Alaska Syndicate

In an effort to thwart statehood and Alaskan home rule from Washington D.C., the "Alaska Syndicate," was formed in 1906 by J. P. Morgan and Simon Guggenheim. The Syndicate purchased the Kennicott-Bonanza copper mine and had majority control of the Alaskan steamship and rail transportation. The syndicate also was in charge of a large part of the salmon industry.

The Alaska Syndicate faced intense scrutiny from Alaskans in favor of increased autonomy over their own affairs. The Syndicate, which divided its shares equally amongst M. Guggenheim & Sons and J.P. Morgan & Co., continued to buy up hundreds of thousands of acres of wilderness, which gave rise to the notion that Alaska was “First a Colony of Russia, then a colony of Guggenmorgan”. Forester and conservationist Gifford Pinchot led the charge against the Alaska Syndicate and the so-called “Morganheims” and their supporter in Washington, Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger. Ballinger, a perceived enemy of the conservation movement of which Pinchot was a leading mover, had intervened in and investigated the legality of coal mining claims made by Clarence Cunningham, a partner of J.P. Morgan and the Guggenheims. Cunningham had been the representative of 32 individuals seeking claims in what would soon be protected by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 as the Chugach National Forest. Cunningham was accused of staking the claims on 5,280 acres in order to later transfer them to the Alaska Syndicate, despite this surrogacy being specifically banned by the recently passed Alaska Coal Act.

Despite his initial validation of the Cunningham claims, and successfully weathering (with the help of Senator Simon Guggenheim) a Congressional investigation into his dealings, Ballinger resigned in 1911 under sustained pressure from Pinchot and Congressional Democrats. His successor Walter Fisher soon rejected the Cunningham claims. The controversy also provided substantial fodder to further the aims of proponents of Alaskan home rule. Coupled with the growing distaste for wealthy bankers and “Captains of Industry” that was brewing across the country at the time, the public images of the Morgans and Guggenheims took a great hit. Often portrayed together in political cartoons (with thinly veiled anti-Semitism) as the Shylock-like monster Morganheim (or Guggenmorgan), the controllers of the Alaska Syndicate continued to be a lightning rod for the press, conservationists, anti-business forces, small merchants, and all others who believed that Alaska’s pristine lands should exploited only through the careful regulation of the government.

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