| IPITA3QP PIONEER [ |
Published Every Sunday Morning at Iditarod, Alaska.
FRANK F. BFCKER. EDITOR
rAt I cao M. Arbuckle. Publisher No. 19
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LET US GIVE THREE HEARTY CHEERS
Jim Wickevsham says he is about to introduce a bill for
statehood. All join hands and circle to the left. He says
that we have all those other territories skinned to a Chinese
whisper when it comes to being eligible and we don’t know
but lie’s right.
Think of Alaska as a state,—wouldn’t it be great ?
Think of chasing up and down the street with a kerosene
torch when somebody’s trying to elect himself president.
Think of sending a couple of men down there to Washing
ton with a real voice and a vote to hobnob with all those
retired plutocrats and get a bridge appropriation for Pump
kin Centre over on the Susitna. Think of sitting around
the stove iu the winter time Fletcherizing the flannel about
the man we want in the House. Say, the very thought ol
it makes us swell up with importance.
Come to think of it, why shouldn’t we be a state ? We
have more wealth and brains than a like area out there,and
think how refreshing it would be to be able to say some
thing about disposing of it,—meaning the wealth.
We could have a nice little statehouse somewhere handy,
made of great, big logs, where the solons and the soloists
could gather round to decide where to land a swift kick,
and in convention assembled, they could pick out a good
man to go to Washington and play pee-knuckle.
Not so very long ago a granger down near Chillicothe
laughed a large haw haw because the Brothers Wright were
trying to fly with a big counterpane. That same farmei
met in Columbus last summer just to give the Wright boys
a little gold medal with their phizzez done in b-a-a relief.
Is it a wilder dream to picture Alaska flapping her wing."
like a pulchritudionus pelican of political perfection ?
It is absurd to contemplate 60,000 people in the peace
ful pursuit of their own laws? Is it at all ridiculous to
picture sturdy Americans calmly discussing what they want
and getting it ? The idea is just a pin-feather but ’twill
grow to a pinion, and we who now move and have our be
ing will soar in self-sustained flight.
Jim Wickersham says that Alaska was declared a ter
ritory years ago. He wanted territorial government, but
the tight for it, precipitated this commission business with
Taft’s idea of governing Alaska with a board of West Point
cadets.
Aow, Jim is shifty on his feet. Finding that the
first blow fell short, he is crossing with his left, and believe
us, he might land right on the solar plexus of the body
politic.
What makes us think so ? Well just this.
There is a political revolution going on in the states.
The congressional elections were held last week and we are
betting our money that the Insurgent Republicans, or Pro
gressives, or whatever you want to call them, are in power.
There is new blood in the Congress of the United States,
new principals and new ideals.
These new folks know more about Alaska and think
more about Alaska than did those tariff tinkers who have
been mixing their mitts in the national strongbox for so
many years. They are honest and they are progressive,
and they will just about nail the conservation bug on the
cloak-room door.
They are in tune with the thought of this country, or
we are in tune with them. Should Alaska become a state,
her political representatives will be in accord with tho new
party, hence, the more power to them. What’s the matter
with getting into the procession with a new trombone ?
THE FORTY-NINTH STAR
If Alaska’s population and area, her resources, development, and
advancement be compared with those of earlier Territories and with
many of the states, it will be discovered that this great territory is now
ready for statehood. She has a greater relative density of population
than fifteen territories which have preceded her. Alaska now has no
persons resident within her borders to each 1,000 square miles of area.
When created a territory, Michigan had but 12 persons to each 1,000
square miles ; Ohio territory and Dakota hut 15; Indiana but 20; Mis
souri but 251 and Ijtah but 31- Nine territories were organized having
less than 50 persons to the 1,000 square miles, and six others having
less than 100 to that area. Alaska has now more school children
in actual attendance in public schools within her borders than Missis
sippi, Indiana, Michigan, Dakota or the great territory northwest of
the Ohio river had white settlers when they were each organized into a
territory and given an elective legislative assembly,
Alaska has a gieater population than nine states in the union had
when they were permitted to adopt a constitution and their star was
placed upon the flag. Notice, too, from the attached table that as early
as 1790 and as late as 1890 seven states in the union had less population
than Alaska now has, Missouri being practically equal to Alaska
In 1850 California was a state without ever having been organized
as a territory. Her population was of the same character as that of
Alaska, and but little greater in number. She had the placer mines as
her sole element of wealth ; her greatness today demonstrates the wis
dom of her organization as a state. In every element of material
wealth, in minerals, fish, agricultural capacity, and in opportunity fur
the laboring man and home builder, Alaska is further advanced than
was California upon the date of her admission as a state.
