Anchorage Daily News

From a historical point of view, it was entirely appropriate that in the year 2000, the Alaska Legislature voted Sen. Ted Stevens "Alaskan of the Century." However embarrassing it seems now, it was prescient for understanding his significance to the state's development.

Stevens' elevation to the U.S. Senate in 1968, by a Republican governor sandwiched between two Democratic gubernatorial terms, came at a critical moment in the state's history -- just as the Prudhoe Bay discovery began Alaska's transition to a Republican "Big Oil" state. From the battle to authorize the Alaska pipeline to investigations into oil profits, Stevens has nurtured oil development in Alaska.

But Stevens' importance for Alaska transcends "Big Oil" and is longer than the 40 years he served in the Senate. He was already familiar with the territory and the thirst for statehood when he went to Washington, D.C., to work in the Interior Department. Though supposed to be neutral, he worked assiduously as a statehood advocate in the crucial 1958 congressional session that brought victory. The state was in that sense Stevens' own creation, and he never stopped working in the best interests of its people, especially Alaska Natives.

Back in Alaska after the 1960 election, he invested considerable effort to advising Alaska Natives on how to appeal denials of their land claims and protests when the state started making its land selections. Later, his work on the claims settlement act was pivotal; he became Washington Democrat Sen. Henry M. Jackson's principal ally as ANCSA moved through the labyrinth of legislative maneuvering. Much later, he persuaded Congress to approve the sale of Alaska Native corporation tax losses, which his colleagues tolerated for a few years only because of Stevens' friendships and trustworthiness. Still later, his championing and funding of the Denali Commission helped many practical, Native-initiated programs.

Stevens understood from the beginning the vulnerable economic base on which the state's well-being depends. In the narrow, resource-based economy that is Alaska reality, the state's leaders must push ahead any potential economic development for we are all dependent on that development to live here in the future. Stevens grasped that ANCSA was both a Native justice bill and a bill to enable Alaska's economic development: There would be no substantial economic moves in Alaska as long as land title was clouded.

That explains his long commitment to opening the 1002 area of the Arctic Refuge to oil development. Along with all Alaskans, Stevens wants development to be responsible, but first and foremost, it must be development. Had he remained in the Senate, helping to move the pending gas line ahead would have been his priority.

Stevens made it his business to educate Congress and the country on Alaska's special conditions, and to advance Alaskans' interests collectively and individually. His effective advocacy of Alaska matches the contributions of Bartlett, Egan and Gruening. Over time, the memory of the anti-climactic end of his career will be suppressed in public memory, while his monumental contribution will be celebrated.

Steve Haycox is a professor of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

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