The Nome daily nugget., 1915-11-23
way and give us a chance to climb aboard when nobody is looking.
UNIQUE FIGURE IN ALASKA
 JOURNALISM.
UNIQUE
(Iditarod Pioneer.)


 figures In Alaska Journalism, W. F. who has gone on an ex- tended trip to the outside.
 Thompson Is one of the best known | men In the newspaper field in the | north. He was for several years pub- fisher of daily newspaper at Dawson | during the most prosperous days of that famous camp, and has been in the Panama valley for many years past.
 Recently Thompso has been in financial straits, and he has unburden- ed himself to his public, not by any means in plaintive way, but merely,
 as he said, to satisfy their curiosity as to his financial standing, because, as he put 1t, they would talk about
 him after his departure, and they might as we'll have matters straight.
 In a lengthy farewell letter to the
 Fairbanks public which is gem of it's
 kind. he says:
 You know too we'll the sorrows of the
 poor old man who has been conducting
 the destinies of the News Miner for
 the past six years: how it has been nip and tuck between me and the sheriff; how I have been down and out' every
 day of the 2,2S0 days I have pulled
 the News Miner along by the scruff of
 it's neck through the hopeless circum-
 stances with which you have insisted
 upon surrounding this enterprise. l Starting in over six years ago s20,0O0 ] in debt how could it be otherwise? You concede that I was some" four f1usher, and when you received your News
 Miner every night, expecting 1t to be
 the last of the series, you no doubt marveled at the ingenuity of the down -and-o who was dragging the paper along I have appreciated your feeling in the matter and your encouragement. It has been no easy matter to. with my small family, exist l in your midst upon the miserable pit tance of S6,000 a year which this com pany has provided for me, and you can imagine my surprise when last evening | upon leaving I discovered that I was | leaving Fairbanks owing no man or woman in town a dollar, with money | enough in my pocket to pay my ex- penses on the trip; without having l 3old my home, and still owning num- arous thousands of dollars worth of the stock of the Panama Publishing | Company I should have mentioned | his in passing, because you know that |
 1t is the spirit of the camp to relate he delinquencies of departing citizens, l especially their financial affairs, and | while it will doubtless spoil many a l good story about me in the months to | hills, because it is the truth I also have other surprises for you up | my sleeve First, I know where I am going, and why and I'm coming back. expect to spend the winter, or part | If it. as a paid booster for interior AL aslla; if l can't do it as a paid booster will do 1t as a voluntary one. I am | going to cover the American continent | pretty thoroughly. I used to do that | very year when I lived In the unre-
 generate outside world, and I know aow to do so yet. In every town I hit am going to endeavor to fill the newspapers full of talk of interior AL aska-the coast can take care of itself. The innate stupidity of man permitting him to believe nothing save that which he can see 2 propose to try to bring every man can to interior Alaska next year, that thereafter he may be able igently and well. After leaving the old home back east, I am going to dol other hard work but that until I return n time for the PoPtlatch-it is always Potlatch when I hit town, if the ther fellows have anything to Opt atch. l am going to talk Fairbanks, vrite Fairbanks and lie like sin about lot of you people, for the shert-trip- Ter who may visit you will never find ne out during his short stay, for on uch occasions you always put your est hoof foremost. I am going to tell hem that we have the finest and the most prosperous and the most prom sing camp on earth, and I am going o try to bring them to town, where { can be proved to them. For ne the roses of the outside ceased to ,loom and lost their fragrance long ears ago, and the fireweed on the hills if Alaska is the rose color of life to me. Also, the frye" has blossomed and distilled or me until it, too, has run Is course and isn not for me. Fifty years n advance of the coming of a railroad