The Wrangell sentinel., 1935-03-22
HELP ALASKANS. ALSO
 (Valdez Miner)

It is stated that the government will bring 200 families to Alaska, placing them on land at Matanuska and building a house and giving the head of each family $2000 to live on until such a time as they can be independent of government support. The idea is a Utopian one and should be warmly welcomed by all those receiving the benefits of a paternal government. Two thou, sand dollars undoubtedly will sup port 8 colonist's family well along in the second year if judiciously expended. The men to receive such aid are doubly rich in that they will be transferred to a land where drouths and dust storms are un- known and where the frugally in- clined can live for practically nothing in cash. We have no hesita- tion in saying that the recipients of the governments bounty will well come any such movement.
 Two hundred families poured into any community will be a great help to business houses of all kinds, and the children will add greatly to the school population. They will spend their money for necessities and pos sibly what luxuries they can obtain, and will, it is hoped, make good AIaskans, loyal to their home land and devoted to the section in which they settle down. If forced to do so many of these colonists will move in time to other business and farm ing centers, thus augmenting the populations of many towns and hamlets in this part of the North land. With everything all smoothed out and made easy for them we pre- dict that Alaska will look even as the promised land looked to Moses and his followers in Biblical days.
 But compare the lot of these for tunate settlers with those who came here in the early days on a small, crowded unseaworthy boat, and were forced to literally heW their homes out of the wilderness, eating what the land and sea pro vided and sleeping when and how they could on beds of skins ol tarps. They were forced to clear their land, plant their crops and wait for the harvest, with little or no cash to go on, and credit scarce and hard to get. Those who stuck now have comfortable homes and while they are not in the capitalis- tic class, get by with a minimum of the effort required to live in the States.
 These are the men who should be rewarded with government aid as well as the newcomer, whose tenure of residence may or may not last longer than the aid extended. These hardy ranchers at Homer and along the Tanana river built their homes and cleared their land with not a thought of paternalism and should be helped if help is needed.
 We hope to see Alaska colonized, with or without government aid, because we believe it is a land of opportunity for every young man or woman who would join the back to-the-land movement. The arable lands of the Territory are rich be- yond belief There are great areas where the finest grazing can be found, and innumerable valleys where one can raise almost any thing necessary for subsistence.
 If markets can be secured for their products, there is no reason why group of families, such as is proposed, cannot do better than in the States. But to make the plan a success help should also be extend ed to those already in the business lest their markets be taken from them and they be turned loose upon an already over-supplied labor mar lyn