Daily Arizona silver belt., 1907-02-03
WOULD CONTROL
 ALASKA MINES
Territory Demands that It Be Saved from the Clutches of the Shelter Trust-Guggenheims Will Soon Have Everything in Sight.

Back of Alaska s demand for politi- cal autonomy, demand that is making itself felt here, is fight to save that vast region from the clutches of the Guggenheims, one of whose members, simon, has just been elected to tte United States senate from Colorado, says Washington dispatch to the Rocky Mountain News.
 Already the monopoly has placed its grasping hand on the territory and is making its control more secure. De- med self government and the means of striking for themselves and directly at this threatening power, the people of Alaska are doing what they can to prevent millions upon millions that hide beneath the surface of the earth from falling into the possession of handful of shrewd and designing men. It is, however, an uphill task that can only be successful, even in part, through the unceasing watehfulness of the friends of the territory at the national capital.
 Menaced by Trust
 The smelter trust, of which the Gug- genheims are the moving factors, is the menace which threatens the wealth and freedom of competition in Alaska, and it is ably aided and abetted by fnan- cial interests that center about J. Pier pont Morgan. The prize which this com bination seeks is what is regarded by geological experts as the greatest un- developed copper field in the country posits.
 The land which the trust covets is the Copper River valley, running 300 miles north and south and 200 miles east and west; the Chitina copper belt, which stretches 50 miles from east to west, with breadth of from 10 to 20 miles; the Catalla coal fields, 20 miles square; the petroleum belt, which skirts the coast from Catalla eastward to Yantat for distance of 30 miles and breadth of from to 10 miles, and the Matamiski deposits. In the Man tamiski district is the only known oc- currence on the surface of anthracite deposits, and the coal is declared to be as good as the product of the anthracite field of Pennsylvania.
 Quietly they secured all the options possible from placer miners who had gone into the district when the stam- pede of 1898 came on. The next step of the smelter trust was to find an outlet for it's product when once its smelter was in operation.
 The Guggenheims are not builders of railroads, but it did not take them long to get into communication with certain financial interests in New York that make speciality of indulging in just such enterprises. MT, Morgan looked over the field, and having convinced himself of its great possibilities, the rest was easy. From that moment dated the fight that is now on.
 Force Out Competition
 Close Brothers & Co. of London, Eng land, very much alive to the way things were drifting in the territory, even be- fore this, here begun the construction from Cordova bay of the White Pass < Cordova railroad, under the direction of M. J. Heney. It looked as if at first as if the projectors of this line would be satisfied with the hauling of such freight as they could obtain without invading the section which the Guggen- helms had set their seal upon, the Cop per River valley and vicinity.
 But Heney's s presence led him to real ize that within a comparatively few years the output of copper and coal and petroleum there would call for large transportation facilities, and he began active preparations for piercing the dis trict with his tracks; whereupon he was promptly informed that if he un- dertook to do so the Guggenheim inter ests, acting through Morgan, would par allel his lines into the Yukon valley haul their own freight and inferentially cut rates to point where he could not stand the competition. Heney made a survey of the size of the respective purses that would be involved in such a struggle and came to the conclusion that he would better content himself with the bird in the hand.
 This is about the situation as it to- day stands. The actual construction of railroads from the copper region has not been begun, but it is simply for the reason that the Guggenheims are not
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