- ALASKA’S STANDING PLEA FOR
HOME RULE IS VOICED BY
MANY EASTERN PUBLICATIONS
(From Literary Digest)
Alaska needs less “governmental
regulation” from Washington and
Uncle Sam needs more coal, wood
pulp, fuel oil, and other essential
material supplies from Alaska. These
seem to be the outstanding facts em
phasized by the recent visit of Sec
retary of the Navy Daniels to our
northern territory. The secretaries,
reports J. J. Underwood in the Seattle
Times, found that by establishing a
coal base midway between the Orient
aiph the United States on the Aleu
tian peninsula, the shipping board
vessels plying between Seattle and
the Orient could save a thousand
%tons of cargo-carrying capacity on
each voyage, or enough to pay for it
self through increased earning capa
city within a period of ten years.
This would also make it unecessary to
ship coal from Virginia and Pennsyl
vania to the Pacific fleet. Further
more, says this paper, both secre
taries are very much concerned over
the threatened shortage of fuel oil
as the United States shipping board
operates many oil-burning naval ves
sels because of their increased steam
radius, speed, and fighting capacity,
and these are not easily changed to
coal-burners. Alaska’s oil resources,
we are told, are just beginning to be
exploited.
That Alaska needs more home rule
0- for the prompt . and efficient devel
■-* opment of her vast natural resources
is the contention of many papers in
widely separated parts of the union.
Washington should give tne Aiasnan
territorial government wider discre
tion, for Washington can not know
Alaska’s needs,” argues the Syracuse
Post-Standard; and Secretary Payne
is quoted in the New York Times as
saying: “What Alaska needs is more
men and women and less governmen
tal regulations.” More specifically
the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch tells us
that—
“Alaska is getting sick and tired
of being interferred with in her de
velopment by the people of this
country, who know nothing about
conditions up there. There are many
real men in Alaska—men who have
gone there to make their homes, men
who have developed themselves along
with the development that has taken
place in the country, men who are
capable of saying what ought to be
done and what ought not to be done.
“The Alaskans ask only that the
government create a board of devel
opment, the members of which shall
be Alaskans, and leave to this board
the working out of the destiny of the
territory. It is a simple request and
one that ought to be granted as soon
as congress is in session.”
“Mails to and from Alaska are now
handled as freights,” declares the
Seattle Times, a consistent champion
of Alaska. In other ways, we are
told, the people of the territory, six
thousand miles from Washington,
^ are poorly represented. True, points
out the Times, they are represented
in congress by a delegate, but he
does not have a vote. The chief
* hindrance to good government in
Alaska and the development of the
territory, declares this paper, is “the
burden oi federal bureaucracy, con
tinues the Times:
“Centralization of Alaskan govern
ment in Alaska offers the only so
lution of political and economic
problems confronting the northland.
The greatest measure of local self
government should be accorded the
territory. The dead hand of Washing
ton bureaucracy should be removed
from its affairs.
“A change in the government’s pol
icy toward the territory is due in
the near future. Having completed
a railroad there, the Federad au
thorities must see to it that the line
* pays—if not at once, then as speed
ily as possible. There is but one
way in which that end may be
achieved. Alaska must be made at
tractive to settlers and investors. The
first step must be the bringing of
federal control, to whatever extent
exercised, closer to the country.
“A bureaucracy never developed
a country! The American West was
rescued from the wilderness by in
dividual initiative. Ambition to suc
ceed in life, to get ahead, to be
come financially independent—these
things, coupled with the spirit of
adventure, caused men to forsake
the comfort and safety of civilization
and press on into the new lands
west of the Alleghenies.
“The spirit of high emprise that
animated the pioneers still obtains.
It would be directed toward Alaska
were it given a little encouragement.
It never will come from a group of
inco-ordinated and barely functioning
bureaus in Washington, D. C.
“Alaska needs a helping hand
now,” declares the Knoxville Senti
nel, but it would seem, in running
through a catalog of Alaska’s re
sources, that the territory may have
to rescue Uncle Sam from the plight
in which he finds himself, particular
ly with regard to coal for Pacific
fleet, paper for the nation, oil for
naval and merchant ships, and wrater
power for manufacturing paper. As we
read in the Boston Herald:
“No area within the jurisdiction of
the United States has been so gro
tesquely misunderstood as Alaska.
The resources of Alaska have been
known for many years, of course;
but they have meen mainly recapitu
lated in the arid pages of govern
ment publications, which are read by
very few.
“It is expected that the needs of
the Pacific fleet in the matter of
coal will presently be supplied from
this source. The fisheries of Alaska,
moreover, have hardly been touched,
although they are known to be of
great value. All in all, it is a coun
try of wonderful possibilities; the
wonder is that we have been so long
in realizing any of them.”
