2d Session.

DELEGATE FROM ALASKA.

No. 1300.

MARCH 2, 1904.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. BRICK, from the Committee on the Territories, submitted the

following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. R. 13356.]

The Committee on the Territories, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 5779) providing for the election of a Delegate from the Territory of Alaska to the House of Representatives, beg leave to submit the accompanying substitute, and recommend that said substitute bill do pass in lieu of said H. R. 5779. The report of said committee in favor of the passage of this bill is unanimous.

This bill (H. R. 13356) provides, in substance, as follows:

First. Alaska shall be entitled to a Delegate on the floor of the House of Representatives, possessing like powers and with like duties as other Delegates. His salary is fixed at $5,000 per year, and he is allowed $1,500 per annum in lieu of all mileage and other expenses, except stationery allowance and compensation for clerk hire.

Second. This bill provides that said Delegate shall be elected by the votes of the people in Alaska, and not for an appointive Delegate.

Third. This bill provides that the first Delegate elected shall serve for the remaining portion of the Fifty-eighth Congress, after the date of his election certificate, and for the whole of the Fifty-ninth Congress. That each Delegate thereafter elected shall serve during the one Congress succeeding his election.

Fourth. This bill provides that the first election in Alaska for Delegate shall be on the second Tuesday in September (1904), and succeeding elections on that same date every two years thereafter.

Fifth. That the qualifications for Delegate from Alaska shall be: Twenty-five years of age, have been seven years a citizen of the United States, and shall be a bona fide resident and an elector in Alaska.

Sixth. That in order to vote for said Delegate a person shall be a male citizen of the United States, and have resided in Alaska at least one year immediately preceeding the election; be 21 years of age, and be able to speak, read, and write the English or some other European language.

Seventh. Each incorporated town in Alaska is made one voting precinct, and the remaining territory outside of the incorporated towns is laid out into voting precincts by the commissioners of Alaska, some forty in number.

Eighth. This bill provides for the giving of due notice of said elections, and the selection of polling places, and the appointment of election boards of a nonpartisan character. Provides that the ballot shall be a secret, written ballot; that a pleurality of votes, and not a majority, shall elect. Provides for making returns of said election to the governor and the clerks of the court, and that a canvassing board consisting of the governor, the secretary, and the collector of customs of the Territory shall make canvass of the returns, and make certificate of election.

Ninth. This bill provides as good safeguards against fraud and cheating in elections as is possible.

Tenth. This bill does not appropriate or provide for the expenditure of a dollar of Government money to pay for said election. Whatever the election may cost it is left for the people of Alaska to pay

the bills.

Eleventh. This bill provides that instead of the usual allowance for mileage the Delegate shall receive a lump sum of $1,500, which shall cover all mileage and other expenses except stationery allowance and compensation for clerk hire.

A bill to provide a Delegate for Alaska was reported from the Committee on the Territories of the House of Representatives in the Fiftythird Congress near its close too late for action; and another in the Fifty-fourth Congress, which for some reason failed to become a law. A third time, in the second session of the Fifty-sixth Congress, a similar bill was introduced and unanimously reported by the Committee on the Territories to the House, but the bill on account of the press of business during the close of that session failed of consideration in the House.

During the first session of the Fifty-seventh Congress the House Committee on the Territories favorably reported a bill providing for an elective Delegate from Alaska to the House of Representatives. This bill which was favorably reported was H. R. 9865, and the Report No. 434, both of the Fifty-seventh Congress, first session. This bill was reported so late in the session that it was found impossible to consider it before adjournment. The bill remaining on the Calendar of the House, however, it was taken up during the second session of the Fiftyseventh Congress for discussion on the floor of the House.

In the meantime the Committee on Territories having received further information pertaining to this subject at that time moved on the floor of the House to substitute a different bill. Accordingly H. R. 16653 was substituted for H. R. 9865, and the substitute bill passed the House on January 23, 1903, second session, Fifty-seventh Congress. However, that bill failed to pass the Senate, and Alaska is still without a Delegate.

But in the unanimous opinion of your committee, fortified by the judgment of a vastly increased population in the Territory of Alaska, whose best men have not only recommended it, but have urged it as an absolute necessity at this time, we respectfully submit that Congress should no longer delay the right of these people of a great and evergrowing population to a delegate representation in Congress.

We found this conclusion upon various reasons, among which we suggest that whenever it is practicable it is the tenet of the American creed that proper elective representation is the heritage of our citizenship. Whatever may have been the needs and the requirements or the limitations of Alaska in the past, we think the time has now arrived when it is not only feasible for its inhabitants to elect and have delegate representation in the House of Representatives, but that its absolute necessity makes it a matter of right which we should heed by speedy action.

Alaska is a Territory whose prospects, resources, and commercial and political importance have heretofore been almost wholly unappreciated by most people. Even now, in the period of Alaska's marvelous development, the first thought of many persons is that a Delegate would be a doubtful experiment and an unnecessary expense, when in fact, from the information received by your committee, of all our outlying Territories Alaska is the one whose needs in this respect are paramount. Its isolation, distance, and peculiar surroundings as to climate, soil, resources, business, and trade conditions, as well as population, render it impossible for Congress to fully recognize their wants and exigencies, all of which require a well-informed Delegate upon the floor of the House to assist us and them.

Alaska has an area of 577,000 square miles. It would cover onesixth of the territory of the United States proper. Its resources are simply wonderful; with its mines of gold, silver, copper, and coal, its mighty forests of merchantable timber, its rich wealth of fur-bearing animals, its enormous fisheries of seal, whale, salmon, cod, and halibut, its already great and commanding commercial and political importance; and then, in connection with all this, comes the voice of a resistless and increasing flow of the most manly, virile, and hardy people in the world, who say, "Give us the protection of an interested and sympathetic government, and we will not only support ourselves, but we will return direct into the United States Treasury revenues many times multiplying the amount of her investment by purchase, and a continuing stream of much more than the governmental current expenditures."

