Ogden Daily Standard | 1915-01-11 | Page 4 | Make Alaska a Land of Homes

MAKE ALASKA A LAND OF HOMES. President WKson Is giving attention to the preliminary details of the gov rnment railroad to be bu'lt in Alas He believes there are wonderful c.vblMt es in the developing of Alas not only in the open'ng up of its mineral resources, but In the placing many families on the agriculture' is from the coast to the interior Nearly all of Norwa and Finlan ' n 1 much of Sweden are In the same atitude as the interior of Alaska and vet those Scandinavian countries hav ten million of population while Ala,; ka has not more than 45 000 people A pamphlet on our great northwest territory says the largest body of un used and neglected land in the United States is Alaska "It is now nearly a ccntun since we purchased this ter-rltory, ter-rltory, and it contains today less than I0,( White inhabitants, less than 1.000 for each year it has been In our possession The purchase was made as a means of protection against possible aggression of a for eign nation and without hope that it would be even self-supporting. in the intervening 46 years we have given giv-en it little more than the most casual concern; yet its mines, fisheries, and furs alone have added to our wealth the grand sum of $500.000,U0'i. Individual Indi-vidual fortunes have been made in that country larger than the price paid to Russia for the whole territory. Its waters are teeming rich with skins and fish. How rich we know, because be-cause they have been proved. But how rich its lands are in gold and copper, coal and oil, iron and zinc, no one know? The prospector has gone far enough however, to tell that no other section of our land today to-day makes so rich a mineral promise. And in agriculture the government itself it-self has demonstrated that Alaska will produce In abundance all that can be raised in the Scandinavian countries. coun-tries. It has been estimated that there are 50,000.000 acres of this land that will make homes for a people as sturdy as those of New England "