Haley Stevens: “that photograph brings back many memories to me. The gentleman on the right was my employer at the time, the Secretary…”

“that photograph brings back many memories to me. The gentleman on the right was my employer at the time, the Secretary of Interior, Fred Seaton. As a matter of fact, I was standing right behind him at the time that photograph was taken. I remember the debate here on the floor of the Senate on the Alaska statehood bill. On the day the vote was taken, I was standing up where those people are right now in the Press Gallery. That was unheard of, but I was standing beside my good friend who was the editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, C.W. ``Bill'' Snedden. He had bought this newspaper. He purchased it a few years before we got statehood, and he turned its policy around to support statehood. One of the things he created was a cartoon they put on the front page of the paper every day. It was a small thing down at the bottom. This was Sourdough Jack. Sourdough Jack had wise sayings every day. This one day he published this, it was: All of the valid arguments against Alaska statehood are listed in full on pages 2, 3, and 4. All blank. That was the attitude of Alaskans. There really was no valid opposition to our becoming a State. However, I think the Senate should know what the Senate did then and the role of the Senate in Alaska becoming a State--and Hawaii, too, later the same year.…”