The Chitina leader. [volume] (Chitina, Alaska) 1910-1928, 1912-07-23
ALASKA: A Condition and
a Program
BY Governor Walter E. Clark


dulum. Both swing forth and back,
responsive to an impelling force.
Both, after the force has been ap-
piled, soon reach an extreme upward
point whence they inevitably gravi-
tate backward and then move up
ward again to an opposite extreme.
The smile is inapt in this particular
among others: the pendulum of a
we'll ordered clock is regular, answer
ing a mechanical law, while that of
public opinion is often irregular and
subject to spasmodic impulses. The
comparison will answer, however. for
the present purpose-which is to
show that public opinion concerning
Alaska has just now reached point
from which it must inevitably re-
treat, seeking the perpendicular po-
sition of the pendulum while at rest.
The people generally and the law
makers generally do not understand
Alaska. A very few years ago the
people who live in the territory and
minority of those who live in the
extreme northwest part of the Unit
ed States, at the Alaska gateway,
were almost the only people who be-
| hot
of ours would ever be of any great
value to the nation; much less that
it would become largely inhabited or
yield a variety of natural products,
other than gold and furs and fish.
Very recently the territory has been
unwisely and Unfortunately adver-
tised; and although it is unquestion-
ably a vast treasure house, its great
resources have actually been overes-
timated Unfortunately the later con-
dition has been promoted by persons
who, with whatever good intentions
| (and their intentions have not been
invariably disinterested) have caus-
ed a paralysis of natural develop
ment. Nothing could be further from
the facts than statements that cor
poration greed is threatening the
proper conservation of resources
other than the fisheries. Nothing
could be more disheartening to the
Alaskans than the present state of
inaction which has resulted
1t was not until 1905 that SLOW
ly changing public opinion in regard
to Alaska received a still further
awakening by the preparations OF
certain capitalists to connect some of
the interior copper fields with the
coast by railroad nearly 200 miles
long. The building of the railroad
and the stalking OF many coal claims
under the provisions of most in
adequate and unjust law governing
the acquisition of coal-bearing lands
marked the beginning of a greater
popular exploitation of Alaska and
| it's resources. The people of the ter
ritory had deplored the popular ig-
norance in the states regarding Alas
ka and it's climate, resources and pos
sibilities of development, and had ex-
perienced much disappointment at
the reluctance of eastern capital"
to invest in this distant and little I'M
derstood part of the world. The ac-
lions of coal claimants have direct
ly and indirectly had the result of
involving unjustly one administra-
ton of the Interior Department in
scaldal, and the investment of large
funds in railway building by New
York syndicate has caused the inves-
tors to be subjected to vicious at
tacks such as are frequently made up
on large corporate interests else
where. So it has come about that al
though Alaska was suffering until a
few years ago from the popular ig-
norance and indifference about the
territory which were so prevalent in
the states. there is now no lack Of
persons who possess considerable
knowledge of Alaska conditions
howbeit that knowledge was diffused
to large extent by persons who
found it profitable to spread exag-
gerated statements and to invent
scandals. For the time being the
latter state seems scarcely better
than the former.
would not disparage by any state
ment of mine such material progress
as has been made in Alaska by those
who have come here and given the
best years of their lives to sturdy
work of development; but we must
all decry the fact that greater pro-
gress has not been rendered posi-