LIFTING THE LID
AT JUNEAU
(Continued from Page One)
for pulp mills and others, but
some specific language considered
objectionable by some Senators,
and an industrial incentive clause,
are due for reconsideration today.
The House pass'd unanimously
Sen. Frank Barr’s bill authorizing
Alaska municipalities to accept
510,000,000 available in federal
funds for airport construction.
Walter Plett, civil aeronautics
executive from Anchorage, said
after the House action, however,
that the bill is “ineffective until
additional legislation is adopted,”
because it doesn’t provide fo * the
Territory to participate in budd
ing fields where outlying com
munities are unable to do so.
In debate on the wage-hour bill,
attempts failed to get exemptions
from the 40-hour week for the
fishing industry, and to amend it
by raising the minimum to $1.11.
Some critics of the bill argued
that all able-bodies workers al
ready received more than $1 an
hour, and Pete Gilmore, represen
tative of the Canned Salmon In
dustry, said the 40-hour week
“would just about ruin the sal
mon industry” because of the un
certainties over weather and fish
runs.
He said even women in cannery
work get far over $1 an hour, will)
time and a half for work after
midnight and 40 cents hourly
more for evenings.
The Senate will proceed today
on a 10-mill property tax mea
sure while the House will contin
ue consideration of the wage-hour
measure. The “hot potato” liquor
control bill will come to the floor
in regular order possibly later
this week.
The reduced personal property
exemptions were introduced yes
terday by Sens. John G. Butro
vich, Jr., and William Munz, Re
publicans, and carried, 12-4. The
increased mining claim valuation
was proposed by Mimz and car
ried, 9-7.
The airport construction bill
previously passed the Senate, but
must return theer because of a
minor House amendment.
Barr, veteran Alaska airman,
said federal funds were available
for five years more on the basis
of three federal dollars for one
locally. He said such aid would
have been valuable to Fairbanks
a few years ago.
“It’s too late to help Fairbanks,
but others can still use the help.”
Barr’s amendment to exempt
homesteads until a year after fi
nal title is issuer! also won Sena e
approval, 12-4 after the veteran
Fairbanks bush pilot argued it
would encourage settlement.
Sen. Charles Jones, Nome Re
publican, tried to get an exemp
tion for mining properties until
the gold price is raised, a bonus
paid for it, or miners are allowed
to sell on a higher world market.
The proposal lost 12-4.
In the House the flurry over the
liquo" bill came after the lengthy
measure reached the floor by sur
prise, with one committee mem
ber, Rep. C. A. Pollard, Democrat,
recommending passage, and seven
others withholding recommenda
tion.
By various parliamentary man
euvers, Reps. Frank Angerman
and Glen Franklin, both Fair
banks Democrats, tried to side
track it indefinitely.
Rep. Warren A. Taylor, Fair
banks Democrat, said the bill or
iginally had been drawn by the at
torney general after conferences
among department heads and the
Governor. He challenged the
House:
“Why not face the issue. We
need adquate liquor control,
which we don’t have now.”
Angerman*labeled it “a bad bill
on which amending would run on
and on.”
An attempt to route it to the
ways and means committee also
failed, and the House finally fol
lowed the appeal of Rep. Clarence
Keating, Anchorage:
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“Why not let the bill take its
normal course?”
Friday, February 11, 1949
JUNEAU, (/P>—The House pass
ed the wage-hour bill yesterday,
but Rep. Marcus Jensen, who
voted for it, moved for reconsider
ation today.
The Senate sidetracked the pro
posed general property tax mea
sure until Monday in order to hold
further hearings.
In other action, the House pass
ed a strongly worded memorial
against sales in military commis
saries to any but military person
nel and a limited number of c.vil
ians attached to military posst.
It was addressed to Congress
anl military department heads.
Speakers declared the competi
tion was unfair to tax-paying bus
iness since the military is not sub
ject to freight and sales costs or
taxes.
The charge was made that at
Fairbanks the general public can
freely buy military supplies, and
Mrs. Essie Dale, Fairbanks Demo
crat said:
“I didn’t believe commissary
sales were available to outsiders,
but I’ve got three cuts of meat in
my locker now for evidence.”
The present military sales prac
tices also brought blasts from
Reps. Jack Conright of Anchorage
and Warren Taylor and Glen
Franklin of Fairbanks, all Demo
crats.
