Valdez daily prospector., 1915-09-16
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1915
OVERWHELMING ALASKA.

The plan of Representative Smith, of Maryland, to dismember Alaska and give that portion known as the Panhandle" to Canaca, to preserve peace between the two countries, should be promptly squelched. Alas ka has suffered more at the hands of damphool legislators at Washington than any young territory in the Ma tion. Many of these people have never been farther west than the Mississippi river, but they talk intel ligently about Alaska, and their con- freres at the capital fall for it. If it were known that the portion they propose to hand over to Canada on a platter were ten times richer than the state of Maryland, and vastly larger, it might open their eyes. The resources from Southeastern Alaska would buy Maryland four times over, and would also help keep part of the other Eastern States in pin money We might just as we'll give Texas to Mexico to keep the peace, and the Philippine Islands to Japan, and the Panama canal to any other nation that desires it. When the Gadsden purchase was made it had its knock CTS; and there were those who were willing to hand that now glorious empire over to a foreign country "to keep the peace;" and Oregon, and Texas and California all would have gone "to keep the peace. Canada a nation with half the resources and population, cannot constitute very serious menace, and we have never seen any desire manifested on her part to break that peace so glibly prated of by the Maryland solon. Were any of the states abutting on the Canadian border offered to Can- ada as a sop to keep the peace" a howl would go up that would frac- ture our tympanums, but Alaska we'll what some of those Washington busybodfes don't know about Alaska and her wonderful resources would fill large-sized encyclopedia, What Alaska needs is absolute self-govern- ment. What she must have before she ever reaches the heights to which her wealth entities her, is self-gov- ernment. Up to the present she has been the plaything of every down. Easter, who knows as much about Alaska as the average Alaskan does of conditions in the Maryland sena- tors backyard.
 What we want, is not division of Alaska for the sake of peace, with some imaginary foe, but a body of men intelligent enough to work out the destinies of country larger and richer by far than the mind of the ordinary statesman can grasp.
 People in the States have no idea of the wealth in minerals, fish, tim Der and waterpower of this country. They talk of conservation as if the last stick and stone were in the hands of a body of men who were intent on despoiling her, instead of building homes and developing the country Had this conservation fad hit the country hundred years ago where would be the beautiful farms and large cities of Illinois, Missouri and the Western States?
 A1aolxo noodc cp y,oopv fhinUc tho it were useless to try to enumerate them. Chief among them is roads good roads, and lots of them, that the country may be opened up and minerals hauled to the coast. Few people in the States realize that the land is as level and fertile, and as easily travelled with automobiles as in the states, but grudging Congress denies us the money to open up these roads. Large areas of the richest grazing land out doors lie unused because of lack of roads to reach them. Immense deposits of ore lie untouched because of lack of roads to haul 1t to the coast. Vast tracts of timber cover every valley, but are inaccessible.
 Some embryo. statesman takes a round trip on our steamships, gets of at Juneau, has drink or two, walks the decks and looks at our coastal line through pair of ten dollar bi- noculars, and enjoys reputation on the floors of Congress as knowing all about Alaska and her needs, "for he was over it, don't you know" When you consider that one of our old sourdoughs can live in the country fifty years and then seen but a fraction of it, the comparison is laughable.
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