Opening Remarks

In Fairbanks on November 8, 1955, the delegates met at the University of Alaska campus in Fairbanks to begin drafting a constitution for a state that didn't exist. The opening remarks by the two most important Alaskan political leaders, former Territorial Gov. Gruening and congressional delegate Bob Bartlett, set the stage for the convention and the need for Alaskan statehood.

In his opening day remarks to the convention, Gruening stressed the historic nature of the gathering. "To me perhaps its greatest importance arises from the fact that it is the first occasion which is wholly of, for, and most important, by the people of Alaska," he said. "If there has been one important ingredient missing in our eighty-eight years as a district, as a territory, it is that little preposition 'by.' Many things have been done for us; even more things have been done to us, but very little have we been permitted to do by us."

In his opening remarks, Bartlett said the blame for the constant "boom and bust" cycle in Alaska "is due in no small measure to the hard, cold fact that mineral development was solely for the purpose of exploitation with no concern for permanent and legitimate growth." He said a similarly misguided approach had governed another key Alaska industry -"The decline of Alaska's once-great fisheries is traceable in great degree to this same attitude with its concept of ruthless plundering of a great natural resource without regard to the welfare of the mass of average citizens who make their living from the sea."

The convention and the statehood debate of the 1950s had the spirit of a moral crusade focused on a single goal.

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