in . Congress passed civil rights acts in , , and . The work of Congress and court decisions, together with the work of civil rights activists, sensitized Americans to the plight of minorities. Although Alaska was remote from the civil rights struggles in the contiguous states, modern communications—television, radio, and newspapers and magazines—carried the news of the civil rights struggle into every town and village in the North. Indians, Aleuts, and Eskimos watched and listened and, in time, became politicized. Gruening, a sincere assimilationist, simply misread the tone of the times and refused to believe that Native claims to vast areas were legitimate. Gruening had predicted that the creation of reservations would divide Alaska along racial lines. In one sense, the ANCSA has done so. He had also advocated the Natives’ economic empowerment and the abolition of the Interior Department’s trustee role, and the law ensured both; it provided that the regional corporations would hold fee simple title to the land and all its resources. However, Gruening held to the nineteenth-century concept of the melting pot, whereby all citizens would eventually shed their ethnic peculiarities and become Americanized, that is, take on the characteristics of the majority—white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Thus, though he may have approved of the ANCSA overall, he would likely have condemned the resulting balkanization of Alaska.
21 The Vietnam Issue
I
n his autobiography, Ernest Gruening wrote that “a tragedy of great proportions” slowly began to engulf the entire nation during the s, and that tragedy involved America’s deepening involvement in the Vietnam conflict. During his first four years in the U.S. Senate, there was not much talk of Vietnam in Congress. The rather commanding United States presence in Vietnam, initiated and maintained wholly by executive actions, had attracted little attention. Congress voted the necessary appropriations but rarely questioned executive actions. In his memoirs, Gruening recalled that he knew little more than what he read in the newspapers, and that he found his colleagues no better informed. He thereupon studied the issue; what he found intrigued him and, starting in early , led him to oppose the escalating United States military involvement in Vietnam. Gruening asked himself how the United States had become involved in a land war ten thousand miles from its shores, against which Generals Douglas MacArthur and Matthew B. Ridgway had warned. In the presidential campaign, President Lyndon B. Johnson had overwhelmingly defeated Senator Barry Goldwater on issues that seemed clear to most Americans. Goldwater had argued for an aggressive foreign policy, which had given the impression “that he supported any military efforts needed to ‘win’ the war in Vietnam—whatever that meant,” while “President Johnson’s campaign utterances conveyed the impression to millions of Americans that he would achieve peaceful solutions to U.S. entanglements in Southeast Asia.” The involvement of the United States with Vietnam was complex, but may be summarized briefly. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, numerous European powers invaded and occupied all of Africa and much of Asia and Oceania. In Southeast Asia, the French carved out a colony called Indochina, composed of three nations, each with its own history—namely, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. During World War II, the Japanese overran Indochina and occupied it. The Vietnamese, led by Ho Chi Minh, who wanted to establish the independence of Vietnam, fought the Japanese together with the Allies. His people considered him a hero. Ever since the end of World War II, France had attempted to restore its authority over Vietnam, its onetime colony, which it had been forced to abandon to Japan
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during the war. Opposing the French, however, were the powerful nationalist forces of Ho Chi Minh, determined to win independence for their nation. At the end of World War II, Ho Chi Minh had appealed to the United States on several occasions for support but had received no reply. Some Americans have argued that Ho was eager, at that point, to develop a close relationship with the United States and that the Truman administration squandered the opportunity. He was, however, a Moscow-trained Communist and committed to Marxism—but equally important was his nationalism. He believed in an independent and united Vietnam, and was never willing to compromise that goal. By , China and the Soviet Union were giving substantial aid to Ho. America, in the meantime, had been paying most of France’s war costs since —largely because of fears of Ho’s communist connections—yet withheld full support. A crisis developed in early , when the Vietminh surrounded twelve thousand French forces in a disastrous siege at the city of Dien Bien Phu. The French surrendered Dien Bien Phu on May , . The day before, ten nations had convened at Geneva to discuss Indochina and ultimately drew up accords that provided for the reestablishment of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The accord, which the U.S. did not sign but pledged to support in a unilateral statement, provided that Vietnam was to be temporarily divided at the seventeenth parallel into North and South Vietnam for demobilization, with the stipulation that within two years an election would be held to choose a government for a reunited Vietnam. When Dien Bien Phu fell, the small U.S. military mission in Saigon took over from the French, brought political leader Ngo Dinh Diem back from a monastic life in the United States, installed him as president of the South Vietnamese Council of Ministers, and in a subsequent rigged election backed him successfully against the playboy emperor Bao Dai for the leadership of the southern sector of the country. Subsequently, the United States became ever more deeply quagmired in Vietnam. The justifications for this course of action varied over the years. President Johnson, in his State of the Union message in January , declared that the United States was there because a friendly nation had asked for help against communist aggression. Ten years earlier, he said, the United States had pledged its help, three presidents had honored that pledge, and he was not going to break it. The rest of the story is well known. The Vietnam War tore the nation apart and persuaded President Johnson not to seek reelection in ; President Nixon subsequently wound down the conflict and started the withdrawal of American troops in . On January , , the Nixon administration concluded a settlement in Paris that ended the war. When Senator Gruening became intrigued with the American involvement in Vietnam, he discovered that the American presence in that country was a commanding one. It had attracted little public attention, and executive action had brought it about and maintained it; Congress merely voted the necessary appropriations with little questioning. When he first criticized the presence of American advisors in Vietnam, who were called technicians but were actually troops, on the Senate floor on
The Vietnam Issue
October , , Gruening pointed out that it cost the American taxpayers one million dollars a day, but worse yet, it had taken the lives of a hundred young American men. On February , , Gruening and Senator Jacob Javits (R-N.Y.) discussed the situation in Vietnam on the Senate floor. The latter compared the Korean and Vietnam conflicts and maintained that the United States had to honor its commitment to Vietnam because it was “worthwhile, and because the alternatives [were] greater losses, both in national terms and in terms of killed and wounded and the expenditure of treasure.” Gruening disagreed, pointing out that South Koreans opposed communism, fought bravely, and incurred heavy losses, while the South Vietnamese seemed to lack the will to help themselves. Thereafter, recalled George Sundborg, his administrative assistant, Gruening “spoke almost daily on this subject, and his favorite sum-it-all-up sentence was that ‘All of Vietnam is not worth the life of one American boy.’” On March of that year, he delivered his first major address on the topic in the Senate, titled “The United States Should Get Out of Vietnam.” Gruening pointed out that ten years earlier, on October , , Senator Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.), after careful study, had delivered a report to the Senate on the Indochina situation. Mansfield had declared, “The basic problem which confronts all three governments and particularly that of Vietnam is to put down firm roots in their respective populations.” This would only happen, however, if the governments evolved in accord with popular sentiment and dealt competently with such problems as illiteracy, public health, population explosion in the deltas, labor inequities, land tenure, and village and agricultural improvements. Mansfield’s recommendations, Gruening observed, were prophetic but went unheeded. From until , the United States had given Vietnam military and economic aid to the tune of . billion. Why, the senator asked, had aid of this magnitude failed to bring security and peace to South Vietnam? A few days later, Gruening again discussed the war in Vietnam and reminded his colleagues that President Johnson “had inherited the mess” but “now had the opportunity to reappraise the policies and errors of the past decade” and decide whether to end the debacle. The senator realized that a presidential decision on the matter would not be easy, since there were “substantial differences of opinion on this subject” that his colleagues “expressed forthrightly, eloquently, and with deep conviction and sincerity.” He respected their views but disagreed with them. As he would do in the years ahead, Gruening inserted various editorials and articles condemning the war into the Congressional Record and briefly introduced each piece. Each additional death “in those far-off jungles,” he said, raised the questions of why American soldiers fought and died there, and why the United States had been involved for the last ten years. On March , , the senator informed his colleagues of his steadily growing mail from constituents, which, he said, approved of his “expressed belief that we should pull our men from the combat in which they are now engaged in South Vietnam and stop the needless sacrifice of American lives.” By this point, Gruening
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spoke almost daily in the Senate on this subject. He considered the Vietnam conflict to be a civil war in which the United States was on the wrong side, backing a corrupt and totalitarian regime. In April, the senator once again reported on the ever-escalating war in Vietnam. American officers reported that the number of small-unit operations had reached a new high of nearly five thousand, and battalion-sized operations were at a near record level, with sixty-five reported in one week in mid-April . By that time, U.S. soldiers had been killed, wounded, and missing. Military authorities had stated that approximately thirty-five hundred to four thousand U.S. servicemen were regularly exposed to Vietcong fire. In fact, Gruening declared, “the American people are asked to face the prospect that or more men will be sacrificed every month from now on.” He found this to be “horrible, disgraceful, shocking, and needless.” A few days later, Gruening told his colleagues that his mail ran about one hundred to one in favor of an American withdrawal from the region. He had never received so much mail on any subject since he came to the Senate in . It came from every state of the union, and from individuals in every walk of life. He warned that the administration better take note of this, “because as casualties increase . . . public indignation will rise.” Gruening marked the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the battle of Dien Bien Phu by inserting into the Congressional Record a lengthy article by historian Bernard B. Fall, an expert on that region, titled “Dienbienphu: Battle to Remember.” Fall summarized the French role in Indochina and the course of the battle, and declared that the fall of the jungle fortress “marked the end of French military influence in Asia, just as the sieges of Port Arthur, Corregidor, and Singapore had, to a certain extent, broken the spell of Russian, American, and British hegemony in Asia. The Asians, after centuries of subjugation, had beaten the white man at his own game.” Yet today, Fall continued, Vietcong guerrillas in South Vietnam once again challenged “the West’s ability to withstand a potent combination of political and military pressure in a totally alien environment.” The anniversary was a bad omen for the United States, Gruening thought. The Indo-Chinese war had cost France the lives of tens of thousands of her young men, and cost a fortune to which the United States had materially contributed. His country had “picked up the tattered remains of France’s banner.” That had been a tragic error, for the United States, just like France, could not win this war. Yet also like France, the United States was falling into “that tropical southeast Asian trap.” The United States, Gruening stated, was bound to suffer the same fate that had befallen France unless it called upon the United Nations and worked with others for a negotiated peace. On June , the senator called for a United Nations–sponsored cease-fire in South Vietnam, for it was “becoming increasingly evident to more and more people in the United States,” as well as to America’s allies, that the “undeclared war in South Vietnam into which the United States [had] needlessly injected itself ” could only be settled at the conference table and not by military force.
The Vietnam Issue
This was the first time anybody in the Senate or elsewhere in a leadership position had proposed such a cease-fire in South Vietnam. The press ignored it, although the wire services carried it. Though neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post mentioned Gruening’s speech, both newspapers responded editorially that to negotiate successfully, the United States first had to increase its military strength. In his endeavors to change American policy toward Vietnam, Gruening had the full support of only one of his colleagues, Wayne Morse (D-Ore.), who often and eloquently argued against current American Figure . Senator Wayne Morse, late s. Acc. no. --. policies (Figure ). For example, on June Morse gave a lengthy speech in which he charged his country with violating the Geneva Accords by supplying South Vietnam with military hardware and by stationing U.S. troops in that country. It did so, he said, “on the ground that North Vietnam is violating the Geneva accords. It is pretty sad, pretty shocking, but that is the page of history we are writing.” Morse proposed that the South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) send several peace-keeping divisions to the region and then ask the United Nations to assume jurisdiction, “or perhaps to provide that those divisions of SEATO shall act for the United Nations.” He concluded, “Only an aroused public opinion can stop [the war].” A few days later, Gruening attacked a Republican policy work group recommendation that called for a firm American commitment to halt communist China’s military expansion and subversion in Asia and in the Pacific. It stated, “A victory in South Vietnam over the military and subversive threats of communism is urgently required.” The United States had “to insure a victory for freedom.” Gruening considered the Republican recommendations “so unrealistic and so ‘far out’ as to be positively frightening,” for it would reverse traditional American principles and instead “seek to conquer other nations militarily and hold them subjugated by military might.” On the evening of August , President Johnson made a nationwide broadcast on television and radio at prime time to announce that for the second time in as many days, hostile actions against U.S. ships had occurred on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin. On August , the president stated, the destroyer Maddox had been attacked, and earlier in the day on August a number of hostile vessels attacked two U.S. destroyers with torpedoes. After the first incident, the president had ordered that American forces respond. This they had done, and Johnson believed that American destroyers and supporting aircraft probably sank two of the attacking boats. The president continued that he believed that the armed forces of the United States
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should reply positively against such aggressive action. He told the nation that as he spoke, American planes were bombing gunboats and supporting facilities in North Vietnam that the enemy had used in the hostile actions. North Vietnam was attacking not only the peaceful villagers of South Vietnam but also the United States on the high seas. Still, he continued, the United States would “seek no wider war.” Johnson then outlined four actions he had undertaken or was about to undertake, in addition to the retaliatory air strikes: he had instructed the secretary of state to explain the U.S. position to all nations; he had asked the American ambassador to raise the issue immediately before the Security Council of the United Nations; he had consulted congressional leaders of both parties; and he would ask Congress to pass a resolution “making it clear that our Government is united in its determination to take all necessary measures in support of freedom and in defense of peace in Southeast Asia.” The next day, Johnson sent a special message to Congress in which he asked it to affirm the national determination that the United States would respond to all such attacks and that it would continue “its basic policy of assisting the free nations of the area to defend their freedom.” He also asked Congress to enact the resolution promptly, because “the events of this week” had “made the passage of a congressional resolution essential.” It was necessary that hostile nations understood that “the United States [would] continue to protect its national interest, and that in these matters there [was] no division among us.” According to Gruening, the Johnson administration had decided to escalate the war in Vietnam prior to the incidents by preparing to bomb selected North Vietnamese targets. The administration, however, played down this decision and instead focused American attention “on the allegedly unprovoked attack by North Vietnamese PT boats on two United States destroyers allegedly in International waters on a routine patrol.” Johnson sent his proposed resolution to Congress on August and asked Congress “to approve and support the determination of the President as commander in chief to take all the necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States to prevent further aggression. . . . The United States regards Vietnam as vital to its national interest and to world peace and security in Southeast Asia.” On August , the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee held joint closed-door hearings. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and General Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified. The hearing lasted an hour and forty minutes and all members present, except Senator Morse, voted in favor of the resolution. The House Foreign Affairs Committee also held closed-door hearings on the resolution. Both the Senate and House committees reported the resolution favorably without change. The respective committees of both houses considered identical resolutions so that upon passage by both houses a conference committee, which would have caused delay, could be avoided and the resolution rushed to the president for his signature—and this was done.
The Vietnam Issue
In the Senate debates on the resolution, Gruening acknowledged that it was “always difficult not to accede to a request from the President of the United States, especially one which is couched in terms of high principle and national interest.” He did not doubt that the president believed the course he was pursuing in Southeast Asia in the best interest of the nation. Furthermore, he said, long practice had established that the executive conducts the nation’s foreign policy; yet the Congress, and by constitutional mandate the Senate, had a right and duty to “advise and consent” in this area. Senators would fail to exercise their duties if they did not individually express their views, he continued, particularly if those embodied “doubt or dissent, and where a vote is called for, to cast that vote as our conscience directs.” Gruening went on to summarize his often-expressed views on the situation in Vietnam, namely that the United States should not have picked up the burden abandoned by France ten years ago; that America’s SEATO allies did not support the effort; that neither U.S. security nor national interest were involved; and that, contrary to the American claim to be supporting freedom in South Vietnam, it rather had propped up “corrupt and unpopular puppet dictatorships which owe[d] their temporary sojourn in power to our massive support” and enjoyed little approval from their own people. In short, he concluded, “we inherited this putrid mess from past administrations, and we should now make every effort to disengage ourselves.” The senator went on to discuss section of Senate Joint Resolution , which based its case in part on the United Nations charter. He accused the drafters of having disregarded several other provisions of the U.N. charter that appeared to be very pertinent, such as Article , which provided that parties to any continuing dispute likely to endanger international peace and security should “first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, inquiry, meditation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.” Neither the United States nor South or North Vietnam had followed this specific mandate. The senator stated that he faced “a difficult and painful decision . . . but in good conscience he could not do other than . . . vote ‘no’ on the pending resolution.” The debate continued, with Gruening and Morse the sole senators arguing against approval of the resolution. Senator William Fulbright (D-Ark.) guided the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, as it came to be known, through the Senate, where it passed eighty-eight to two, with only Senators Gruening and Morse casting the negative votes. The House adopted the resolution by a vote of to . Doris Kearns, a biographer of Lyndon B. Johnson, wrote that the president had both flexed his muscles and shown restraint, to pursue contradictory policies and apparently make them work. In the presidential election, Johnson ran as the “man of peace” who would “never send American boys to do the fighting that Asian boys should do themselves.” Yet Johnson was also determined not to allow Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), his opponent in the race, to usurp the role of defending America’s pride and patriotism. When ordering the single bombing raid against the North Vietnamese attackers of American ships, he demonstrated that
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although a man of peace, he was not one of weakness. And just before the campaign, Kearns wrote, “the Tonkin affair allowed this consensus President to speak by his actions to each of his constituencies, satisfying all of them in one stroke.” In the end, however, Johnson’s rhetoric of restrained commitment to South Vietnam during the campaign led to very great difficulties when he had to choose between massive escalation or the defeat of Saigon. With the escalation, hundreds of thousands of American servicemen went to war, and “millions of Americans came to feel that the President had betrayed them, lied, and deliberately tricked them to get their votes.” Senators Gruening and Morse continued their opposition to the war in Vietnam. On January , , Gruening delivered a speech in the Senate titled “The Mess in Vietnam Worsens Steadily—It Is High Time That We Wage Peace.” He once again summarized the American involvement in that country and his reasons for opposing it. He also pointed out that in the United States lost servicemen in Vietnam, and , had been wounded. He thought it “extremely unfortunate when a single American military man is killed in the steamy jungles of South Vietnam” fighting a civil war for a people most reluctant to do battle for “a cause which cannot be settled by arms” but only politically and with the participation of other nations. On that same day, the senator inserted into the Congressional Record representative letters that he had received from individuals and organizations throughout the country supporting his stand on Vietnam, and on January , he supported a request by Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho) for a full debate on the Vietnam issue, one that “would give the American people a better idea of the alternatives available to us.” In the months that followed, Gruening took every opportunity to speak on the subject to his colleagues, and collected large numbers of newspaper editorials as well as analytical articles supporting his stand and had them inserted into the Congressional Record. In early February , after the Vietcong attacked an American outpost at Pleiku, the Johnson administration began its escalation of the war by ordering the bombing of North Vietnam in retaliation. Gruening addressed the issue in the Senate on February , . The first installment of his comments appeared in the Congressional Record under the title “The Mess in Vietnam” and continued for weeks. In it, he called for a reassessment of the American position in South Vietnam, but conceded that it would be difficult to do so until all the facts surrounding the Pleiku attack had been made public. Judging from the way the military managed the news, Gruening continued, “it is doubtful whether the American public will be made privy to the full details of what is actually transpiring in Vietnam.” The senator dismissed Secretary McNamara’s explanation for the American losses at Pleiku—namely that the attack had been a sneak night attack—as silly. The rules of war did not limit fighting to the daylight hours, he said, nor did the enemy have an obligation to warn Americans of an impending attack. By , the senator also began to receive invitations to speak before various audiences and air his views. For example, in April he debated the Vietnam issue with
The Vietnam Issue
Assistant Secretary of State William P. Bundy at an Upper West Side Manhattan high school. Subsequently, Gruening requested that whenever he spoke, the opposing viewpoint be represented as well. The State Department initially furnished speakers, but later declined to do so because departmental personnel began to receive unfavorable audience reactions as well as press coverage. In his autobiography, Gruening wrote that he did not escape unscathed, since his stand was still not widely shared. Syndicated columnists James J. Kilpatrick, Fulton Lewis Jr., and others attacked him, and Theodore Stevens, then a member of the Alaska legislature, addressed the Anchorage Republican Club to declare, “No man, unless it is Senator Wayne Morse, has done more to harm American security at home and our prestige abroad than our junior senator.” By early , several of Gruening’s colleagues told him privately that events since the Tonkin Gulf incident had persuaded them that they should have cast a negative vote on the resolution. In his eleventh installment of “The Mess in Vietnam,” on April , Gruening asserted that American policies in Southeast Asia aided rather than thwarted imperialist communism because American actions alienated ever greater numbers of Vietnamese citizens. On May , in the fourteenth installment of “The Mess in Vietnam,” Gruening mentioned Secretary of State Dean Rusk’s public chiding of the academic community for its “stubborn disregard of plain facts” in Vietnam. In reply, some faculty members from twenty-five New England universities took out a three-quarter-page advertisement in the New York Times, in which they pointed out that Rusk and other administration spokesmen were guilty of “stubborn disregard of the facts.” The academics refuted Rusk’s claims point by point, and stated that world opinion did not support U.S. military operations in Vietnam. The academics declared that they would not be intimidated by charges of gullibility or disloyalty from speaking out on the issue and demanded that “the administration return to the plain facts and make an earnest attempt to obtain a negotiated peace.” It cheered the senator to find increasing support for his views. Early in the summer, Gruening applauded President Johnson’s intention to participate personally in the June , , ceremonies in San Francisco marking the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. The senator urged the president to seize this unique opportunity to make the occasion even more memorable “by invoking the peacekeeping powers of the United Nations to bring the conflict in Vietnam to the conference table.” His pleas fell on deaf ears. On July , , in the eighteenth installment of “The Mess in Vietnam,” Gruening inserted a column by commentator Walter Lippman that had appeared in that morning’s Washington Post into the Congressional Record. “Asian War” summarized what the senator had been saying since March . Lippman wrote, “We are about to put Americans against Asians on the continent of Asia,” and except for help from the disintegrating South Vietnamese Army, the U.S. had received only token or verbal support from any Asian country. The United States had no U.N. mandate, none
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from NATO nor from any of the other nations of the western hemisphere. Worse yet, he continued, the administration enjoyed only “a reluctant and depressed acquiescence” from the American public. The security of the United States was not threatened. In fact, there were two chief reasons why the U.S. became ever more deeply involved, first “a proud refusal to admit a mistake, to admit the failure of an attempt . . . to make South Vietnam a pro-American and anti-Chinese state,” and second that the U.S. was in South Vietnam at the invitation of its government, fighting for the Vietnamese people and also for the millions in other threatened lands beyond. Lippman, like Gruening, believed that the concept of the United States as the world’s policeman was a dangerous form of self-delusion and that the nation should get out. In his autobiography, Gruening wrote that on August , , he had a chance to express his views personally to the president, who had invited him to the White House to thank him for some remarks he had made praising Johnson’s domestic programs. Gruening reviewed his reasons for opposing the Vietnam War and urged Johnson to withdraw American forces and arrange for United Nations–supervised Vietnam-wide elections as called for in the Geneva accords. Johnson listened politely, and then Gruening told him that he planned that afternoon to introduce an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill barring the dispatch of draftees to Southeast Asia without their consent and without the approval of Congress. The president then asked the senator not to introduce the amendment. If the United States had not withdrawn from Vietnam by January , Johnson stated, Gruening could do as he liked. His administration would not send any draftees to Southeast Asia before that date, he assured the senator. Gruening did not introduce the amendment. The next day, August , Johnson telephoned the senator and repeated that no draftees would be sent before January . On August , Gruening received a letter from the president in which he thanked him for not “introducing [his] amendment . . . which would have prohibited the sending of draftees without their consent to Southeast Asia.” Gruening refrained from any action until March . American involvement in Vietnam had rapidly escalated in the meantime, so he introduced his amendment, but with little success. It received two votes, Gruening recalled, “Wayne Morse’s and mine.” The United States, in the meantime, had escalated the Vietnam conflict into a major war. Gruening continued his opposition, and as time went on, larger and larger segments of the population, particularly young people, supported his views (Figures and ). On February , , when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee examined what had actually happened in the Tonkin Gulf, the nation learned that it was not at all clear that the North Vietnamese had launched an attack on the American destroyers on that fateful day of August , . Almost nine hours before the president had made his television address to the nation and had given his orders to attack North Vietnamese installations, the Pentagon had received a message from the cap-
The Vietnam Issue
tain of the Maddox that stated that a review of the action had made recorded contacts and torpedoes fired doubtful; freak weather and overeager sonarmen probably accounted for many of the reports. In any event, the Maddox had made no visual sightings, and the captain suggested a complete evaluation before any further action was taken. The president and Secretary McNamara had known this early in the afternoon of August , , but concealed it from the Senate and House leaders meeting later that day at the White House, where Johnson briefed them on his version of what had happened in the Tonkin Gulf. The president did not reveal the text of the Maddox message then at all; it was not made public until the February , , investigation. Gruening lost his primary Figure . Senator Gruening addressing a rally on bid for reelection to Mike Gravel, a Vietnam sponsored by Students for a Democratic Society at Sylvan Theater, Washington, D.C. Acc. thirty-eight-year-old Anchorage no. --. real estate developer. Alaska was a hawkish state, and Gravel had softpedaled the Vietnam issue and instead emphasized a “can do for Alaska” theme in his attempt to offset Gruening’s years of experience, record, and Senate committee posts. Gruening did not make the war his major issue, but there was no doubt that his outspoken opposition diluted many party workers’ enthusiasm for his reelection. Before his defeat in the Alaska primary, the National Press Inc. of Washington, D.C., had published the volume Vietnam Folly, a book written largely by Gruening’s legislative assistant Herbert Wilton Beaser but which carried the names of both men as authors. The book set forth the senator’s position on Vietnam, an issue about which a large proportion of the American people were misinformed. The book made an eloquent case for his opposition and fully documented the record of American involvement and escalation. On April , , two months before Gruening’s death on June of that year, historian Joe B. Frantz interviewed the former senator at his home in the nation’s capital, an interview that yielded a manuscript to be deposited in the Lyndon Baines
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Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. In retrospect, Gruening recalled, the whole involvement was “incredible.” The United States went to Southeast Asia because it was “in the grip of an obsession” which was “that Communism, China and Russia, were a monolithic combination determined to Bolshevize the world” and that the U.S. “had to stop them.” If we failed to do so and if Figure . Gruening addressing students at UCLA Vietnam fell, “then Laos and on Vietnam, April , . Acc. no. --. Cambodia and Thailand would fall, and then Communism would move across the South Pacific and take first the Philippines and Australia, New Zealand, and the Hawaiian Islands, and we’d be fighting them on the beaches of California. Fantastic! But this was the United States policy embodied in the Domino Theory by John Foster Dulles” (President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s secretary of state), and it continued to be “the basis of a continuing war in Southeast Asia which,” Gruening declared, “is, to my mind, utterly inexcusable.” Gruening lived to see the end of the war. He witnessed President Richard M. Nixon’s negotiations with Hanoi that resulted in the January , , Paris agreement that arranged for a cease-fire to take effect four days later. An International Commission of Control and Supervision consisting of Canada, Indonesia, Hungary, and Poland was to oversee the cease-fire. It had been the longest war in American history and the fourth most costly, with , battle deaths and about another three million wounded. In addition, the conflict had wrought tremendous internal divisions within the nation. Much happened between January and April , , when American ambassador Graham Martin ordered the final American evacuation from that country, leaving the embassy by helicopter shortly after midnight. The next day, after the last U.S. Marine guards had helicoptered to safety from the embassy roof, South Vietnamese prime minister Nguyen Van Thieu surrendered his country to the communist North Vietnamese. Gruening’s courageous dissent and tenacity in criticizing America’s involvement in the Southeast Asian conflict contributed materially to the U.S. disengagement in the s by rallying ever-increasing support for his stand. For a few lonely years, he and Senator Wayne Morse served as America’s conscience in the Senate. For Gruening, it came as second nature to do battle for what he believed to be right—he had done it all his life.
