The Ketchikan miner., 1908-08-01

that Alaska was territory in all re- spects, except as to the absence of territorial legislature, and declared himself in favor os supplying that de- ticiency by providing for a legislative assembly to be composed of lower house of fifteen members to be elect ed hy the people, and an upper house of five members, to be appointed by the President of the United States. |; IS within the knowledge of The Miner that he was the author of the territorial bill introduced in the house ot representatives, February 10th,
 asi, aud intended to supersede the ai,l introduced by the same gentleman
 cenner 9th, 1907, one providing
 IT an elective legislature and the .iher ior an executive council to be appointed by the President. When these two bills were under considera- tion- by the house committee on terri tories, Governor Hoggatt. who was present opposing territorial govern ment, presented and read letter from Judge Wickersham, written at Fair banks under date of January 3, 1907, only little more than year previ- ous, from which the following is an extract:
 II regret very much that Waskey ,rJ C.la h,,a rt,rtod off nm tba m iS taken idea of putting Territorial gov ernment ahead of all things in Alaska.
 It certainly is great mistake and one which will cost the territory dear You are right in opposing it and you ought not to hesitate. The population is too sparse and the tax able wealth IS too small to sustain To- cal self government. The population is unsettled, and probably out of the six or eight thousand men in this mining camp not hundred of them would admit that they intended to re- main in the Territory the rest of their 1 lives, nor would one tenth of them re- main il the placer mines were worked out as they are in Dawson and will be here inside of few years. The real difficulty in considering this matetr is that so many do not note the differ ence between the theory of local sell government and the brutal fact. When an argument is started. the majority argue strongly in favor of the theory. and the theory is undoubtedly correct. but when they are pinned down to the | fact as to whether or not the time has arrived for the establishment of local self government, most of them hes itate. It is my judgment that large majority of the people of this district are opposed to local self government, although there is no difficulty in scar ing up resolutions in Fourth of July languasge in favor of it. You should pay no attention to such resolutions except to explain to Congress and the President that they come from small number of people with nothing else to do and are simply good naturedly mis- taken about what to do. They are generally good citizens, but their. theo- ries are long way ahead of the needs of the country.
 If, indeed. Judge Wickersham has declared in favor of an elective legis- lature for Alaska, it but serves. to show the facility with which he can chang 6 his views and opinions on question of such grave importance to the people of Alaska: but il he has made such a pronouncement. it must be sincee he first declared himself candidate. In either event, the voters must decide for themselves whether to place more dependence in the record he has made than in the truth and sincerity of his campaign utterances of the past two weeks, whatever they may have been.