The Cordova daily times., 1919-02-11
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY Il, 1919
ALL EYES ON ALASKA.

ka who went into the army appoint ed himself a committee of one to paint the beauties of Alaska to his fellow soldiers. He eulogizes it's mountains and its valleys and it's coves and inlets, it's wooded hills and it's fiower-sprinkled plains. He raved over the winter sports and gushed over its summer pleasures. He called Alaska his Lady of the Shows" and the Land of Promise" He spoke of her gold and her fish and her furs and the lure of the Land of the Midnight Sun" Whether he was from the coast or from the interior he sang the same siren song, only with variations, and he is still sing ing it. If he happened to have come from the interior it was the mighty reaches, of the Yukon and the Panama and the charm of its crisp and invig- .orating winters and it's short but f1ower-bedecked summers. If he was from the coast, it was gas boat talk and the beauty of it's bays and hidden inlets and it's wealth of fish and game.
 The boys, when they got started right, had ready listeners who hung spellbound on their honeyed words. It was just the talk that sounded good to the soldier boys who had perhaps broken their home ties for the first time and had made up their mind that in the future life would hold adventures for them. Imagine such talk being listened to by young fellow who had been penned in some city all his life, bent over a desk or counter! His mind flashed with pictures of himself flying over the snow behind team of huskies, him. self wrapper in furs and tasting of the real joys of adventure for the first time. Or, if his mind was more in clined for the water, he could see himself at the wheel of some fast little ruiser blowing through the beautif l waters of the Northland.
 It wa too much for any one man to stanu or to contemplate, so down he sat and wrote a letter to Alaska, inquiring for data and advice. Now there were only about four million sD fha ynh came, but judging from the amount of correspondence received, they all wrote at least once and some of them several times. Of course, if there had been more men under arms the publicity bureau would have received more letters.
 So the situation now rests. Most all the United States army and many friends who are not in the army are laying plans to migrate to Alaska this spring Of course, in answering the letters some of the romance was rubbed off by the publicity bureau and attention was called to the fact that the need of Alaska was not so much for dog mushers and steersmen for fast cruisers as for men who could pilot with accuracy a lang-handled shovel, but the fact remains that many men are coming north in the spring.
 The only difficulty now will be tc find jobs for those who are coming and to discourage visionary youths from embarking for this country i they have no clear idea of what they will be up against when they arrive here
 The chief work before those wht have charge of the matter will b, from now on to watch the labor con 1 ditions of the Territory and to SCI that there is not an over-supply ol hand. An over-supply of labor is a bad as the shortageNt that has been ol for the past year. Every person wh comes to the territory expecting bi things and is disappointed is n longer friend of the territory bu will go back, to the states sayin hard things about the north. flask needs all her friends and will el deayor to keep them. = Dougla News.