VALLEY SETTLER
Published once a week in Palmer,
Alaska for the Matanuska Valley
Farmers' Co-operating Association,
for the purpose of giving news of
the Association's work, problems
and accomplishments.
By... Lucille Le Due
$1.75. Per year
10 ^. per copy
WASHINGlON i\lEWS _ L E1 Tt i<
By Mary Lee Council, Secret
ary to E L Bartlett, Delegate to
Congress from Alaska.
"NOTHING UNDER THE BED"
The Alaska and Hawaii statehood
hills arc receiving nation-wide
support from loading newspapers
following announcement that the en
abling legislation will soon be con
sidored by the Senate.
The Scripps-Howard papers, strong
advocates of statehood, carried the
following lead editorial this week
on this subject:
’’The South has been much put up
on by critics, who blame it for
everything wrong with America, and
refuse to recognize any of the pro
gress Southerners have made in
solving the great racial and econ
omic problems that have saddled
them so long.
"That makes it easy to understand
why some Southern loaders have be
come resentful and suspicious, and
why some Southern congressmen have
come to the point where they see a
dis -uised threat to the South in
every new proposal.
"A few, unfortunately, take that
attitude to ward statehood for A
laska and Hawaii. There is even
talk of a filibuster by Southern
senators to prevent those bills
from coming to a vote.
"They fear that the votes of four
new senators from Alaska and Hawaii
might be cast at some future time
in favor of such proposals as an
PEPC law and 'civil rights,' bitter
ly opposed in the South.
"In this case, the Southerners
arc seeing things under the bed.
"Nowhere on earth do peoples of
different racial ancestry live in
as much peace and harmony as in
Hawaii--not because any lav/ comm
ands it, but because that is the
Hawaiian way of life. It is also
the way of life which all good
Americans seek.
"In fact a few years a ~o an PBIC
law v/as introduced in the Hawaiian!
legislature. It was defeated, be
cause the le -isInters folt that it
would encourage racial antagonisms.
"Alaska admittedly has a racial
problem , with its minority of Es
kimos and Indians, but has made
great progress tov/ard solvin'-- it —
again, not by laws, but by schools,
hospitals and other peaceful meth
ods of helping these native people
live better.
"The right of Alaska and Hawaii
to statehood has nothing to do with
the quarrel between the South and
its critics. It would require tor
tuous reasoning indeed to portray
the peoples of those territories as
'anti-Southern1— on the contrary,
they share with the South a dcsiro
for freer trade, for their own in
dustries, and for building their
own economics to make them loss de
pendent on decisions made in New
York and Washington.
"There is nothing under the bed
hero. The people of Alaska and
Hawaii are good Americans who have
served their apprenticeship. They
deserve the full citizenship that
only statehood can give them,"
The 17th Coast Guard District
1 will have a now director in March
when Captain Wm. V/. Kenner succeeds
Roar Admiral Joseph Grocnspun as
commander of the Alaska headquart
ers, according to information given
Delegate Bartlett.
Captain Kenner, who served in A
laska waters in the '^O's, is now
Assistant Chief of the Coast Guard's
Office of Pcrs nncl in the Washing
ton headquarters. Mrs. Kenner and
their daughter, Hilda : ary, will
join Captain Kenner in Juneau.
Admiral C-reonspun will return to
Washington.
Ketchikan, Juneau and Fairbanks
are scheduled shortly to join Anch
orage in having delivery mail serv
ice, Assistant Postmaster General
Lawler told Dclcgato Bartlett in in
forming the Delegate that' the rec
ommendations he has long urged have
been approved by the Post Office
Department.