The Cordova daily times., 1923-03-06
WRITER TO TELL WHOLE TRUTH
 ABOUT ALASKA
Fairbanks News-Miner)

The Time Has Come (th' Walrus said) when Alaska needs some straight truths told about it, by men in whom the world believes and will listen to, to offset the millions of lies that have been told of Alaska by writers who never saw Alaska. Their writings have been so far from the truth that they have been Imaginable jokes to Alaskans, who have not tried to con- 1 tradict the stories. In fact, about the worst of them have emanated from the crazy brain of an Alaskan on the Coast who succeeded in (some un- known way) obtaining the confidence of Henry Ford. Alaska buys Henry's autos, and he takes the money thus l gained and spends it printing crazy stuff regarding Alaska which misrep resents Alaska everywhere. It is going | to take time and authority to in any way overcome the harm thus done. There's no money in Alaska stories, save in novels of imaginery life "of" Alaska, and the writers of note are | busy making money by their writings. ALL writers know that truth is strang- CT than fiction, but that fiction sells 1 well and truth doesn't. Thus the ques- tion of getting worthwhile writers of National renown to write of Alaska is one that is hard to solve. Sherman Rogers telescoped through Alaska for | the Outlook, and left with the impress sions and data he absorbed after a brief swing aound part of the Alaska circle. He had the vehicle to carry his points-the Outlook-but those who fitted about with Sherman did not expect much worth while to come of his trip-much worth while to Alas ka. And, strange to say, to date HIS Alaska stuff has been nearer the truth 1 than anything anbOdy else ever had published about Alaska If his articles do not help the truth to be known l (they will help) they will at least do us no harm. He has an idea or two of what should be done TO Alaska, and he imported them into Alaska with him, but if he could have more time here he would shed them and be a power for good in making Alaska known as it is in truth. This year we will have James Oliver Curwood, who will go out with a fiction story of Alaska. We will, also, have Will liam Allen White, who will be after filling" for a Great American novel, but in MT. White we will ALSO have born-and-raised REPORTER, who while he is gaining fictional points will "get" EVERY TIME the REAL point of the Story of Alaska, and he will spread that story in language which he alone has command of and which makes his writings sought for While anxiously awaiting his coming because of the "fun" we will have in visiting with him this summer, dur ing which we will travel together 1 back down the lanes of the Blessed Isles of Once Was, we are thinking particularly of the benefit (which will endure) his trip to here and stay here will be to Alaska, forever. For, he is a man who can understand. Our life and our Territory is HIS life and the story of his vast state-they differ only in latitude. In his Aqua Pura" he wrote long-time-ago: People who write about Kansas, as a rule, write IGNORANTLY, and speak Of the state as finished product. Kansas, like Gaul of old, is divided into three parts, differing as widely, each from the other, as any three countries in the same latitude upon the globe. It would be as untrue to classify together the Egyptian, the Indians and the Gen. tral Americans as to speak of the Kan san man without distinction between the Eastern Kansan, the Central Kan san and the Western Kansan." If YOU cribbed that paragraph and sub- stituted Alaska" for Kansas Wher- ever Kansas" appears in it, you would be hailed IN ALASKA as the wisest writer of Alaskan affairs who ever broke into print, for that is OUR case, to a gnat's eyelash.
 Kansas is a big state. Only 12 of the AS states are larger than Kansas, and vast territory means less of same ness in it's distant reaches Wyoming, are larger in area than is Kansas, for
 
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