The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-12-27
ECONOMIC DETERMINATION.

It is about mid-winter when the average Alaskan begins to ask him. self why he is located in this north ern section of mother earth at all. He would not be human if he did not to some extent envy those on the outside the many things tha. are. in the nature of things, denied him up here And there is no doubt about it that many would be far bet ter off outside, they imagine, than they are up here,
 It may be taken for granted that no one is going to seek his llfe's re- alization whatever that may be or whatever his fancy may conceive it to be. in an Arctic solitude or an Arctic settlement is an approXima- tion of an Arctic solitude and with out some good and sufficient reason.
 Accordingly it ought not to be far to seek for an explanation why so many hide themselves or bury them selves in Alaska, instead of seeking their fortunes on the outside.
 In the first place while the Out iside offers many things that are denied Alaskans, it does not offer them to the many but to the few, and the keen struggle which has been the experience of most Alas kans on the outside, is more or less of a nightmare.
 What has driven the majority here is the economic pressure that the system eXerts upon a good many if not upon all. The same eco- homie pressure kept driving the eX- cess population of the east to the west, and to the free land and un- touched and uncontrolled resources of the west especially, is precisely what drives people to Alaska. Alas ka, in fact and truth, is the last Of the great bare spots of the Amer ican continent where those seeking
  civilization may find relief.
 Every man going to the west in other days went to the west with heart filled with hopes, most of which never found any materializa- ton outside their hearts. Yet it buoyed them and sustained them to hor lcb to suffer the greatest privations without word. At the end of the rainbow was the golden treasure which they hoped to find.
 It is no less the same pressure which is driving hundreds to try their luck in Alaska, and it is really the lure which is the vitalizing germ in the call of the wild. Because men cheer themselves with the hope of sooner or later gaining an inde- pendenCe here. they stay here, and although their reason often enough warns them that old age is creeping upon them with stealthy but certain d realization that all their hopes have been in vain, they hate to relinquish the enchanting dreams which have so long been theirs. the companion of their night dreams and the. compa- nion also of their daylight fancies. it is not at all clear, too, that the T.. 1,l .,,,ov 4 1on1 whole, is much easier in this part of the world than the outside, but at any rate theirs is the relative success which attends so many's effort to live without a boss.
 It is true that such an existence is hardly obtained and with much labor, and the sacrifice of quite a number of things which tend to make life endurable. But it is ac- companied by such hard bread and such scanty fare is sweetencd by the feeling that it is obtained without the favor or the condeseansion of any man, and as such is sweeter than many of the luy"ries are ob- tained by the thrift that follows fawning.
 It would be hard to imagine any really harder work than that falls to the lot of the average prospector. His poor accommodations, his scanty fare, his drudgery in the frozen muck or the windlass labors with the weather almost defying the blood to circulate. But because such labors