The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, September 3, 1940, Page 12

I MEMORIAL TRIBUTE T0 SOURDOUGH ADVOCATED By EILER HANSEN Most of us agree that the bronze in this country ought to be cast into cannon. All that is necessary is to save enough to create a mem- ial to the Sourdough. In all the neering history of the Western H phee there is no general Nove o individually charac- te J > siampede to Alaska. Th yriginally entered t I ad of unknewn | hardships literally burned their bridges behind them. They had to wring ~every necessity of life out of a grudging wilderness. Their methods of transportation were slow, cumbersome and dangerous. They mushed with, or without, a dog team. They navigated unchart- »d waters of unknown perils, with f r barges, contrived from hip-sawed lumber. The difference etween life and death was a mat- et et e e ) YOU WILL ALWAYS FIND THE LATEST ter of judgment and stamina. Each! limitable unselfishness, The dim| man fought his own bitter battle} eyes were strained by too many of progress; a few won, but most|years of gazing into an unpredic of them lost. They took whatever|table future. But to all the initiated | fate had in store for them without|the true insignia of a Sourdough asking for any quarter, begging no' was apparent. He never looked ack. | 4 I PIONEER | army of .men—those hard, unde- featable Pioneers that nothing could stop. They travelled in the heat of summer and. bared their breasts to the icy blasts of winter. The Sourdough is an outstanding mercy, accepting no favors, except the unwritten ethical right of a traveler in a strange country, Alas- kan hospitality of the trail is a tradition. Every lone musher of the North was entitled, and welcome, to shelter, firewood and food wher- |ever the found it. A “no host” party was the rule and not the ex-| ception. In effort to aid unknown| fellow travelers in distress the good | | samaritan was a piker compared' to the average Alaskan, | Man on His Own | Sull every man had to be suf- ticient unto himself or be counted out by the inexorable law of sur- vival of the fittest. An inhospitab'e country spewed out the weak or placed upon each of its favored sons an indelible stamap of approv-| al. A Sourdough in Alaska, Seattle, San Francisco, New York, South| | America, Europe and other points He saw only the beckoning hand of future possibilities, He heard only the siren voice extolling the virtues of the land beyond the next mountain. If you knew the real Sourdough you could piek him out of a crowd just as carely as a novice could point out a giant in a multitude of pygmies. Find and Spend Virtue is an undefinable quan- tity. This is no panagyric of praise for the stampeder. The horde of men who first invaded Alaska were looking for gold. Their utmost de- sire was to find gold. The reper- cussion was to obtain what gold could buy. Most of the fortunate ones subscribed to the theory that the only money that is any good was the money you spent. So they‘ Eiler Hansen of Sitka, Superin- blew in their millions. | tendent of the Pioneers’ Home, is Out of the chaos of trouble en-| , past Department Commander. dured by the prospector of '98, a epic of pioneering history that be- lengs to Alaska. If we let his mem- ory die, then sentiment is also dead. If we have become such self- ish mortals that we desire to ignore the past and live for the future only, let us be honest about it and admit we have discarded the right to be called a civilized people. He Pioneered It is a little trite to recall that the Sourdough paved the way for us who make Alaska our home. The country, laboriously traversed by the Pioneer on foot or poling craft, we cover now in comfortable power vessels, automobile, or by air. If it is repetitive to mention the deht developed in the sweat, toil and privations of its earliest inhabi-| tants. [ This opportunity will not come again. Tomorrow the last of the Sourdoughs will falter and fall at the end of the rainbow. Tomorrow, Alonzo Lewis will smash his crea- tion in plaster into the worthless fragments of a lost hope and a wasted life. I know there are people that will cry out in horrified in- | dignation that at this time we can- not afford a memory to the past. Those weepers for the necessity of immediate expediency are always with us. Perhaps what we need is | to recapitulate a