Our Uncle Sam owns all the cables,
  And the prices he gets are a sin,
It costs more for a word to Seattle
  Than it does from Salt Lake to Berlin.
Our coast line is rugged and broken,
  A menace to each ship that sails,
But Sam has no money for coast lights,
  They get the same treatment as trails.

And Alaska is some husky orphan,
  We can reach from the Gulf to B.C.,
We could stand with one foot in Kansas
  While the other was washed by the sea.
We're allowed only one voice in Congress,
  And that one bereft of a vote,
And has to get some one's permission
  Ere he loose a protest from his throat.

Sam gave us a group legislative,
  But barred them the making of laws,
They could only memorialize Congress
  And give it the reasons and cause.
The cry of the world is for Home Rule
  Yet imported fools crowd our bench,
And some of their mining decisions
  Send up to high Heaven their stench.

Sam made us quit gambling, that's all right,
  But one thing that nobody knows
Is why he allowed a bone head from Georgia
  Hang the crêpe on our own picture shows.
We're all hedged about with restrictions
  And, Sam, won't you in us confide
Why some of your damphool ideas
  Are not tried out on some one outside?

This Land's not the land of the weakling
  And the men up here know what we need,
And we're sick of your bunch from the Outside
  Who's only incentive is greed.
We've stood for Pinchot's conservation
  And we've stood for your carpet-bag horde
Who have grabbed off the jobs in Alaska
  As a sort of political reward.

But, Sam, take a tip from a Roughneck,
  Go slow now and don't crowd your hand
Or some day you may find that the orphan
  Has quit creeping and learned how to stand.
Don't make us the goat for the theories
  Advanced by some government cog,
And don't use this land as a station
  For trying things out on the dog.

We gaze o'er the line of the Yukon
  As we're watching our neighbors at play
And we wonder why Our Uncle Sammy
  Don't treat his Alaskans that way.
We look at their broad graded highways
  And then at our own half blazed trails
And, Sam, it comes damned nigh to envy
  When we think of their thrice a week mails.

They don't know the word conservation,
  Their resources, all theirs to use,
And when they ask their Uncle to help them
  Their Uncle don't often refuse.
Their Uncle has helped them develop,
  Furnished work there for men who were broke,
And, Sam, when it comes to Coast Lights
  They make ours look like a joke.

But in spite of it all, Sam, we love you,
  We love every thread in the Flag,
We love every stream in Alaska,
  We love every cliff, every crag.
We're not like the Woman or Dog, Sam,
  And we're not like the Walnut Tree
Cause we want to be loved in return, Sam,
  And, Sam, you are blind, or you'd see.

"A Woman, a Dog, and a Walnut Tree
The more you beat them the better they'll be."

Along in early spring time, as the sun starts swinging North
To linger with the land it loves, and violets peep forth,
When the water starts to running thru the riffle blocks at noon
And you figure that you'll clean up, about the first of June.
You've been thru a long hard winter, but you see the end in sight,
You don't worry 'bout the cleanup, cause you know the pay is right;
But you're feeling sort of restless, as your blood warms with the sun
And your heart will start to itching, when the water starts to run.

You may leave your Camp at evening and mush away to Town
To dally with the hootch a bit, but the feeling will not down.
You may mix up in a poker game, or try the dance hall's lure
But you're fighting off a feeling, that the old cures cannot cure.
You've got that longing feeling that there's nothing satisfies,
And your pard can't interest you, no matter how he tries,
You're lonesome, moody, restless, out at Camp, or in the Town
Your mind will not rest easy, and your troubles will not drown.

Then memory pulls her picket pins, your thoughts go back thru years
To Outside, Home, and Sweetheart, and this last thought sort of cheers;
You recollect the days you spent beneath a Southern sky
And with regret you now remember they all ended with good-by.
It's the same old world-wide feeling that comes to man each year,
But it seems to hit us harder, when we're getting in the "clear";
It seems that it grows stronger, each year added to our life—
It's the hankering of the white man for a Pal, a Home, a Wife.

Man was not meant to live alone, why quarrel with Nature's laws,
God gave you strength to build a home, wherefor then do you pause?
Go forward like your father did, go forth and seek your mate,
For till you know a wife and home, you know not Heaven's Gate.
It's the deep inherent longing for a baby on your knee,
For the sound of children's voices, beneath your own fig tree.
The male instinct to have a mate, to love, to guard, to hold,
The one instinct that's left to us, that triumphs over gold.

With strength enough to build a home when once you get a wife
Bear gently with her follies, but guard her with your life;
Crowd full her heart with loving, yet hold a guarded rein,
Lest ye two now that rate as one, again be counted twain.
And if she come from Outside Camp, remember all is new
And give her time to find herself, teach her to lean on you.
And should homesickness grip her, and you find your wife in tears
Forget the jest and love her, remember your first years.

Then gone that restless feeling, gone all desire to roam,
Life's interest all is centered, deep in your Northern home.
Life waits in peace the cleanup, you pass up Outside joys,
And the tempter's voice is silenced by the music of her voice.
Then you're a true Alaskan, with a home won from the North,
God grant you children's voices when the violets peep forth,
And in the summer evening, beneath the midnight sun,
May your heart grow closer to her, when the water starts to run.

He was born far east of the Rockies
  Of a pet in society's van;
A wine-soaked daughter of pleasure
  Bred back and threw a man;
A man-child who grew up a stranger,
  Who never could learn the way
Of a people who gauge their pleasure
  On a line with the price they pay.

Just a shred of an education—
  A few years of college life,
A course in the card and wine room,
  A year with a chorus-girl wife,
Then disgust with a life unnatural
  Spurred on with the curse of the go,
He quitted that life forever
  For the land of the gold and snow.

The Lure of the Land had gripped him,
  The Land where you die if you