22 The Last Campaign for the Senate
E
nding his 1962 reelection bid with a final round of campaign appearances in the Anchorage area, Gruening had flown home to Juneau to vote. His assistant, George Sundborg, stayed in Anchorage to help get out the vote on election day, but drove the senator to the airport. As Sundborg “walked . . . with him from the terminal to the plane for a final good-bye he said it was obvious he was going to win big the following day.” Gruening was then seventy-five years old, and age had been an issue in the campaign. Gruening stated that this would be his last Senate term. But long before the election, the elderly senator had come to believe that he could run successfully once more and serve an additional six years. He began to position himself for another campaign. Sundborg explained that Gruening loved “being a U.S. senator. Few retire voluntarily from such an office.” And Gruening told him that as to age, “a man was only as old as he felt, and [he] felt fine.” Sundborg saw ample evidence that Gruening “still possessed great gifts of wisdom, vision, and eloquence.” Furthermore, he believed that Alaska needed Gruening in the Senate. Sundborg wrote that he “had been on the firing line with him through two campaigns and had worked for enough years in the Senate to know how hard a senator has to work both during election campaigns and at his official duties in Washington.” Even the most worthy legislative efforts were rarely successful in the competition for congressional attention and support. Too often a senator had “to suffer fools gladly,” and often his constituents not only misunderstood him but also did not appreciate his efforts. Sundborg admired Gruening for his willingness to put forth the effort. Early in , the senator called a strategy session to lay the groundwork for the reelection campaign. Gruening estimated that he would need to raise a milliondollar campaign fund and reminded his staff to “leave no stone unturned to insure for him another win at the polls.” Although an optimist, Gruening was also a realist, and as such was a bit apprehensive about the age issue. Except for Carl Hayden (D-Ariz.), who was born in and had served continuously in Congress since the admission of his state into the Union in , Gruening, ten years his junior, was the second-oldest member of the Senate. Some had served in the Senate past the age of eighty-one, but few had been
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Figure . Gruening with his interns. Acc. no. --.
elected to a six-year term at that or a more advanced age. Still, Sundborg recalled, Gruening “was supremely confident . . . of his ability to serve with undiminished verve for six more years.” He still wanted to accomplish numerous tasks for his state and the nation before retiring. In the statehood elections of , Alaskans had voted overwhelmingly for Democratics. All statewide offices—namely governor, two U.S. senators, and one U.S. representative—went to the Democrats, as did fifty-two of sixty seats in the first state legislature. Alaska began its existence as a member of the Union as a one-party state. That changed quickly, however, because from onward, the Republican and Democratic parties became increasingly competitive. Since , all of Alaska’s regions had shown decreasing Democratic preference. Anchorage and Fairbanks, the state’s largest urban centers, had also become more Republican. (This ideological change came despite a scant increase in the number of voters. Upon admission to the Union in , Alaska was home to only , residents. By , the population had grown to a mere ,.) The August primary election in was different from previous ones, because in the state legislature had passed a measure that replaced the open primary with the “blanket” type. Under the old system, voters received a ballot that listed the candidates of both parties. The individual then could vote for either Republican or Democratic candidates regardless of his or her registered party affiliation, but could not combine parties; in short, the choice had to be a straight ticket. Under the blanket primary, the voter could cross party lines and select a Democratic candidate for one office and a Republican candidate for another; the choice could be a split ticket. This practice further weakened party organization and structure, which had never been very strong in Alaska. On the Republican side, Ted Stevens and Elmer E. Rasmuson, who had developed the state’s largest bank, Anchorage-based National Bank of Alaska, competed
The Last Campaign for the Senate
for the opportunity to contest Gruening’s seat in the general election. Stevens had run against Gruening in and lost that race by a margin of three to two. He successfully ran for the state house in and again in , the same year Alaskans elected Republican Walter J. Hickel governor. Stevens served as state house majority leader in and . Now forty-seven, he battled Rasmuson, fifty-nine, whose political experience was limited to the chairmanship of the University of Alaska’s Board of Regents and a brief term as mayor of Anchorage. Despite Stevens’s political credentials, Rasmuson won the primary. The Democratic senatorial primary race provided the greatest interest for Alaskans and featured the hardest contest, between the incumbent and Mike Gravel, a thirty-eight-year-old real estate developer, former member of the state house, and unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. Born in Massachusetts, Gravel served in the U.S. Army from to , and received a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in . He came to Alaska in and worked as a salesman for Northern Realty in Anchorage, then managed Turnagain Realty before establishing M. R. Gravel Real Estate Development, Inc. in . He served in the state house from to , and as its speaker from to . Gravel’s campaign for Gruening’s seat began in late , when he retained Joseph Napolitan Associates of Washington, D.C., as consultants. That firm conducted successive polls in the North, and Napolitan convinced Gravel and his supporters that a run for the U.S. Senate was feasible. In early , Napolitan had conducted a poll measuring residual strength of candidates. It showed Gravel with a slight lead over Gruening, while the Republicans trailed behind. An early poll showed Gruening with a slight lead over Gravel, and the Republicans some percent behind but closer than in . The Gravel team observed that although Gruening was campaigning furiously, he was losing steam, while Gravel was politically inactive. Gravel, therefore, decided to challenge the incumbent in the primary. Joe Rothstein of the Anchorage Daily News wrote in April that Gruening faced “the toughest political campaign of his career.” Rothstein based his observations on a number of factors. There was hardly anything the incumbent could do or say that would make him better known than he was. He was not deeply involved in any dramatic state cause or problem that might turn to his advantage, and no project seemingly required his continuity in office for insured success. So the election, Rothstein predicted, would turn on several factors over which Gruening had little or no control. One of these was his age. He had to convince voters that he was as capable of representing their interests as someone who was considerably younger. Then there were constituent relations, which influence voters to cast their ballots for or against a candidate. In his twenty-four years in office, first as territorial governor and then as U.S. senator, he had established a record that lay behind him and there was little he could do to change the voters’ verdict. Then there was Vietnam. “His position is clear. It has been underscored, underlined, circled with big bold markings.
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He is perhaps the nation’s chief dove.” Alaska, however, was more hawkish than most states. Rothstein was uncertain what, if anything, Gruening’s dovishness might mean in terms of votes because events were uncertain and could lead to either total peace or an expanded war by election time. Gruening apparently had decided that the best strategy for winning in was to attack the opposition, even though it was lying low. On Anchorage television, Gruening had attacked Mike Gravel, tacitly acknowledging him as his probable primary election challenger although Gravel had neither declared nor filed his candidacy. Rothstein’s article acknowledged that most Democratic observers expected Gravel to file against Gruening. Gravel, however, “in a strategy that seems to parallel the don’t-bother-me-with-politics approach of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, has remained conspicuously out of touch with news columns, political events and the social activity expected of candidates.” Since his short stint as a television news commentator in Anchorage early in , Gravel had virtually disappeared from public view. Oddly enough, Rothstein concluded, during that time Gravel’s political stock had risen so high that he was considered the only Democrat with enough appeal to take on Gruening in the primary campaign. In the meantime, Sundborg, in a speech, implied that Anchorage businessman Barney Gottstein, the state finance committee chairman of the Democratic Party and a board member of Rasmuson’s National Bank of Alaska, was bankrolling Gravel’s “candidacy for the U.S. Senate in order to muddy the political waters so that Republican Candidate Elmer Rasmuson will have a better chance against the senator in November.” Gottstein observed that Sundborg’s charges and attacks by other Gruening people at the recent Democratic convention at Sitka only made it harder for him and others to rally behind Gruening, and were the same tactics that had split the Democratic Party and lost them the last election. He stated that he had always supported Gruening in the past and had “not forgotten the many years of service he has given to Alaska.” But he pointed out that Gruening’s age and his assertion that the United States was the aggressor in Vietnam kept him from enthusiastically supporting the senator now. Furthermore, Gottstein did not believe that the Democrats always had to support the incumbent and instead should have a choice on the ballot. Sundborg, as befitted a campaign manager, stated that the Gruening campaign was “not alarmed or upset over the Gravel candidacy,” for they had their “fingers on the pulse of Alaska” and he was confident that Gruening would defeat Gravel decisively in the August primary and win reelection in the November general election. While Gravel had not announced his candidacy, he and his people were busily preparing the groundwork. As early as March , Mike Rowan, one of Gravel’s close associates and future campaign manager, told a supporter that within a few weeks he would attempt to recruit several hundred individuals urging Gravel to run and commit their votes as well as their dollars. Rowan had been busy in southeast Alaska enlisting potential Gravel supporters. Gravel then wrote to the key people Rowan had identified—for example, Ehrling
The Last Campaign for the Senate
Strand, a prominent Petersburg citizen—and told him, “There is a lot of pressure building here in Anchorage, and in Juneau as well, and in the villages out west and north, for me to run.” He professed a hesitancy in taking on Senator Gruening, except that he feared that his Republican opponent, whoever he might be, would beat him badly. Gravel found it regrettable that the old Democratic Party leaders refused to retire voluntarily and turn campaigning for office over to younger men. He asked Strand to support him if he were to run. At the end of March , Joseph Napolitan delivered the results of polls he had conducted in February and March . He told his employees that Gravel could defeat Gruening in the primary, but that he would have difficulties in winning the general election ten weeks later—although, as of March, Gravel ran ahead of both Republicans who had announced their candidacy. Gruening’s Achilles heel was his age, Napolitan asserted, and therefore it was essential to make age a big issue in the campaign. Napolitan thought that if Gravel did not run against Gruening in the primary, it appeared likely that the Republicans could defeat the incumbent senator in the general election, losing the seat for the Democratic Party. Napolitan concluded that the opportunity to win a U.S. Senate seat did not occur often, and said, “All things considered, I should think it would be worth the gamble for Gravel.” As the filing time for Gravel neared, the Anchorage Daily Times revealed that in May Mt. McKinley Publishers would release a book the unannounced candidate had written titled Jobs and More Jobs, a paperback that was to sell for two dollars a copy. In it, Gravel maintained that Alaska’s joblessness was “greater than we are told,” and “rural natives, older workers who call themselves retired, younger workers who are forced onto relief rolls, natives who are new migrants to the city, teenagers, school dropouts, unskilled Negroes, and unskilled or semi-skilled white people who are frozen into job positions which are static” with little or no mobility made up the jobless. These hopelessly underemployed people presented a huge problem for Alaska. Gravel stated that it would require “imagination and innovation” to tackle this problem, and that the state would have to work closely with federal agencies to make any program effective. The book served the campaign, although later, after his election to the Senate, Gravel wrote that the book of essays was “hastily written” but did promote a discussion “on the major questions facing Alaska at the time.” Gravel finally announced his candidacy at a press conference in Anchorage on May , . Twenty-one radio stations broadcast his message around the state, Alaska newspapers from Kodiak to Nome carried the story, and a correspondent from the Anchorage Daily Times called Gravel “cool, calm and confident” during the announcement. The candidate told his audience that his decision to challenge Gruening had not been made lightly, and that he was fully aware of the senator’s long service to Alaska and of his contributions to the state’s history. But the next six years were crucial for the state, Gravel stated, and therefore he had decided to air his differences with Gruening before the Alaska voting public. The chief difference was that Gruening was more concerned with national and international problems, while
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Gravel believed “more emphasis should be placed on programs to help Alaska and Alaskans.” Gravel did not like the war in Vietnam any more than Gruening did, but he believed that the United States had to honor its commitments. Unlike Gruening, he did not believe that “we should pull our troops out of there at once and leave the civilian population of South Vietnam to the mercies of Ho Chi Minh,” and neither did he believe that the United States was the aggressor in Vietnam. Gravel listed four priorities: more people in Alaska, on a percentage basis, needed jobs than in any other state; Alaska’s cost of living was too high and rose faster than the real income; Alaska’s Natives had been ignored too long by too many; and the United States was a fifth-rate fishing nation with a first-rate fishery. “We need to finance our fishermen,” he asserted, “so they can adequately compete with foreign fishermen in Alaska waters.” He intended to alter and apply public policies to fix all of these problems. In the meantime, Gruening’s campaign efforts had raised several hundred thousand dollars during . At Sundborg’s suggestion, the senator decided to use some of these funds in the preparation and publication of a campaign biography. Writer Sherwood Ross delivered a manuscript, Sundborg recalled; Gruening rewrote parts of it, and he himself made some additions. In the end, it was percent Gruening, percent Sundborg, and percent Ross, who, when looking over the revised version, admitted that the manuscript had been improved greatly but said, “It isn’t the book I wrote.” With some reluctance, Ross collected his fee and remained on the title page as author. There had been a question about Gruening’s photograph on the cover. Never a dapper dresser, Gruening, ever since the s, had used as his official portrait a reproduction of a Time magazine cover of him. In , his secretary, a young and fashionable woman, persuaded him to invest in a tailored suit and a series of “high class photographs taken of him dressed up in it.” The biography used one of these photographs for its cover. In order to lower the paperback price, the press run was fifty thousand copies, “an awful lot of books for sparsely populated Alaska.” The book, Gruening of Alaska: The Dynamic Career of a Remarkable U.S. Senator, was published in (Figure ). Figure . Gruening signing his campaign A Washington advertising/political biography, Gruening of Alaska, which Sherconsultant firm Gruening retained, Mauwood Ross authored in . Gruening wrote part of the volume himself. No number. rer, Fleisher, Zon and Associates, recom-
The Last Campaign for the Senate
Figure . Reelection campaign poster, . No number.
