Henry
Kroll
Soldotna,
Alaska 99669
4/20/18
HISTORY
REPEATS ITSELF
I am running for State
Representative District 31 Kasilof, Homer and Seldovia. I was born in Seldovia attended
U of A, Sheldon Jackson University and University of Corpus Christi. I fished
king crab 23 years in lower Cook Inlet and Kodiak delivering over three million
pounds into Homer and Seldovia and an equal amount of tanner crab. In addition
I tendered more than ten-million pounds of salmon into Seldovia, Homer and
Kenai. I ferried ships from Seattle to Alaska.
My father Henry Kroll
came to Alaska in the late 1920's. While trapping the Copper River Flats near
Cordova he caught three live wolverines and sold them to Dock Chase for $900 apiece.
He used the money to buy a plane in Marysville, Washington. After one flying
lesson he flew to Alaska. He could land on mountain tops and got contracts from
the mines to haul dynamite. His plane was too small to keep up with the demand
so he gave the contracts to Bob Reeve. Henry would put the dynamite in gunny
sacks and drop it on a side hill. Bob Reeve hired Bill Eagan was 16 at the
time. Henry tied a rope around his waist as a safety precaution so he wouldn’t
fall out while pushing the 100-pound sacks of dynamite out of Bob Reeve's
Fairchild 51. Bill Eagan later became Alaska’s first State Governor. Bob
Reeve’s Fairchild 51 and my father’s Curtiss Wright Jr. is in the Wasilla
Museum.
After Roosevelt stopped
all gold mining in 1933 Henry flew to Seldovia. Henry was the first to land a
plane in Seldovia and was hired by US Marshal, Jack Fields. Bob Reeve flew for
the Army at Fairbanks. After the war Bob and Tilly Reeve formed Reeve Aleutian
Airlines.
December 7th 1942 my
parents were living in a two story apartment. My father happened to turn on his
Zenith Transoceanic radio to hear a live broadcast direct from Honolulu Hawaii of
bombs being dropped on Pearl Harbor. My mother ran downstairs to get Jack and
Susan English who was Seldovia’s Post Master. They were the first people to
know we were at war. The news spread like wildfire. Half of the town gather
their guns and camping gear and climbed the mountain behind the town to fend
off an impending Japanese invasion. After a months passed they came back to
town all tired, cold, dirty and hungry.
During WWII there was
food rationing in Alaska. The feds issued script, which was used to buy a little
rice, sugar and flower at the store. People had to live off wild fish and game.
I remember my folks talking about that. Everything was in short supply because
the war. The government took everything for the war effort. My father needed
lumber to build a house so he rode on a fishing boat to Seattle to buy secondhand
sawmill parts to build a sawmill.
During World War II farmers
in the lower 48 didn't have gasoline to run their tractors. Most of the young
men were drafted into the army to fight Japs or Germans. The old folks had to
figure out new ways to grow food. The federal Government distributed plans to
build gassifiers so the farmers could power their tractors with wood chips. Wood
smoke contains ethanol and methane. The smoke is filtered and ducted to the
carburetor with a long hose. I have a copy of the WWII gassifier plans.
My mother used to cut
the ends out of tin cans and flatten them with her foot to put into metal
collection bins. At school, we kids were told to save all their foil gum wrappers
to make bullets to shoot Japanese. The metal was to be used to make guns and
bombs. Tons of scrap metal were collected to make the people feel they were
contributing to the war effort. There were no facilities to process all that
metal. They put it on a barge and dumped it in the ocean 110-miles southeast of
Kodiak City. That same military dumping area is clearly marked on the marine
charts today. You don't want to set your halibut ground line in that area for
fear of snagging an old mine. I know because fished black cod west of that disposal
area.
Now if we get into a
war or meteor hits the lower 48 or an Electro Magnetic Pulse from the sun or A-bomb
detonated over the lower states or Yellowstone Caldera erupts or even a
terrorist Jihad could disrupt most food production. Alaskans would be in big trouble. There are a lot more people living in Alaska now than there was
during WWII. Only two percent of the food we eat in Alaska is grown in
Alaska. Our State
government put us in this very dangerous position by not abiding
by the “Constitution Article
VIII Natural Resources § 1. Statement of Policy: It is the policy of the State
to encourage the settlement of its land and the development of its resources by
making them available for maximum use consistent with the public interest.”
One entire generation has passed with
no action on this “POLICY.”
Nowadays we have
four-wheel-drive tractors and four-wheelers making it much easier to homestead
land than the pioneers of the 1940’s. I know because my father and I staked a Tuxedni
Bay homestead in 1954. Many kids already own ATV’s to access remote parcels of
land.
Government leaders of
the past sold the resources to get big money and they used most of that money
to build government. Now they want to take the people’s money and land to fund
more government. This is unsustainable. We need to finish the road to Nome that
was surveyed in 1944 to triple tourism. Then we need to get more land into
private hands. Our Government has ignored the safety of the public with regard
to food production. We need to make Alaska self-sufficient.”
I’m running for “State office because you can’t have a
government without a CONSTITUTION. Some state officials are not abiding by
their Constitutional oaths! Our children are getting criminal records because
they are on the street instead of learning to farm. Hiring more police isn’t
going to solve the crime problem. The police are part of the problem. Big government = more police = less freedom= more
taxes and fees. Small government = more freedom less cost. It’s up to you.
Vote!
Our State Constitution
promised to get land to people. You
can’t have freedom without land ownership. Our grandchildren have no future
without land ownership. Only 1%
of the land in Alaska is privately owned and only 2% of the food we eat is grown in Alaska. What if a WAR destroys
farming in the lower 48? Self-sufficiency
is the most important thing right now. Our children and grandchildren need to learn how to tend animals and
grow food crops. This is the best kind of education.
The solution: check box on PFD to get one acre of land. You get one acre and the money would stay in the
Permanent Fund. If it is Borough land the PFD money would go to the Borough. A family of ten could get 10 acres.
After ten years they could have 100 acres. Or they could get five acres and
five dividend checks. Getting more land into private hands would solve the
Borough’s problems with a larger tax base and we would have increased food
production.
I don't think you can solve the crime
problem right away because some of it relates to the economy. Hiring more
police and putting more people in jail will only put more of a drain on the
state budget. If we fix the economy by getting our kids off the street away
from the temptations of drugs and have them take care of livestock and own land
it will build a better way of life for everybody and also solve the food
problem. We have to alter the knee jerk reaction proposed by hiring more cops.
It doesn't work. If you read my book, MAKE ALASKA GREAT AGAIN the first two
chapters cut and pasted off the internet clearly illuminates what's wrong with
hiring more police.
