The daily morning Alaskan., 1900-01-01
REPUBLIC OF ALASKA s

%%%H%%~%%$&%%%%%%%@%~%@%% $ REPUBLIC OF ALASKA 8 $%@@%%9~@%@%@%%%%%@@@%S%@'@ THIS is the first time the above title
 has appeared in print, but how often the thought which it conveys has fitted across the minds of the people of Alaska everyone who reads it knows. The idea of secession Is repugnant to all patriotic minds, and there are no truer patriots than the men who have made Alaska what she Is. But these same men are also free and independent, and they know that they have the right to be heard in government for the people by the people. They have not been heard. They have teen ignored, Neither those who settled the first towns, nor those who have built up such splendid mon ument 10 the hardihood and enterprise of the American people as the city of Skagway, have been able to obtain any recognition whatever from the govern meut of the United States. From tue early days of American possession Of Alaska, when the white men in SiIka were besieged by hoides of Indians and the British-our own government being deaf to every entreaty-sent man Of war to their aid. drove away the Indians aud stood guard in Sitka bay-from that tune to the present one administration after another. Democratic and Repub- lican alike, has treated Alaska as a tos,,vu Ss .,se vuued States of no con sequence whatever except for the polit- ical grab to be made out of it's seals, and as good place to which to exile a troublesome or useless political follower. The leading men of Alaska of whatever shade of politics, have eudeavored 10 iu- teres. in Alaska affairs their erstwhile friends of political influence, but all iu vain. II man settles in Alaska he is no louger A voter, and therefore is polit- ically dead. It naturally follows that the men settledin in Alaska are no longer either Democrats or Republicans, aud the boundary line for them to cross aud declare themselves no longer Americans but Alaskans, is not nearly as vague, and perhaps no farther away. than the geo. graphical one supposed to divide this territory from it's neighb The keynote Of this sentiment SO gradually but so com tinuously and so surely growing was first voiced in October last by Sam C. Dun ham, the census-taker of Alaska. He is not an Alaskan, but poet of the people, and but a sesce of few months in this country was sufficient for him to analyze and define the nature of the undercur- rent of the thought of our people, the deep feeling of utter neglect by the gov- ernment which darkens this current and mingles with it thin stream of sombre resentment and disdain. This IS how Mir. Durham poetieally aud forceiully expresses the sentiments of Alaskans generally, in poem he calls "Alaska to Uncle Sam"
 Sitting on my greatest glacier,
 With my feet in Boring sea,
 am thinking, cold aud lonely,
 Of the way you've treated rue. Three-and-thirty years Of silence!
 Through ten thousand sleepless nights I've been praying for your coming,
 For the dawn of civil rights.
 When you tore me, young and trusting,
 From the growing Russian Bear, Loud you swore before the nations
 1 should have the eagles carel
 Never Yet has wing of eagle
 Cast a shadow on my peaks.
 But I've watched the flight of buzzards
 And I've felt their cruel beaks.) Your imported crossroads statesmen
 (What motley, sordid trainD Come with laws conceived in closets
 Made for loot and private gainl These the best that you can furnishl
 Then, God help the heather folk You have rescued from the burden
 or the rotten Spanish yokel
 I'm full-grown. prOud-sOuled woman
 And rm getting very sick
 Wearing all the cast-oG garments
 or your body polite.
 If you'll give me your permission.
 will make some wholesome laws That will suit my hard conditions
 Aud promote our coun,ry's cause. You are blind with lust of conquest
 And desire for foreigr trada