mended that the senator should campaign primarily by airing a series of commercials, prepared and filmed under studio sound and lighting conditions showing him at his charming best. The consultants had successfully participated in campaigns in other states, and advised Gruening that he should at all costs avoid traveling around Alaska tiring himself with personal appearances “emphasizing his advanced age.” His staff and others tried to persuade the senator of the wisdom of this advice. Gruening rejected it, and for nearly two years he commuted every two or three weeks, as his Senate duties permitted, between the nation’s capital and Alaska, moving all over the state, waging an old-fashioned shake-hands-with-the-voter campaign. In addition to campaigning repeatedly in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, and Ketchikan, he also visited the major bush centers, villages in the Aleutians, the Alaska Peninsula, the Yukon and Kuskokwim deltas, Norton Sound, and even Savoonga and Gambell on Saint Lawrence Island. Sundborg wrote that the schedule “would have been physically taxing on a man of half Gruening’s age,” but it was his impression that the senator “reveled in it.” In each city, town, or village Gruening found a time and place to get people together to hear his message. It might be at a chamber of commerce session, a Rotary, Lions, or Kiwanis meeting, a ladies’ afternoon tea, a village council session, or an Eskimo dance gathering. The local volunteer chairman or the Anchorage campaign office set up each of these appearances in advance, and Gruening tailored his remarks to the interests of each locality. He reported on developments in Congress and stressed the central theme of his campaign, namely “there is no substitute for experience.” Sundborg recalled that the candidate obviously enjoyed himself, and as the campaign advanced Gruening seemed confident of reelection. “He was a happy warrior.” Gruening’s staff talked him into commissioning a sophisticated and expensive public opinion poll from the Louis Harris organization. It showed Gruening in a position of strength against any known potential Democratic opponent and also against the two likely Republican contenders, Rasmuson and Stevens. The poll, however,
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showed that the senator was vulnerable because of his age. The vote analysis stated that it would be hard to convince voters that a man of such advanced age should be elected for a six-year term. During his campaign swings, the senator had many opportunities to speak publicly because that was the centennial year of the Alaska purchase. One of these speeches involved the unveiling of a sculpture in front of the city hall in Anchorage commemorating Secretary of State William Henry Seward who, a hundred years earlier, had negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia. When Gruening arrived for the ceremony, the monument was draped in a large white sheet which he was to let fall by pulling a cord after his speech. He spoke eloquently about “this fine likeness of Secretary Seward who in 1867 had the wisdom. . . .” and at the end yanked the cord and “what was revealed was a granite pylon on which the sculptor, a member of some modern school, had chiseled out half a dozen dinky little stick figures.” Everybody had a good laugh. Early on, the Gruening team expected Rasmuson to be the probable opponent. Rasmuson, a lifelong Alaskan who had succeeded in building the National Bank of Alaska into the biggest financial institution in the state, had much money to spend. Rasmuson and Gruening, although of opposite political persuasion, had been friends over the years. The Gruening team became aware of Rasmuson’s political aspirations when he gained wide public exposure over many months by narrating a series of televised Alaska historical vignettes; the program had been sponsored by his bank, which had branches all over Alaska. The senator was happy with the thought of running against Rasmuson, remarking, “Give me a banker for an opponent every time.” For several years Gruening himself had been involved in a television program. Almost every week, he invited a fellow senator or recognizable federal official to appear with him at the Senate recording studio deep in the bowels of the capitol in Washington for filming the program. These events were not polished, as Rasmuson’s were, but served their purpose. Gruening interviewed his guests, talking about some subject of interest to Alaskans. Several prints were made of each program and sent to TV stations in Alaska for public airing. But when Gruening became a candidate, he had to forego this free publicity. Numerous factors had to be considered in the campaign. One of these was the senator’s staunch opposition to move the capital from Juneau to some site in or close to Anchorage. The movement to relocate the capital had originated in Anchorage soon after statehood. Although the idea had been repeatedly rejected at the polls, its advocates did not give up and did not forget Gruening’s continued opposition. Also, there was the senator’s involvement in prominent causes other than those that would directly benefit his Alaska constituents. After the first few years of concentrated efforts to pass legislation that attempted to put Alaska on a par with other states, Gruening thereafter devoted much time to worldwide population control, foreign aid, and from March onward, to opposition to the
The Last Campaign for the Senate
U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. In fact, the latter cause occupied much of his energy and time in his second and last term. Many Alaskans resented his almost daily fulminations on the Senate floor against America’s Vietnam policy. Gruening’s opposition to the war also greatly irritated President Johnson. Chief executives have many ways to show their displeasure: soon Gruening’s recommendations for federal appointments in Alaska began to be ignored, and his appeals to the White House and the executive agencies for help for Alaskans in various matters went unheeded. Announcements from the administration on government programs benefiting Alaskans were released through other offices, so Gruening derived no benefit as a shaper of events. The steady deterioration in relations between him and his longtime friend Senator Bob Bartlett also cast a shadow over the campaign. Until about , the two seemed (and were reported) to get along well. On the wall of Gruening’s office hung a framed photograph of the two shaking hands at about the time Alaska achieved statehood. On it Bartlett had written, “Twenty years of close association and the handshake is still mutually firm.” But as happens even between members of the same party, jealousies develop, egos are bruised, and differences of opinion sprout about who had been really responsible for various political gains for constituents. Another problem of great political importance involved the growing movement among Alaska’s Native people to assert claims to, and monetary compensation for, lands and resources taken by the federal government and others at the time of purchase and thereafter. The Eskimos, Indians, and Aleuts asserted that nothing was ever done to compensate them for rights to such areas as they had occupied and used since time immemorial. This was not a cause for which the senator had much sympathy, although he considered himself a true friend of Alaska Natives. As governor in territorial days, Gruening had labored mightily to improve the lot of Alaska’s Native citizens. For example, he had persuaded the territorial legislature to outlaw the open discrimination that had existed before he became governor. He had successfully established voting precincts in Native villages where they had never existed before, encouraged Native candidates to file for the legislature, and encouraged constituents to participate in political life. He had created the Territorial Guard during World War II, in which Eskimos and other enrollees took great pride, and championed Native subsistence rights no matter what the game wardens said. He earned Native gratitude, and in and Native precincts voted heavily for him. But, as previously discussed, Gruening also championed the integration of Alaska’s Natives into the majority society and economy because he thought that it would prevail in the long run and believed it offered the best future for the Natives. He had opposed the creation of reservations in the past, and of treating Natives as other than citizens of the state on an equal basis with all others. He also knew that assertion of Native claims was handicapping the state in making its statehood land selections. Above all, a new generation of Natives had grown to adulthood. Many
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were militant, and most knew Gruening only vaguely or not at all, and most certainly did not remember his accomplishments. Another stumbling block was that the newspapers in Alaska’s principal cities were either all Republican or anti-Gruening. Most important, Alaska’s population had increased from , in April to , in April , after the achievement of statehood. The population was largely transient, however, and even though by Gruening had been in office in Alaska for more than twenty-five years as governor, Alaska-Tennessee Plan senator, and U.S. senator, many newcomers to the state did not know him at all. And as a man of firm opinions and a forthright style, he had made quite a few enemies along the way. Sundborg wrote that one key to financial sufficiency in a campaign was trying to avoid opposition in the primary election. This was important, because primary races were costly and took much effort. In addition, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington, though it expected to donate a substantial sum of money for the party’s candidate, traditionally withheld its largesse until after the primary in the event that another Democrat filed against the incumbent. Gravel’s announcement that he would oppose Gruening in the primary was somewhat of a surprise to the senator’s campaigners, although they had heard rumors in early to that effect. Sundborg recalled, “We had considered this pretty much a joke.” But it was not a joke. In his filing statement, Gravel declared that in all of his past campaigns for public office he had made “vigorous efforts at developing issues, and there should be no fear of a change of direction in .” Yet in a letter sent statewide to his supporters, he made a point of noting that Gruening was in his eighty-second year, almost twenty years older than Senator Bartlett. Four other U.S. senators were retiring in because of age, all younger than Gruening. Gravel had hoped that Gruening would accept the realities of his situation and the advice of his personal friends “and retire gracefully from the Senate,” but instead he had chosen to run again. Obviously, Gruening’s age was to play a prominent role in the campaign. Gravel’s staff had prepared a series of speeches for him in which he discussed Native poverty and land claims, the lack of jobs in Alaska, the high cost of living, and the problems of the fishing industry, to name but a few. He offered changes in public policies which would solve these problems, and reiterated that he was not “in this race to run against anyone” but to run for the United States Senate, and he had decided to do so only after much preparation and gathering suggestions and advice from a large cross section of Alaskans. He recognized that a U.S. senator neither could nor should ignore a host of national and international issues, but he believed “Alaska has some very significant priorities of its own, and these problems should be solved first.” The Gravel campaign issued a fourteen-page program paper that featured a square-jawed portrait of the handsome candidate on the cover, “a man for the seventies.” The cover proclaimed him to be a mover, a doer, at a time when things had to be done; a controversial individual because he was not neutral to the problems of
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his time; someone of deep feelings, “a man moved by deep commitments, about Alaska and Alaskans.” The remaining thirteen pages dealt with one problem each and gave its solution. For example, in order to slash the cost of living in rural Alaska, and simultaneously stimulate millions of dollars of retail business for Anchorage and Fairbanks, he suggested the use of the Lockheed L- cargo jet. It could carry tons of freight, land and take off on seven-thousand-foot runways, economically compete with a railroad, and the cost per pound of freight delivered to rural Alaska would average less than three cents (it currently cost ten cents to fifteen cents); it would reduce living costs in rural cities and villages by percent to percent across the board. In fact, “the L- opened the possibility of an air-highway in the Interior, just as we have a ferry-highway in Southeastern.” The candidate did not mention who would pay for and operate these L-s. Other pages, each prefaced with “common sense on,” dealt with jobs, inflation, welfare reform, poverty, black gold and new jobs, regional schools, resources, the Jones Act, fish and fishermen, housing, taxes, and the village people. Gravel supporters delivered a speech, with small variations, in many communities across the state in which they warned that the Democrats could easily lose the U.S. Senate seat because of three strikes against Gruening. The senator was eightyone years old, still robust but nevertheless the oldest man in either house of Congress seeking reelection. His attendance record had been very poor, ranking ninety-first in and and ninety-seventh in . The Republicans surely were going to use this against him. Finally, his anti-Vietnam position made him “particularly vulnerable” in hawkish Alaska. A Gravel flyer showed the candidate sitting in a chair with crossed legs, busily writing on a large pad. The flyer’s message was to explode the myth of senate seniority. In his speeches and advertisements, Gruening claimed that Senate seniority was the most important issue in the campaign. “Actually at the age of , Senator Gruening ranks th among Democratic Senators! This means that Senator Gruening isn’t even in the upper % of senators in his own party.” The flyer concluded “Elect a Senator for the Seventies—Mike Gravel.” The Gruening campaign distributed a brochure titled “The Decade Ahead: Senator Ernest Gruening’s -Point Program for Alaska Progress.” His program consisted of the development of a year-round tourist industry, conservation, transportation, relations with Canada, hydropower, mining, fisheries, beef cattle industry, education, health, fur seal resources, and economic development for depressed areas. It was illustrated with many photos of the senator, either alone or in company with Washington officials or Alaskans. Unfortunately, Gruening looked his eighty-one years in all of his likenesses. Sundborg heard one rumor, often repeated, that Gravel planned to win the election by showing a blockbuster motion picture about himself shortly before the primary. The Gruening campaign had used a homemade movie advantageously in . In , Chuck Keene, a Juneau movie maker, offered to produce a Gruening film
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for about ,. Gruening, when presented with the proposal, vetoed it, stating that it “would just cost more money for what he felt were doubtful results.” The Gravel campaign retained a nationally reputed film director to produce a film, which was to make up the basic part of the media campaign. In addition, there was his book Jobs and More Jobs and a sixteen-page, slick-paper, pictorial narrative, “Mike Gravel, Man of Alaska.” On May , even before he had announced his candidacy, people were committed to help Gravel’s campaign and the staff was in the process of recruiting another individuals. This was a larger organization than any other U.S. Senate candidate in Alaska had, and Gravel’s campaign had “drama because it [appeared] to be a groundswell, and not the ambitions of one man.” The organization was to distribute literature, such as brochures, and perform other needed tasks. Every Anchorage voter was to be contacted by phone in the first fifteen days of the campaign and requested to help his efforts and vote for him. The Gravel campaign aired the thirty-minute A Man for Alaska seventeen times in Anchorage, eight in Fairbanks, five each in Sitka, Juneau, and Ketchikan, and three to four times in a half-dozen smaller towns in the period from August to , . In the bush, where there was no television, the Gravel campaign supplied portable sound projectors with their own portable power packs. The residents were treated to an evening of free entertainment, usually featuring a full-length Western, free popcorn, and the Gravel movie. Many of these folks enjoyed the entertainment and rewarded Gravel with their vote. Election day, August , ended in Anchorage with a party in the Grand Ballroom of the Westward Hotel where boards were set up to tally the results of the many election races that day. The area’s legislative candidates were present, together with their cheering sections. Barney Gottstein, the Anchorage businessman mainly responsible for bankrolling the Gravel campaign, attended together with a number of young business associates he had brought from Seattle to assist in the final stages of the campaign. Gruening spent election day and evening at his home in Juneau. The voter turnout had been heavy. At the time, Alaska had five time zones from east to west. Southeast was in a zone one hour earlier than Anchorage. The first unofficial returns began to come in from Ketchikan, Sitka, Juneau, and other panhandle cities even before the polls were closed in Anchorage. They showed Gruening and Gravel running neck and neck. When a more nearly complete Juneau tally came in, it showed Gravel far ahead. Sundborg was dismayed: “It was hard to believe there could be such a result in a city where Ernest Gruening had lived for a quarter of a century and had done so much to protect and improve its status.” Returns from the arctic villages finally came in and showed heavy majorities for Gravel. By midnight it was all over. Sundborg and a few others from the Gruening team left the election-return party and walked to his apartment a block away. There they watched television a while longer, “hoping against hope, but there was no way to turn the tide.” One of the women cried, and although Sundborg did not cry, he “was supremely sad.” He wondered what had gone wrong. Early the next day, Gravel called Gruening’s office in
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the federal building and asked if he could meet the senator in Juneau, shake hands, receive his blessing, and unite the Democratic Party for the general election race against Rasmuson, the Republican primary winner. Gruening approved reluctantly, but overnight, Sundborg wrote, something happened to change the senator’s mind. Apparently many supporters, both statewide and from the contiguous states, were dazed by his defeat. Those from outside Alaska had been attracted by his Vietnam opposition, and they urged he run as a write-in candidate in the November general election. Actually, it was the Anchorage furrier David Green who first suggested the idea and apparently cleared it with Gruening, who agreed to consider it if there appeared to be support in the state. Green declined, however, to endorse such a movement personally until evidence justified his involvement. Sundborg vehemently recommended against it, because he believed that a candidate who had lost a one-on-one race in the primary could not win in November against two primary election winners. He also believed that it would be difficult to educate the electorate to follow the cumbersome write-in procedure. But Gruening “had built a career on doggedness,” and he was “the kind of man who never gave up.” Gruening, therefore, told Sundborg to cancel the unity meeting in Juneau. Even before Gravel made the proposal, Mike Rowan, his campaign manager, had been less than enthusiastic about the unity meeting. He wrote a memo warning, “We could be making a very big mistake in identifying ourselves with E. G. Mike was elected and E. G. was rejected. I don’t trust the old bastard.” Furthermore, there was little or no gain from Gruening’s support “other than the usual ineffective show of party unity.” Rowan’s reaction to the threatened write-in campaign was that if it developed, they would “have to destroy every last vestige of Gruening’s credibility,” because he was certain that “a very powerful negative campaign is going to be waged against
Figure . Dr. Lawrence Irving, the scientist who founded the Arctic Naval Research Laboratory in , and Gruening at the University of Alaska commencement in . No number.
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Man for Alaska.” And while the Gravel campaign geared up to defeat both Gruening and Rasmuson in the November general election, Sundborg had a long talk with Gruening in Washington. The campaign had raised and spent ,, “and the coffers were nearly empty.” Despite the promises of financial support from those who had persuaded him to run a write-in campaign, very little money came in. Nevertheless, on September Gruening officially announced his write-in campaign for reelection, an undertaking he characterized as “the greatest endeavor of [his] career.” In a prepared statement, he detailed his Figure . The Margaret Sanger Award in Public reasons for this unorthodox political Service, awarded to Gruening in . No number. undertaking. He stated that he had not intended to run again but only to serve the remaining five months of his term. But volunteers from the campuses of Alaska Methodist University in Anchorage and the University of Alaska in Fairbanks had collected thirty-five hundred signatures in a few days. He could not turn down the young people. And he was convinced that all the battles he had fought in his career—the fight for statehood and Native equality, the struggle for world peace and others—would “all have been for naught unless [he accepted] the challenge now before [him].” He promised to “enter this difficult and uphill campaign with all the energies [he possessed].” Gravel responded immediately to Gruening’s announcement. He stated that everywhere he had traveled in Alaska citizens had “expressed their shock, bewilderment, and indignation.” Many organizations had passed resolutions urging the senator not to run, and individuals who had supported him shared this view. Gravel viewed the situation with sadness but also tolerance, and encouraged Alaskans to do likewise. He hoped that neither the Democratic Party nor any other group would take any action “which would discredit the senator or his reputation.” In effect, Gravel portrayed Gruening as an old man who was confused and did not know what he was doing. A legal obstacle confronted Gruening, however, and that was a statute that provided that any write-in votes for a man defeated in his party’s primary would be invalid. Gruening’s supporters held that this statute was unconstitutional and litigated the matter. In early October, the Alaska Supreme Court struck down the law that would have voided the Gruening write-in votes in the November election.
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When the votes were counted, Gruening had gathered , write-in votes, , fewer votes than the , he had received in the primary election. Considering that his name was not printed on the ballot and voters had to attach a “Stick with Gruening” sticker, that was a rather significant achievement. But it was not enough, and Gravel defeated him by a vote of ,, or . percent of the total, while Rasmuson received , or . percent of the total votes cast; Gruening received just . percent. In his autobiography Many Battles, which he began writing soon after his forced retirement from the Senate, Gruening faulted the Gravel film for his defeat in the primaries. To Sundborg he said long afterward, “Our major mistake was not replaying all over Alaska [on radio] the speeches . . . [I] gave in individual cities.” Sundborg did not tell him that he disagreed, in fact thought Gruening was already overexposed. Alaska’s senior senator, Bob Bartlett, had died on December , , in a Cleveland, Ohio, clinic after undergoing bypass surgery. Republican governor Walter J. Hickel appointed Ted Stevens, whom Rasmuson had defeated in the April Republican primary, to fill Bartlett’s seat. Gruening believed that Bartlett had given covert aid and encouragement to Gravel, and refused to attend Bartlett’s funeral in Fairbanks. With Gruening’s defeat and Bartlett’s death, an era ended for Alaska. A new generation took the reins of power.
Conclusions
E
rnest gruening evaluated his life in his autobiography, Many Battles: The Autobiography of Ernest Gruening. His drafts contained as many as ninety-three chapters. Gruening looked back on a rich, varied, and long life in which he had developed four careers. His first, after receiving his medical degree from Harvard University, was in journalism. He rose rapidly in his chosen profession, working at such papers as the Boston Herald, Boston Traveler, New York Tribune, and Portland Evening News. He also served as business manager for the New York Spanish-language daily La Prensa for a year, and was an editor at the nation’s oldest liberal journal, The Nation. Gruening published more than five thousand editorials in the various newspapers that employed him. He ended his very successful journalism career in , when President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him director of the newly created Division of Territories and Island Possessions. A year later, Roosevelt made him administrator of the Puerto Rican Reconstruction Administration (PRRA). But Gruening was not successful in either position. His supervisor, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, gave him failing marks as director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions, and Gruening failed to implement his Puerto Rican reconstruction program. Ickes wanted to fire Gruening outright, but instead the president “promoted” him to the governorship of territorial Alaska in with the admonition to bring the New Deal north. Gruening dreaded the appointment, but accepted the inevitable and left for his new assignment in December . The new governor was determined to demonstrate to the president his capabilities. The next thirteen and a half years were to be the most successful of Gruening’s life. He found Alaska economically, socially, and politically backward. Even though a territorial governor had restricted powers, Gruening became an active leader. Alaskans had always complained about the high cost of living, and Gruening identified the outside-owned Alaska Steamship Company as being responsible for the situation. He told Alaskans that the fish traps, which Seattle interests owned, deprived Alaskan fishermen of jobs and livelihoods. He pointed out that the resource-extractive industries—mining and fishing—took Alaska’s resources and left but a pittance behind in taxes. From the beginning of his governorship, he worked to have the territorial legislature pass a comprehensive tax package. It took ten years, but he finally succeeded in .
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After several biennial legislative sessions, Gruening addressed Alaskan voters, telling them what, in his view, had transpired in Juneau. He publicly named those lawmakers beholden to the outside interests and praised the few who had worked for the benefit of all Alaskans. Gruening lectured municipal officials on how to streamline and add to services, fought discrimination, established voting precincts in the bush where none had existed before, and encouraged Alaskan Natives to run for office. As governor, he appointed individuals to territorial positions based on competence rather than party affiliation, enraging many Democrats. Gruening became involved in the statehood battle and used his national connections to publicize the cause. In short, Gruening pulled Alaskans, many reluctantly, from the nineteenth into the twentieth century and helped prepare the territory for statehood. After his term as governor ended in April , Gruening continued to aid the statehood battle through lecturing and writing. He served as one of the two AlaskaTennessee Plan U.S. Senators, and Alaskans elected him twice to the U.S. Senate, which he loved and where he served for ten years. While Gruening certainly considered his U.S. Senate service the most important period in his life, his record suggests that he will be remembered most as Alaska’s governor—the man who led the territory into the twentieth century.
Notes Introduction . Anchorage Daily Times, August , . . Gruening to Mrs. Ernest Gruening, August , , Ernest Gruening Papers, box , folder Conservation, , University of Alaska Fairbanks Archives, Fairbanks, Alaska. (Hereafter cited as Gruening Papers.) . Ibid. . Washington Post, June , . . Anchorage Daily News, June , . . Washington Star, October , . . Herbert Mitgang, “Deserving Well of this Republic,” Nation, March , , –. . Jack Ericson Eblen, The First and Second United States Empires: Governors and Territorial Government, – (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, ), –. . Thomas A. McMullin and David Walker, Biographical Directory of American Territorial Governors (Westport, Conn.: Meckler, ), , . . Ernest Gruening, Many Battles: The Autobiography of Ernest Gruening (New York, Liveright, ). . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., ; Gruening, “A Message to the People of Alaska,” Juneau, Alaska, . . Gruening, “Memorandum on Alaska’s Military Situation,” February , , Harold L. Ickes Papers, Manuscript Division Library of Congress (hereafter referred to as Ickes Papers); Gruening to Harold Ickes, February , , Series –-, box , Record Group , National Archives. (Hereafter cited as R.G. and N.A.) . Gruening, Many Battles, . . Claus-M. Naske and Herman E. Slotnick, Alaska: A History of the th State, nd ed. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, ), . . Ibid., –.
. Gruening to Guy Swope, July , , Series , Box A; Gruening to Charles Bunnell, June , , June , , Series , box B, Gruening Papers; Claus M. Naske, “Ernest Gruening and Alaska Native Claims,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly (): –; Terrence M. Cole, “Jim Crow in Alaska: The Passage of the Alaska Equal Rights Act of ,” The Western Historical Quarterly (): –. . Public Law No. , Nov. , , Office file of Bernard C. Kamerman: General, Territories and Island Possessions, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Claus-M. Naske, A History of Alaska Statehood (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, ), . . Anchorage Daily Times, June , .
Chapter . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Robert David Johnson, Ernest Gruening and the American Dissenting Tradition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, ), –. . Ibid., –; George Sundborg to the author, February , ; George Sundborg to Rabbi Goodman, January , ; copy in author’s files. . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Ibid., ; George Sundborg to Rabbi Goodman, January , , copy in author’s files. . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Carey McWilliams, “Ernest Gruening,” Nation, July , , . . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Ibid. . Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People (New York: Oxford University Press, ), –. . T. H. Watkins, Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, – (New York: Henry Holt and Company, ), –. . Ibid., . . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Ibid., –.
