Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land

by Walter R. Borneman

The Senate version of the bill, however, called for the new state to select 21.4 million acres (about 6 percent of the total) from anywhere on the public domain, providing the selections did not interfere with existing reservations, such as national parks, forests, and military installations. Title to the mineral rights under those lands—assuming there had been no earlier conveyance of them—was also to pass to the new state. This measure died because a coalition led by southern senators blocked both the Alaska and Hawaii bills from coming to the floor for a vote. As Governor Talmadge had said, some folks didn’t like the idea of new states diluting their votes. The most important point to come out of the 1950 session, however, was that the idea of selecting lands—as opposed to section allotments per township—was now firmly embedded in the statehood debate.