and at no other place," and then say to another one, "You may fisht 2 miles off Haines Point and at no other place," and so on,

on, indefinitely.

Senator WALLGREN. Well, Mr. Dimond

Mr. DIMOND. Yes?

and so

Senator WALLGREN. I appreciate that you know this problem from the standpoint of a resident of Alaska. You are just opposed to traps; is that right?

Mr. DIMOND. Yes, sir. I think all traps ought to be eliminated.
Senator WALLGREN. Well, if traps are-

Mr. DIMOND. But anyhow-let me finish, if I may.
Senator WALLGREN. Yes.

Mr. DIMOND. Anyhow, even if all traps are not eliminated, then let us go back and let us stick by the existing law with respect to traps, under which the waters are relatively free and open to all who may seek to use traps, the trap method of fishing, and who have an opportunity to get a site.

Senator WALLGREN. I hate constantly to be coming back to the Communications Act, but it we were to say to people that you all have a right to put up an aerial tower and broadcast as much as you please, what kind of radio reception do you think the people of the country would get?

Mr. DIMOND. Oh, that analogy is not sound.

Senator WALLGREN. Well, if you have here today the Bureau of Fisheries opening up a certain fishing area, are we going to allow people to drive traps within a half mile or a quarter of a mile of one another?

Mr. DIMOND. No; not at all.

Senator WALLGREN. Are we going to do that sort of thing?
Mr. DIMOND. No.

Senator WALLGREN. Or are we going to figure it out that fish food, after all, is a very important product to all of us?

Mr. DIMOND. That is right.

Senator WALLGREN. These men, fishermen and packers, have caught and packed close to 6,000,000 cases of salmon that were badly needed by the Army and by lend-lease this year. We know what has happended in all other lines of endeavor where they have tried to provide food for the Army, and what a difficult job it has been of trying to find people that could raise food. And yet these men went up into Alaska this year, and under the supervision of the Fish and Wildlife Service they turned out a pack of 6,000,000 cases, and they met the needs of the Army as far as Alaska fishing is concerned.

Now, what are we going to do if we run into a situation where we throw everything wide open? Men who are really experienced in the game can go out and provide a pack for the Army or the people of this country are going to get disgusted, and they are just not going to do any fishing, and you won't get your fish packed.

Of course, that is my idea of the thing. I still think it is pretty sound.

Mr. DIMOND. Mr. Chairman, we are getting the fish packed under existing law without this legislation. This is not the law yet. Senator WALLGREN. Are we going to have a mad scramble to see who is going to be fishing first in an area, to shut the other fellow off, to blackmail another fellow out of his right to take any fish? Yet

the War Department is awaiting the passage of legislation that will take away from them this question that you have raised. We told them that we were going to try to pass a bill that would not necessitate the War Department's passing on whether or not you would have a right to drive a fish trap any place, and for that reason they extended that period of time under which they would have this right to exercise jurisdiction over the right to drive a trap.

Now, of course, if it is a question of whether or not we are going to have fish traps, that is another question; but I think this bill is continuing what is being done. Yet, by licenses and by permits it is stabilizing the fishing industry in Alaska. I think that a man who has fished up there for any period of years, who understands the game, and who has gone down to the bank with his wife to sign away practically everything he owns in order to buy enough cans and fishing paraphernalia to go up there and pack, that that fellow is entitled to some consideration.

Mr. DIMOND. And the Alaska fisherman is entitled to consideration, too, Mr. Chairman. Don't let us forget about him.

Senator WALLGREN. Surely.

Mr. DIMOND. He wants a chance to get one of these valuable traps and to get a competence instead of a miserable pittance, and he has not got a chance if this bill passes. And remember that before this new order went into effect with respect to the issuance of permits we still got our packs in Alaska and got them just as amply as we get them now. We don't need any new legislation. We don't need any legislation at this time on this particular subject; and as soon as this emergency is over, why, I hope the War Department will cease acting illegally with respect to permits and will grant permits for the erection of structures which do not interfere with navigation, to everybody, to every responsible person who may apply for them.

Senator WALLGREN. Well, now, Mr. Dimond, wouldn't that involve itself into this sort of a program? I would like to point out to the committee that the Bureau of Fisheries does not give a man a permit to operate a trap. It opens certain waters to fishing. Now comes the question: Who is going to have the permission to put a trap within that area? And the regulations up to now, as I understand it, prohibit anyone from driving a trap within a mile of that trap: in other words, shutting off the man's fish.

