The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-07-26
PLAIN POLITICS.

The announcement that MT. Sul- ger the democratic candidate for De. legate to Congress will soon arrive and the publication of commun1- cation from Judge Wickersham to the Nome Chamber of Commerce that he is in the field to succeed himself, cannot fall to call attention to the fact might otherwise be over looked, that this is election year.
 The politicians are now after the votes of the people and this years crop of promises will be exception ally large.
 Attention may now reasonably be Congress and the functions attached to that position.
 In point of fact it would be diff cult to imagine any position which is really more helpless and more ab- ject. The elected of the people, the delegate has neither vote nor any real power. For in a body where the votes are what count, the man without vote can be safely ignor ed where the other fellow must be catered to.
 With reasonable amount of al ligence, with a considerable amour: of noise however, the man who fills the position of delegate will be able to make a fairly decent appearance and could persuade the people to ac- cept the genial humbug that he has accomplished somewhat
 The abiding confidence of the people of Alaska in their represen tatiev in Congress has been one ot their most charming attributes, and that they will rouse themselves 10, this reason to some degree of en- thusiasm for the candidates who are seeking the position may be as sumed as comparatively certain.
 There is no good reason why the Alaska delegate should have no vote. He is elected by the peo' pie to represent them. Those who send him to Congress are American citizens-many of them doing whole lot towards adding to ths greatness and the development oI the nation.
 hi re a r. ed by reason. They are regulated by precedent. Because they ap- peared good to the fathers before the sons took office, precedent has been established and they must be good also to the sons. Conditions, once established, come to have the appearance of being right because they are, and one German philo- sopher put this in an aphorism to the effect that whatever is, is right.
 The people of Alaska accept this condition as if they had nothing W whatever to do in altering it, and the system proceeds without change and without disaaproval if only be- cause no one troubles about it.
 It does seem strange that an Am erican citizen by coming to Alaska loses all say in the election Of tie nations officials. He cannot vote for lis choice for President anl he has TO control over the officials who will govern him. While represent tative government is theoretically to be the very foundation of his national life, it is not for him. and he is denied as much !. power in saying who shall control and govern him as the subjects of i Canada in the Yukon Territory.
 We have never heard anyone sug- gest a reason for denying American citizens all political freedom in ter ritories, yet inasmuch as it is an accepted condition and there is no kick about it, the people must ap- prove it. The voice of the people in a territory is not the voice of God, merely an echo, as in Nome from time to time, a very faint echo and much interfered with by terre- stial sound waves.
 There is no good reason why any one should be excited over this ele5- tion. The delegate can accomplish nothing. Mere talk cannot do very much and we are not going to be { ed into the belief that by baily- .agging the committees. in Congress I