The Wrangell sentinel., 1927-02-24
MINING
The Worlds Greatest
 Industry
By Former Governor Wm. sulzerl

Political economists tell Us that mining, next to agriculture. is the greatest industry in our country.
 This is true from the viewpoint that if our soil were untitled there would be little to eat, and famine would stalk the land.
 From a monetary standpoint. however to say nothing about rel ativity, and every commodity is relative to the product of the mines, the mining industry is the greatest in the world. The truth of this assertion becomes apparent when it is visualized that mining gives us the standard of value by which the price of everything pro- duced by the brain and braWn of man is measured.
 Abandon mining and the value of every commodity would be in- significant. humanity would sink back to the barter and exchange age, and financial paralysis would lock in it's viselike grasp the in- dustries of mankind. It would be the greatest calamity that ever be- fell the human race, and in less than a generation civilization would revert to barbarian, when primitive man knew nothing about copper, gold, silver, iron, steel, lead, zinc, and the invaluable min eral resources of Mother Earth.
 Those who decry mining are ig- norant of history, or have ulterior purposes to serve. If they know anything they must know that all business, that all industry, that all human progress depends on the mines.
 The wealth from the mines from the dawn of time is the epic of hu roic march along the paths of pro- gress.
 Show me a people without mines. and I will show you a people deep in the mire of poverty and a thou sand years behind in the procession of civilization.
 It was the mines that made the greatness of the past, that made the ancient civilizations; that made Egypt great; that made Greece great; that medo Rome great: and in modern times the mines have made Spain, and England, and the United States rich beyond the dreams of ayarice.
 Mining is essential to the pro- gress of civilization. Mining has done more for the human race than all other agencies combined. Min ing has made more poor men mil lionaires than all other things put together.
 The government statistics show there has been less money lost in mining than in any other business in our country. Those records prove that in mining the failures have been less than 35 per cent against more than 87 percent of failures in other industries during the last fifty years. More real profit has been made by investors in mining securities during the past century than from any other American in- dustry.
 Strike down the miner; shackle mining; throttle the mining indus try, and civilization will sink back i in oblivion a thousand years.
 The great benefactor of the hu- man race has been the prospector. The most beneficent men of all time are the far seeing men whose brain and brawn developed the earth's natural resources, the men who poured the golden streams of mineral wealth into the lap of civ ilization; into the channels of trade; into the avenues of com merce; and into the homes of hap piness.
 All honor to the minersi All hail the prospectors! In every land a monument should be built to them for all that they have done | to bless humanity.