Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land

by Walter R. Borneman

But Alaskans were getting antsy and some more than a little cranky about the lack of real progress. After all, such political machinations were likely to drag on for years. When no positive action occurred during the 1955 session, Alaskans took matters into their own hands and by a near unanimous vote in the territorial legislature—there was one dissenter on the House side—passed a bill that called for the election of delegates to a constitutional convention. Held at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks beginning in November 1955, and blessed by Ernest Gruening’s exhaustive keynote address titled “Let Us End American Colonialism,” the convention of fifty-five delegates labored seventy-five days to draft a state constitution. The convention also resurrected an interesting political ploy from America’s past.