symbol of bygone idays to restore a jittery constitu- | ency to a proper balance. If it made \any difference I would personally | contribute $500 for the cause I am| | now espousing. I know every Sour- | dough in the Pioneers’ Home would | [glve up his quota of bacon and STIEET MUSIC and RECORDS AT THE ALASKA MUSIC SUPPLY Home of the BALDWIN Piano 122 Second Street The Kind of Merchandise Men Like to Buy at Prices They Like To Pay . FRED HENNING "Complete Qutfitter” Phone Red 206 of the globe was unmistakable, HeJ Territory of magnificent propor-| | was a man tempered in the intri-|tion has arisen. Travel is accom-| cate sphere of adversity—forged in| plished by airplanes. Mining is the harrowing crucibie of experi-|conducted by machinery. The law ence—mellowed in the process of|is enforced by United States Com- sharing the last pound of food with | missioners, and their abettors. We any companion on any trail. have now a political body of eight Wherever you met nim there was| Senators and 16 Representatives ex- | always the seamed face, careless! pressing the will of the people of posture, independence of action, il- the people of Alaska. ON HAND To Greet the 21st Annual American Legion Convention e WE MEET ALL THE BOATS ALL KINDS OF FUEL DRAYAGE RELIABLE TRANSFER C0. | 312 So. Franklin St. PHONE 149 We Welcome the LEGION and AUXILIARY May Your Convention Be Successful! CITY FLOAT LIQUOR STORE LIQUOR-WINE-BEER 423 SOUTH FRANKLIN PHONE 541 We Extend Sincere Greetings to The American Legion and Its Auxiliary During This 1940 Territorial Convention MINE and MILL: Juneau, Alaska ALASKA GOLD MINING COMPANY EXECUTIVE OFFICE: San Francisco, U. S. A. JUNEAU Sourdough Statue we owe the trailbreakers, it is still e g _| eggs for a year if he could see that pertinent to maintain that the ob. | statue erected in the front yard. ligation ought to be discharged. g, it gught to be Territorial money { sincerely hope that we, the People| o choulq provide for this project. of Alaska, will demand that the| " 4 2 It ought to be possible for every| next Legislature will approprlute‘cmzen of this country to worship‘ the money necessary to cast the . 'no ghrine of this memorial and Sourdough statue created by Mr.|2t 9 | “Skagway Bill” Fonda did the pos- If the residents of this Territory desire to perpetuate the memory of the Sourdough they have that privilege within their power. Victor Lewis into bronze and erect it on the front lawn of the Pioneers’ Home. There are 700 Pioneers bur- Alonzo Lewis, of Seattle, one of|ied Yn Sitka. For their uncounted the foremost sculptors of the world,| compatriots I quote the tribute has created a model of the Argo-|of Sam Dunham. naut of the North. Everyone that| They- sleep by many a mountain has viewed it proclaims it to be a| stream, magnificent work of art. Mr. Lewis In many a lonely wild ravine, | states it is his most cherished pro-| Unmarked by cross, or cairn, or duction, It entailed years of labor | and cost a goodly sum of money to get it to the point where it is now.| But with them is the message blent; ing, but Lewis captured something| “The future is our monument.” ?ar_more imporl.a_m. than a single | Good Investment individual, ‘In his statug of thel 1t will cost $30,000 to erect this Sourdough is the composite of an| monument, It will be the last boon | any of us can give to this vanish- | ing phase of humanity. These are ihard times and $30,000 sounds like |a lot of money, But it will be the | first and last expense. It will not | set up a bureaucratic agency that | will mushroom year by year into | a costly blossom of experimental | legislation, It will pay even from |a financial standpoint. By every standard of measurement all tour- ists will have an irresistable object for a camera study that will be carried back to every hamlet in the United States. There will never be a day that someone will not be forcibly reminded that Alaska was Holel Juneau "“Where Living Is Pleasant” CLARENCE WISE Owner—Manager ————— D e e WELCOME — LEGIONNAIRES STAR BAKERY JAMES SOFOULIS, Proprietor L d Bread and Pastries 322 So. Franklin St. Phone 546 Hooray for the Legion? ® "Where All Old Timers Meet" ° BAILEY'S COCKTAIL BAR Phone 288 162 So. Franklin GREEN TOP CABS Telephone 6738 STAND ALASKAN HOTEL Welcome Legion! Welcome Amériecm Legion JUNEAU LUMBER MILLS ALASKA LUMBER ® SPRUCE o HEMLOCK © RED CEDAR Clear and Common Grade SPRUCE BOAT LUMBER Send Us Your Specifications stone, | The story of their lives unknown, | | say, “We, the people of Alaska, have erected this tribute to the | Sourdough.” 