The banter in the newspaper produced a most surprising denouement: a fifty-year-old businessman in a blue-serge suit and highly polished black shoes came to Missy's hotel and introduced himself as Oliver Rowntree, in the freight-forwarding business in San Francisco and here in Seattle on some railroad negotiations important to the entire Pacific Coast. He was obviously surprised to see that it was such an elderly woman who was kicking up this fuss about statehood, but quickly got to his point:
'I'm with you a hundred percent, Miss Peckham. I have no position in government and no authority to wield, but I do have a lifetime of information, and it galls me to watch people like Ross & Raglan conspire with the railroads to deny Alaska statehood.'
'Why should you be concerned? Other than as a sensible citizen?'
'I was born in Alaska. Anchorage. I watched my father try to operate a grocery story there. One of the best, equal to anything in the Outside, as we called it then.'
'Lower Forty-eight now.'
'I do a lot of work with Hawaii. Out there they call it the Mainland. And it's my experience with them that has made me so bitter about Alaska. I want to see the people up your way get a fair break, at last.'
'You're doing this for your father, aren't you?'
'I suppose I am. I saw the way he had to struggle to earn a buck because his neck was in a noose. Came to Oregon where the laws were sensible, had no trouble at all in building the best grocery north of San Francisco, died a wealthy man with a chain of eight moderate-sized stores, each one a bonanza.
'Now let's get down to facts. I'm discovering that generalized emotion means little in this business. Starving Eskimos are no better now than starving Belgians were in World War One.'
The facts he unraveled were so startling that Missy asked him to go over them twice.
'Better yet,' he said, 'I'll send you some reports,' but when she received them they produced no substitute for the iron-hard recital he gave during their first meeting.
'It all starts with the Jones Act of 1920. Have you heard of it?'
'Vaguely. I know it's bad news for Alaska. Details? No.'
'Well, the father of that shipping man whose photograph was in this morning's paper, old Malcolm Ross, was instrumental in getting it passed. Senator Jones from Washington bird-dogged it through the Senate. What it did, in simple terms, was put Hawaii and Alaska in a straitjacket, but Alaska in far worse shape than Hawaii. It said that the only ships which could carry freight from West Coast ports to either Hawaii or Alaska were ships built in the United States, owned by United States companies, and manned by United States crews. That places Hawaii and Alaska at a considerable disadvantage over ports like Boston or Philadelphia, where European vessels and those under foreign registry can bring in goods from abroad. But Hawaii has it lots better than Alaska, because it has competing lines who work to keep costs down. Alaska has only R&R, and they've continued to strangle people up there the way they strangled my father.'
'I can't believe a nation would do this to one of its parts,' Missy said, and then Rowntree offered the clincher: 'Here's where I came into the picture in a big way.
I bring an enormous lot of goods across country by train. Because of tricks the Seattle people slipped into the Jones Act, what costs me one dollar freight to San Francisco for shipment to Hawaii, costs you a dollar ninety-five to get it to Seattle for shipment to Alaska. So if you add up all the disadvantages under which Alaska suffers, it is something like three-to-one against.'
'Why does Hawaii get such a favorable break?' Missy asked in disgust, and Rowntree said, only half humorously: 'They're smarter. They've learned how to protect themselves in the clinches.' And Missy vowed: 'We're going to get some brains from Hawaii,' and she asked Rowntree's help in drafting and polishing the famous oration which she would deliver more than sixty times in all parts of the Lower Forty-eight, 'The Strangling of Alaska.'
Her first delivery, at a hall in Seattle, had an unforeseen consequence, for Tammy Venn appeared in the audience with her high-spirited husband in tow, and prior to the meeting, people who knew them joshed Tammy because Malcolm had described her in public as being 'as loony as a bedbug.' When pressed, he told a listening newsman:
'I have apologized most profusely for that statement. It was uncouth and almost indecent.
What I should have said was that she's as loony as a pismire.' Together they explained in the best of humor that they disagreed on many things: 'Tammy's a Democrat, I'm a Republican. She wanted our kids to go to public school, I wanted one of the good private schools back east.'
'Who won?'
'Tie. Girl back east. Boy here in Seattle.'
'Who's going to win on the statehood issue?'
He replied: 'The senators of this great republic have enough sense not to pass that nonsense,' and as he spoke she put up behind his head, so the cameras could catch it, the index and little finger of her right hand, making them look like donkey's ears.
After the performance, which Tammy said was delightful and her husband a justification for citizen's arrest because of the way Missy slandered his father, they met with Oliver Rowntree, and at first greeting Oliver and Tammy stared at each other, snapped fingers, and cried: 'Hey! I know you!'
'How did that happen?' Malcolm Venn asked as they sat down for drinks, and Tammy began hesitantly: 'It's a long story, but do you remember, back in 1925, when you met me on that R&R ship heading for Alaska?' When he looked confused, she said: 'Remember? You were working as a private detective. To snare the scoundrel who was sabotaging your father's ships?'
'Of course! We had a damned romantic trip, if I say so myself. But I never did catch the saboteur.' Trying to repress a smile, Tammy pointed at herself, and when her husband shouted 'You?' loud enough for other tables to hear, she nodded, then appealed to Rowntree to substantiate her story.
