Douglas Island news., 1909-12-22
Alaska Railroads Ask Help
Ashmun Brown, the Washington cc

Ashmun Brown, the WashihSLoh coN respondent of the P.-I. writes:
 Alaska railroad projects are to be be- fore congress this winter, just as In sessions past, but perhaps more ac. lively than ever. Encouraged by the favorable remarks made by the presl- dent in his Spokane speech regarding the encouragement to be given trans portation lines in Alaska, several ln- terests will be here seeking land grants and subsidies from congress.
 1t can be predicted with safety that the interior department will oppose any. absolute grant of either coal or other land as subsidy to a railroad. This. with the recent extended public land questions, makes it practically certain that congress will not make any gifts of land to Alaskan railroads, real OF prospective, at this session.
 Former Senator George Turner, O.G- Larabee and Col E. H. Morrison, di- rectors of the recently organized Alas ka Northern railroad, as chronicled in these dispatches few days ago, have come here in the hope of getting sub stantial subsidy for their road.
 1t was reported that they intended to ask, among other grants, a grant Of 5000 acres of Matanuska coal land, bat Larabee would admit no such. inten- tion. eve want to extend the Alaska Central, which is now our property, ai- though Mr. BaIIaine denies it is, next year to the Matanuska fields, and we think that we should be encouraged tc build it, but before we determine what to ask, we want to look further into the situation, It is just possible that the president, in his message, will sug- gest, as be has in his speeches, subsi- dizing railroad construction in the ter ritory. If he does we will feel encour' aged"
 But, as the public now knows, the president has done nothing of the sort,
 The attitude of the department of the interior is not one of opposition to the proper development of transportation lines in Alaska, but the department, as it's various utterances have indicated, believes that the best results in devel- oping the whole territory will come from opening areas to settlement and encouraging the use of the territory's resources rather than from giving away great areas of coal and other lands.
 If the public lands in Alaska were surveyed and opened to legitimate set clement and development, so rich and fruitful are they that, in the opinion of the department, no grants would be necessary to secure the building of transportation lines. To withhold the lands from settlement and develop ment, while making gift of coal land to a railroad corporation would tend to the erection of a monopoly of the privately owned Alaska coal land, while the great bodies of coal under public land would remain undeveloped, and of no benefit to the people.
 Indications are that the discussions of these questions will this winter force a clear defuition of the governments policy in Alaska. The ultra.c a.conserva- tionists have argued for, and no doubt will continue to argue for the retention by the government of the Alaska coal fields, permitting mining only on royalty basis; in other words, using the Alaska coal deposits as means of swelling the federal revenues only. They also would have the government hold practically all of the resources of Alaska to the same end, perhaps per mitting tenants at will, but avoiding parting with the fee as long as possi- ble. This is indicated in the creation of the vast forest reserves in the terri tory.