Notes to Chapter
. Gruening Diaries, –. The citations are to an undated section that Gruening probably wrote in the s but apparently lost, then found and inserted in his – edition. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Richard B. Morris, ed., Encyclopedia of American History (New York: Harper & Row, ), ; James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (New York: Harcourt, Brace., ), –. . Gruening Diaries, –. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Ibid., –. . Elmo Richardson, Dams, Parks & Politics: Resource Development and Preservation in the Truman-Eisenhower Era (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, ), –; Dillion S. Myer, “An Autobiography,” oral history interview, ; Warner G. Gardner, oral history interview, –. Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri. (Hereafter cited as HSTL.) . Ickes to Gruening, March , , Secretary of the Interior file, folder Complimentary, , Ickes Papers. . Gruening to Ickes, September , , Secretary of the Interior File, folder Complimentary, , Ickes to Gruening, October , , Secretary of the Interior file, folder Articles, General, July –October , , Ickes Papers. . “The Secret Diaries of Harold L. Ickes,” August , , Ickes Papers; Ickes to Roosevelt, August , , OF–s, folder Division of Territories, box , Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y. (Hereafter cited as FDRL.) . Gruening, Many Battles, . . Ibid., . . Ibid., . Ibid. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Gruening to FDR, May , , Series B, Box , President’s Official File, FDRL; Executive Order , May , ; Gonzalo Córdova, Resident Commissioner Santiago Iglesias and His Times (San Juan: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, ), .
. Harold Ickes to FDR, July , , Series , President’s Official File, FDRL; Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Nation, August , , ; Thomas G. Mathews, Puerto Rican Politics and the New Deal (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, ), . . Ickes, “Secret Diaries,” April , . . Ibid., November , . . Ibid.; Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Mathews, Puerto Rican Politics, ; Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Ickes, “Secret Diaries,” April , . . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . See S. Whitmore Boggs, “American Contributions to Geographical Knowledge of the Central Pacific,” The Geographical Review , no. (April ): –. . Ernest Gruening, “The Canton Island Episode,” memorandum, no date [?], Box , folder Equatorial Islands Colonization Project, Gruening Papers. (Hereafter cited as Gruening, “The Canton Island Episode.”) . Richard Blackburn Black, memorandum, March , , “General Information About Persons Connected with Equatorial Islands Colonization Project in the Canton Island Episode.” (Hereafter cited as Black, “General Information.”) . Ibid., . . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid., . . Gruening, “The Canton Island Episode,” . . Ibid. . Black, “General Information,” ; Gruening, “The Canton Island Episode,” . . Ibid. . Ibid., . . Ibid. . Ibid. . Black, “General Information,” . . Ibid., . . Gruening, “The Canton Island Episode,” . . Press Release, Department of the Interior, April , , box , folder Equatorial Islands, Gruening Papers. . Gruening, “The Canton Island Episode,” . . Ickes, “Secret Diaries,” April , . . Ibid., November , . . Ibid.; Gruening Many Battles, – . Mathews, Puerto Rican Politics, ; Gruening, Many Battles, –.
Notes to Chapter . Ickes, “Secret Diaries,” April , . . Mathews, Puerto Rican Politics, . . Gruening, Many Battles, . . Ickes, “Secret Diaries,” June , July , , . . Many Battles, –. . Ickes, “Secret Diaries,” February , ; Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Ibid., May , June , August , September , ; Ickes to Tugwell, September , , Secretary of the Interior File, folder Appointments, , box , Ickes Papers.
Chapter . Gruening Diaries, August , . . Ibid., October , . . Dimond to Roosevelt, August , , Political Correspondence files, Gruening Papers; Cordova Daily Times, September , ; Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, September , . . Monagel to Dimond, October , ; Lyng to Dimond, October , ; Carter to Dimond, October , ; Ickes to Dimond, October , ; Ickes to Dimond, September , ; Roosevelt to Dimond, September , ; Ickes to Dimond, September , ; folder Gruening, Dr. Ernest, Governor; Political Correspondence files, Gruening-Reapportionment, box , Anthony J. Dimond Papers, University of Alaska Fairbanks Archives. (Hereafter referred to as Dimond Papers.) . Presidential appointments to federal office requiring the advice and consent of the Senate are usually filled while the Senate is not in session. Nominees appointed to office while the Senate is in recess may begin their duties before their names have been submitted, but the president must submit each nomination when the Senate reconvenes, and the recess appointment expires at the end of the next session unless the Senate has confirmed it by majority vote. A recess appointment expires and the office is declared vacant even earlier than the end of the next session if the Senate acts before that time to reject the nominee. . Gruening Diaries, October , . . Ickes, “Secret Diaries,” October , , November , ; Gruening Diaries, October , . . U.S. Senate, Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate, Vol. LXXXII, th Cong., rd sess., January , to January , , Journal, Part I (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, ), , , . . Ickes, “Secret Diaries,” November , .
. Alaska Weekly, December , . . Ibid. . Dorothy Gruening to Mr. and Mrs. George Harding Smith, December , , Gruening Correspondence, Gruening Papers; Gruening Diaries, December , . . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid., December , . There is no record that Kashevaroff ever prepared a plan. . Ronald Lister broadcast transcript December , , Governor’s Letter Files, –, Gruening Papers. . Gruening Diaries, December , . . Eblen, First and Second United States Empires, . . Ibid., –. . Gruening Diaries, December , . . Ibid., December , . . Ibid., December , .
Chapter . In , for example, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, a New Deal agency, had settled some two hundred families in Alaska’s Matanuska Valley. For a comprehensive account of this agricultural settlement experiment, see Orlando W. Miller, The Frontier in Alaska and the Matanuska Colony (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, ). For an account of Ickes’s scheme to settle German Jews in Alaska, see Claus-M. Naske, “Jewish Immigration and Alaskan Economic Development: A Study in Futility,” Western States Jewish Historical Quarterly , no. ( January ): –. For an account of American reaction to the plight of the refugees from Nazi Germany, see David S. Wyman, Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis – (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, ). . For the attitude of the Roosevelt administration toward the fate of the German Jews, see Henry L. Feingold, The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, – (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, ). . Ibid., –. . Ibid., . . Yale Mintz, acting secretary, Association to Further Refugee Settlement in Alaska, to Paul W. Gordon, supervisor of Alaskan affairs, January , ; Buckley to Roosevelt, November , ; Roosevelt to Buckley, December , , File –-, Alaska—Colonization— Refugees—General, R.G. , N.A.
Notes to Chapter
. Fortune, July ; also see “Pro and Con: Open Our Doors to German Refugees?,” Reader’s Digest, May ; Griffin to Buckley, November , , Griffin to Gruening, November , , File –-, Alaska—Colonization—Refugees—General, R.G. ., N.A. . Secretary Ickes’s press conference, November , , File –-, Alaska—Colonization—Refugees—General, R.G. , N.A.; Times, Washington, D.C., November , ; Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, November , . . Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, June , ; Gruening to Carter, January , , File –, Alaska—Colonization—Refugees—General, R.G. , N.A. . Kirjis to Gruening, March , ; Gruening to Kirjis, April , , Department of the Interior press release, April , ; Straus to Gruening, April , , File –-, Alaska— Colonization—Refugees—General, R.G. , N.A. . Ibid. . Gruening, Many Battles, . . Harry Slattery, “The Problem of Alaskan Development,” in U.S. Congress, House, Committee Study Resolution, Alaskan Fisheries Hearings: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Alaskan Fisheries of the Committee on Merchant Marine Fisheries pursuant to H. Res. , Part III, th Cong., st sess. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, ), –. . Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, October , , , ; Seward Chamber of Commerce to Ickes, October , , File –-, Alaska— Colonization—Refugees—General, R.G. , N.A. . Rosenthal to Department of State, May , , Joachim Hein to American Minister of the Interior Ickes, September , , File –-, Alaska—Colonization—Refugees—General, R.G. , N.A.; New York Times, August , . . Albert F. Coyle to Gruening, May , ; Gruening to Coyle, June , , File –-, Alaska—Colonization—Refugees—General, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening, Many Battles, ; Gruening Diaries, November , . . Gruening Diaries, November , . . Gruening Diaries, December , ; Gruening to Ickes, December , , File –-, Alaska—Colonization—Refugees—General, R.G. , N.A. . News Release, Department of the Interior, February , , File –-, Alaska—Colonization—Refugees—General, R.G. , N.A.
. Gruening Diaries, December , ; Fortune, April , –; see also Robert Marshall, “Shall We Settle Alaska?,” New Republic, January , , –. Marshall expressed himself against the proposal. Robert Morse Lovett answered Marshall in the affirmative in the New Republic, January , , . . Gruening Diaries, May , ; Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, March , . . U.S. Congress, Senate, Settlement and Development of Alaska, Hearing before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Territories and Insular Affairs on S. , th Cong., rd sess. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, ), –. . Ibid., –, –. . Ibid., –, , .
Chapter . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Ibid., –; Gruening Diaries, December , ; George W. Rogers to author, March , . For background to the Alaskan tax situation, see Naske, History of Alaska Statehood, –; and George W. Rogers, Alaska: The Development of an American Polity, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Economics, Harvard University, . . Rogers, Alaska, –. . Annual Report of the Governor of Alaska to the Secretary of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ended June , (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, ), –. . Board of Budget, Report, Territorial Board of Budget, Territory of Alaska, – ( Juneau, Alaska, ), –. In the late s, little had changed. Alaska still had a very narrow effective tax base. For example, the territorial tax commissioner reported that during the calendar years and , some . percent of the tax revenue collected came from a mere five sources. The salmon industry contributed . percent, liquor excise taxes . percent, motor fuel and motor vehicles . percent, gross sales tax . percent, and the school head tax . percent. Thus, the level of total receipts depended largely upon the size of the salmon pack, which was highly unstable and unpredictable because of the irregular annual salmon runs, and the thirst of Alaskans, which was much less unstable. But perhaps the most important shortcoming of Alaska’s tax system was that it fell far short of approaching the economic limits of the territory’s taxable capacity. In fact, the National Resources Planning Board estimated in
Notes to Chapter that if Alaska had a tax system equal in revenueraising capacity to that which prevailed in the average state, the territory and its incorporated towns would collect about million annually, or more than three times the receipts actually collected in , including Social Security contributions (see pp. – of the report). . Gruening Diaries, December , , . . Ibid., December , , . . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid., April , . . Ibid., May , , . . James C. Rettie and John E. Pegues, Preliminary Survey of Taxation in Alaska, prepared for the use of the Alaska Planning Council ( Juneau, Alaska, November–December ), . . Gruening Diaries, May , . . Frederick C. Lusk, The Alaska Tax System ( Juneau, Alaska, December ), –. . Gruening to Emmerich, September , , folder –, Taxation, Governor’s Letter File, –, Gruening Papers. . Lusk, Alaska Tax System, –. . The Alaskan, December , ; Juneau Alaska Daily Empire, December , ; Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, December , . . Gruening Diaries, February , . . Journal of the House of Representatives of the Territory of Alaska, th sess., , –. (Hereafter cited as House Journal.) . Ibid., –. . Alaska Daily Empire, January , , February , ; House Journal, , –. . Alaska Daily Empire, February , . The newspapers quoted were the Cordova Times, the Wrangell Sentinel, the Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, and the Alaska Weekly; Gruening Diaries, February , . . Gruening Diaries, February , May , ; Daily Alaska Empire, February , . . Daily Alaska Empire, February , ; Anchorage Daily Times, March , . . Gruening, Many Battles, . . Ernest Gruening, “A Message to the People of Alaska” ( Juneau, Alaska, ), . . Ibid., . . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid. . U.S. Congress, House, To Amend the Organic Act of Alaska: Hearings before the Committee on Territories on H.R. , a bill to amend Section of the Act entitled, “An Act to Create a Legislative Assembly in the Territory of Alaska, to
Confer Legislative Power Thereon, and for Other Purposes,” June and , , th Cong., st sess. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, ), –. . Ibid., . . Ibid., –; Report of Legislative Committee of Juneau Chamber of Commerce Further Regarding H.R. , in folder A, Reapportionment, box , Pol. Corr. Files, Gruening—Reapportionment, Dimond Papers. . Public law , th Cong., nd sess., Chapter . . Gruening to Dimond, July , , folder A, Reapportionment, box , Pol. Corr. Files, Gruening—Reapportionment, Dimond Papers. . Speck to Ickes, November , , Memorandum Concerning Proposed Alaskan Tax Legislation, Entry , Chief Counsel Kamerman, Miscellaneous File, folder Alaska, General, R.G. , N.A.
Chapter . Naske and Slotnick, Alaska: A History of the th State, –. . Ibid., . . Ibid. . Ibid. . Lyman L. Woodman, “An Alaskan Military History,” Part , Alaska Sportsman (March ), ; Gruening to E. L. Bartlett, January , , box , General Correspondence, folder Gruening, , E. L. Bartlett Papers, University of Alaska Fairbanks Archives (hereafter referred to as Bartlett Papers); Gruening Diaries, March ; Gruening to Bartlett, January , , box , General Correspondence, folder Gruening, , Bartlett Papers. . Woodman, “An Alaskan Military History,” ; Naske and Rowinski, Anchorage: A Pictorial History, . . Woodman, “An Alaskan Military History,” ; James D. Bush, Jr., Narrative Report of Alaska Construction, – (no publisher, no date), –; United States Army, Alaska, The Army’s Role in the Building of Alaska, USARAL Pamphlet – (Headquarters, United States Army, Alaska, April , ), –. . Gruening Diaries, May , . . Ibid., June , . . Ibid., June , , . For a good account of the conflict over hunting and fishing between Buckner and military and territorial officials, see Morgan Sherwood, Big Game in Alaska: A History of Wildlife and People (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, ), –.
Notes to Chapter
. Gruening Diaries, July , , . For detailed background information on Buckner, see Brian Garfield, The Thousand-Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, ). . Gruening Diaries, July , , . . Ibid., July , . . Ibid., August , , , . . Ibid., August , , , September , . . Ibid., September , , , , . . Ibid., September , , October , , . . USARAL Pamphlet –, . . Gruening Diaries, October , . Also see Sherwood, Big Game in Alaska, –. . Gruening Diaries, October , . . Anchorage Daily Times, October , . . Gruening Diaries, October , . . Ibid., December , , . . Ibid., December , ; USARAL Pamphlet –, .
Chapter . Time, August , , ; Major General Henry H. Arnold, “Our Air Frontier in Alaska,” National Geographic, October , –. . Ibid., . . Ibid., –. . Ibid., . . Ibid., . . “Action in Alaska,” Newsweek, March , , ; Bush, Narrative Report, –, , , , , , , , , , –. . “Action in Alaska,” Newsweek, March , , –. . Gruening to Ickes, February , , File –-, National Defense, General, Part , R.G. , N.A. . Bush, Narrative Report, –. . Burns, Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom, –. . “Another Norway,” Time, July , , . . Gruening Diaries, July , ; Gruening to Buckner, March , , Gruening Papers. . Gruening Diaries, August , . . Gruening to Ulio, September , , Gruening Papers. . Muktuk Marston, Men of the Tundra: Alaska Eskimos at War (New York: October House, Inc., ), –; Dimond to Roosevelt, December , , file –-, National Defense—General, Part , R.G. , N.A. . Jean Potter, Alaska Under Arms (New York: The MacMillan Co., ), –. . Gruening Diaries, December , . . Ibid. . Ibid.
. Burns, Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom, –. . Arthur H. Rosien, Official History of the Alaska Department June –June , photocopy in Library of Congress, no designation, Washington, D.C. . Interview with Vide Bartlett, April , Fairbanks, Alaska, in author’s files; Gruening, Many Battles, . . Ickes, “Secret Diaries,” December , . . Gruening Diaries, December , , . . Ibid., December , , ; Bartlett to Baker, January , , E. L. Bartlett Personal Files, General, box , Bartlett Papers. . Gruening Diaries, December , . . Ibid., December , , , . . Ibid., December , , , . . Ibid., December , , . . Burns, Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom, –. . Beardall to Roosevelt, January , , Naval Aides Files—Alaska and the Aleutians, A-, Map Room, box , FDRL. . Gruening memorandum to Ickes, February , , OF , folder Appointments, A, Map Room, box , FDRL. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ickes to Roosevelt, February , , Roosevelt to Smith, February , , Waite to Smith, March , , Smith to Roosevelt, March , , OF , folder Appointments, Alaska, , box , FDRL.
Chapter . Gruening memorandum for Secretary Ickes, November , , folder –-, World War, General, R.G. , N.A. . Ibid. . Lewis to Commanding General, Alaska Defense Command, Fort Richardson, Alaska, January , , folder –-, World War, General, R.G. , N.A. . Lyle C. Wilson to Brig. General A. D. Surles, February , , E. L. Bartlett to Governor Gruening, February , , folder –, World War, General, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening to Byron Price, February , , Price to Gruening, February , , folder –, World War, General, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening Diaries, January , . . Gruening to Price, August , , Draper to Gruening, August , , folder –-, World War, General, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening to Price, August , , Draper to Gruening, August , , folder –-, World War, General, R.G. , N.A.
Notes to Chapter . Confidential memorandum for Secretary Ickes from Ruth Gruber, October , , folder –-, part , National Defense, General, R.G. , N.A. . Norman M. Littell to Harold L. Ickes, November , , Gruening to Ickes, November , , folder –-, World War, General, R.G. , N.A.; Gruening Diaries, January , . . Gruening Diaries, January , . . Price to Gruening, November , , folder –-, World War, General, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening Diaries, January , . . Ibid. . Ibid. . Gruening Diaries, January , ; Byron Price to Stephen Early, December , , OF , folder Appointments, Alaska, , box , FDRL. . Ernest Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Price to Stephen Early, December , , Of , folder Appointments, Alaska, , box , FDRL. . Gruening Diaries, January , . . Ibid. . Gruening to Ickes, September , , folder –-, Foreign Relations, World War, Alaska War Council, R.G. , N.A. . Jack Lokhart to Ickes, September , , folder –-, Foreign Relations, World War, Alaska War Council, R.G. , N.A. . Price to Franklin D. Roosevelt, November , , Franklin D. Roosevelt to Price, November , , OF , folder Appointments, Alaska, –, box , FDRL.
Chapter . Gruening, “Memorandum on Alaska’s Military Situation,” February , , Box , Ickes Papers, Library of Congress; Gruening to Ickes, February , , –-, Box , R.G. , N.A.; H. M. Waite to Harold Smith, March , , Series , box , FDRL. . Watkins, Righteous Pilgrim, . . Ickes, “Secret Diaries,” April , . . Washington Daily News, June , ; News Release, Department of the Interior, June , ; Draper to Hampton, July , ; file –-, Foreign Relations—World War— Alaska War Council, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening to Ickes, June , , file –, Foreign Relations—World War—Alaska War Council, R.G. , N.A.
. Resolution No. , adopted by the Alaska War Council August , , file –-, Foreign Relations—World War—Alaska War Council, R.G. , N.A.; Experience of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Bond, folder War Council, –, box , Bartlett Papers. . E. L. Bartlett to Gruening, August , , folder War Council, –, box , Bartlett Papers; Wrangell Sentinel, September , . . L. W. Douglass to Harold L. Ickes, October , , file –-, part , National Defense— General, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening to Under Secretary, Department of the Interior, December , , file –-, Foreign Relations—World War—Alaska War Council, R.G. , N.A. . Ibid. . Gardner to Gruening, January , ; Copy of Draft Bill, January ; Fortas to Gruening, January , ; Ickes to Roosevelt, January , ; file –-, Foreign Relations—World War—Alaska War Council, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening to Fortas, February , , file –-, Foreign Relations—World War— Alaska War Council, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening to Buckner, August , ; Ickes to Stimson, October , ; Gabrielson to Ickes, October , ; file –-, Foreign Relations—World War—Alaska War Council, R.G. , N.A. . Buckner to Gruening, October , ; Memorandum for Bartlett, November , ; Bartlett to Gruening, November , ; file –-, Foreign Relations—World War— Alaska War Council, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening to Ickes, December , ; Thoron to Ickes, December , ; Council to Buckner, May , ; Gruening to Thoron, June , ; Gerhardt to Thoron, June , ; file –-, Foreign Relations—World War—Alaska War Council, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening to Thoron, June , ; Gruening to Dimond, August , ; Silverman to Gruening, March , ; file –-, Foreign Relations—World War—Alaska War Council, R.G. , N.A.
Chapter . Ickes, “Secret Diaries,” January , ; Lyman L. Woodman, “Building the Alaska Highway: A Saga of the Northland,” Northern Engineer , no. (n.d.), . . The notes provide the following: () The U.S. Army would make the necessary surveys and build the road. () The U.S. would main-
Notes to Chapter
tain the highway during the war and for six months after it, unless the Canadian government preferred to assume maintenance responsibility of the Canadian section earlier. () At war’s end, the Canadian part of the highway would pass to Canadian control. American citizens were not to be discriminated against in the subsequent use of the highway. In exchange, the Canadian government was to provide the necessary right of way; waive all import duties, sales taxes, and license fees on equipment and supplies required for its construction; remit the income tax on the earnings of American citizens employed in its construction or maintenance and facilitate their admission to Canada; and permit the use of timber, gravel, and rock along the route of the highway required for its construction. Theodore A. Huntley and E. R. Royall, Construction of the Alaska Highway (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Public Roads, September , –. . Philip H. Godsell, The Romance of the Alaska Highway (Toronto: The Ryerson Press, ), –; Douglas Coe, Road to Alaska: The Story of the Alaska Highway (New York: Julian Messner, Inc., ), –. . Godsell, The Romance of the Alaska Highway, . . Claus-M. Naske, “The Alcan: Its Impact on Alaska,” Northern Engineer (Spring ): . . Ibid., –. . Gruening memorandum to Ickes, December , , N-NY, General, Map Room, box , FDRL. . Ickes, “Secret Diaries,” April , . . Garfield, Thousand-Mile War. . Ibid., , . . Ibid., . . Ibid., –. . Gruening Diaries, May , , . . Ibid. . Ibid., May , . . Ibid., May , . . Ibid. . Ibid., May , . . Ibid., May , . . Ibid., May , , . . Ibid., May , . . Ibid., June , . . Ibid., June, : Garfield, Thousand-Mile War; Gruening Diaries, June , . . Ibid., June , . . Garfield, Thousand-Mile War; Gruening Diaries, June , .