Mr. DIMOND. Well, we are not.

Senator WALLGREN. If we open an area tomorrow in Alaska and then there is a mad scramble to see who is going to get the fish, I suppose it is going to be the fellow who will intercept the run who is going to get the take. I still think this legislation is quite necessary. I understand the attitude of the Delegate from Alaska, Mr. Dimond, toward fish traps. That is another question.

Now, I wanted to ask you

Mr. DIMOND. I am not trying to argue that all fish traps ought to be eliminated by this legislation. I am against the legislation. Let's be fair about it. We don't need any legislation to take care of the fisheries. They are being well administered; not as well as I would like to have them, of course. We can always find something that can be improved. But we don't need legislation, and certainly every resident of Alaska will bitterly resent the enactment of the legislation

that is here proposed. I think every resident of Alaska-every resident except some like my friends here who have traps; of course they want to keep on with their monopoly of making whatever money can be made out of traps, and I don't begrudge them that. But I am thinking of the men back home who never had a chance. They are fishermen, too.

Why say to one man, "You can have this trap this year and next year and the next year and the next year," and so on, and to another man, "Why, you never can have a trap now. No, no. This man has it. He has a monopoly of it"?

The question is whether you want to sell the sea, whether you want to give vested rights in the sea. If you do, if you want to give vested rights to stake out homesteads-and that is virtually what they areto stake out homesteads in the sea, why, then very well, go ahead and pass the legislation and the first man who gets a homestead has it forever and ever. That is all right, but the theory that is behind my argument, Mr. Chairman, is that the sea and the use of the sea for the catching of fish ought to be open to everybody and not monopolized by anybody.

Senator WALLGREN. Of course, Mr. Dimond, we had the same thing; you could say the same thing about the grazing law.

Mr. DIMOND. No.

Senator WALLGREN. You have the public domain out there upon which cattle will graze. If we were to throw the thing wide open to all herds of cattle, why, just what would you have? And so maybe, after all, you can consider that a vested right when you tell a man he can take and run his cattle on a certain part of the domain. Mr. DIMOND. That is the homestead idea.

Senator WALLGREN. And you can go back to the communications law. There are a lot of people today who might say, "That man has rights to operate a radio station. Why haven't I got one?"

Mr. DIMOND. Well, Mr. Chairman

Senator WALLGREN. And I think a radio license is worth a lot more than a fish trap.

Mr. DIMOND. Very likely it is. But that analogy isn't correct. There are only so many wave lengths, as we all know. This is traditional.

Senator WALLGREN. Well, there can only be so many fish traps, too, Mr. Dimond. So they can't all have fish traps. I wish I had I would like to have one.

one.

Mr. DIMOND. I would like to have one. If I had one, my own self-interest would lead me to be here and to be battling just as you are battling in behalf of those who have them now. I don't question anybody's good faith or his motives in urging this, but I think it is against public interest unless you adopt as a principle the policy that you are going to give homesteads in the sea; and we have never done that yet, Mr. Chairman, that I know of, anywhere, any time.

Senator BURTON. May I ask, Mr. Chairman: Have there been some declarations of policy on this by some of the civic bodies in Alaska or by the governors of Alaska or the military officials in Alaska? You said everybody is opposed to it. I mean has it been expressed?

Mr. DIMOND. Everybody I know is opposed to it. I haven't talked it over with the Governor. I don't know that he is particularly interested in this subject. I have here, and we intend to offer them later, a number of communications from fishermen's unions and from other citizens of Alaska, all of whom oppose it. This summer when I was home in Alaska I talked with quite a few people about it, and I didn't find a single man who was in favor of it. I don't think I talked with any trap owner. Of course I admit that the trap owners are all going to be in favor of it.

Senator WALLGREN. I might say I have been in touch with the various fishermen's unions. Of course, I understand a fisherman's union in Seattle and one in Alaska may be two different institutions. Mr. DIMOND. That is right.

Senator WALLGREN. At the same time, they fish in Alaska, and I venture to say there are possibly a greater number that come up from Seattle and these other States to fish in these waters than come out of Alaska itself; is that right?

Mr. DIMOND. Yes, sir.

Senator WALLGREN. And those are the men-they are all agreeable to the legislation.

