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Vast Solitudes. This attitude toward Alaska unfortunately has been so general that "after three-quarters of a century under American rule Alaska has virtually no population . . . less than 73,000—not quite enough to fill the Yale Bowl." Yet Alaska is as broad and nearly as deep as the U.S. A single forest fire may lay waste hundreds of square miles and Alaskans may not even know about it. If and when Japanese parachutists land, there will be few Alaskan guerrilla fighters to battle them Russian style. There are nothing like enough Alaskans to provide the incoming U.S. Army and Navy forces with normal "civilian services" (food, billets). And nothing like enough industry and farming to make Alaska self-sufficient.
About half of Alaska's population consists of Eskimos, Indians and Aleuts. Eskimos and Aleuts are rarely seen south of the Arctic Circle, but the Indians are widely scattered throughout the Territory, live in shacks on the fringes of Main Street towns. The other (white) half lives mainly on canned goods and packaged foods from the States. The whites work at mining and the salmon industries.
High Prices. In Fairbanks, where the streets have only just been paved and plenty of "city" people still live in log cabins, Author Potter found the cost of living more than twice what it is in Washington, D.C. Haircuts cost $1, milk 25¢ a quart. Alaska still votes the Democratic ticket, but to Miss Potter, who favors "planning" and the New Deal, its leading citizens and Democratic bigwigs look like Old Dealers. Most of them object to the higher (Author Potter calls them "modern") taxes urged by Governor Ernest Gruening, a Roosevelt appointee.
But though she finds the tax question a vexed one in Alaska, Miss Potter reports that the Territory is united on the war. Major General Simon Bolivar Buckner of the Alaska Defense Command spoke for Alaskan public opinion when he told her that "We should be called the Alaska Offense Command." Offense will depend heavily on swift completion of the Alaska Highway, now being rushed day & night.
Not Enough Pilots. Author Potter believes that more than 25 years of intensive Japanese espionage in Alaska and its treacherous waters now gives the enemy certain advantages. She notes that the steamer on which she sailed to Alaska was "mysteriously wrecked" not long afterward. Last year "several U.S. transports sank with their cargoes on the Alaska route and at least seven freighters ran on the rocks." This is because the U.S. does not yet have enough pilots familiar with Alaskan waters.
But on the whole, Alaska today is plucky, busy and booming on the $200,000,000 provided for its development and defense—roughly 27 times what the U.S. paid Russia for Alaska two years after our Civil War.
*By the last census. Exclusive of troops, the population is now estimated at 80,000.