Douglas Island news., 1904-01-06
The Wrong Track.

SIOV. JOnu G. DFduyJ III HIS dhuuaA ho' port to the Secretary of the Interior, says that those who have travelled throughout the territory this year are certain that Alaska today has smaller white population than it had in 1900, and that it is migratory. In view of these facts, the governor depreciates the agitation for change of govern ment of Alaska from district to terri torial, though aspiring to statehood when Alaska fills with desirable pop ulation.
 Gov. Brady is the chief executive of the District of Alaska, and, as such, should have more pride than to devote bis efforts to the search for evidences of retrogression in his own country, especially when these evidences have no frmer foundation on which to build than the testimony of a man who has simply passed through.
 Again, if these statements are true, Gov. Brady should be the last man to herald them to the world, because there may be those who would lay the blame at his own door. Alaska has lost none of her natural attractions in the last three years. If her inhabitants are de- serting her for other climes, the only cause that can be urged is that she has been misgoverned. This we do not claim.
 However, it is apparent that the Gov ernor has been mislead. The white pop ulatioh of Alaska is larger by many thousands than it was in 1900. As to the "desirable" population referred to, by the Governor, it takes men of grit, bravery, determination and honor to develop a new country, and it is such men, and such men alone, who can and are bringing Alaska to the fore front with rapid strides. The migratory days, when men from all parts of the world came in droyes to our shores, with the expectation of winning fortune in a few short months, and then away, are passed.
 In Southeastern Alaska, all up and down the coast, and upon the islands, are dozens of new camps and settle ments that were not there in 1900. Here families live, homes are built, and men are developing mining properties, fish ing and earning their bread by the sweat of their brow. Are these not good citizens? All we want is moro of the same kind. Each town and village in this part of the District-with the possible exception of the Governors pet n-Sitka-reports au unprece- dented growth during the last year or 80. The reports of the Treasury De- partment show that the trade of Alaska for 1905 nearly doubled that of 1902.
 The same conditions exist to the Westward, as in $. D. Alaska. New dis coveries of oil, coal, copper and gold have brought men of muscle and brain, backed by capital, to begin their devel- opment. h the interior towns and vit- lages almost without number are spriDging into existence, where men and women are engaged in the struggle 50 build up and improve their surround- ings. The Panama and hundreds of other creeks have their quota of busy workers.
 Amidst all these evidences of prog ress, mingled with the sound of the hammer and saw, the Governor can ses no signs of progress, but dreams on of the time when some act of Providence will make it feasible for agriculturai- fsts to SOW and till, with the market Sor their produce so far removed that 1t will be inaccessible. It is the mining camp that must be the market for the product of the Alaska farms, and the mining camp must come first.
 Men enter the struggle to subdue virgin lands, only when crowded out of pleasanter places, and then when the attractiveness of the new country is coupled with the possibility of success. The miner and the prospector are the bone and sinew of Alaska. They are