. Gruening statements, July , , Gruening Papers. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Bulletin, Office of Information, August , , file –-, World War, General, R.G. , N.A.; Garfield, Thousand-Mile War. . Garfield, Thousand-Mile War, . . Bulletin, Office of Information, August , , file –-, World War, General, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening to Secretary, confidential memorandum, December , , Office Files of Secretary Oscar L. Chapman, Alaska, R.G. , N.A. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid.
Chapter . Gruening Diaries, February , ; Ernest Gruening, Message of the Governor of Alaska to the Sixteenth Legislative Assembly, January , ( Juneau: no publisher, ). . Ibid., –. . Ibid., . . Ibid., , . . Gruening Diaries, February , . Daily Alaska Empire, February , ; Gruening Diaries, February , , . . Gruening Diaries, March , , , . . Ibid., March ; H.B. , “An Act to provide additional revenue for the territory for the calendar years and ; and declaring an emergency;” House Journal, , –. . Daily Alaska Empire, February , ; Gruening Diaries, February , , . . Gruening, Many Battles, ; House Journal, January , , –. . House Journal, , –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Daily Alaska Empire, January , . . Ibid., January , . . Gruening to Bartlett, February , , General Correspondence Files, box , folder Gruening, Ernest –, Bartlett Papers. . Daily Alaska Empire, February , . . Ibid., February , , . . Ibid., February , , . . Ibid., March , .
Notes to Chapter . Ibid.; Gruening, Many Battles, ; Gruening to Bartlett, March , , General Correspondence File, box , folder Gruening, Ernest, –, Bartlett Papers. . George Sundborg to author, September , . . Alaska Fishing News, April , ; Walker to Gruening, April , , File “Doc Walker,” Gruening Papers. . Alaska Fishing News, April , . . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Ibid. . Ibid., . . Ibid., –. . Ernest Gruening, Message of the Governor of Alaska to the Special Session of the Seventeenth Assembly of the Alaska Territorial Legislature, March–April , ( Juneau, Alaska: Miner Publishing Company, ), . . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid., . . Ibid., . . Ibid., –. . Ibid., . . Gruening to Bartlett, March , , General Correspondence File, box , folder Gruening, Ernest, , Bartlett Papers. . Ibid. . Report “To the People of Alaska,” April , , General Correspondence File, box a, folder Gruening, Ernest, , Bartlett Papers. . Ibid. . Ibid. . O’Connor to Bartlett, December , , folder Political Affairs, Governor’s Correspondence File, Taxation, Gruening Papers. . Clipping, Chicago Tribune, December , , folder Political Affairs, Governor’s Correspondence File, Taxation, Gruening Paperss. . Gruening to Clark, February , , folder Strand, William C., Gruening Papers. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Gruening Diaries, January , . . House Journal, , –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., . . Ibid., , ; Gruening Diaries, February , . . Gruening Diaries, January , .
. Ibid. . Ibid., February , . . Ibid., February , . . Ibid., February , . . “Analysis of Tax Bills,” March , , folder Political Affairs, Governor’s Correspondence File, Taxation, Gruening Papers. . Daily Alaska Empire, March , ; Gruening to Bartlett, March , , General Correspondence File, Gruening, Ernest, , box , Bartlett Papers. . Daily Alaska Empire, March , . . George Sundborg to author, September , . . Governor Ernest Gruening, “Message to the People of Alaska,” April , , xerox of typewritten copy in author’s files. . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Ibid. . Ibid.
Chapter . Interview with Doris Stewart, April , , Sequim, Washington, in author’s files. . George Sundborg to author, September , . . Gruening, Many Battles, . . George Sundborg to author, September , . . Ibid. . Norman Markowitz, The Rise and Fall of the People’s Century: Henry A. Wallace and American Liberalism (New York: Free Press, ), –, –. . Ibid., –. . John Collier to William A. Brophy, August , , box , Brophy Papers, in HSTL; Alonzo L. Hamby, Beyond the New Deal: Harry S. Truman and American Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, ), . . E. L. Bartlett to Gruening, Mary , , General Correspondence, Gruening, Ernest, –, box , Bartlett Papers. . E. L. Bartlett to Gruening, May , , General Correspondence, Gruening, Ernest, box , Bartlett Papers. . Allen Shattuck to Truman, September , , President’s Secretary File , HSTL. . Ickes to President, February , , President to Ickes, February , , Office File , HSTL; Drew Pearson, Diaries, – (New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, ), ; Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, –; Robert H. Ferrell, ed., Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (New York:
Notes to Chapter
Harper & Row, ), –; Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Gruening to Bartlett, March , , Bartlett to Gruening, April , , General Correspondence File, Gruening, Ernest, , box , Bartlett Papers; Gruening Diaries, January , . . Unidentified newspaper clipping, March , General Correspondence File, Gruening, Ernest, , box , Bartlett Papers. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid., Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Edward D. Coffey to President, May , , President’s Secretary File , HSTL. . Bartlett to Gruening, February , , General Correspondence File, Gruening, Ernest, , box , Bartlett Papers. . Boston Daily Globe, January , . . Harold J. Butcher to Truman, January , , Official File, box , HSTL. . Bartlett to “Cap” Krug, March , , General Correspondence File, Gruening, Ernest, , box , Bartlett Papers; Daily Alaska Empire, March , . . Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (New York: HarperCollins, ), –. . Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, March , . . A. E. Lathrop to Chas. D. Jones, March , , Correspondence , January–June, File , box , Chas. D. Jones Collection, University of Alaska Fairbanks Archives; E. L. Bartlett to John S. Bentley, April , , General Correspondence File, Ernest Gruening, , box , Bartlett Papers. . Alaska Legislature, House Journal, , ; Gruening, Many Battles, ; Daily Alaska Empire, June , ; Anchorage Daily Times, December , . . Joe Coble to Hugh Butler, March , , File Pearson, Drew, , box -A, Gruening Papers. . Memorandum to Senators Anderson et al., from S. French, counsel, Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, March , , in author’s files; E. L. Bartlett to Ernest Gruening, March , , Stanley McCutcheon to E. L. Bartlett, March , , General Correspondence File, Gruening, Ernest, , box , Bartlett Papers. . Anonymous to Hugh Butler, March , , box -A, Gruening Papers. . Washington Evening Star, April , . . Nomination of Ernest Gruening to be Governor of Alaska, April , , Hearings held
before the U.S. Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs (Washington, D.C.: Ward & Paul, ), vol. , –. (Hereafter referred to as Nomination Hearings.) . Ibid., –. . Ibid. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . E. L. Bartlett to Hugh Wade, April , , E.L. Bartlett to Herb Hilscher, April , , General Correspondence File, Hugh Wade, –, Herb Hilscher, , boxes and , Bartlett Papers. . Daily Alaska Empire, April , . . Ibid., April , . . Nomination Hearings, vol. , –. . Ibid.
Chapter . Alaska Weekly, May , ; Gruening to E. W. Knight, May , , Knight to Gruening, June , , folder Politics # (), Gruening Papers. . Gruening to E. W. Knight, May , , Knight to Gruening, June , , folder Politics # (), Gruening Papers. . Gruening to Francis C. Bowden, Mayor of Anchorage, October , , folder October (), Gruening Papers. . Ibid. . George Sundborg to author, September , ; December , . . “Resolution of the Division Democratic Convention of the First Division, held at Ketchikan, Alaska, December th and th, ,” folder Politics, , Gruening Papers. . Gruening to Stanley McCutcheon, December , , Frank Peratrovich to Gruening, December , , Gruening Papers. . “Doc” Norman R. Walker to Gruening, December , , folder Doc Walker, Gruening to Peratrovich, December , , () folder Politics #, Gruening Papers. . Gruening to E. L. “Bob” Bartlett, March , , General Correspondence Files, box , file Gruening, Ernest, , Bartlett Papers. . Ibid. . George Sundborg to author, December , . . House Journal, , –. . Anchorage Daily Times, January , . . Ibid, January , . . Gruening address to the joint session of the territorial legislature, January , , in Alaska, House Journal, , –.
Notes to Chapter . Ibid., –. . Anchorage Daily Times, January , , . . House Journal, , –. . Ibid., –; Anchorage Daily Times, January , . . Ernest Gruening, “Summary of legislation,” folder Taxes, , Gruening Papers. . Ibid. . Manuscript copy, Many Causes, by Ernest Gruening, chapter , –, Gruening Papers. . Rogers, Alaska: The Development of an American Polity, –. . Ibid., –. . Gruening, Many Battles, .
Chapter . Daily Alaska Empire, December , , October , November , ; H. Res. , March , , th Cong. st sess. . Daily Alaska Empire, July , , , September , ; Juneau Chamber of Commerce, Legislative Committee, Report of Legislative Committee, Juneau Chamber of Commerce, on Senate Bill No. Entitled “A Bill to Provide Admission of Alaska into the Union” ( Juneau: Chamber of Commerce, ); Jessen’s Weekly, October , , April , ; Anchorage Daily Times, September , ; Cong. Record, th Cong., st sess., ; Anchorage Daily Times, September , ; Cong. Record, th Cong., st sess., A. . Claus-M. Naske, Edward Lewis Bob Bartlett of Alaska: A Life in Politics (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, ), –; Alaska Territorial Canvassing Board, “Alaska General Election, ,” in author’s files. . House Journal, , –. . Alaska Senate, Journal, , , , , ; Alaska, Session Laws, , ; Daily Alaska Empire, February , ; House Journal, , ; Jessen’s Weekly, March , . . Anchorage Daily Times, August , , ; Daily Alaska Empire, August , ; Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, August , . . U.S. Congress, House, Committee on the Territories, Hearings Pursuant to H. Res. : To Conduct a Study and Investigation of the Various Questions and Problems Relating to the Territory of Alaska: Report to Accompany H. Res. , th Cong., st sess, August –, , –, , . . U.S. Congress, House, Committee on the Territories, Official Trip to Conduct a Study and Investigation of the Various Questions and Problems Relating to the Territory of Alaska: Report to Accompany H. Res. , th Cong., nd sess.,
, H. Rept. , , ; Daily Alaska Empire, December , . . H. Rept. , ; Hearing Pursuant to H. Res. , –; House Journal, , , ; Ralph J. Rivers, “Transition to Statehood,” Alaska Life (May, ), ; Hearings Pursuant to H. Res. , . . Daily Alaska Empire, August , ; Anchorage Daily Times, December , . . House Journal, , –; Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, July , January , February , . . Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, August , September , ; Jessen’s Weekly, November , . . Anchorage Daily Times, November , ; Atwood to Gruening, December , , Statehood File, box , folder Correspondence, General, –, Bartlett Papers. . George Sundborg to author, August , , in author’s files. . George Sundborg, Statehood for Alaska: The Issues Involved and the Facts About the Issues (Anchorage: Alaska Statehood Association, August ), . . “Official Returns–Territorial Canvassing Board, General Election, October , ,” Office of the Secretary of Alaska, Juneau, Alaska, ; Claus-M. Naske, An Interpretive History of Alaska Statehood (Anchorage: Alaska Northwest Publishing Company, ), –. . Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, November , ; Frank L. Kluckhohn, “Alaska Fights for Statehood,” American Mercury (), ; Daily Alaska Empire, November , . . Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, August , . . Anchorage Daily Times, September , . . Daily Alaska Empire, December , . . U.S. Congress, House, Subcommittee on Territorial and Insular Possessions of the Committee on Public Lands, Statehood for Alaska: Hearings on H.R. and H.R. , th Cong., st sess., April –, , , , –. (Hereafter cited as Hearings on H.R. and H.R. .) . Ibid., . . Ibid., . . Ibid., . . Ibid., ; Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, April , ; Hearings on H.R. and H.R. , ; Bartlett to Gruening, February , , Gruening to Bartlett, March , , Bartlett to Gruening, March , , Statehood File, box , folder Correspondence, General , Bartlett Papers; Daily Alaska Empire, April , May , ; Jessen’s Weekly, May , .
Notes to Chapter
. Daily Alaska Empire, May , ; Alaska Weekly, July , ; U.S. Congress, House Subcommittee of Territorial and Insular Possessions of the Committee on Public Lands, Alaska: Hearings Pursuant to H. Res. , th Cong., st sess., August to September , , –, . (Hereafter cited as Hearings Pursuant to H. Res. .) . Ibid., , –, , , , . . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, September , . . Ibid., August , ; Daily Alaska Empire, December , ; Anchorage Daily Times, July , . . Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, August , September , ; Hearings Pursuant to H. Res. , ; Anchorage Daily Times, September , ; Jessen’s Weekly, September , ; Daily Alaska Empire, September , ; Anchorage Daily Times, September , ; Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, September , . . Naske, An Interpretative History, . . Kirk H. Porter and Donald Bruce Johnson, National Party Platforms, – (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, ), , ; Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, November , . . Alaska Senate, Journal, , , , –; House Journal, , –; Alaska, Session Laws, , –. . Naske, An Interpretative History, –. . Daily Alaska Empire, March , . . Naske, An Interpretative History, . . Ibid., . . Chapman to Gruening, October , , July , , Gruening to Chapman, June , , , box , Oscar L. Chapman Papers, HSTL. . Krug to Chapman, April , , Olive R. Goldman, “Work Sheet on Alaska Statehood,” April , , box , Chapman Office Files, R.G. , N.A.; Naske, An Interpretive History, –. . “Minutes of Organization Meeting of Alaska Statehood Committee . . .” August – , , Records of the Governor of Alaska, General Correspondence, –, box , folder –—Boards and Commissions, Statehood Committee, Federal Records Center, Seattle, Wash.; Daily Alaska Empire, August , . . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Ibid., . . Naske, An Interpretive History, .
. Anchorage Daily Times, April , ; Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, April , . . U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Alaska Statehood: Hearings on H.R. and S. , st Cong., st sess., April –, , –, , –, , , , , , , , . (Hereafter cited as Hearings on H.R. and S. .) . Ibid., –. . Ibid., , –; Stat. . . Hearings on H.R. and S. , , –, . . Ibid., –. . Bartlett to Rivers, December , , Bartlett to Gruening, August , , Statehood File, box , folder Correspondence, General July , Bartlett Papers; Cong. Record, st Cong., nd sess., –; “The Shape of Things,” Nation (): ; Bartlett to Gruening, June , , Statehood File, box , folder Correspondence, General, June , Bartlett Papers. . Naske, An Interpretative History, –. . Ibid., . . Ibid.; Daily Alaska Empire, February , , January , ; “Bartlett, Statehood Memorandum,” April , , Statehood File, box , folder Legislative History, , Bartlett Papers. . Naske, An Interpretive History, . . Alaska Statehood Committee, “Meeting of the Alaska Statehood Committee,” January , , –, Alaska Historical Library, Juneau, Alaska; House Journal, , –; Alaska Statehood Committee, “Meeting of the Joint Special Committee on Statehood of the Alaska Territorial Legislature,” January , , , , , –, Alaska Historical Library, Juneau, Alaska.
Chapter . Naske, Bartlett of Alaska, –. . Ibid., –. . Herb Hilscher to William Wagner, President, Alaska Broadcasting System, June , , Radio Broadcast over Wagner Chain, Number One, General Correspondence Files, –, box , folder Correspondence—general, Gruening, Ernest, , Bartlett Papers. . Gruening to Bartlett, June , , Bartlett to Gruening, June , , General Correspondence Files, –, box , folder Correspondence—general, Gruening, Ernest, , Bartlett Papers. . Kehoe to President Truman, August , , Kehoe to Bartlett, August , , Gru-
Notes to Chapter ening to Oscar L. Chapman, August , , Papers of Oscar L. Chapman, box , Folder GRI-GY, resignation of Joseph W. Kehoe, Secretary of Alaska, HSTL; Gruening, Many Battles, . . Naske, Bartlett of Alaska, ; Bartlett to Gruening, November , , Gruening to Bartlett, November , , General Correspondence Files, –, folder Correspondence— general, Gruening, Ernest, , Bartlett Papers. . Unidentified newspaper clipping, November , , Folder (), Gruening Papers, University of Alaska Fairbanks Archives. . Gruening, Many Battles, –, ; newspaper clipping, Ernest Gruening Papers, Folder (), November , , Bob DeArmond, “A Northern Notebook,” University of Alaska Fairbanks Archives. . Gruening, Many Battles, –; newspaper clipping, Ernest Gruening Papers, Folder (), November , , DeArmond, “A Northern Notebook.” . Annual message of the Governor of Alaska, House Journal, , . . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., –. . Juneau Independent, January , . . Ibid., April , . . Ibid., March , . . Ibid., April , . . Interview with Alaska Superior Court Judge Thomas Stewart, March , , Juneau, Alaska, in author’s files. . Juneau Independent, April , . . Anchorage Daily Times, April , .
Chapter . Naske, History of Alaska Statehood, ; Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, January , . . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . George Sundborg to author, September , , in author’s files. . Gruening to Bartlett, June , , General Correspondence Files, –, box , folder Correspondence—general, Gruening, Ernest, , Bartlett Papers. (Hereafter referred to as Bartlett Papers, Correspondence.) . Gruening, Many Battles, .
. Johnson, Ernest Gruening and the American Dissenting Tradition, . . Bartlett to Gruening, June , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Ibid. . Gruening to Bartlett, June , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Ibid. . Ibid., June , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Gruening to Bartlett, June , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Gruening to Bartlett, July , , July , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Gruening to Bartlett, July , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Gruening to Bartlett, January , , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Gruening to Marvin R. Marston, March , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Bartlett to Gruening, April , May , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Gruening to Bartlett, May , May , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Ibid. . Gruening to Gustafson, May , , “Proposal for a Project for Resources for the Future, Inc.,” Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Gruening to Bartlett, May , , Gustafson to Gruening, June , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . In the late s, Resources for the Future, Inc. and the Arctic Institute of North America funded George W. Rogers, a Harvard economics Ph.D. and former Gruening aid, to undertake a couple of Alaska studies. The first, Alaska in Transition: The Southeast Region, appeared in ; the second, The Future of Alaska: Economic Consequences of Statehood, in . The Johns Hopkins Press published both. . Gruening to Bartlett, June , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Ibid. . Bartlett to Gruening, June , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Clayton Fritchey to Gruening, June , , Gruening to Fritchey, July , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Ernest Gruening, The State of Alaska: A Definitive History of America’s Northernmost Frontier (New York: Random House, ). . Gruening to Bartlett, July , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence; A. S. “Mike”
Notes to Chapter
Monroney, “Let’s Keep it ,” Collier’s, March , , –. . Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order – (New York: Hill and Wang, ), . . See Rasmussen v. United States, U.S. (); Nagle v. United States, , Fed. , ; United States v. Farwell, , F. Supp. , ; Balzac v. People of Puerto Rico, , U.S., , ; McAllister v. United States, , U.S., , , ; O’Donoghue v. United States, , U.S., , , . George Washington Spicer described and analyzed some thirty-five key court cases in The Constitutional Status and Government of Alaska (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, ). Alaska statehood proponents in the mid-s borrowed heavily from Spicer in their efforts to establish a judicial framework for their cause. . Gruening to Bartlett, August , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Ibid. . Henry Allen Moe to Bartlett, November , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Gruening to Stanley McCutcheon, February , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Statement of Hon. Ernest Gruening at Public Hearing on Oil and Gas Leasing on Kenai National Moose Range, held at the Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., on December –, , Consolidated Files, –, folder Various, box , Gruening Papers; Gruening Diaries, December , . . Gruening to Robert B. Atwood, March , , folder Atwood (), Gruening Papers. . Gruening to John T. Bailey, June , , Gruening to Bartlett, July , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Bartlett to Burke Riley, March , , General Correspondence File, –, box , folder Correspondence—general, Riley, Burke, –, Bartlett Papers. . Gruening, Many Battles, , . . Interview with Mary Lee Council (longtime Bartlett aide), July , Washington, D.C., in author’s files. . Roderick M. MacKenzie to Gruening, December , , Gruening to supporters, December , , Consolidated Files, –, box , folder Various, Gruening Papers. . Bartlett to Hugh Wade, January , , E. L. Bartlett Papers, Personal File, –, Box , Folder Correspondence—general, Hugh Wade, –, University of Alaska Fairbanks Archives.
. Naske, History of Alaska Statehood, , . . Ernest Gruening Pamphlet, “Let Us End American Colonialism!” Alaska Constitutional Convention, College, Alaska, University of Alaska, November , ; Naske, Bob Bartlett of Alaska, . . Naske, History of Alaska Statehood, . . Ibid., , .
Chapter . Atwood to Gruening, May , , Ernest Gruening papers, Correspondence by Correspondent, Atwood, Robert, box , Gruening to Bartlett, May , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Bartlett to J. Earl Cooper, June , , Correspondence by Correspondent, Bartlett, Bob, box , Gruening Papers. . Naske, History of Alaska Statehood, ; Gruening to Bartlett, July , , Correspondence by Correspondent, Bartlett, Bob, Box , Gruening Papers. . Gruening to Bartlett, July , , Gruening Papers, Correspondence by Correspondent, Bartlett, Bob, Box , Bartlett to Gruening, July , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Gruening to Bartlett, July , , Bartlett to Gruening, August , , Bartlett to a general mailing list of friends, August , , Bartlett Papers, Correspondence. . Naske, History of Alaska Statehood, , Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, June , . . Atwood to B. Frank Heintzleman, April , , Papers of the Territorial Governors of Alaska, General Correspondence, –, box , folder -Statehood Committee, Federal Records Center, Seattle, Washington. . Atwood’s notes, meeting of June , , Bartley to Atwood, August , , E. L. Bartlett Papers, Statehood File, box , folder Tennessee Plan, June , box , folder Alaska Statehood Committee, , University of Alaska Fairbanks Archives. . Atwood’s notes, meeting of June , , Bartlett to Edward V. Davis, May , , Lehleitner to Atwood, September , , Snedden to Lehleitner, October , , Bartlett to Snedden, October , , Bartlett to Atwood, August , , E. L. Bartlett Papers, Statehood File, box , folder Tennessee Plan, June , folder Tennessee Plan, May , folder Tennessee Plan, July–October , box , folder Alaska Statehood Committee, , University of Alaska Fairbanks Archives. . Naske, History of Alaska Statehood, .
