45 



STATEMENT OF ROBIN TAYLOR, ALASKA STATE HOUSE OF 



REPRESENTATIVES 



Mr. Taylor. I am Robin Taylor, Representative of State House 

 District lA 



Senator Wirth [interrupting]. Where do I get a shirt like that? 



Mr. Taylor. I will give you this one off my back if you put this 

 bill through. [Applause.] 



Senator Wirth. You ought to run for public office, Mr. Taylor. 



Mr. Taylor. That is why I have already been elected for three 

 terms and also the Minority Leader in the House of Representa- 

 tives in Alaska and a 28-year resident of this Congress. My chil- 

 dren went to this school and my children were born in this commu- 

 nity. 



As a fellow politician I am aware of the political realities that 

 face me and my District today. I know that the rhetoric of emotion- 

 al demagogues and the mantra chanted by their mesmerized fol- 

 lowers has been accepted as gospel by certain of your colleagues 

 who have introduced this legislation to excite this lynch mob men- 

 tality. In such a situation, facts become meaningless and creative 

 fiction backed up by an environmental poll will carry more politi- 

 cal weight than all of these good people testifying today before the 

 Senate and asking you to leave their economy alone. 



If I cut down one tree on your federal barony I can be thrown 

 into a federal jail. That is true. Just like the American colonists 

 two hundred years ago we Alaskan peasants know our place. We 

 know who owns the King's Land which surrounds us. Two hundred 

 years ago King George fooled the American colonies and those pio- 

 neers and peasants begged and pleaded, they cajoled and attempted 

 to curry favor and from my reading of history they were about as 

 successful as we Alaskans have been with Congress for the last 

 twenty years. 



We have to beg Congress to even come and look at its forest. Na- 

 ively we believe that you cannot deny that which you have seen 

 with your own eyes. Two years ago several of your colleagues 

 toured the Tongass with me. I was shocked by their comments in 

 the press. Obviously, showing the Tongass to environmental politi- 

 cians is like explaining and showing Jane Fonda a nuclear reactor. 

 We sincerely appreciate that you have come here today to honestly 

 listen, look and learn. To each of you we are grateful, for we know 

 that you will not deny the overwhelming evidence of good steward- 

 ship that is obvious on the Tongass. 



The Wrangell sawmill is the largest in Alaska and it would be 

 one of the first victims of Senator Wirth's bill. The last time that 

 mill closed we witnessed the effects of fifty-two percent unemploy- 

 ment for over a year. I watched friends lose their homes and move 

 away. No eagle had to move his nest; his home was protected by 

 the same arbitrary federal laws that will put my friends out of 

 work and destroy their lives. 



Just like our colonial forefathers, we peasant inhabitants of your 

 Alaskan Preserve beg you to let us survive. If you flew over one 

 hundred miles north or south of this auditorium you would still be 

 in my district and still in the Tongass. Are my friends and neigh- 

 bors asking too much when we beg you to allow us to use one-tenth 



