The Daily Alaska empire., 1930-02-13
GOV. BONE WRITES ALASKA
 EDITORIAL.

y-no Ennire has commented upon the speeche hat are being delivered in the fruitful Cah1orm eld on Alaska by former Commissioner of Educa ion Henderson. Another former Alaska officia -ho has been making Alaska speeches throughou large section of California and writing authentl rticles about it is former Gov Scott C. Bone he former Chief Executive of the Territory lst as enthusiastically for the Northland as ne wa hen Governor The leading editorial in recen sue of the Atascadero News, written by 1orme ,ov Bone was devoted to this country. It bor he title: "Unknown Alaska and was as foHoWs
 Americans ought to know the last of their frontiers But few of them do. To the average American Alaska is an unknown, misunderstood domain. It exists in popular misconception a vast upheaval of ice and snow. frozen land of polar bears and glaciers unfit for human habitation, whereas it is a habitabe Territory whose counter part on a smaller scale is to be found in many parts of the continental Union.
 Endless repetition, persistent iteration and reiteration, are required to proclaim the truth and even then Alaska mythically abounds in the public mind. For years campaign of education has been systemati- caly if not always intelligently, conducted witout universally producing the desired en- Tightening results
 Alaska is almost as vaguely comprehended
 
 was called Icebergia, Polaria and names akin at the time of it's purchase from Russia sixty three years ago. Yet in that niomentus interim this still unknown land, aboring under the heavy handcaps of bureaucratic administration and long-range misrule, has yielded wealth in minerals, furs and fisheries in excess of billion -and-a- half dollars.
 Mocked at and derided when he con- summated one of the greatest bargains in history in 1867, William Henry Seward, an American of vision, has been abundantly vindicated but his countrymen, in pre- ponderant number, are slow, distressingly slow in finding the facts out.
 Consider the size of this last of American frontiers approximately one-fifth the di mension of the United States and com prsing 590000 square miles of territory, virtually four times the size of this com monwealth of California
 Its cost to Uncle Sam, $7200,000 amount ed to less than two cents per acre When in the annals of time has any other real estate transaction, based upon results, prov ed so remunerative and enduringly profit able? And this, too, in spite of inherited, not inherent. handicaps unwisely perpet- uated, while Uncle Sam has been bestowing an unwise paternalsm upon rugged peo- pie engaged in hewing out their difficult destiny
 
 tending, has been generous, often over-gen- erous in appropriations for roads and the building of a railroad now mourning in operation a milion-dollar deficit annually through a wilderness into the Interior to- ward the Arctics and otherwise aiding to open Alaska to settlement and population; but to the hardy Alaskans themselves pos seSsing the dauntless pioneer spirit-the Am erican spirt-of their fore-fathers is due, in infinitely greater measure, the progress of the Territory to date and the enormous wealth. producing dividends paid upon the far-sighted investment at the hands of Sec retary Seward sixty-three years ago.
 Unaided, the Territory itself is now en- deavoring to stimulate settlement and popu- lation through a colonization system, which should have Government support. A modfi- cation of the seective immigration act permitting Scandinavans to enter Alaska would be boon to that last of our from tiers. They adapted to such life and conditions and might with wisdom and profit be granted homesteads most lib- eral terms. But objection is immediately raised that, if the Alaskan door were thus opened, some of these Scandinavians might the border and settle in the United States and exceed the established quota al lotted to Norway and Sweden. Quite, pos sible. It is easily conceivable. But would not the continental union be the. gainer through such an overflow and desirable influx?