As the Boston Herald says, most
of the information we have of Alas
ka comes from the “arid pages of
government publications.” For in
stance, we are told that the federal
income tax of Alaska usually amounts
to more than fifteen millions; the
territory proudly claims the only vol
cano and the highest mountain (Mt.
McKinley) in North America; from
reports that there are not enough pas
senger steamers to carry the people
who want to visit the country this
j ouuauci VV C gauici L11 Cl L it 10 UCGUlll*
I mg a summer playground; that
i same ground that is covered with
snow in winter has grown wheat that
| took the first prize at Minneapolis;
j Alaska contains the only placer tin
mines on the continent; the marble
from the territory for which Uncle
Sam paid less than two cents an acre
rivals that of Vermont, and is used
to adorn western office buildings and
hotel lobbies; and the value of
Alaska’s products since the country
was acquired by the United States is
almost a billion dollars. The newest
industry, and also one of the most
profitable, is that of reindeer raising,
which has made the majority of the
eskimos independent; the gain in this
! industry, we are told, has been more
; than twelve hundred per cent. Dr.
1 Nelson, chief of the Biological Sur
| vey, is now in Alaska studying rein
: deer propaganda. The navy, for the
first time in history, is now mining
its own coal in Alaska; and, finally,
a trans-pacific cable and land line be
tween the United States and the
Orient via the Aleution peninsula, is
to be considered during the next ses
sion of congress.
“Capital and enterprise are needed
to usher in the day of supreme ac
complishment in Alaska,” declares
Governor Cox’s paper, the Dayton
News, but the Rochester Times
Union says;
“Young men can’t do it alone; the
pioneer wives and mothers in this
country did as much, if not more,
to build it up than the men. Virile
young men—and women—might do
well to consider Alaska.”
“Folks are apt to forget that Alas
ka is about one-fifth as big as the
United States,” writes Burt M. Mc
Connell in the New Yor (Sunday)
l-—— -
I
Times. This writer reminds us that
in Europe “twenty millions of peo
ple live and prosper where- climatic
conditions are< less favorable than
those of Alaska,” and he suggests
that “Swedes and Norwegians, who
are not afraid of a little cold weath
er,” be urged to colonize the Terri
tory. Furthermore—
“No country in the world has been
so grossly libeled and generally mis
understood as Alaska. The average
American associates Alaska with rein
deer, caribou, polar bears, and Eski
mos.
“Polar bears are plentiful in Alas
ka, but so are children and schools
gnd it is rarely that a child is com
pelled to miss school because of in
clement weather. Can the same be
said of North Dakota?
“When present means of communi
cation and transportation are con
sidered, Alaska is no farther from
New York than St. Louis was a hun
dred years ago. She has fourteen
incorporated towns, in each of wThich
you will find the same sort of folks
and social life that you enjoy in
towns of the same size throughout
this country. There are a hundred
schools in these incorporated towns
and districts, and about sixty-five in
other less densly poplated sec
tions.
“You will find the telegraph, wire
less, or cable everywhere, and there
is only one important port of the
dozen or more that is cut off by ice
in winter.
“Alaska is an asset; a valuable
one, not a liability. It is an empire.
That part lying below the Yukon,
with justice to the people of Alaska
and profit to the United States could
well become the State of Alaska,
while the northern portion could be
come the territory of North Alaska,
with the seat of government at the
town of Nome.
“At the present time the govern
ment is building a federal railroad
into the interior. Unless, and until,
however, Alaska is goverened by Alas
kans, settlers will not rush into the
territory. Men are never developed
except by responsibility and by show
ing that you have confidence in
them. Self-government and swim
ming are two things that can not be
tough by correspondence: the only
way to make a people worthy of self
government is to give them self-gov
ernment. Throw them in where the
water is deep!”
TWENTY-SIX MILLION
TROUT FRY IN MONTANA
ANACONDA, Mont., Sept. 3 (by As
sociated Press).—When the work
ceases for this season, approximately
26,000,000 trout fry will have been
planted in the streams of Montana
during the present year, according to
J. R. Brunson, superintendent of fish
hatcheries at Anaconda, Somers, Emi
grant and at the Madison river. The
trout planted this summer have been
of five species-grayling, brook
trout, natives, rainbow and fingerl
ings.
When one gets a profile view of the
average free trader advocating the
virtues of free trade, it is easier to
understand why some people still
claim that man descended from the
monkey.
Don’t argue. The Club Billiard Hall
arries fresh tobacco. 27-tf
Sun Maid Raisin Bread, always a
favorite at the City Bakery.
The best of coffee at the Alaskan
Grill. 17-tf
Graham Bread fresh every day at
the City Bakery. _
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