Notes to Chapter . Ibid., . . Gruening Diaries, June , . . Ibid. . Ibid., June , . . Ibid., June , . . Ibid., July , . . Ibid., July , . . Ibid., July , . . Ibid., July , . . Ibid., July , , George Sundborg to author, September , , in author’s files . Ibid., August , . . Ibid., August , . . Ibid., August , . . Ibid., September , . . Ibid., October , . . Ibid. . Ibid., October , . . Ibid., October –, . . Ibid., October –, . . Ibid., November , ; Gruening, The State of Alaska, , . . Gruening Diaries, November , . . Statement of Hon. Ernest Gruening at Public Hearing on Oil and Gas Leasing on Kenai National Moose Range held at the Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., on December –, , pp., Consolidated Files, –, folder Various, box , Gruening Papers; Gruening Diaries, December , . . Ibid., December , . . Ibid., December , . . Ibid., December , . . Ibid., December , . . Ibid., May , . . Ibid., May , . . Ibid., June , . . Ibid., June , , . . Ibid., June , . . Ibid., July , . . Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, May , , July , ; E. L. Bartlett, “Confidential Memo,” June , ; Bartlett to Dimond, March , , Statehood File, box , folder Tennessee Plan, –, box , folder Correspondence—General, , Bartlett Papers. . Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, May , ; E. L. Bartlett, “Confidential Memo,” June , , Statehood File, box , folder Tennessee Plan, –, Bartlett Papers; Gruening Diaries July , . . Naske and Slotnick, Alaska: History of the th State, –, Gruening, Many Battles, . . Gruening, Many Battles, . . Ibid., .
. Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, June , October , , , . . Anchorage Daily Times, November , . . Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, November , , . . Alaska, Secretary of State, “Alaska Official Returns of the Special Statehood Referendum Election, August , , and the General Election, November , ,” ; Donald R. Moberg, “The Election in Alaska,” Western Political Quarterly (): –; Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, November , ; Anchorage Daily Times, November , . . Anchorage Daily Times, January , .
Chapter . Robert C. Byrd, The Senate, –: Addresses on the History of the United States Senate, vol. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, ), –. . Naske, Bartlett of Alaska, . . Gruening to Lyndon B. Johnson, December , , Box , LBJ Senate Papers, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, Texas. . Gruening, Many Battles, . . Sundborg to author, December , . . Ibid. . Sundborg to author, December , . . Gruening, Many Battles, . . Ibid., . . Ibid., –. . Ibid., . Ibid., –. . Gruening, Many Battles, ; Naske and Slotnick, A History of the th State, . . Ibid. . Ibid., –. . Ibid., . . Ibid., , : Gruening, Many Battles, . . Gruening, Many Battles, . . David L. Spencer, Claus-M. Naske, and John Carnahan, National Wildlife Refuges of Alaska: A Historical Perspective (Anchorage: Arctic Environmental Information and Data Center, University of Alaska, Part , January ), , . . Ibid., . . Ibid. . George L. Collins to Harold E. Anthony, November , ; A. Starker Leopold to Harld Zahniser, November , , Margaret Murie Papers on the Arctic National Wildlife Range, in author’s files. . Ibid., , .
. . . . . .
Notes to Chapter Ibid., . Ibid., –. Ibid., . Gruening, Many Battles, . Ibid., –. Ibid., .
Chapter . George Sundborg to author, November , , in author’s files. . Ibid., August , . . George Sundborg to author, November , , in author’s files. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Gruening Diaries, September , . . Ibid., September , . . Ibid., September , . . Ibid. . Gordon S. Harrison, A Citizen’s Guide to the Constitution of the State of Alaska (Anchorage: University of Alaska, Institute of Social and Economic Research, ), . . This was an essential part in the development of an effective early warning defense system known as White Alice. Prior to the technology that led to the construction of White Alice, telecommunications operated by line of sight, making distance jumps for rapid data transmission impossible. The new technology beamed to a receiving antenna. This new development, called the forward tropospheric scatter system, was important for Alaska because of its strategic importance, vast distances, and often difficult and mountainous terrain in need of linkage. “The End of White Alice, the End of an Era,” Alascom Spectru , no. : –-; Lisa Mighetto and Carla Homstad, Engineering in the Far North: History of the U.S. Army Engineer District in Alaska (Historical Research Associates, Inc., ), . . Gruening Diaries, September , . . Ibid., September –, . . Ibid., September , . . Ibid., September , . . Ibid., September , . . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid., October –, . . Ibid. . Ibid.
. Ibid., October –, . . Ibid., October , . . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid., October , . . Ibid., October , . . Ibid., October , . . Ibid., November , , . Secretary of State, State of Alaska: Official Returns by Election Precincts, General Election November , ( Juneau, Alaska: Secretary of State, n.d.), .
Chapter . Gruening, Many Battles, . . Sherwood Ross, Gruening of Alaska: The Dynamic Career of a Remarkable U.S. Senator (New York: Best Books, Inc., ), . . Gruening, Many Battles, . . U.S. Congress, Senate, nd sess., Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation, Hearings: Hydroelectric Power Requirements and Resources in Alaska (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, ), . Hereafter quoted as Hearings, Hydro Requirements. Ivan Bloch and Associates, Background Facts on Rampart Canyon Project, Yukon River, Alaska (Portland, Ore., October ), , in Ernest Gruening Papers, Public Works, Rampart Dam, University of Alaska Fairbanks Archives. The Rampart Dam material in the Gruening Papers is unprocessed. Lake Erie covers , square miles; Rampart Lake was to cover , square miles. . Gruening, Many Battles, . . David Lilienthal, the director of DRC, was the former organizer and director of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The reservations of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service became apparent at the first of three conferences the REAB conducted. See U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Proceedings, Conference of the Rampart Economic Advisory Board, Anchorage, May , , also the Proceedings of the second and third conferences ( January –, , and March –, ). The U.S. Senate Committee on Public Works published the report. See U.S. Congress, Senate, th Cong., nd sess., Senate Committee on Public Works, The Market of Rampart Power, Yukon River (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, ). . The Market for Rampart Power, Yukon River, Alaska, Committee Print, , , –, –, , , –, –, , , –, –.
Notes to Chapter . George Sundborg, “The Biggest Dam on Mighty Yukon,” Rural Electrification ( July ), . . Ernest Gruening, rough draft, speech, “A Rampart on the Yukon,” undated, Public Works, Rampart Dam, Gruening Papers. . Ernest Gruening, rough draft, “Report to the Senate Public Works Appropriations Subcommittee,” May , , Public Works, Rampart Dam, Gruening Papers. . John F. Kennedy, Address, Alaska State Fair, September , , Palmer, Alaska; “Resume of Findings,” Hydro Requirements, XIX, Public Works, Rampart Dam, Gruening Papers. . Hearings, Hydro Requirements, Anchorage, September , (), –; Claus-M. Naske and William R. Hunt, The Politics of Hydroelectric Power in Alaska: Rampart Dam and Devils Canyon: A Case Study (Fairbanks: Institute of Water Resources, University of Alaska Fairbanks, October ), ; Hearings, Hydro Requirements, , –, , . . Substantiating Report on the Fish and Wildlife Resources of the Yukon and Kuskokwim River Basins in Relation to Harbor and Rivers in Alaska, Interim Report No. , appendix A, Part , January , –; Robert B. Weeden, “Conservation and Kilowatts,” News Bulletin (May ), –; Alaska Conservation Society News Bulletin ( January ): ; Alaska Sportsman ( July ): . . Tundra Times, October , ; Gruening to Judge Harry O. Arend, June , , Public Works, Rampart Dam, Gruening Papers. . George Sharrock, memorandum to Participants in the Rampart Dam Conference, August , , Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce Files, Series , box ; Yukon Power for America (YPA), Addresses Presented at Rampart Dam Conference, Fairbanks, , , . . Ibid., –, , . . Ibid., ; Bob McNealy to Gruening, September , , Public Works, Rampart Dam, Gruening Papers; Anchorage Daily News, March , . . Anchorage Daily News, October , ; Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, October , ; Membership list, Yukon Power for American, Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce Files, Series , box . . E. L. Bartlett to Ed Merdes, November , , Public Works, Rampart Dam, Gruening Papers. . George Sundborg to Howard Zahnister, editor, Living Wilderness, October , , Pub-
lic Works, Rampart Dam, Gruening Papers. Yukon Power for America, The Rampart Canyon Project, September , , describes the project’s recreational values. See also Yukon Power for America, The Rampart Story, undated brochure, Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce Files, Series , box . . William B. Egan to Lyndon B. Johnson, December , , Public Works, Rampart Dam, Gruening Papers. . Richard Starnes, “The Rampart We Watch,” Field and Stream (August ); , –; Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, December , . . Jessen’s Weekly, February , . . The United States Geological Survey filed its request on March , , and the Department of the Interior approved the application in February . . Tundra Times, February , . . U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, A Report to the Secretary of the Interior, Rampart Canyon Dam and Reservoir Project Committee (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, ). . Gruening, Many Battles, ; Tundra Times, December , ; Anchorage Daily News, October , . . Paul Brooks, “The Plot to Drown Alaska,” Atlantic Monthly (May ): –; Ernest Gruening, “The Plot to Strangle Alaska,” Atlantic Monthly ( July ): –; Congressional Record, th Cong., st sess. ( July , ), –; Gruening, Many Battles, . . Draft, Gruening Speech, Committee on Projects, National Rivers and Harbors Congress, nd Annual Convention, July , , Public Works, Rampart Dam, Gruening Papers. . Gruening to Sundborg, November , , Public Works, Rampart Dam, Gruening Papers. . New York Times, April , . . Steven H. Spur et al., Rampart Dam and the Economic Development of Alaska, vol. , Summary Report (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, ), , –, , , . . New York Times, April , , . . Alaska Natural Resources and the Rampart Project, June , , iv, . . Gruening to Udall, May , , Gruening to Walt Pederson, May , , Public Works, Rampart Dam, Gruening Papers; Washington Post, June , . . Telegram, Minutes, Yukon Power for America, fifth annual meeting, Fairbanks, January , , Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce Files, Series , box ; U.S. Corps of
Notes to Chaper
Engineers, Notice of Completion of Report on the Rampart Canyon Project (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, ), . . Gruening, Many Battles, . . Ibid, –.
Chapter . Francis Paul Prucha, The Indians in American Society from the Revolutionary War to the Present (Berkeley: University of California Press, ), –, . . Ibid., , . . Ibid., , –. . Kenneth R. Philp, “The New Deal and Alaskan Natives, –,” Pacific Historical Review (): –; Stat. (). . Felix S. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, ), –, ; David S. Case, Alaska Natives and American Law (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, ), –. . Case, Alaska Natives and American Law, –. . Gruening, The State of Alaska, –. . Naske and Slotnik, Alaska: A History of the th State, . . Felix S. Cohen, Report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, July , , , , file –-, pt. , Reservation of Lands for the Use of Natives, General, R.G. , N.A. (Hereafter cited as Cohen report.) . Ibid., , . . Gruening to Harold Ickes, Aug. , , Box , General Correspondence, –, Territorial Governor’s Office, Dept. of the Interior, BIA, Aboriginal Rights, –, R.G. , Alaska State Archives, Juneau, Alaska. . Ibid. . Alaska Fishing News, Ketchikan, August , ; Petersburg Press, August , ; Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, August , ; Claude Wickard to Ickes, Feb. , (nd qtn) file –-, pt. , Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . William Zimmerman, Jr., to B. W. Thoron, November , (st qtn.), box , Territorial Governor’s Office, Alaska State Archives, Juneau, Alaska; Philp, . . Dept. of the Interior Information Service, Press Releases, July , September (st qtn.), and December (nd qtn), , file –-, Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening to Ickes, December , , File –, Lands—General, R.G. , NA. . Ibid.
. Gruening to E. L. Bartlett, February , , , General Correspondence, Gruening, Ernest, box , E. L. Bartlett Papers, University of Alaska Fairbanks Archives. . Claims of the Natives of Hydaburg, Klawock, and Kake, Alaska, “Statement of Facts,” July , , Summary, File –-, Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. (Hereafter quoted as Hydaburg, Klawock, and Kake, “Statements of Facts.”) . Fowler Harper to Ickes, March , (st qtn.); Resolution, Alaska Territorial Chamber of Commerce, March , , Resolution, Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, May , (nd qtn.); Bartlett to Irwin Silverman, July , , File –-, Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Hydaburg, Klawock, and Kake, “Statements of Facts,” Summary. . Dept. of the Interior, Order No. , August , , Order No. , October , , and Claims of the Natives of Hydaburg, Klawock and Kake, Alaska, Order on Rehearing, Jan. , , File –-, Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Rules of Practice for Hearings upon Possessory Claims to Land and Waters used and Occupied by Natives of Alaska, June , , Edwin Arnold to William Brophy, June , , file –-, Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Silverman to Secretary of the Interior, December , , and Press Release, December , , File –-, pt. , Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Silverman to Secretary of the Interior, December , , File –-, pt. , Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Chapman memorandum for Solicitor, June , (qtn.), File –-, Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A.; Chapman to Solicitor, June , , box , and Gruening to Chapman, July , , box , Oscar L. Chapman Papers, HSTL. . Gruening to Chapman, June , , Brophy to Chapman, June , , File –-, Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening to Chapman, June , , File –-, Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Alaska’s Teapot Dome, July , , File –, pt. , Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Gruening to James P. Davis, October , , box , Chapman Papers, HSTL; Cohen
Notes to Chapter to Chapman, October , , File –-, Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Cohen to Warner Gardner, December , , and Davis to William Warne, April , , File –, R.G. , N.A.; Brophy to Warne, September , , Cohen to Brophy, July , , box , William Brophy Papers, HSTL; Gardner to Secretary of the Interior, May , , box , Warner Gardner Papers, HSTL; Stat. (). . Gruening, The State of Alaska, ; Krug to Vandenberg, May , , box , Warner Gardner Papers, HSTL. . Mastin G. White to Chapman, Oct. , , Press Release, October , , File –, pt. , Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Bartlett to Krug, October , , File –-, pt. , Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A.; Gruening to Krug, September , , box , Chapman Papers, HSTL. . Silverman to Davis, December , , and Felix Cohen, Draft of Statement before Public Lands Committee on Native Land Rights in Alaska, December , , File –-, pt. Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Krug to Acting Commissioner, BIA, and to Director, Division of Territories and Island Possessions, February , , File –-, pt. , Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . See H.R. , June , (committee print). . Gruening memorandum on H.R. , December , , File –-, pt. , Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Alaskan Conferences, –, Dept. of the Interior, December –, , box , Alaska Development Program, Julius A. Krug Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress; Memo by Davis, January , , file –-, pt. ., Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Memorandum of S. J. A. (?) to Clark Clifford, April , , David Niles Memorandum to Truman, May , , box , Alaskan Indian Land Claims, Philleo Nash Papers, HSTL; Advisory Committee on Indian Affairs to Krug, May , , File –-, pt. , Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Ruth M. Bronson, National Congress of American Indians, to Truman, Nov. , , Box , Alaskan Indian Land Claims, Philleo Nash Papers, HSTL; Krug to Mrs. Wade, Women’s Society of Christian Service, May , , and see other letters in box , March
–, , Correspondence—Official Letters, Secretary of the Interior, Julius A. Krug Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. . U.S. Senate, Alaska Indian Reservations: Hearing before the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs on Orders of Secretary Julius A. Krug, Creating Certain Indian Reservations in Alaska, st Cong., nd sess., , – , –. . Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Feb. , ; Chapman to Abel Piasano, April , , File –-, pt. , Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A.; Gruening, The State of Alaska, –. . Ibid., –. . Chapman to Piasano, April , , File –-, pt. , Reservation of Lands for Natives, R.G. , N.A. . Mary Clay Berry, The Alaska Pipeline: The Politics of Oil and Native Land Claims (Bloomington,: University of Indiana Press, ), . . Ibid., ; Tundra Times, Fairbanks, April , . . Tundra Times, Fairbanks, April , , . . Ibid., June , . . Naske and Slotnick, Alaska: A History of the th State, . . Donald Craig Mitchell, Take My Land, Take My Life: The Story of Congress’s Historic Settlement of Alaskan Native Land Claims, – (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, ). . Ibid., . . Berry, The Alaska Pipeline, . . Stat. (); Ernest Gruening, Many Battles, – (qtns., ). . Constitution of the State of Alaska, Art. , Sec. .
Chapter . Gruening, Many Battles, . . Ibid. . Ernest Gruening and Herbert Wilton Beaser, Vietnam Folly (Washington, D.C.: The National Press, Inc., ), . . The ten nations participating were Cambodia, North Vietnam, Laos, France, the People’s Republic of China, South Vietnam, the U.S.S.R., the United Kingdom, and the United States. Literature on Vietnam and the war abounds, for example: Bernard B. Fall, The Two Vietnams (New York: Praeger, ); Bernard B. Fall, Street Without Joy (Harrisburg, Pa.: The Stackpole Company, ; Bernard B. Fall, The Vietminh Regime (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, ); Ellen J. Hammer, The
Notes to Chapter
Struggle for Indochina (Stanford: Stanford University Press, ); Donald Lancaster, The Emancipation of French Indochina (London and New York: Oxford University Press, ); Jean Lacoture, Vietnam Between Two Truces (New York: Random House, ). . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Cong. Record, th Cong., nd sess., (February , ). . George Sundborg to author, September , , in author’s files. . Cong. Record, th Cong., nd sess., , , March , . . Cong. Record, th Cong., nd sess., , March , . . Cong. Record, th Cong., nd sess., , April , . . Cong. Record, th Cong., nd sess., , April , . . Cong. Record, th Cong., nd sess., –, May , . . Cong. Record, th Cong., nd sess., , June , . . Gruening, Many Battles, . . Cong. Record, th Cong., nd sess., , June , . . Cong. Record, th Cong., nd sess., , July , . . Gruening and Beaser, Vietnam Folly, –. . Ibid., . . Ibid. . Ibid., . . Doris Kearns, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (New York: Harper & Row, ), . . Gruening and Beaser, Vietnam Folly, . . Cong. Record, th Cong., nd sess., , August , . . Ibid. . Ibid., . . Gruening and Beaser, Vietnam Folly, , . . Kearns, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, –. . Cong. Record, th Cong., st sess., , January , . . Ibid., –, . . Ibid., –, February , . . Gruening, Many Battles, . . Cong. Record, th Cong., st sess., , February , , , April , . . Ibid., , May , . . Ibid., , June , . . Ibid., , July , . . Gruening, Many Battles, –.
. Ibid., . . Joe B. Frantz interview with Ernest Gruening, , April , , Washington, D.C., in Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Texas. . Gruening, Many Battles, –. . Anchorage Daily News, November , . . Joe B. Frantz interview with Ernest Gruening, –, April , . . Robert Leckie, The Wars of America, revised and updated version (New York: Harper & Row, ), –. . Juneau Independent, April , .
Chapter . George Sundborg to author, November , , in author’s files. . Ibid. . Ibid . Ibid. . Ibid. . Department of Education, Division of State Libraries, Archives & Museums, Alaska Blue Book – ( Juneau, Alaska, ), . . Thomas A. Morehouse and Gordon S. Harrison, An Electoral Profile of Alaska (Fairbanks: ISEGR, ), –. . Edwin W. Webking, Jr., The Gruening Write-In Campaign (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California, ), –. . Anchorage Daily News, August , . . Evangeline Atwood and Robert DeArmond, Who’s Who in Alaska Politics (Portland, Ore.: Binford & Mort, published for the Alaska Historical Commission, ), . . Mike Rowan to Jim Burns Only, May , , box , folder , Campaign: BiosketchGruening, Mike Gravel Papers, University of Alaska Fairbanks Archives. (Hereafter referred to as Gravel Papers.) . Ibid. . Anchorage Daily Times, April , . . Ibid. . Anchorage Daily Times, April , . . Ibid., April , . . Ibid., April , . . Mike Rowan to Bob, March , , Mike Rowan to Joe and Sandy, March , , folder , Correspondence—Miscellaneous (), Gravel Papers. . Mike Gravel to Erling Strang, box , folder , Correspondence—Miscellaneous (B), Gravel Papers. . Joseph Napolitan, “The United States Senate Race, Alaska—,” March , box ,
Notes to Chapter folder , Advertising—Miscellaneous, Gravel Papers. . Anchorage Daily Times, April , ; Mike Gravel to Senate Campaign Committee, March , , box , folder H, Campaign—Manual, Gravel Papers. . Newsletter, June , , box , folder , Advertising—Miscellaneous, Gravel Papers. . Mike Gravel, “Announcement at Press Conference,” May , , box , folder , Campaign—Speeches, Gravel Papers . Sundborg to author, November , , in author’s files. . Ibid. . Ibid . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . George W. Rogers and Richard A. Cooley, Alaska’s Population and Economy: Regional Growth, Development and Future Outlook, Vol. (College, Alaska: Institute of Business, Economic and Government Research, ), ; George Sundborg to author, November , . . Ibid. . Ibid. . “Filing Statement of Mike Gravel,” May , Mike Gravel to Dear —, May , box , folder , Campaign: Speeches, folder , Campaign—Biosketch—Gruening, Gravel Papers. . “Introduction (Primaries),” n.d., box , folder , Campaign—Speeches, Gravel Papers. . Brochure, “—a man for the seventies,” A Man for Alaska Committee, Charles Blomfield, Chairman, n.d., box , folder , Advertising—Newspaper, Gravel Papers. . Speech, “I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today—,” n.d., box , folder , Campaign—Speeches, Gravel Papers. . “Exploding the Myth,” n.d., box , folder , Advertising—Newspapers, Gravel Papers. . “The Decade Ahead,” n.d., box , folder , Advertising—Newspapers, Gravel Papers. . Sundborg to author, November , . . Mike Gravel to Senate Campaign Committee, box , folder , Campaign—Manual, Gravel Papers; Anchorage Daily Times, October , , November , . . Sundborg to author, November , . . Ibid.
