KEnm coLumsTS
There has been of late much talk and some
action in Congress in regard to plans for an
agricultural colonization of Alaska in cer
tain farm-able areas, including the Kenai re
gion.
It seems clear' that the legislators again
are playing with an idea for a mass transfer
of stateside .population. It now appears that
the veteran will be first to be considered in
any new cbionization . effort. Whether that -
veteran has over seen the inside of a barn or
knows a hoe handle flrom a harrow tooth does;
not seem to be a particularly important ques
tion in this new project to make of Alaska a
farming Paradise.
Now we know that veterans are worthy of
every crutch a benevolent government can hand
them. We' also know that • if there is one
thing /.laska needs more than * anything else,
that is *people. But'we still wonder if this
new plan is going to be much of a help to the
veteran or an asset to ^laska.
Those of us who have lived any -length of
ti^ie in Alaska know that a farmer with years
of skill and experience behind him has a long
tough row to hoe before he ever makes his
farm a paying proposition* The Matanuska
colonists were supposed to have been hand
picked for theib agricultural background, and
they were given every possible aid their gov
ernment could extend to them. Yet it was
years before those farmers saw any real re
turn on - their investment of daylight-to-dark
labor, and it took a war and a nearby army
post to bring them even?an artificial pros
perity.
The projected colony in the Kehai'won’t be
anywhere near either an army or a navy baso,
and they will be bumping into agricultural
comp3t.1tion from Homer on one side and Palmer
on the other -- both long established agri
cultural settlements whose farms are being
worked by experienced and successful farmers.
The unsuccessful ones have long ago given up
and gone back to the states. '- ‘
i.side from the tough proposition that it*s
going to be to get another agricultural com
munity going on the Kenai, we wonder if the
•
legislators have ever
given any real thought
to the problems that
such an uprooting will
bring to the human
quotients in their
settlement equation.
The Matanuskans were
transplanted as family
units, 'While still
young in years, those
people* had,;be^n work>
ing together as family
units for'*' some time'.
Then, too, they came
from an area where
they had been, ground
down by years of pov
erty and blighted
crops. They had noth'1
ing to turn back to,
most of them not even
a place to .. run home
to, _ if the Matanuska
valley suddenly got to
be too large a problem
to face*
V
The veterans who
come to the Kenai, if
they come, will be far
different. They will
be primarily young pe
ople. There will be
families, but families
hardly removed from
the honeymooning stage
of their life together
and with no real exp
erience of teamwork in
the establishment of a
home. These men are
.returning from years
of life with groups. *
Barracks living, mess
hall dining, work with
a man on either hand
doing the job with
.you -- however much ^
they deplored that co
mmunity living in
their military life,
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