The Wrangell sentinel., 1922-12-07

Cdii, Cdii IoI iiiluilhuiu Ol dTtluCldl protection and doctrinal acceleration. Certainly the government railroad through the far-off wilderness at a cost of s56,00O,0O0 was not based upon any such theory of conservation.
 Assuming that the lesson of mis- taken policy and mischievious propa- ganda was taught and learned, in dwindling census returns and steady retrogression, and that Alaska is not to count time until the millennium comes, in vindication of self-appoint- ed overseers and well-meaning doe trinaires, busying themselves thous- ands of miles away in the Territo- rvs keeping-assumin that Alaska henceforth is to receive sane consid- eration and be given that American chance accorded to Western States and a voice in it's affairs. it follows that investment and settlement are to be invited and encouraged and constructive policies adopted that will make these easier.
 The thought that Alaska is or ever has been in peril of despoilation or being gobbled up is inconceivable to all who really know Alaska and com prehend it's magnitude and vast and varied potentialities. Similarly un- tenable is the thought that capital necessarily becomes unclean and pir- atical when invested in big undertak- ings in frontierland or that private enterprise so engaged automatically becomes selfish and unworthy and forfeits forthwith it's rights to consid- eration.
 Alas,l1 today entertains and sub scribes to no such ideas, but. recog- nizes clearly that capital is its most urgent need and entitled to reward consistent with it's hazards.
 Either the government, in a pa ternalistic spirit, must spend many millions more in developing the Ter ritory or admit private capital upon terms conducive to investment.
 Not until mining is inaugurated on large and general scale and in dustries started and permitted to thrive will homesteads find occupants and markets. and population multiply and opportunities offer in all direc- tions.
 As the preliminary and prerequi- site of this eventuation Alaska must have a simplified and centralized sys- tenn of administration brought closer home to Alaska. Its destiny cannot be shaped at long range through multitudinous bureaus, however com mendable their aims and activities.
 Governor after Governor has em- phasized Alaska's richness and pre- scented it's needs, but administration after administration at Washington has been too preoccupied with other things and too often diverted to give heed and continuous attention to AL aska's importance and requirements.
 Alaska, il the true spirit of Ameri- canism, seeks self-government and should. be prepared for it at no dis tant date. Its ambition is high; it's aSDirat iopc wnrfbv in, would give strength to the Uniou It is great state, or two great states, slowly in the making.
 Unaided substantially, it has pro duced in wealth in excess of a bil- lion dollars from its mines and it's the Seward purchase. Allowed to shift for itself largely-bought and forgotten-it has yet bravely sur vived hardships and laboriously ac- complished ends to the everlasting credit of it's sturdy pioneers.
 Alaska should not be a land of tomorrow, but land of today.
 With modicum of the helpfulness given to the Philippines, Hawaii, Por- to Rico and Cuba these past twenty years, Alaska would today be a proud and populated and powerful factor in the national equation. Instead it is sparsely-inhabited, scenically beau tiful, unknown Territory, struggling against hard odds to be appreciated and understood, yet still figuring in popular fancy, due to misleading text books of generations gone, as for bidding, ice-covered, glacier-crowned land of dog teams and polar bears, with struggling towns and deserted villages along it's coasts and rivers, relieved here and there by animated and thriving communities, telling the story. in this twentieth century, of governmental indifference and ner : lect.'
 Happily a new and better and