1 Noble Prospector I have never had much sympathy | for the usual inartistic “slap-dash”/| version of a prospector showing a smirking miser humped over a gold pan, The symbol created by Mr. ‘lcwis is the figure of a great man | in fullstride. He carries all of a prospector’s equipment on his back and a rifle in his hand. Crude | stitches have mended brush-torn | patches of clothing. But what cap-| | tures and holds you spellbound is the grim determination in the fad- ed eyes set in a stern and weather-| beaten face. You know he is the Sourdough. He sees only the golden vista of the-future. You know he is the Sourdough, because that man never looks back. There is no bet- ter method by which the future, can be equanimously met than to discharge the obligations of the past. The Sourdough has earned the right to live forever. It is you who must render the verdict of/ whether he will be swept into the ash heaps of forgetfulness, or re-| main as an inspiration for the fol- lowing generations. If right and justice prevails in Alaska we neither | can, nor must, forget the Sour- | dough. A mobile operating theatre for dealing with brain surgery has been prepared for the British army at the front, ! — e | Texas fish hatcheries produced| more than 5,000,000 fish last year| and the state expects to double production in 1940. F 159 So. Franklin Street | torial DON ADLER (Continued from Page One) short time—it may never happen— but SHOULD it happen, our young men should meet it—prepared! There is no time to waste. If we are attacked, aggressor nations will act swiftly; and should there be a war, as an ex-service man who has been under fire in the last war, 1 say to parents, “Allowing for the lucky and unlucky breaks attached to warfare, the chances of your son’s coming out alive depends a lot on the military training he has received.” In one particular hand- to-hand encounter I had with the enemy it was training that saved my life. The young men in this Terri- tory owe it to their country, their fellow citizens, and to themselves, to learn to protect themselves; otherwise, we will be caught sleep- ing, as have those countries now overwhelmed and defeated. Do You Know— THAT the American Legion Aux- iliary, in order to protect its Mem- orial Flower, the poppy, from the inroads of commercialism, adopted a national poppy program at the St. Paul Convention in 1924 which eliminated the commercial poppy from the sales of the. Auxiliary? THAT the memofial poppies are made of red crepe paper, by hand, by disabled veterans in more than 50 hospitals and poppy workrooms in 45 states, and that the workers receive pay for each poppy made, the material being furnished free by the Department in whose terri- tory the hospital is located? THAT proceeds from the sale of over 10,000,000 poppies, made an- nually under the guidance of the American Legion Auxiliary amount to more than $1,000,000, every penny of which is devoted to rehabilita- tion work by both the Legionr and Auxiliary, which includes aid to the needy veterans and their fami- lies? The method of distribution varies in our 52 Departments, de- pending upon the nature of the de- mands for help. Each of our 9,000 Units in communities scattered all over the United States, its terri- possessions and in foreign countries where veterans reside, maintains a Rehabilitation Commit- tee working under a chairman, and a Child Welfare Committee with | its chairman, and these Unit chair- men are assisted by a state chair- man of similar committees, who in turn works under the guidance and help of a National Rehabilita- | tion Chairman and a National Child Welfare Chairman. — e Arizona growers shipped 35,000,000 cantaloupes to the nation’s markets in the summer of 1939. GREETINGS to the American Legion "Give Your Sweetie a Box of Whilman’s" Butler-Mauro Drug Co. REXALL STORE Juneau, Alaska LEGIONNAIRES WELCOME to JUNEAU JOE KELLY’S Haberdashery Real Value for Your Money 116 Franklin St. Juneau Laundry Fast Efficient Service a Welcome Legion!\ Phone 358 Success and Good Wishes Legion and Auxiliary Juneau’s Home for LADIES®> WEAR JONES - STEVENS, Inc. to the " 4