| Summary: | Alaska To The Front. Alaska to the Front SEATTLE and the whole Puget Sound region, as well as the Northern territory directly affected, will enthusiastically applaud plans for establishment of a great aviation and military base in Alaska. Existence of such a plan in the minds of authorities has been known for some time, but it remained for Congressman Byron B. Harlan of Ohio, who boarded a fisheries vessel in Seattle last week for an inspection trip to Alaska, to reveal them, not with particularity, but at least with more general definiteness than has heretofore been made known. In any measures for defense of the Pacific Coast of the United States, Alaska is vital. Building there a great military and aviation base, impregnable against attack and crushing in its power to strike through the air, on the surface and undersea, would go far toward discouraging any militaristic ambitions against America which may be smouldering in Asia, as well as provide a large measure of security should those ambitions rashly be permitted to gain mastery over better judgment. COUPLED with plans for such a base are additional colonization projects for Alaskan valleys, thus developing food production adequate to provide the personnel of the proposed military establishment and removing it from dependence upon supplies from the States. These undertakings, now taking form in the minds of Washington officials, not only mean much of vital importance to the defense of the Pacific Coast but, once under way, would result in great stimulation to Alaska's economic development through material realization upon her vast natural resources. This, in turn, would be felt almost immediately in increased trade for Seattle, gateway to the Northern territory. Already, with kindling hope and spirit, the people of Alaska are looking forward to ultimate statehood; they are industriously developing their resources; they are demanding an end to carpetbag government and insisting upon choice of their government officials from among residents of the territory. Plans for an international land link, connecting Puget Sound with the Alaskan coast and interior by means of a highway across British Columbia and the.Yukon, are going slowly but surely forward. Altogether, the future of Alaska has never before appeared so bright; and in this prospect Seattle joins with an enthusiasm not surpassed by the hardy men and women fashioning a rich empire out of the North.
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