Ernest Gruening

Ernest Henry Gruening was an American journalist and Democrat who was the Governor of the Alaska Territory from 1939 until 1953, and a United States Senator from Alaska from 1959 until 1969.

Despite having been born outside of Alaska, he was a most fervent supporter of the territorys statehood, serving as one of its first Senators after statehood. He gave the keynote speech in 1955 at the Alaskan Constitutional Convention entitled Let Us End American Colonialism! in which he outlines the ways in which the United States mirrored the actions of the British government preRevolutionary War in relation to the territory of Alaska. Gruenings argument was that Alaska had been a colony of the U.S., but one that, from its purchase, had been promised statehood. With his assistance and support, Alaska entered the unionyears afterward, in 1959.

Source: Wikipedia