It is my purpose to offer a bill at the December meeting of Congress
to organize the state of Alaska.—Delegate Wickersham in Collier’s.
Special,—Mackinaw Goats from $5.00 to $10.00
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Flat City, November 10, 1910.
Iditarod Pioneer, Iaitarod, Alaska :
To the Editoi One of our most ardent workers contended at
the last weekly conclave that there was an unpublished letter of
Lord Byron’s that had never been printed. He insisted that the
epistle in question was still safe from the desecrating hand of pub
licity. His opponents argued to the contrary, wherefore a wager
arose. Wo would like you to decide it. Very truly yours,
Bunkhouse Lyceum,
By the President.
To the Bunkhouse Lyceum:
Ardent Worker wins. There was an unpublished letter of
Byron’s that had never been published. We found it in an old
copy of The Philistine, which is printed at East Aurora (very Hoy
croftie), and we recognized at once by its timid and shrinking ap
pearance, that until now it had shunned the white light of public
ity. It’s a hot one, however, and might be used by the Bunkhouso
Lyceum as a life preserver if any member finds himself getting be
yond his depth. You have our permission to place it in the files
of the society, taking care to keep a fire extinguisher handy. Here
goes:
My Dear GiRr,: Back of us lies a pleasant land, a country where
in you and I disported ourselves together in untramrueled freedom and
unheeding joyousness, and for a time forgot that, certainly, sooner or
later, the Commonplace would inevitably encroach upon our domain.
That time has come,— we are at the parting of the ways, and this letter
is my kindly farewell to you. In it, I shal) write as if call the world
could read, while, in very truth, the letter must be destroyed lest a
l'ear-and-hate encompassed people should happen on it, and thereupon
brand you with their unreasonable and uncharitable stigma.
The reason why you meant so much to me is, that of those I have
known, you are the one above all others, who always, and under every
circumstance, played the game as though every pawn were a kindling
brilliant. You knew no weariness;—in your philosophy there was only
the Now. You and I held always that each was necessary to thu other’s
happiness, and yet, the fact that you must have known that our paths
divided just ahead, occasioned you never a moment’s depression. You
may forget your vows of constancy, if they ever recur to you at all,
may provoke but your tolerant smile; but, by the gods, the tire of
laughing, reckless Youth still runs riot in your reins, and I shall ever
remember that when the Past was yours and mine together, there was
never a moment when Life, for you, was not a tiling to tie appreciated
with the keenest zest, to he enjoyed with the utmost abandon, and to lie
remembered without a regret. Herein, were you incomparable.
I have known many men and women, but of them all, you got the most
out of the chances that were yours. All others who have assisted me
in decking with garlands of abandon the hours of recreation, have had
some compunctions aroused by either fear or conscience. You had
none;—I know them not, and so, between us, ws made the world seem
bright.
1 am an idealist, a dreamer. Fancy carries mo to a land where tho
eye grows never dim, where the ear is ever clearly attuned, where the
step is buoyant, where is nothing that any one fears: but Life has
shown me a world in which Death is inevitably the ruler; a world, the
light of which lessens with every day that passes; a world wherein
Fear compels us to a conformity and conventional poses, and in which
the warm uncalculating love of Youth fades into the callousness and
coldness, and disinterest of Age.
