The Chitina leader., 1910-09-24

which impressed upon my mind this need of railroads, and I saw a very good illustration of the thing at one place in particular. There a man was firing boiler, which ran hoist, at one of the placer mines outside of Fairbanks. He had about two hundred feet of rails leading to owoodplle, and on the rails was a little tram car. and he hauled his wood in there to fire the boiler. The superintendent of the mine told me that if he did not have that particu- lar arrangement it would be neces- sary to hire another man at $5 or S6 day and his board, which would almost make the difference betweeen proht and loss in a bad season on that mine. The thing which that two hundred feet of rails with a lit- tie tram car did for that one mine would be done, of course, on an enor- mously larger scale by railroad rom tidewater to nayigable water on the Panama river. I am satisfied that there are thousands of acres of low grade placer ground in Alaska, and this is only one of the reasons why We should have a railroad. | Il am of the belief that there are thousands and thousands of acres which are capable of producing enor- nous wealth, but which will never produce it until We have a railroad, because it will be impossible to bring the cost of living down to a figure where it will be possible to work that ground. I believe that from what l have heard of the Bonnifield country-and some of you have heard reports coming from there recently l-that in the event of the success of certain operation which has been begun over there, there will be hydraulic workings in the region, which will be larger than all the con- bined hydraulic mines of the world oday. It will be absolutely neces- sary in many portions of that great area that We nave cheaper transpor- ] tation before we get the values out of the ground-before we can worK that ground in such way as to make a profit for the operator.
 | Tn regard to mining laws, I be- | lfeve the man who jumps or relocates a mining claim upon which no as- sessment work has been done, or upon which there is no sign any where of assessment work having been done, is at least forty times bet ter than the man who holds that ground without doing any work. I am not prepared to say whether any other method should take the place of recording actual assessment work on the claim, but I made up my mind some time ago to this proposition, that as long as we have in force the power of attorney we should require of those who locate association claims of 160 acres to perform not $100 worth of work, but $500 worth of work. AS I understand it. it is pos sible at present for one man, with lseven powers of attorney-I do not know whether 1t is true that these powers of attorney represent dead men-to locate 160 acres of placer ground and do the assessment work on the whole tract only to the amount of S100. I am not ready to say that we should abolish the power of at- torney, but I am clear on this, that if the power of attorney remains in force the assessment work should be done on all of the ground which these powers of attorney represent.
 There have been a great many requests and great many sugges- tions, and a great deal of advice given to me, and I always welcome advice whether I am able always to follow it or not. It goes without say ing that I cannot agree with every body in country which is in the up- building stage like this. The opin- ions and views of citizens are bound to be as diverse as their interests. But I want the people of Alaska to give me credit for one thing, that l am always ready to listen to them, and that I have listened attentively 1 to what they have said, and will re- member it. There are great many things which they have requested that I would like to do, but there are many of those things which it will be impossible for me to bring fContinued oh page two,1