The Alaska daily empire., 1922-03-13

quantities, and thus augment the rev. enues of the railroad The vast lig- mite beds in the Healy region arg ! being develored to the benefit of .he l interior
 ! Population Pressing Need of Territory
 Millions of tons of bituminous coal have been blocked out in the Mata- nuska field. and the coming decade ! should see Alaska connecting with the coal fields of the states on the Pa cific Coast.
 4 few years ag3 I witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of a Nor wegian steamer Gischarging coal from Australia at Dutch Harbor for nse by the American navy. Even today the Pocahontas fields of West Vir- qinia supply the needs of the Pacific Fleet. Certainly, with high-grade Al aska coal now a demonstrated fact, the end of such governmental short sightedness is at hand
 Population is essential to the Ter rit0ry's develonment Population can only come with the opening up Of industries which now wait upon con structive. yet conservative, business policies; indeed, it is business proposition that confronts the gov ernment in Alaska. and as business proposition the Territory problems will be worked out. They are Ameri- can proSl Conservation of our national resources is essential. but 1t must be a rational. correct conserya- ton that can be translated to praf- teal ends for the public good. The bottling up Of the resources O. Al aska is not conservation. Alaska needs only 3 charca-a fair chance. It must be made easier for honest capital and honest homeseekers to secure footholds in Alaska. The Northland must be developed as the country west of the Rocky Mountains was developed.
 Unuer such policies Of allegel con servat.on as those applied to Alaska the past decade, the great intermoun- tain and Pacific Coast states would today be a waste and wilderness. Denver. Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, San Francisco Portland, Seattle and other fine cities would be mere iron. tier towns, if they existed at all. had the western part of the Union been dealt with as Alaska has been dealt with.
 Territory !s Sill But Little Known
 Strange to say. in spite of in tensiva ard extensive campaigns of education, Alaska is still practically pnkr3wn to tha world at large. In Washington. nine out Of ten people, ordinarily well informed, think of Al aska as a monumental iceberg or glacier. in the grip of bitter, biting 5e1ls a-d clt eff from the world. They do rot know that it's ports, save tbose in the Arctic Circle, are 0pal tha year around, and that it's scynraratura ia the interior in mid winter is TO more severe than in lhs Nor-hern and Far Western etetae: th t hiizzards such as rage n Ni1n as0ta, the Dakotas and Mon taf3. ard occasionally in New York md the East, are sometimes ex- 9arienced in the northernmost parts If the Territory. but are uncommon, f not unknown. to Coastal Alaska nd Alaska as whole.
 Millions of people live happily and thriya in Norway and Sweden. and
 
 Ter climatic conditions no more ia vorable. if not more severe, than the general climatic conditions of Alaska,
 People of the East do not know hat Alaska's summers are ideally pleasant and delightful on the coast, and gloriously bright and beautiful and often hot, in the interior, or that a temperature ranging from SD 10 90 degrees is frequently encoun- tered in the Arctic Circle. They do not know that throughout the Terri sory in the summer flowers and Der ries grow in profusion, and that Fair banks. for example. is verltable floral bower in June and August. They do not know that Alaska pos sesses one hundred thousand square miles of agricultural land, and that almost everything can be grown In Alaska except corn, cotton, beans and melons, and that flour mill IS in successful operation at Fairbanks. All these things will become better known when the President of the limited States visits Alaska in July or August, and thus centers world at tent:on upon the wonderful North land.
 Tow IL Can Be Done Is Explained
 Tow is Uncle Sam to do the worK which must be done in the way or development?
 By opening Alaska to settlement, by inviting capital and people to come in and making it easy for them to gain foothold, by unlocking it's resources and freeing the Territory from red tape rule, by unreserving millions Of acres of forest lands senselsssly reserved, by silencing and sbunting aside the visionaries and theorists who succeeded in bottling