At this point the expense of an election and the salary of a Delegate might well be considered. This country is a large territory of the primeval ruggedness of nature, unmitigated, in part, with long stretches of snow and ice and scattered population. There would be inconveniences in an election yonder on the frontier to which we are not accustomed, but that is the daily incident of their lives. Tenacity of purpose and power of endurance are the two essential qualities that took them there. They have great interests to be looked after, and they say, "We want a man at Washington who knows us, our country, and our business to represent us and our interests."

It will be of some inconvenience and expense, but they are asking the privilege to incur whatever inconvenience it may be to hold an election. After that, the only question for us to consider is, Is it reasonable and practicable? Those who seem to be most competent to judge say it is. As to the expense, they pay it.

Why should they have a Delegate at this time? In the first place, there is a large and ever-increasing body of the best kind of American citizens in Alaska-pioneers who are willing to forego the ease and luxury of life in the States to develop that great country. The best blood of a nation flows in the veins of its pioneers.

They have opened up a mine of wealth that the world never dreamed of. They have made Alaska commercially great, and for years have felt the practicability and need of a Delegate, and have been asking it from our hands for years. To-day, with a population doubled in a decade and material financial interests increased in a still greater ratio, they ask you for this legislation.

In the light of all precedent and experience their population warrants it. For the benefit of the House we insert a table which shows the population of 12 different States and Territories about the time they were given representation. Many of them had a Representative for some time before the enumeration had been made which brought forth these figures. Probably at the time of their receiving Delegate privileges this population did not average over 3,000 whites in each Territory and had very little but agricultural matters to look after, with no comparison in commercial affairs to Alaska to-day.

In 1890 the census of Alaska showed a population of 32,052. The census report for 1900 gives the population of Alaska as 63,592. When we consider the vast difficulty attendant upon the full and cor rect enumeration of population in thickly settled and more accessible districts, and how frequently the statement is made even in large cities that the census enumerators failed to properly enumerate and return a considerable per cent of the population, then how much more likely is it that in a district like Alaska, a vast expanse of territory with widely scattered towns, settlements, and mining camps, isolated and separated, without railroad and telegraph communications-how much more likely is it that where conditions like these exist that the census enumeration has not been full and complete?

Population will undoubtedly increase in a greater ratio during the next few years than it has in the past.

The number of white people were some less than 5,000 in 1890, with a very large portion of the remainder Indians and mixed. This great increase during the last ten years has not been caused by the births of natives. The Indian is rapidly passing away, so that the majority of the present population of 63,592 will, beyond question, be whites who have emigrated from the States. These persons dominate the Territory, and in a short time, through the evolution of nature, the Indian will have become a tradition.

Another reason for a Delegate, which must impress itself with great force upon every member, is the fact that most of the relations with the Territory are direct with the General Government. Up to this time every transaction of that nature was required to be done through the individual effort and expense of some person willing to undertake it. This has fallen in a great measure upon the governor, who every year, upon a salary slender in consideration of the expense of living in that country and its distance from the seat of government, has been compelled to neglect his duties at home in the performance of more pressing and purely voluntary ones at Washington. This should not be forced upon him.

The people are in continual need of a Delegate selected by them for that purpose, responsible to them directly for his service, to look after the multifarious affairs of the Territory in the Departments at Washington. And this is as necessary and convenient for the Departments as to the people. They very much desire to have some one person whose business it is to be correctly informed and look after all matters that arise-some one whose duty makes him directly responsible for his acts. This suggestion has been made and urged more than once by members of the Departments. In the Fifty-fourth Congress the committee, in their report upon a similar bill, said:

Accordingly, we find the passage of this bill earnestly supported by the Treasury Department, with which the larger part of the business of Alaska is transacted. In fact, the honorable Assistant Secretary Hamlin appeared before the committee and very earnestly and conclusively demonstrated the importance of representation being allowed to Alaska on account of her extensive business with that Department, he personally having often found great difficulty in determining the proper line of action for want of some reliable informant upon whom to fix responsibility.

We have spoken of Alaskan resources in general terms as a reason for her recognition. Her mines of gold, silver, coal, and copper, already known to be great, are considered by many practically inexhaustible. She has the largest stamp mill known, and bids fair to become the great gold-producing country of the world.

At

Gold and silver. The rapid development of the gold and silver mining industry of Alaska during the past four years is shown by the fact that the production has advanced from about $3,000,000 in 1896 to about $7,000,000 in 1900. This will increase rather than diminish. present the value of the precious metals lies chiefly in the gold placers of Nome and of the interior region. In the Nome region some 5,000 square miles are known to carry auriferous gravels, while in the Yukon Basin the area of auriferous gravels is probably several times as large. But it is not all placer mining. Governor Brady says that quartz mining is the kind in which Alaska will be preeminent in the near future, and that even now it is affording the finest illustration that the world knows of profitable working of low-grade ore.

In the coast region of southeastern Alaska mining for gold and silver has been going on for a number of years. The development of this industry has been especially rapid since 1898, and it promises to become one of the most important mining districts of the country.

Copper.-The discovery of copper deposits in Alaska was made only two years ago, and hence the development is comparatively insignificant, though there are three districts in which valuable copper ores have been found. Mining has only been done in the one lying on the coast, and not more than 2,000 tons of copper ore have been shipped