Like Redoubt volcano, the political earthquake that shook Alaska at the end of 2008, comprising Gov. Sarah Palin's nomination for vice president and Sen. Ted Stevens' conviction on corruption charges, continues to roll through our collective consciousness, disrupting our constructions of reality. Stevens was a convicted felon; now he's not. Instead, historically, he's a veteran politician who was defeated in a re-election bid near the end of his career.
Even with Sen. Stevens' temporary conviction, his reputation as Alaska hero would have remained intact. With the conviction now a phantom, that reputation will stand in popular historical memory as untainted. Shakespeare wrote that "the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones." In Alaska popular memory, however, the good deeds of our heroes seem rather to suppress any potential taint on their reputations.
Sheldon Jackson is an example. Jackson came to Alaska as a missionary in 1877. His talents lay less in piety than in building. First as mission agent, then, after 1885, as head of the federal government's agency providing Native services in Alaska, he built schools, orphanages and infirmaries, and managed a cadre of teachers, nurses and bureaucrats. His appearances in history books are invariably positive. Yet, he was reprimanded by a federal judge for "kidnapping" Native children from their families under the guise of compulsory school attendance and saving young girls from prostitution. And he was effectively dismissed from his post in 1906 after a highly critical report by a government inspector. Except for assiduous students of history, these negatives are forgotten.
John F. A. Strong served as Alaska governor from 1913 to 1918, appointed by Woodrow Wilson. The founder of the Juneau Alaska Empire newspaper and a loyal Democrat, Strong advocated for a Native hospital, for roads, and for a facility for treating the mentally ill, and oversaw the World War I military draft in the territory. Historians have viewed his tenure as successful and constructive. Essentially lost to general view is the fact that Strong lied about having been a major in a South American army, and about his citizenship: Though claiming to have been born in Kentucky, he was Canadian, born, bred and schooled, in New Brunswick. When his successor at the Daily Empire printed the results of an investigation of Strong's origins, the jig was up for Gov. Strong.
The successor who "outed" Strong was John Weir Troy, a man with his own story. Troy took over the Daily Empire when Strong became governor, and bought it from Strong in 1914. Troy was a staunch Democrat, and after Democrats swept the 1932 elections, Franklin Roosevelt appointed Troy governor.
With the help of the Territory's new delegate to Congress, Anthony Dimond, Troy shepherded Alaska through the Great Depression. Dimond brought all of the New Deal programs to Alaska -- the FERA, CCC, CWA, PWA, Works Progress Administration, Social Security, the Indian Reorganization Act, and others, including the Matanuska Colony project. Troy oversaw their implementation. The jobs created by government spending allowed many people to stay in Alaska who otherwise would have had to leave. Troy is generally thought to have been a successful administrator. Few remember that he was reprimanded by Interior Secretary Harold Ickes and nearly lost his job for funneling Territorial printing contracts to his own paper, the Empire. Troy was also a notorious drinker, which generated more than a few letters of complaint to the Interior Secretary.
Gov. Bill Sheffield provides another example. Sheffield, who served Alaska at another difficult time, during the oil price crash in 1985-86 and the ensuing loss of jobs, collapse of banks and population outmigration, was investigated by a grand jury in regard to contracting for a state office facility in Fairbanks. The state Senate, which has the power here, conducted impeachment hearings on the matter, voting eventually not to impeach the governor. Sheffield has gone on to head the Port of Anchorage and the Alaska Railroad. His judicial troubles are already mostly forgotten. Sen. Stevens said Wednesday that he "always knew that there would be a day when the cloud that surrounded me would be removed." That day has come, and in popular memory, Stevens' reputation is likely to remain perpetually clear.
Steve Haycox is a professor of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
Steve Haycox
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