Senator OMAHoNEY. When I was chairman of this committee some years ago. and we held hearings on the Alaskan and Hawaiian statehood bills. and the committee endorsed them. I took them to the floor with the deep conviction that what Secretary Morton said was right. namely. that it Is an efficient method of defense of the United States and of the freedom for human beings for which it stands. to prove to the Asiatic world that we believe in letting people govern themselves. We are represented In this cold war as being imperialists who want to step Into the shoes of the vanishing empires of Great Britain and France and Holland in Asia. I have been convinced from the very outset that the most effective thing that we could do in the Pacific area would be to prove to the Asiatics that we do believe in selfgovernment by granting statehood both to Hawaii and to Alaska. And when I say Alaska. I say it because I know that the Aleutian Islands are just directly north of Hawaii. and Bering Strait. only 40 miles across. separates Alaska from Siberia.
Keywords matched
Asiatic Asiatics