Mr. DIMOND. That may be. I don't question that.

Senator WALLGREN. I was very careful about that, Mr. Dimond. I was very anxious to see. We had a meeting of almost everybody in the industry.

Mr. DIMOND. That is right; of everybody except Alaska. This is an Alaska fisheries bill, but nobody in Alaska was consulted that I know of. Nobody even sent me a copy of the bill. I didn't know anything about it. Nobody asked my opinion. Nobody requested me to come here. I had to find it out myself in order to come over and make my protest. And yet this is a bill to control and to operate or to make provisions for the operation of the fisheries of Alaska. Now, most of the owners of canneries and traps and so on in Alaska live in the States, unfortunately. Very few of them are in Alaska. We have this old difficulty of absentee ownership, and we have it also with the labor unions, because the majority, I presume, of those who work in the Alaskan waters in fishing are members of labor unions of Seattle and San Francisco and Portland, and they do not live in Alaska. But I do say to the committee that every fisherman in Alaska that I know of is strongly, and some of them even bitterly, opposed to the provisions of this bill, principally because it will make a monopoly or tend to fasten upon the country irretrievably the monopoly which exists in the ownership and the operation of fish traps. And they are against it. They are against all monopoly.

Senator WALLGREN. How would you like to see the fisheries operated in Alaska, Mr. Dimond?

Mr. DIMOND. I would like to see them as they are in Bristol Bay. There are no traps in Bristol Bay. Ten traps in Bristol Bay would catch all the fish that are caught there, and that would throw 2,000 men out of employment. I would like to see the Bristol Bay principle applied to all the coasts of Alaska, and the fish caught by seines and set nets. That is the way to catch them, and we could do it.

Senator WALLGREN. Have you at any time ever made that suggestion to the Bureau of Fisheries?

Mr. DIMOND. Oh, indeed. I have not only made it to the Bureau of Fisheries, but I have had a bill pending for years to do just that, and I had hearings on it at one time before the House Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries, and we had hearings on it in Alaska, by a subcommittee of the House Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries, and they visited Alaska, and Senator Wallgren was there, and we had extensive hearings. But the committee did not report favorably upon my bill. That is a different subject, Mr. Chairman. I am not advocating here that you pass any legislation on it. I am not advocating here that you pass legislation to eliminate all fish traps.

Senator BURTON. May I ask, Mr. Chairman: Mr. Dimond, have there been some published reports of either House of Congress or committees of Congress on this issue, or is this the first time that this kind of a bill has come up? Have there been some House committee reports that sustain your position?

Mr. DIMOND. Not any bill of this nature, sir, that I remember. Senator BURTON. This is the first time a bill of this nature has come in, is it?

Senator WALLGREN. No; this same subject has been discussed in the Merchant Marine Committee.

Senator BURTON. Has it been reported on officially?

Senator WALLGREN. No; but we have had this discussion many times, oh, in the last 8 or 10 years.

Senator BURTON. Is there any report in Congress or a committee of the Congress that bears on this?

Senator WALLGREN. No; there has never been an investigation along these lines. The Merchant Marine Committee of the House made a trip to Alaska, and at that time they attempted an investigation and obtained considerable information. However, I have heard the Secretary of the Interior himself make the statement that something patterned after the grazing law ought to be put into effect. Of course, I can appreciate that Mr. Dimond is the Delegate from Alaska and that he is representing the Alaska people and putting on a battle for his constituents. I can appreciate that.

Senator BURTON. Then, Mr. Chairman, I am impressed by the fact that this is a bill that relates to Alaska.

Senator WALLGREN. As long as you and I were up there.

Senator BURTON. That is why I was wondering if there was some official statement from some of the officials of Alaska or some committee of Congress or some editorials from the papers, or something of that sort that would give us a clearer impression of this point of view of Alaska which the Delegate presents very strongly here.

Mr. DIMOND. Senator, I shall be glad to send you a copy of the printed hearings held by the subcommittee of the House Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries in Alaska in 1939. The hearings were somewhat abbreviated on account of the outbreak of war in Europe and the calling of a special session of Congress, but there are three volumes of hearings, and after returning to Washington the chairman, Mr. Bland, for the committee, made a report on the hearings generally. And I should be glad to send you a copy of the hearings and of that report, which I think will throw considerable light upon these questions.