'She's telling the truth. For seven passages I was the one who threw the newel posts in the sea and jammed up the toilets,' and Tammy broke in: 'He met me by accident at the university, told me he had to divert suspicion from himself, and asked me to do what he did when clearly he wasn't present. All the same clues and all that stuff.'
'But why?' Venn asked Rowntree, and the latter said simply: 'Because you people, with the Jones Act in your pocket, were strangling legitimate business in Alaska.
My old man went broke because of your old man. Sabotage was the only revenge I could take.'
Malcolm Venn, soon to be president of R&R, stared at this stranger from the past, and broke into a warm smile: 'You son-of-a-bitch! I ought to have you arrested.'
'Statute of limitations.'
'And you helped him?' This to Tammy, who grinned and said: 'I sure did. My parents were pretty strong against R&R in those days. Later they relaxed.'
They talked a long time about the old days, and Venn said: 'My father worked with a real old reprobate named Marvin Hoxey to get the Jones Act passed, for the welfare of Alaska, and now I'll be working with some of the most honest businessmen in the world to combat statehood for Alaska, to protect that marvelous area from her own folly. There's no chance that you three can stampede this thing through, no matter how persuasively you speak, Miss Peckham. The good people of the United States are too clever to fall into your trap.'
IT SEEMED THAT ONCE AGAIN THE WESTERN STATES knew what was best for Alaska, for in this early skirmishing, Congress listened to leaders like Thomas Venn and the industrial tycoons of Seattle, Portland and San Francisco, but even more damaging testimony came from Alaska itself, for in one public hearing after another its citizens rose to testify that their area was not ready for statehood, which they opposed for a variety of reasons. In one set of hearings convened by congressmen who flew all the way to Alaska to hear local sentiment, the following types of testimony surfaced:
General Leonidas Shatter, USAF (retired) living on the Kenai peninsula: 'You're right, Senator, I did help build the Alaskan airfields and I did serve in the Aleutians during World War Two. From that experience
I know the military significance of Alaska.
It's the highway through which Russia will one day attack North America, and it must stay under military control. Statehood would be disastrous to the safety of our nation."
Thomas Venn, Seattle industrialist with a home near Denali: 'Because of my long association with Alaska and the years I lived and served here in various capacities, I must oppose statehood for this vast, unconnected, unpopulated virgin territory. Present arrangements, tested by time, have proved that they ensure the welfare of the few who live here and spur the development of areas as yet untouched."
Mrs. Henry Watson, housewife, Haines: 'I don't know six taxpayers that want statehood.
Of course, there are a few Indians and half-breeds who pay no taxes, and they're hot for it.'
John Karpinic, grocer, Ketchikan: 'Nobody down our way wants to fool around with state government. We got enough trouble with the feds.'
Opposed to this barrage in defense of the status quo, a few strong voices spoke up for statehood, and three voices were significant:
John Stamp, editor, Anchorage: 'I could give you eighty reasons why statehood for Alaska is overdue, but I cannot improve on the simple words of James Otis on the eve of the American Revolution: "Taxation without representation is tyranny." If your hearts do not respond to that embattled cry, you are false to the spirit of the great nation that arose from that cry. Why does Alaska not have the roads that other parts of America have? Because we have no congressmen to fight for them. Why were our railroads not properly subsidized by the federal government? Why do we not have the airfields which we so desperately need? Why do we not have the schools, the hospitals, the public libraries, the great courthouses? Because you have denied us the right to tax the industries which in other parts of the United States help pay for those services. Like the colonists of old, I cry for relief.'
Henry Louis Dechamps, professor of geography, University of California at Berkeley, an American citizen but educated at Canada's McGill University: 'Gentlemen, in trying to decide what to do about Alaska, I beg you, do not look only at Juneau and Sitka and think you are seeing the heart of Alaska. Don't look only at Anchorage and Fairbanks.
Look, I pray you, to the northernmost part of this vast land where it touches the Arctic Ocean, for along those shores and in that icy sea will occur the history that will determine the fate of North America. We are lagging dreadfully in our knowledge of how to live and operate in the arctic. But I assure you that the Soviet Union is conducting constant exercises there and that her accumulation of knowledge far exceeds ours. We must catch up, for the Arctic Ocean is destined in the future to be not an icebound body of water, but a hidden sea in whose bowels submarines will prowl and other vessels that we cannot today envisage. It will be a highway for airplanes, a settlement for daring men prepared to make strikes against our communications, our forward bases, our shores and our very safety as a nation. Alaska, in the next century, will be one of the premier possessions of the United States. Ignore it and you endanger our nation. Develop it and you have an extra shield. Award it statehood now.'
Miss Melissa Peckham, housewife, Juneau (after explaining the monstrosities of the Jones Act and the abuse visited upon Alaska by the railroads and the shore installations at Seattle, she concluded as follows): 'I wonder if any single person who has testified before you during these three exciting days has had the wide experience of Alaska that I've had. Because I came young I was able to see the gold fields, the development of the Yukon River, the great salmon industry in the south, the growth of towns and cities, the noble experiment at Matanuska, the coming of the railroads, the building of the Alcan, the rise of aviation. Above all, I've seen the birth of a new people with new aspirations. We're fed up with being a colony. We want our own legislature to pass our own laws. We want to be freed from the condescending control of Seattle.