Taylor said he had studied the
situation extensively and “I
thought the Kodiak situation,
which led to sending the mayor to
Washington in protest, was bad,
until I found out what’s happen
ing at Fairbanks.”
The vote on the memorial was
22-1.
Both Houses also passed several
minor measures, the Senate ap
proving five unanimously
They were topped by Rep Dale’s
bill opening housing projects to
residents in general The wartime
act provided for defense workers
only.
A memorial to Congress asking
an Alaska hospital for the insane
also was approved.
Abill for a Pioneer Women’s
Home at Sitka came up again but
was postponed to the 36th day of
the session after the Senate adopt
ed, 9-7; an amendment trebling
the proposed appropriation to
$300,000.
Amendment supporters said
$100,000 was insufficient if the
home really was needed .
Sen. Anita Garnick, Republican,
co-author of the bill, charged on
the floor an “attempt is being
made to kill this bill.” Later she
told a reporter some Senators
were “trying to use the bill as a
club to gain support for the prop
erty tax bill.”
Bills passed by the House in
cluded:
A resolution appropri a t i n g
$111,000 for regular legislative
session expenses, including salar
ies and per diem; a bill to legalize
officials’ travel outside Alaska at
Territorial expense when approv
ed by department heads as essen
tial; a measure allowing licensing
of coin amusement devices for
fractions of a year; a bill outlaw
ing gambling for “credit repre
senting money.”
A House bill introduced by
Reps. Franklin and Stanley Mc
Cutcheon proposed a $2,500 ap
propriation for Alaska Congres1
sional delegates’ “quasi-social ob
ligations” in pursuit of the Terri
tory’s interests.
Several fishing industry men
appeared before the Senate and
warned that fishing^ boats might
move to Seattle if tax concessions
were not granted on boats.
Army Warns Of
Possible Russian
World Spy Ring |
(Continued from Page One'
(Both Sorge and Hozumi were
hanged*.
Agnes Smedley, American au
thor, accused of still being a Sov
iet spy. She denies it.
This “case study in internation
al espionage in the Fur Fast”
reads like an Oriental serial from
Hollywood. It even has the crime
doesn’t pay ending with a novel
twist:
The man who unknowingly be
trayed the spy chain now is one of
Japan’s top communists.
The report says that:
The Japanese smashed the ring
almost by accident, just before
Pearl Harbor in 1941.
By then it had picked off the
secret it wanted most—assurance
that Japan would not jump Rus
sia. That let the Reds rush troops
across Siberia to halt the German
drive on Moscow.
Information from the ring was
of “incalculable” value and cost
almost nothing.
Three Japanese who used to
live in America were in the ring,
one at the top level.
The ring knew the trend of Ja
panese-American negotiations in
the critical summer and fall of
1941. It had an “in” with Japan
ese Premier Konoe.
But there is no hint it got a tip
on the Pearl Harbor raid,
i Some second-hand information
I leaked from the American embas
PARENTS WARNED ON
DRIVING PRACTICE
CHICAGO, <sP)—Troffic experts
are stressing psychology in an ef
fort to save some of the estimated
4,000 lives lost annually in this
country through automobile acci
dents involving teen-age drivers..
Ideas of speed and safety, they
hold, are developed before young
sters actually begin to drive.
"You may teach teen-age boys
and girls the mechanics of operat
ing an automobile,” declares H. G.
Kemper, president of Lumber
men’s Mutual Casualty Co., “but
their ideas of driving responsibil
ity are fomred long before then.”
Kemper cautions parents to be es
pecially careful when driving
with children in their cars.
Much of the blame for our high
accident rate, he believes, rests on
the shoulders of parents who set
bad examples for their children.
sy in Tokyo.
An American diplomat at Har-*
bin, Manchuria, vice-consul Ty
cho L. Lilliestrom, let two Soviet
agents stay at his home and set
up an illegal radio station, the re
port says. That was in 1929.
At that time, an earlier and
probably bigger ring was at work
in China. But it was far less spec
tacular.
There is nothing in the report
about any tie-in with Soviet es
pionage in this country. But one
name in the report appears rather
obscurely in still-secret testimony
taken last year at the spy hearings
of the House un-American activi-n
ties committee.
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