GOVERNOR WALLY HICKEL: Thank you. Harry and Mike, you both gave a good background of what's happened. But we have something that's been done and I'll go into it, that's proven all these things can be done. I'd just like to tell a little story and it won't get too long. The statehood bill passed November, 1951, gave us 3 million acres of land, passed the House. Everybody was clapping, oh, boy, we're going to become a state. I told my wife, it won't work. January, 1952, we had three little kids, I'd never been to Washington, D.C., but I'm a believer, a strong believer especially in my little man, I'm going back to see the president, the leaders of the senate and I'm going to tell them why it won't work. The point I'm making, that got the first step of an owner state. How many places on earth are privately owned like this in a democracy. I remember Vice President Barkley said about the 3 million acres. Young man, don't worry, all the other states make it work. I poked him right in the chest in his office, I said, Mr. Vice President, it won't work. Senator Taft called to see me. I didn't know who Senator Taft was, I'd never been to Washington. But he was the head of the U.S. Senate. And he says, young man, I heard about your meeting with the Vice President and the President. He says what seems to be the problem. Taft, he's the head of the senate, Butler Nebraska, Cotler , New Hampshire, Sheffler, Kansas were absolutely against statehood. And I talked to the senator and I said it was about the 3 million acres, I said don't kill that bill, we want statehood, but that amount of land won't work. He said well, how much land do you think you need and I blurted out 100 million acres. I didn't know how much land we had. And so when it was all over he walked out. After about an hour he says, young man, I have to go out to the senate floor. Well behind him three senators very gently came and said, young man, don't embarrass the senator. And I thought what -- how could I embarrass him. That's when I realized he was the head of the senate. As he walked up to the podium I heard him say we are not going to kill that statehood bill, we are going to recommit it and we better to listen to the young man from Alaska.

The point I'm making, ideas that come to you harder and stronger than that. I became the second governor, you talk about a pipeline, all these problems that aren't problems. They weren't going to build it. I took Harry Jameson to Prudhoe Bay October, 1968. Everybody's going to pull out, they won't do anything. I said, Harry, drill, I want that well in by Christmas, there's 40 billion barrels of oil here. And it shocked him. I did make a signed statement too, I said you don't drill, we will. He says you will. And I said damn right. I say it's our land, our oil. You people got to understand that Alaska's the most unique country on earth. You own it. We have the right to manage it or it gets taken from us. That's why China had me there in '79 for a while, Russia the first time in '81. And Russia wants to change its whole system, largest country in the world, to fit like Alaska. Now they weren't going to build it, that road to Prudhoe Bay. I'm not a CAT driver. October, 1968, I got on that Cat in Fairbanks dragging a sled, but I says, Harry, don't you shut this thing off until you get to Prudhoe Bay. Now I wanted to tell that because part of the speech to the Constitutional Convention in '56 was fantastic. I said if we get that 100 million acres, I was telling them, if we get this fish and game and all this oil and gas, we have to have a different kind of governor, it's in the constitution. And it gives our governor more power than any republic on earth of any state in the union. And in there it says then if he doesn't do it right you got to replace him. It's all in the constitution. The constitution says it's our gas, it's our oil. And I never forget when we finally got the pipeline going, you know, you couldn't afford it, couldn't afford it. Harry Jameson came back 10 years later and called a press conference, I'm here to reconfirm what Governor Hickel said in '68. I said there's 40 billion barrels of oil.

If there is 40 billion there we're going to get 20 out. The point I'm making it's one field, I tried to tell them for years. I said it's been 20 years on the North Slope, 20 years offshore, 20 years down the Bering Straight on the Russian side, the last 20 years in the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of Alaska. You're going to find the greatest resources in the world. Chilchot. Russia's got tremendous resources, they just don't have a system that's why they want to change their government like this.

I want to talk just a minute because I might be dead in five years.

KAREN HUNT: And I have absolute confidence you will not be.

GOVERNOR HICKEL: All right.

MS HUNT: But I would ask you to wrap it up

GOVERNOR HICKEL: I'll wrap it up when I die. I'm telling you fellows you've got to understand that you are the owners. It isn't the oil companies, it isn't this, it isn't that, we have to take it and manage it. Now I even mentioned it and Bill Egan agreed with me, we should have owned part of the oil pipeline coming out. If General Motors had all those leases up there would they have asked somebody else to manage it for them. We should manage it. It's our oil and our gas. Please, please, because I'm 87 years old and I started this when I was about 50 -- 48. We have one of

the greatest systems on earth here, there's nothing like it. And like I said China had me there and everything. I want you people to understand that it's our obligation to see that the oil companies do it. We don't ask them how you do it. I didn't ask them how they're going to get to Prudhoe Bay, I didn't ask them if they wanted to do it. The owner has to make that decision. And so we are the owners. And please understand that. I'll end up in a minute. I just want to say that this is the most unique thing on earth. Fifty years ago we broke the ice on the -- they used to think that was communistic. I'm a kid and they tell me you sound like a communist. I said I don't care what it sounds like, it's the truth. And now places like China and India and all of Russia, they understand that, 84 percent of the world's owned in common, it isn't like Kansas and Oklahoma. We own it, we can't change it and we have to have the obligation or they're going to screw us. There's nothing wrong with that, it's the truth, fellows. Stand up and fight, get to understand our constitution, get to understand this uniqueness. We will become one of the greatest countries in the world. And it's going to work. And the companies the reason they don't drill in Alaska. When I was secretary of the Interior there was no secretary of Energy then I'll shut up. I ran the whole world thing of oil and gas. And I remember Australia, for example, I've been there twice. The Middle East, Africa. Those leases are simple. They say if you can't prove you tried to develop them or produce them in five years we take the leases back. We've have that gas stranded up there for 30 years, it's our gas, haven't done a damn thing because we don't want to make them mad. I don't want to make them mad either, I love them, I brought them in here, I brought BP and ARCO in here. And so, please, don't give it away for the lack of believing, the lack of understanding. It will make us wealthy. I don't care what that gas line costs, I didn't care what the oil line cost, it was going to make us a fortune. And it did. And so god bless you all, and someday I'll tell you what a really think.