You say 1 am moody tonight. No, my dear, I am only truthful, hi
the cheery days, jolly days of a few' years ago, l had but to beckon mv
friends and they would gather with acclaim, and sit down and hold
revel while the red wine ran, and the flowing bowl was drained again
and again. Mirth was King. His courtiers were madcap revelers, and
they were a loyal crew. Hebe was their Divinity; but Time, Time the
Tomb-builder, poured the waters of Lethe in their cups, and it corroded
their veins and thinned their blood; and their erstwhile joyous laugh
ter has become transformed to a discordant cackle, and their mirth
changed to mocking. They say, and they believe when they sav it,
that Wine is an enemy; that Women are wicked; and that Life is a
vanity of vanities. Blame them not, for they are old; but grieve with
them that the fires of exuberant Youth do not always burn.
Late is a servitude, the rulers of the world are slaves. To rule,
they must labor, and the labor crushes them with its inertia, and the
garlands they win do but deck tombs, and that, so long only as the day
light lingers. Such garlands dissolve in the shadows of the first night,
and the mists of morning fall on the bare graves that they for the mo
ment adorned.
Our only friend is Memory. Her eye brims with understanding;
her voice is caressing and tender; her touch is magnetic with sym
pathy. Today, Youth lures us to go; tomorrow Age will command fis
to stay, and then will Memory he my sweet voiced guest, and she will
sit by my side, and look into my dimming eyes, and sing the songs of
Yesterday. She will dwell on the glory of morning; she will recall the
friends who joined with me in ready homage to King Mirth; she will
speak of Hebe; and then will come your name, my royal, clear-eyed,
straight-limbed Sweetheart; and at last will I know that Old Age is
not too heavy a burden to carry in payment of having once been young.
Doubt will whisper, '-Sne was fickle, inconstant. She never really
cared for you;” but the Ghost of Youth will flit acioss the strings of
the heart, and that will pulsate, “She was young, she was beautiful;
her kisses were endearing; her embrace was full of iire and passion
and life; the response of her body was complete in its amorous abandon;
and if she changed or forgot, we a'l change and forget; but while the
glamour lasted, its spell was transmuting, and that for which the [ in
verse was created, was our unstinted portion.”
And when Time has taken me so far that even Memory's voice can
no longer awaken the heart to answer, then will it suffice to record of
me, “This Man Lived.” And as you and I wander through Life after
Life in unlimited series, perchance we will meet, and like a rush of
fern scents wafted from years long past, will come again Memory, and
you and I, though we know not why, will be glad; and it will be be
cause we laughed and sang together, long before, and gave small heed
to the droning world, which, bad it known our hearts, would have used
our names to adorn the moral of one of its degenerate tales.
And so, Farewell, and Farewell. Byron.
HAVE TOP SIRLOINS
OVER OISKAKET WAY
_
Louis Vigelius, who is interested
| with John Morrow at Diskaket,
land Dave Edwards, the meat king,
[arrived in the city more than a
week ago, taking a look at the
country, and deciding whether or
not they will attempt to bring in
any of the good stuff they' have
over there.
Vigelius said tliere were about 50
tons of stuff there available for this
section which can be brought over
the trail. Although they had some
smoked meats, they are longest on
the things that are long here.
Edwards speaks of 40 head of I
cattle and 100 head of sheep that
were slaughtered there last fall. He
mentions it nonchalantly as though
he didn’t know that we are short
of those very portions of a Mulligan.
It is an open bet that some of those
T-bones will be reposing peacefully
on our own platters before many
(lays have wended hence.
GOMES UNDER HEAD
OF HOME GROWN
A fine example of the wood work
er’s art was the big basket sled re
cently turned out at the shop of
J. E- Bishop, who is engaged in
the noble work of making winter
vehicles at his place in the Ansley
building.
This sled was designed originally
for Claude Shea who intended using
it between here and the Kuskok
wim. It weighs 75 pounds and
will carry 1000 pounds. Toss Ber
nard and B. B. Smith, secured it
however and will bring some
needed supplies from Fairbanks
and Gibbon. They left Tuesday
morning with a seven-dog team,
taking with them Emil Jensen, the
insane patient, and accompanied by
Roy Stevens, deputy marshal.
Red Cross
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