The bill to open Alaska to development by refugees and others, endorsed by Secretary of Interior Harold L. Ickes as “a matter of vital national interest,” was advanced today to the point where hearings were scheduled on it.
Senator William H. King (Dem.,Utah), chairman of a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Territories and Insular Affairs, announced he would begin hearings next Monday afternoon. Among those expected to appear in behalf of the bill are Secretary Ickes and Vilhjalmur Steffansson, the explorer.
Lex Green (Dem.,Fla.), chairman of a similar House committee, said he would give favorable attention to the measure when he returns to the capital next week.
Endorsement of the Alaskan Development Corporation bill was made by Secretary Ickes in a report requested by Congress. Ickes said: “The proposed legislation would create … opportunities for regular employment and for the marketing of agricultural produce, by harnessing to the development of Alaskan industry funis which now go to the relief of victims of war and suffering abroad. Contemporary conditions, domestic and international, make the development of the unused resources of Alaska and the settlement of this vast, almost unpopulated, empire a matter of peculiar urgency today.”
Investment of private funds by limited-dividend corporations would create employment not only for European citizens who might be admitted to Alaska, but primarily for American citizens. At least 50 per cent of the latter would be required in the total colonization, it was pointed out in the report.
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