. Anchorage Daily News, November , . . Sundborg to author, November , , in author’s files. . “Memo: Mostly to Mike Rowan, August , box , folder , Strategy‚ General election, Gravel Papers. . Rowan to Joe, Shelby, and Pierre, September , , box , folder , Advertising— General election, Gravel Papers; Sundborg to author, November , , in author’s files. . Anchorage Daily Times, September , , . . Press Release, “Statement of Mike Gravel on Gruening Candidacy,” September , , box , folder , Campaign—Gruening Write-In Attempt, Gravel Papers. . Anchorage Daily News, October , . . Compiled from State of Alaska, Official Returns by Election Precinct, Primary election, August , , and General Election, November , , Juneau, Alaska: Secretary of State, Capitol Building. . Gruening, Many Battles, ; Sundborg to author, November , . . For a discussion on the Gruening-Bartlett relationship, see Naske, Bob Bartlett of Alaska, –. . Gravel’s Senate tenure awaits scholarly examination. A maverick, he had one of the worst attendance records in the Senate. He departed from the tradition Alaska’s delegation had established by voting with the South to uphold Senate Rule , which allowed a minority to sustain filibusters. Seeking publicity, he called a late-night meeting of his Senate Buildings and Grounds Subcommittee to read into the record the then–top-secret classified Pentagon Papers regarding the war in Vietnam. He surprised a battery of newsmen and TV cameramen by breaking down and crying, or “blubbering,” by one account, “giving him the distinction of displaying the leakiest waterworks since the Tin Woodman of Oz.” At the next Democratic national convention he gained the rostrum and nominated himself for vice president when no one else took up his invitation to do so. On coming to Washington, one of his first moves was to commission the construction of a mansion for himself at Tantallon on the Potomac River (George Sundborg to author, November , , in author’s files.) Gravel was reelected in and defeated in , and all but disappeared into the woodwork. He now lives in the Monterey area in California.
Bibliography he ernest gruening papers, about cubic feet deposited in the Archives at the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, proved invaluable in the preparation of the book. Especially valuable for Gruening’s tenure as territorial governor were his diaries, which he kept intermittently throughout this period. Unfortunately, the Gruening Papers, although in the possession of the Archives for a good many years, are only roughly arranged. The E. L. Bartlett collection in the same depository was also very valuable. Bartlett, who served under Gruening as secretary of Alaska, a position akin to lieutenant-governor, became the governor’s confidant. For many years, the two men enjoyed a close and cordial relationship, reflected in the correspondence file in the Bartlett papers. The author also consulted the Anthony J. Dimond Papers in the same depository. Dimond, one of the early leaders of Alaska’s statehood movement, was Alaska’s delegate to Congress from until , when he resigned and accepted appointment as a federal territorial district court judge in Anchorage. The papers of Chas. D. Jones, a sourdough miner and politician from the Nome area, shed some light on Gruening’s relationship with old-timers. The papers of Harold L. Ickes and Julius A. Krug are housed in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. The Ickes papers were valuable in shedding light on the secretary’s relationship with Gruening, and particularly clarified Ickes’s reasons for promoting Gruening for the Alaska governorship. Also revealing were the secretary’s entries in his “Secret Diaries,” kept on microfilm in his papers. The Krug papers, consisting mostly of reading files and routine materials, were not particularly useful, although there were nuggets in an otherwise undistinguished collection. The Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, provided access to the pertinent files in the Harry S. Truman papers, as well as those of Oscar L. Chapman, Warner W. Gardner, William A. Brophy, and Philleo Nash, Truman associates whose papers are housed in the same depository. The Franklin D. Roosevelt papers in Hyde Park, New York, shed light on the president’s interest in, and concerns for, Alaska, as well as his relationship with Ickes. Record Group , records of the Office of Territories, and Record Group , records of the Department of the Interior, are rich sources for understanding the history of the North. In the s, the author consulted the records of the governor of Alaska, then housed in the Archives Branch of the Federal Records Center in Seattle, Washington. In the meantime, these have been microfilmed and the manuscript collection is now housed in the Alaska State Archives in Juneau. Obviously, these records represent an important resource in the study of Alaska. Finally, the Alaska Statehood Committee records are housed in the Alaska Historical Library in Juneau.
T
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Correspondence
Alaska Blue Book –. Juneau: Department of Education, Division of State Libraries, Archives and Museums, . Annual Report of the Governor of Alaska to the Secretary of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ended June , . Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, .
The author corresponded frequently with George Sundborg, former Alaska newspaperman, editor, territorial and federal employee, and Senator Gruening’s administrative assistant from to . His long association with Gruening and his incisive insights into his life and career proved invaluable.
Interviews Bartlett, Vide, April , Fairbanks, Alaska. Stewart, Doris, April , , Sequim, Washington. Stewart, Thomas, March , , Juneau, Alaska.
Unpublished Dissertations Rogers, George W. Alaska: The Development of an American Polity. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, . Webking, Jr., Edwin W. The Gruening Write-In Campaign. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California, .
Index Note: References to Ernest Gruening are abbreviated “EG.” References to photographs are italicized. Abernethy, Thomas Gerstel, Adams, John, Adams, Sherman, ADB. See Alaska Development Board Addams, Jane, Advisory Committee on Indian Affairs, AFL. See Alaska Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, Agricultural Experiment Station, , agriculture, , , , , , , : in Cuba, ; settlement experiment, ; in Soviet Union, Agriculture Act, Ahmaogak, Roy, airport: civilian, , , , , , ; legislation for, , ; military, , – “Alaska, the Real Story” (Gruening), Alaska–Canada Military Highway (Alcan). See Alaska Highway Alaska Canned Salmon Industry, Inc., , –, – Alaska Defense Command, , , , , , Alaska Defense Force. See Alaska Defense Command Alaska Development Board (ADB), , , –, , , , , Alaska Development Corporations, – Alaska Federation of Labor (AFL), , Alaska fund, Alaska Highway, xviii–xix, , –, – Alaska Methodist University, , Alaska Miners Association, , Alaska National Guard, xix, , , , , , , , , , Alaska Native: aboriginal land claims, –, –; acculturation/assimilation policy, , , ; conversion policy, ; fisheries and, , ; forest lands and, –; incorporation of Native groups, ; legislation for, , –; opposition to EG Senate primary campaign, –; possessory right to lands, –, , , , ; pulp/newsprint mill and, –; reservation for, , , , , –, –, –; tax paid by, ; See also Aleuts; Eskimos; Indians Alaska Native Brotherhood, , , ,
Alaska Native Service, , – Alaska Native Sisterhood, – Alaskan International Highway Commission, Alaskan Sector, Alaska Planning Council, , Alaska Railroad, xvi, , Alaska Reorganization Act (ARA), , , , Alaska Road Commission (ARC), Alaska Scouts, Alaska Statehood Association, Alaska Statehood Committee, , , , –, , , , –, , , Alaska Steamship Company, , , Alaska-Tennessee Plan, xxi, , , –, –, , –, , Alaska Territorial Guard, xix, , , Alaska Visitors Association, , Alaska War Council: background to, –; liquor shipments and, ; supplemental governor power and, ; travel control and, –, – Alcan. See Alaska Highway alcoholic beverages: control of, ; excise tax on, , , , , –, , ; shipment of, Aleuts, , , , , , Alexander, Katie T., , , All-Alaska Chamber of Commerce, Allen, Robert S., Amchitka, –, American Federation of Labor (AFL), xvi American Guano Act (), American Institute of Public Opinion, American Public Power Association, – Anchorage, , , , : EG on prosperity of, ; forest area around, ; funding military base near, xvii, –; hydroelectric project and, ; international airport at, ; military installation at, xvii, , , ; population of, ; as proposed capital, ; as Republican stronghold, ; statehood and, , Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, – Anchorage Daily Times, xxi, , , , , , . See also Atwood, Robert B. Anchorage Democratic Divisional Committee,
Index
Anchorage Rotary Club, Anderson, Al, , Anderson, Clinton P., , , , , Angell, Homer, – Angerman, Frank, Annette Island, airfield on, , , antidiscrimination legislation, , anti-Semitism, ANWR. See Arctic National Wildlife Range apportionment, territorial legislature, xvi ARA. See Alaska Reorganization Act ARC. See Alaska Road Commission Arctic Circle, national defense and, Arctic National Wildlife Range (ANWR), – Arctic Slope Native Association, Armed Services Committee, Arnold, Edwin G., Arnold, Henry H. “Hap,” xvii, , –, , Arnold, Winston C., xviii, Article XV, Alaska Constitution, – Aspinall, Wayne, , Association of American Indians, Athabaskan, , Attu, xix, , , , –, – Atwood, Evangeline, , Atwood, Robert B., xxi, , , , , , , , , , , , , – Auke Bay, Australia, aviation department, EG proposes, Baker, Bill, , , Baker, Howard H., Ballinger-Pinchot affair, Banta, Louise, Bao Dai, Barkley, Alben, Barrow, , , Barrow Village, Bartholomew, Ralph, – Bartlett, E. L. “Bob,” , , , , , : Alaska Native affairs and, , , , , ; becomes House delegate, ; death of, ; EG governorship reelection and, , ; EG makes assistant, ; elected to Senate, –, ; opposes withdrawing land for wildlife, –; personal relationship with EG, –, , , , ; reappointment of EG and, , ; reelection campaign of, –; as Senator, –, –, , ; senatorial bid, , –, ; statehood and, xx, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; supports EG senator bid, , , , , ; tax legislation and, , –; wins senior senator, ; World War II and, Bartley, Ernest,
Bates, George J., The Battle for Alaska Statehood (Gruening), Beach, Rex, Beaser, Herbert Wilton, , Bentley, John S., Bez, Nick, BIA. See Bureau of Indian Affairs Biddle, Francis, , Black, Richard Blackburn, , , , , BLM. See Bureau of Land Management Board of Administration, xvi, , , Board of Budget, , Board of Education, Board of Regents, University of Alaska, , , Board of Road Commissioners, , Boeing, – Bond, Peter, Bonneville dam, Brewington, Darrell, Brink, Frank, Bristol Bay, British Foreign Office, , Brooks, Overton, – Brooks, Paul, Brophy, William A., Brown, Albert E., – Brown, Boyd, Buck, Pearl S., Buckley, Charles A., Buckner, Simon Bolivar, , , , : Alaska Highway and, –; attack on Alaska and, ; defense program priority of, –; placing wreath on Attu, ; prevents EG going to Attu, –; restrictions on civilians and, –; saloon/liquor closings and, ; support of supplemental power for governor, ; World War II and, , Bultain, E. R., Bundy, William P., Bunnell, Charles E., , , , , Bureau of Air Commerce, Bureau of Air Service, Bureau of Biological Survey, Bureau of Imports of the War Trade Board, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), , , , Bureau of Land Management (BLM), , , , , , Bureau of the Budget, , , , Burlew, Ebert K., , business license tax, – Butler, Hugh, , , , , , , , , Butrovich, John, –, , Byrd, Richard A., Byrd, Richard E., Cagney, James, California, ,
Index Calles, Plutarco Elías, , Cambodia, , Campbell, Robert L., Canada, , , , , , Canfil, Fred, canned salmon industry. See salmon industry Canton Island, – Carter, William R., Castner, Lawrence V., Catholic Church, censorship, during World War II, xix, : authority for, –; basic provisions of, –; easing, , , ; EG objection to, xix, , , , –; of Kodachrome photos, , , ; recommendation to lift, – Céspedes, Carlos, Chapman, Oscar L., , , , , , –, , Chapman, Philip F., –, cheechakos (new arrivals), Chena Hot Springs, Chilkoot Barracks, China, , Chugach National Forest, Church, Frank, , , , CIO Alaska Conference, Circle Hot Springs, Civil Aeronautics Administration, , Civil Aeronautics Administration–Defense Landing Area project, Civilian Conservation Corps, – Civilian Office of Censorship, , , , Clark, Henry W., Clawson, Jack, xviii Clifford, Clark, coal, xviii, , Cochran, O. D., Code of Wartime Practices for the American Press/Broadcasters, Coffey, Edward D., Cohen, Felix, , , , , , –, cold war, , , Collier, John, , , , , Collins, George L., , Coman, Dana, Coman Oceanographic Expedition, Committee on the Territories, , commonwealth proposal, , communism, , Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), conservation, dam project and, –, Conservation Foundation, Constitutional Convention, Conway, Jack, Coolidge, Calvin, Cooper, J. Earl, copper, ,
Corcoran, Thomas G. (“Tommy the Cork”), Cordon, Guy, – Cordova, , Corlett, Charles H., Coudert, Frederick, Crawford, Fred, Cuba, , , Cunningham (Father), Curry, James E., , Cutting, Audrey, Daily Alaska Empire, , , , , , , Danaher, John, Davis, Everett S., Davis, James Curran, Davis, James V., Davis, John W., Dawes Severalty Act, Dawson, William, Defense Department, A Definitive History of America’s Northernmost Frontier (Gruening), Democratic Policy Committee, Development and Resources Corporation (DRC), Devils Canyon Dam, Dewey, John, DeWitt, John L., , – Dien Bien Phu, , Dimock, Barbara, Dimond, Anthony J., , : censorship and, : defense and, xvii, , , , , ; reapportionment and, ; refugee crisis and, –; on residency requirement for governor, xviii, ; statehood and, , ; support of EG by, Dirksen, Everett, Distant Early Warning System (DEW line), Ditman, Bob, , , Division of Territories and Island Possessions: review of Alaska tax system by, ; statehood and, ; See also Gruening, Ernest, as Division of Territories and Island Possessions director Dominy, Floyd E., Donahue, Thomas J., Douglas, Paul, Downes v. Bidwell, Draper, Estella, , , DRC. See Development and Resources Corporation Dublinsky, David, Ducks Unlimited, Dulles, John Foster, Duncun, William, Durham, Carl Thomas, Dutch Harbor, xvi, , , Dutch Harbor Naval Air Station, , , , , –, –
Index
E. P. Harris Company, Eareckson, William O., Earhart, Amelia, , Early, Stephen T., , early warning system, Eblen, Jack E., xiv Ecological Society of America, Edison, Charles, xvi education, , , , , , , , , , . See also University of Alaska Egan, William A. “Bill,” , , , , , , , , Eisenhower, Dwight D., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , election laws, Elmendorf Air Force Base, xvii, , , Emmons, Delos C., Employment Security Act, England, xvii, , , . See also World War II, in Europe Engle Act, Erickson, Sidney, Eskimos, , , , , , –, , Excursion Inlet, xix Fairbanks: army installation at, , , , , , , ; hydroelectric project and, ; international airport at, ; military reserves at, ; Native claim to land near, ; as Republican stronghold, ; statehood and, , Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, xviii, , , , , , –, Falangists, Fall, Bernard B., Farrington, Joseph R., , , , Federal Aid Airport Act, , Federal Aid Highway Act, , , , Federal Trade Commission, – Feltus, Randolph, fishing industry, , , , , ; tax on, , , , –, , Fishing Vessel Owners Association, fish traps, , , Folta, George W., , , Foreign Policy Association, Fortas, Abe, Fort Richardson Army Base, xvii, , , Fort Yukon, France, xvii, – Frankfurter, Felix, Frantz, Joe B., – Freedman, Antoinette (Toni), Freeman, Charles S., , Fridenberg, Phebe (EG mother), Fridenberg, Rose (EG aunt), Fritchey, Clayton, Frye, Helen,
Fulbright, William, , furs, , , , Gabrielson, Ira N., Gaffney, Dale, Gallup, George, game law, – Gardiner, Tom, Gardner, Warner, gas, –, , , gas/fuel tax, , Gatty, Harold, general licensing tax, George, E. M., , Germany, xvii. See also World War II, in Europe Germond, Jack W., xiii–xiv G.I. Bill of Rights, , Gibson, Pearl, Glacier Bay National Monument, Glen Canyon Dam, Glennallen, Goddard Hot Springs, Godsell, Philip H., gold industry, , : suspension of mining, , ; tax on, Goldwater, Barry, , Good Neighbor Policy, Gottstein, Barney, , Government Operations Committee, Graham, Jesse E., Graham, Leona, Grames, George, xx Grand Coulee Dam, , , Gravel, Mike, , , , –, –, – Great Depression, , , , , , Green, David, Greenslade, John Wills, Griffin, Edward W., Griffin, “Tubby,” Gruber, Ruth, Gruening, Clara (EG sister), Gruening, Clark (EG grandson), Gruening, Dorothy Elizabeth (EG wife), xiv: child-care facilities and, ; children, , , , , , –, , , ; courting/marriage of, ; on Inside Passage, ; relationship with husband, xiii; social life of, –, ; travels to Europe, . See also Gruening, Ernest Gruening, Emil (EG father), – Gruening, Ernest, , : as athlete, ; birth/early childhood, ; children, , , , , , –, , , ; courting/marriage of, ; education of, xv, , ; death of, xiii, ; diagnosed with colon cancer, xiii; first visit to Alaska, ; memoirs of, xiv, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; other
Index publication of, xx, , , , , , , , , , , , Gruening, Ernest, life/career before Alaska, , : army career, , ; first government assignment, ; investigates private utility, –; journalism career, –, –, , , ; Latin American policy, , –, , ; in Maine, –; meets Roosevelt, xv, –; moves to Maine, ; publicity director for Progressive Party, ; receives medical degree, ; relationship with Ickes, –; travels to Europe with family, ; travels to Mexico, –. See also Gruening, Ernest, as Division of Territories and Island Possessions director Gruening, Ernest, as Division of Territories and Island Possessions director, , , , : administers Puerto Rico, –, –, ; appointment, xiv, xv, –, ; on defense, ; first visit to Alaska, , ; refugee crisis, , , , , , ; relationship with Ickes, –, , –, ; transpacific air service, – Gruening, Ernest, as territorial governor: Alaska Highway and, , –; appointment/confirmation, xiv, xv, –, ; arrival at Alaska, –; board member duties, –; civil rights and, xx; crusades for statehood, xx; establishes voting precincts in bush, xix, , ; fights against outsiders running Alaska, ; helps develop tourist industry, ; labor issues, xvi; limited power of, xvi, ; lobbying by, ; legislative session, –, ; overview of, –; reaction to appointment, –; reapportionment and, ; relationship with Ickes, ; relationship with legislature, , –, –, –; second visit to Alaska, ; University of Alaska and, xx; urges hydroelectric development, xx; view on Indians, ; visits medical personnel in Aleutian Islands, ii. See also taxation system, territorial Alaska; World War II, Alaska during Gruening, Ernest, as territorial governor after WWII in Alaska: on Alaska Native affairs, –, , , , , , –; budget proposals, –; on cover of Time, , ; criticizes senate, –; on “Doc” Walker, –; hearing for charges against (), –; last day in office, –; legislative session, –; legislative session, –; legislative session (special), –; legislative session, –; legislative session (special), xx, –; legislative session, xx, –; legislative session, –; loses bid for governorship, ; memorial to remove, –; praises legislature, , , ; reaction to legislature address, ; reaction to legislature address, –; reaction to special legislative session budget, –;
reappointment, , –, , –, –, , ; relationship with Ickes, ; relationship with legislature, , , , ; Republican victory in Alaska, , –; secretary of Alaska resigns, – Gruening, Ernest, after Alaska governorship: becomes Alaska unofficial spokesman, ; at cabin, , ; desires to be Alaska Democratic National committeeman, ; financial problems, ; on magazine/newspaper delivery to Alaska, –; plans to study Alaska resources, –; suffers personal tragedy, –, –; supports reelection of Bartlett, –; vacations, –; works for Alaska Statehood Committee, Gruening, Ernest, as U.S. senator (), xiv: becomes junior senator, ; campaign, , –, –, –; committee assignment, –; election as senator, , ; on filibustering, –; first session attended by, –; goes to Middle East to study foreign-aid program, ; opposes moving Alaska capital, –; opposes withdrawing land for military/wildlife purposes, –; reaction to Eisenhower State of Union message, ; relationship with Atwood deterioration, –; senatorial support for, –, ; social life, ; speechwriting, ; staff for, –; statehood and, xx–xxi; weekly newsletter, – Gruening, Ernest, as U.S. senator (): campaign, –, ; hydroelectric project (See Rampart Dam); television appearance of, ; Vietnam and (See Vietnam); visits Soviet Union, Gruening, Ernest, U.S. Senate primary campaign: age issue in, –, , , ; Alaska Native opposition, –; campaign brochure, ; consulting firm aids, –; defeat, xiv, , –; election day, ; fundraising, ; Gravel announces candidacy, , ; loses with write-in vote, ; Louis Harris poll on EG, –; newspaper opposition, ; opposition to EG on past record, –, ; primary, –; public speaking, ; strategy, , ; support for opposition, –; write-in campaign, – Gruening, Ernest Jr. “Sonny” (EG son), , Gruening, Huntington Sanders (EG son), , , Gruening, Marie “May” (EG sister), Gruening, Martha (EG sister), Gruening, Peter Brown (EG son), , , –, , Gruenther, Alfred M., Guffey, Joseph F., gunboat diplomacy, Gunther, John,
