The Alaska sourdough., 1911-09-01
PINCHoT's LATEST VIEW

in the Saturday Evening Post of Aug ust 2o, in answer to query of his own propounding, "What Shall We Do With the Coal in Alaskaf'
 In this article Pinchot insists that he has always been in favor of the i'm mediate opening of these fields. Not even an Alaskan could make strong CT argument that he for the immediate throwing onto the market of these vast fields. "There must be- he says "a strong reason why these prodigeous stores of fuel, in seams measuring, some of them, twenty to fifty feet or more of solid coal-easy to reach, easy to mine, and easy to sell, should have remained locked up until now. The wonder grows when we consider that Washington, Oregon and California are without any considerable supply of high grade fuel of their own, and that good steam coal sells in San Francisco for more than three times what it brings in Jew York. The government recently paid s2s dollars a ton in Alas ka for coal it could have bought in Newport News for less than three Yet, not half a dozen coal mines have been opened in Alaska, and the combined product of all of them is altogether in significant Here is situation which well deserves to be called amazing and intolerable. Let it be kept clearly in mind that the non-use of Alaska coal serves no good purpose whatever. The less coal is burned in the long Alaska winters, the greater the drain upon the forests for fuel. The present indus tries of the territory are hampered and restrained by the high cost of fuel; transportation suffers and the estab- lishment of new industries is discOuT- aged and deferred. If coal were as cheap in the market as nature has made it abundant in the ground the growth for which Alaska has waited would now be we'll begun.''
 Pinchot washes his hands of all re- sponsibihty for these "amazing and intolerable' conditions. He would have it understood, that it is the stub borness of congress which is to blame and if not congress, then the Alaska claimants.
 When accounts of the Cordova coal party filled the eastern press, Pinchot declared that he had never favored the tying up of these coal fields, that he had always been in favor of opening them. But he is not, in this article, able to go much farther back than that for proof of his favoring the putting of this fuel upon the market.
 MT. Pinchot touches briefly on the Cunningham claims, refers to the re- cent decision finding them fraudulent, and does not go very deeply into that case, but he does admit that the law under which the claimants were com pelled to act to be very difficult one to work under The Sourdough agrees with Secretary Fisher that it is much better to discuss what may be done, rather than what has been done, but the Cunningham case will always seem to very many Alaskans to be crime forced by public sentiment against those-not Guggenheims either-who spent thousands of dollars in good faith in an effort to develop the coun' try. Perhaps regarded in the light merely of an injury done to those claimants, which may in future years rebound to the benefit of the country, and the whole people, the crime may have been justified, but it will cer- tainly tend to retard the development of Alaska in that it cannot help but discourage the investment of capital in country where the investor cannot confidently expect absolute protection.
 After all, perhaps, the average Al e. ah