We think we've earned the right to be considered full-fledged citizens with full-fledged rights."
But in the long run the most effective testimony came from people with strange names and even stranger faces who paraded before the microphones with statements so simple, they echoed like gunfire from the walls of the frontier rooms where the meetings were held:
Saul Chythlook, Yup'ik Eskimo cabdriver, Nome: 'Demobilized San Francisco after duty on Iwo Jima. Worked awhile in country north of big bridge. Saw many small towns.
Not so hot. They all self-governin', why not us?'
Stepan Kossietski, Tlingit teacher, Mount Edgecumbe school, Sitka: 'I have my A.B. from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, my M. A. from the University of California at Berkeley. I must agree with the woman from Shishmaref who testified this morning.
Many natives are not ready for statehood. But I imagine that in a state like South Dakota, there are quite a few who are not ready, either. They drink too much.
They're lazy. They don't read the newspapers. But let me tell you, the good natives that I know, they're not only ready, they're impatient. Are they capable of running what would be the state of Alaska? Let me tell you they're a lot better prepared than some of the people you send us from the Lower Forty-eight to run it.'
Norma Merculieff, Aleut-Russian housewife, Kodiak Island: 'My husband fishes for king crab. He and two others own their own boat, a hundred and eighty thousand dollars, all paid, taxes too. You think they don't know how to run a town council? So if they're too dumb, we wives will run the council, let them run the boat. They're buying a new one next year, quarter of a million dollars, they're doing all right.'
THE ANT1S WON, AND STATEHOOD FOR ALASKA SEEMED dead, but then various things began to happen, some of nationwide significance, others of arbitrary and even foolish dimension. The citizens of the United States started to think globally, and many who had never before dreamed of Hawaii or Alaska began to realize that the sooner the nation grasped those precious outriders to its maternal bosom, the better. Also, many American men had served in the Pacific and had learned to appreciate both its magnitude and its significance. Those who had hopped islands had discovered how important a nothing island like Wake or Midway could be sandspits on which the fates of nations were decided, specks invisible from ten miles away on which the airlines of the world would depend and they were not about to give up substantial islands like Hawaii.
There was always more support for Hawaiian statehood than for Alaskan, and considering their relative populations and wealth, no wonder. But thoughtful men like Professor Dechamps, who had testified before the congressional committee, continued to speak about the significance of the northern lands; the military, too, had new globes now rather than flat maps, and they appreciated the enormous value of a northern defense perimeter. So there was also a growing constituency for Alaska.
But now politics began to assume major significance, and some very curious miscalculations erupted: the greatest experts got things completely backward. They reasoned that because Hawaii was fairly well settled with responsible men and women in charge, it would surely vote Republican if it ever got statehood; while Alaska, being a rambunctious frontier state, would probably vote Democratic. In the long run it turned out the other way, to the astonishment of many people, including the experts.
At this crucial point, the thoughtful military around Eisenhower and the conservatives from Seattle and the West somewhat overshot their hand; they convinced the President that Alaska, at least the ninety percent up north, should be kept in a territorial status under military control. One afternoon, persuaded by their arguments, he gave the Washington press an offhand judgment that while the populated southeast segment of Alaska Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg might have enough people to warrant statehood some time in the distant future, the great empty areas to the north would probably never have enough.
This howling error enabled loyal Alaskans everywhere to rush into print with a startling correction: 'President Eisenhower may understand military affairs but he sure doesn't know much about Alaska. The preliminar
y census for 1960 shows that the southeast which he praises as being crowded with people... you take the fives towns down there, they have a total population of nineteen thousand, while the Railbelt, that's Fairbanks to Anchorage and down the Kenai Peninsula where our only railroad runs, it's going to show more than fifty-seven thousand. That's exactly three times as much. It's the Railbelt that's ready for statehood, not the general's favorite little burgs down in the forgotten corner.'
At this critical moment, when approval for statehood hung in the balance, one of those accidents erupted which sometimes help determine history. The governor of the territory was a gifted former medical student and journalist, Ernest Gruening from Harvard, who in 1928 had written the best book extant on the revolution in Mexico.
His perceptive analysis having caught the attention of President Roosevelt, he had been appointed Director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions, in which capacity he came to know Alaska and respect its potential for greatness. He spoke so often and so loudly in government circles about what Alaska might become that in 1939 he was appointed Territorial Governor, and was later elected to serve as make-believe senator to the United States Congress allowed on the floor, but not allowed to vote until such time as statehood was attained and real senators could be elected.
Having learned how much good the proper book at the proper time could achieve, Gruening, always the publicist, had approached a friend, the writer Edna Ferber, with a striking proposal: 'Come to Alaska and write a book about us. Do for us what you've just done for Texas.' Her immensely popular novel Giant had catapulted the foibles and grandeur of the Lone Star State into national prominence, and he supposed that a similar book by the same writer could do the same for Alaska.