Index
Gustafson, Reuben G., , Gwitchya Ginkye, Haas, Ted, Haida Indians, Hail Columbia: The Thirty Year Struggle for Grand Coulee Dam (Sundborg), Haines, military installation at, Haines Cut-off, xix Halleck, Charles E., Hamilton, Alexander, Hampton, Ruth, Hanna, Richard, – Hannigan, Robert E., Hansen, Harold, , Harding, Warren G., xv–xvi, , , Harris, Margaret Keenan, Harrison, Gordon, Harsch, Alfred, xvii, , –, Havenner, Frank R., Hawaii, , : administration of, xv, ; defense spending for, ; military unpreparedness of, –; as part of Pacific Defense Triangle, ; statehood and, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; suggested as county of California, Hawkesworth, Charles, Hayden, Carl, Heintzleman, Frank B., , , , , , , , , , Hellenthal, Jack, , Henning, Bob, Hensley, William, – Hermann, Mildred, xvii, Herntz, Harry, Herrick, Robert, , Herring, Hubert, Hickel, Walter J., , highways. See roads/highways Hillman, Sidney, Hilscher, Herb, Hitler, Adolph, , Ho Chi Minh, , , Hohman, George, xi Holland, Spessard L., homesteading, , , , Hoopes, Robert, hot springs, , –, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, , House Committee on Public Lands, House Committee on Territories, – House Indian Affairs Committee, House Lands, House Subcommittee on Territorial and Insular Possessions, , , Howland Island, , , Hull, Cordell, , , , ,
Hunt, Lester, , hunting, , , hunting license, , Hurley, Jim, Hydaburg, , –, , , , hydroelectric power: potential for, ; project for, xx, , – Ickes, Harold L., , : administration of Puerto Rico and, –, –, ; Alaska Highway and, , ; on EG appointment as territorial governor, –; EG directorship and, –; Indian rights and, , , –, –, , ; reapportionment and, ; refugee crisis and, , , , –, ; relationship with EG, –, , –; relationship with Truman, ; resigns, –; suggests EG as Alaska governor, ; World War II and, , , , , , –, income tax: federal, , , , , , ; on land, ; legislation for, , , ; on mining, , ; net, , , –; personal, , , Indian Affairs, , Indian Office, Indian policy, contiguous states, . See also Alaska Native Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), , , Indian Rights Association, Indians, , , , , Indochina, – Indonesia, Inland Empire Waterways Association, – Inman, Samuel Guy, – Inside Passage, Institute of Wildlife Management, Insull, Samuel E., Insull utility, – Intergovernmental Committee on Political Refugees, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), International Commission of Control and Supervision, Ipalook, Percy, IRA. See Indian Reorganization Act IRS. See Internal Revenue Service Izaak Walton League, , Jackson, Henry “Scoop,” , , Jacobson, William S., Japan: commercial ties with, ; fishing treaty, ; imports by, . See also World War II, Alaska during; World War II, in Pacific Japonski Island, – Javits, Jacob, Jenison, Edward, Jobs and More Jobs (Gravel), , Johnson, Jed,
Index Johnson, Lady Bird, Johnson, Leroy, Johnson, Lyndon B., , , , , , , , , : Vietnam War and, , , –, , , , , Johnson, Robert David, Joint Canadian–United States Pacific Coastal Frontier Defense Plan No. , Jones, Charles D., , , , Jones Act, xv, Juneau: as capital, ; hydroelectric project at, ; military installation at, ; population of, –; statehood and, , Kake, –, Kaltag, Karnes, Anthony, Kashevaroff, A. P., – Katmai National Monument, Kay, Wendell, Kearn, Carrol D., Kearns, Doris, , Keene, Chuck, – Kehoe, Joseph W., , Kenai National Moose Range, , , Kenai National Moose Reserve, Kennedy, John F., , , , , , Kerr, Robert S., , , Ketchikan: military installation at, , , ; paper/ pulp mill, , ; statehood and, –, Ketchikan Alaska Chronicle, , , , Kilpatrick, James J., Kincaid, Thomas C., King, W. L. Mackenzie, King, William H., King-Havenner measure, , Kiska, xix, , , , , , –, Klawock, , –, Klukwan, Knight, E. W., – Knox, Frank, xviii, Kodiak: electrical plant need at, ; labor for naval air station at, xvi; population of, ; statehood and, Kodiak Naval Air Station, , , , , , , Kommandorksi Islands, Korean War, , , , Krug, Julius A. “Cap,” , , –, , , , Ladd Army Air Field, , , , , , , LaFarge, Oliver, LaFollette, Robert Marion, , LaGuardia, Fiorello, H., Lake Powell, land office, EG proposes, – Landreth, Earl,
Landrum, Eugene M., , Langdale, Geoffrey, Laos, , Lathrop, Austin E. “Cap,” xviii, , , , Latin America: EG policy for, , –, , ; Roosevelt and, , , –, , . See also Puerto Rico law enforcement, “The Law of the Yukon” (Service), Lee, Frank, Lee, John, LeFevre, Jay, legislature, territorial. See territorial legislature Lehleitner, George H., , , , Leonard, Richard, Leopold, A. Starker, , Lewis, Fulton, , Libby McNeill and Libby, Linck, Alaska Stewart, Lincoln, Abraham, Lindsey, Ben, Lippman, Walter, – liquor shipments, liquor tax, , , , , , –, , Lister, Ronald, Littell, Norman M., Loussac, Zack, Lucas, Harry, Lusk, Frederick C., xvii, Lyng, Howard, , MacArthur, Douglas, Machado, Gerardo, Machetanz, Fred, Magnuson, Warren G., , –, , , Mahon, George, A Man for Alaska (TV program), Manila, , Mansfield, Mike, , –, , Many Battles: The Autobiography of Ernest Gruening (Gruening), xiv, , , , , , , Margold, Nathan, Marín, Luis Muñoz, , Marín, Muna Lee de Muñoz, Marshall, George C., xvii, Marston, Bourke, Marston, M. R., xix Marston, Wilda, Martin, Graham, Marxism, Matanuska Valley project, Mathews, Thomas, , May, Andrew J., Maynard, Mildred, McArthur, Douglas, McArthur, James, – McCutcheon, Stanley, , , , , ,
Index
McKay, Douglas, , McKee, Joseph V., McNamara, Pat, McNamara, Robert, , , McNealy, Bob, “Message to the People of Alaska,” , , –, Metcalf, Frank, Metcalfe, Vernon M., Metlakatla, , , Mexico, – Mexico and Its Heritage (Gruening), Meyer, Eugene, Miller, Alex, , Miller, Arthur, Miller, William T., – Milliken, Eugene, , Mills, W. P., xvi–xvii Mills, Wilbur D., minerals, export of, mining industry, xvi, xx, , , : suspension on gold mining, , ; tax on, , ; and wildlife, Miscovich, George, , Mississippi River, , Mitchell, William, Moffat, Jay Pierrepont, Monagle, M. E., , Monroe Doctrine, Monroney, A. S. “Mike,” Moore, Neil T., , Morgan, Tom, Morgenthau, Henry Jr., xvii Morison, J. H. S., Morse, Wayne, xiv, , , , , , , , Mount McKinley National Park, , , , Munsey, Frank, Murie, Margaret, Murie, Olaus, , Murphy, Hobart A., Myers, “Duke,” – Naknek, emergency airfield at, Napolitan, Joseph, National Audubon Society, National Civil Liberties Clearing House, National Congress of American Indians, , , National Park Service, – National Resources Planning Board (NRPB), National Wildlife Federation, , The Nation, , , –, , Native Claims Settlement Act, – nativism, Natural Resources Council of America (NRCA),
Naval Petroleum Reserve No. , Nerland, Andrew, , Neuberger, Richard, , Neutrality Act, New York, , , New Zealand, Ngo Dinh Diem, Nichols, Hugh, Nichols, Jeannette Paddock, Niebuhr, Reinhold, Ninilchik Hospital Association, Nixon, Richard M., , , , , , Nome, , Noonan, Fred, Norris, George W., NRCA. See Natural Resources Council of America NRPB. See National Resources Planning Board O’Connell, John, O’Connor, James, xix Ohlson, Otto F., Ohmer, Earl, oil, , , –, , , , Oklahoma, , , Oliver, Simeon, O’Mahoney, Joseph, , , , , Omnibus Bill, – Operation Rampart, – Organic Act, , , , , , , , , , , O’Rourke, Phil, Oswald, Reuben, Outdoor Writers Association, Pacific American Fisheries, Pacific Defense Triangle, Pacific islands, U.S. vs. British ownership of, , – Pacific Naval Coastal Frontier, – Pacific Northern Naval Coastal Frontier, , Pacific Southern Naval Coastal Frontier, – Panama, as part of Pacific Defense Triangle, Pan American Airways Inc., , –, Pan-Americanism, Paramushiro Island, Japanese naval base on, , Parker, Ralph C., , , Parks, George A., PAS. See Public Administration Service of Chicago Patton, Bob, – Patty, Ernest, – Pauley, Edwin W., Peabody, Paul, Pearl Harbor, attack on, xviii, – Pearson, Drew, , , – Pegler, Westbrook,
Index Pepper, Claude, Peratrovich, Elizabeth, xx Peratrovich, Frank, , , Peratrovich, Roy, xx Permanent Joint Board on Defense-United States and Canada, personal income tax, , , Peterson, Hugh, Philippines, , , , , , Phoenix Islands, , Pinchot, Gifford, Pioneer’s Home, , , Platt Amendment, , Poindexter, Joseph B., Poland, xvii, Polet, Tony, Pollak, Walter, population, of Alaska, xv, , , , , , , , Portland Evening News, –, , Pott, Benjamin F., xv Potter, Charles Edward, Potter, Jean, : presidential election , President’s Policy Committee on Puerto Rico, Price, Byron, –, , –, Prince Rupert, “The Problem of Alaskan Development” (Margold), property tax, , , , , , , , , , , Property Tax Act (), PRRA. See Puerto Rican Reconstruction Administration Prucha, Francis Paul, Pruitt, William O., Public Administration Clearing House, – Public Administration Service of Chicago (PAS), The Public Pays (Gruening), Puerto Rican Reconstruction Administration (PRRA), –, , , , Puerto Rico, , : administration of, xv, , –, –, , ; pulp/newsprint mill, – railroad, xvi, , Rainier, John, Rampart Dam project, : adverse decision on, –; conference on, –; cost of, ; ecological symposium on, –; feasibility study on, –; EG support of, , –; lobby organization for, –; opposition to, , , , –, ; possible effect on wildlife, ; site for, ; support for, , –, Rampart Economic Advisory Board (REAB), Rasmuson, Elmer E., –, , , , , ,
Rayburn, Sam, , , , , REA. See Rural Electrification Administration REAB. See Rampart Economic Advisory Board reapportionment, xx, Reeves, John W., refugee resettlement, in Alaska: hot springs development scheme, ; initial plan to resettle German Jews, –; Interior Department reluctance about, –; opposition to, –, , , , –; public purpose corporation for, – Reorganization Act of , Reorganization Act of , “Report to the People,” Republican Party, Resources for the Future, , Richardson, Wilds P., Ridgway, Matthew B., Riley, Burke, Rivers, L. Mendel, Rivers, Ralph, –, , , , , , , Rivers and Harbors Act, – Rivers and Harbors Omnibus Bill, roads/highways, xv, : Alaska Highway, xviii–xix, xix, , –, –; cost of constructing/maintaining, ; legislation for, , , , Robertson, R. E., Robinson, Paul, Rockefeller, Nelson, Rogers, George W., Rogers, Nat, Rogers, Will, Roguzha, Colleen, Roguzha, Gene, Rommel, Erwin, Rooney, John, Roosevelt, Eleanor, , Roosevelt, Franklin D., : Alaska Highway and, ; censorship and, ; declares war on Germany/Japan, ; EG appointment by, xiv, xv, , –, ; Kiska occupation and, ; Latin America and, , , –, , ; meets EG, xv, –; war refugee crisis and, , Roosevelt, James, Root, Eliha, Rosert, William, Ross, Sherwood, , Rossiter, Percival S., Rothstein, Joe, – Rowan, Mike, , – Royal Canadian Air Force, Rules Committee, , Rural Electrification Administration (REA), Rusk, Dean, , Russell, Richard, Russia. See Soviet Union
Index
sales tax, , , , salmon industry, xvi, xx: curtailed by World War II, ; export of canned salmon, ; federal mismanagement of, ; fish trap use by, ; relationship with EG, , , ; statehood and, , ; support of “Doc” Walker, ; tax on, , , , ; trade organization of, , –, – saloon/liquor closings, Samoa, , San Martín, Grau, Scandinavia, , Scheel, Fred, Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr, Schoettler, Robert, Schreibner, Carl, xix SEATO. See South East Asian Treaty Organization Seaton, Fred A., , , , , , , , , , –, Seattle, xv–xvi, xx, , , , Security Council of the United Nations, segregation, in Alaska, xx Seidman, Harold, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, , , , , , Senate Public Lands Committee, Senate Rule XXII, Service, Robert, , Seventh International Conference of American States, , Seward, , Seward, William Henry, Sharrock, George, Shattuck, Allen, shipping, Alaskan, monopolistic control of, xv–xvi, xx Shungnak Eskimos, – Sierra Club, , silver, export of, Silverman, Irwin W., , , Simpson, John, Sitka, : electrical plant need at, ; navy air station at, xvi, , , –, , , ; tax assessment in, xvi–xvii Slattery, Harry, , , , Slattery Report, , –, Smathers, George, Smith, Alfred E., Smith, Dorothy Elizabeth. See Gruening, Dorothy Elizabeth Smith, Harold D., , , Smith, Merle “Mudhole,” Smith, Robert, Snedden, Bill, Snedden, C. W.,
Snettisham hydroelectric project, Snyder, Buell C., sourdoughs, South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), , South Korea, Soviet Union, , , , –, , , , , The Spell of the Yukon (Service), Spencer, Dolly Mendenhall, Starnes, Joe, statehood: Admission Day, , , ; Alaska Native issues after, ; Alaska Statehood Committee and, , –; Americans favoring, ; Butler opposition to, , ; canned salmon industry and, , ; concerns about governorship after, ; in Congress, –, –, ; congressmen visit Alaska to look into, –, –; EG and,xx–xxi, , , ‒, , , , , , –, ; granted, xxi, ; Heintzleman opposes, , ; incorporation and, –; Insular Cases and, , ; land grants in bill, –, ; national efforts for, –; opposition to, ; partitioning scheme for, ; partisan considerations in, –; partisan reaction to, –; passage of bill, –f; pro-statehood resolution, ; referendum on, , , –; in Senate, –; statehood measure approved/died, ; study on, –; support for, after referendum, ; transition legislation, –; voter information for, – Statehood for Alaska: The Issues Involved and the Facts About the Issues (Sundborg), The State of Alaska: A Definitive History of America’s Northernmost Frontier (Gruening), xx, , , , , State v. Hagglund, Stefansson, Vilhjalmur, Stepovich, Mike, , , , , , –, , , , , , , Stern, J. David, Stevens, Theodore F., , , , , , , , –, , Stevenson, Adlai, Stewart, Thomas, Strand, Ehrling, – Strand, William, , Sturdevant, Clarence L., submarine base, , , suffrage, Sullivan, Leroy M., Sulzberger, Arthur, Sumner, Lowell, Sundborg, George, , , , , : on “Doc” Walker, –; EG senate reelection bid and, , , , , , , , , ,
Index , , , ; on senatorial staff, –; statehood and, , ; supports hydroelectric project, , , ; on Vietnam, ; visits EG at cabin, Swanson, Zula, Symington, Stuart, –, Taft-Hartley Act, Tate, J. R., , tax: alcoholic beverage, , , , , –, , ; business license, –; corporation/partnership tax, ; export, ; federal income tax, , , , , , ; fishing industry, , , , , –, , ; fuel, ; general licensing, ; income tax on land, ; legislation for income tax, , , ; liquor, , , , , , –, , ; mining, , ; motor fuel/motor vehicle tax, , , ; net income tax, , , –; paid by Alaska Native, ; personal income tax, , , , ; property, , , , , , , , , , ’ sales, , , , , chn; salmon industry, , , , ; temporary tax, : tobacco tax, taxation system, territorial Alaska: Alaskan view toward paying for improvements, ; defeat of EG plan for, ; EG experiences opposition to tax reform, –, , ; EG initial plan for, xvii–xviii; EG proposal for, –; EG reaction to defeat of own plan for, –; enactment of broad-based system for (), xx; expert study on, –; federal review of tax system, ; hot springs scheme for, –; inadequacy of territorial, xvi; income tax bill defeated, ; narrow base for, , chn–chn; need for modern, –; special legislative session on, – taxation system, territorial Alaska after WWII: deficit, –, ; legislative measures enacted in , –; liquor tax, ; lobby against reform, –; press blames EG for not creating, –; proposed income tax, –, –, , , , ; senate and, ; special legislative session on, , –; untaxed activity, –; upholding new tax laws for modern tax system, Taylor, Ike, Taylor, Warren A., f, , Teapot Dome, , , telephone, overland, Tennessee Plan, , , , territorial business manager, territorial legislature: apportionment and, xvi; Congress declares, ; EG relationship with, xviii, , –, –, , , , –; reapportionment and, xx, . See also Gruening, Ernest, as territorial governor; Gruening, Ernest, as territorial governor after WWII in
Alaska; taxation system, territorial Alaska; taxation system, territorial Alaska after WWII in Alaska Terry, David D., Thailand, These United States (Gruening), Thieu, Nguyen Van, Third Judicial Division, Thomas, Edna, Thomas, Lowell Jr., Thoron, Ben W., Thurmond, J. Strom, tin, , Tlingit, tobacco tax, Tongass Forest Bill, – Tongass Forest Law, – Tongass National Forest, , , , Tonkin Gulf Resolution, xiv, transportation: insufficiency of, xv–xvi, . See also airport; railroad; roads/highways; shipping travel control, –, – Travel Control Office, Troy, John W., –, , Truman, Harry S., , : EG reappointment and, –; on Ickes, –; Indian affairs and, , , ; nominated as vice president, ; nominated/elected as president, ; Vietnam and, tuberculosis legislation, , Tugwell, Rexford Guy, Tully, Grace, Tundra Times, , – Udall, Stewart L., , , , , Umnak Island, military airport at, , – Unalaska. See Dutch Harbor unemployment, , , , , unemployment compensation, , , United Nations, , , , , , , United States–Canadian Joint Defense Board, xix United States Maritime Commission, xvii United States Supreme Court, University of Alaska: EG at commencement, , ; expansion of, –, , ; funding and, , , , ; international affairs and, xx; selection of new president for, –; student support of EG write-in reelection, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, , U.S. Army Signal Corps, , – U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Corps of Engineers, –, U.S. Department of Agriculture, , , U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare,
Index
U.S. Department of the Interior: on Alaska Native affairs, , –; highway construction and, xviii; national forests and, ; refugee crisis and, –, ; on statehood, . See also Division of Territories and Island Possessions; Ickes, Harold L. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, , , , , , U.S. Forest Service, , , , U.S. Geological Survey, , , U.S. Maritime Act, U.S. Public Roads Administration, , U.S. State Department, , , Vaille, Frank, Vandenberg, Arthur H., , Van Nuys, Frederick, Venetie Reservation, Verbeck, William J., , , veterans, –, , , – Veterans Administration, Victory in Europe (VE Day), Victory in Japan (VJ Day), Vietnam: EG addresses Senate on, , ; EG criticizes, –; EG discusses, with Johnson, ; EG interviewed on, –; EG/Morse oppose resolution on, , ; EG proposes UN-supported cease-fire, –; EG speaks publicly on, –; EG speech “The Mess in Vietnam,” , ; end of war, ; escalation of war, , , –; France and, –, ; Gravel on, ; Johnson orders bombing raid on, –; resolution on, –; support for EG view on, ; temporary division of, ; as violation of Geneva accords, ; war in, –; during World War II, Vietnam Folly (Beaser and Gruening), Villard, Oswald Garrison, , Vincent, Beverly M., Virgin Island Company, Virgin Islands, administration of, xv, voting precinct, in bush community, xix, , Wade, Hugh, , Waite, H. M., Wallgren, Mon, , Walker, Norman R. “Doc,” , –, , , –, Walker, Samuel, Wallace, Henry A., , , Wallgren, Mon, Walsh, Walter, – War Department, censorship and, , War Plans Division, War Powers Bills, War Shipping Administration, Watson, Harry, , ,
weather station, – Welles, Sumner, Western Defense Command, , –, Western Federation of Outdoor Clubs, Wheeler, Burton Kendall, Wheeler, Earle G., Wherry, Kenneth, Whitcover, Jules, xiii–xiv White, Al, Wickersham, James, Wilderness Society, , , Wildlife Management Institute, , Williams, John Bell, Winstead, William Arthur, Womens Bay, naval base on, , Works Progress Administration, World War II, Alaska during: Alaskan fear of attack, , , ; armories, , ; censorship (See censorship, during World War II); civilian/native workers, ; defense expansion, –; defense expenditures, ; EG actions after Japanese attack, –, –; EG assessment of military base/preparedness, –, –, , , –, , –, –; EG helps organize Territorial Guard, xix; EG on blackouts, –; EG on civilian defense, , , ; EG opposes installation building/expansion, xix, –; EG reaction to initial Japanese attack, –; end of war in Alaska, xix; installation construction, –, –; Japanese attack on, , , –; lack of preparedness, xvii, xviii, –, –, –, ; military construction boom, ; military highway and, xviii–xix, ; need for Arctic Circle air base, ; nisei help, ; prisoners, , ; recreational project for troops, ; strategic importance of Alaska, , ; supplemental powers for governor, –; weather station, –. See also Buckner, Simon Bolivar World War II, in Europe, xvii, , , –, , World War II, in Pacific, xviii: Japanese naval supremacy, –; Japanese overrun/occupy Indochina, ; Pearl Harbor attack, xviii, –; quality of Japanese armament, Yakutat, , Young, Don, YPA. See Yukon Power for America Yukon Flats, , , , , , , Yukon Power for America (YPA), Yukon Railway, xix Zahniser, Howard, Zelnick, C. Robert, xiii Zeusler, F. A., Ziegler, A. H.,
