The Alaska sourdough., 1911-12-26
THE SILENCE OFPINCHOT IS BROKEN

At last Clifford Pinchot has broken the shell which held him, and has spok- en up like man.
 It is now three months since he "saw' Alaska, but at last he knows what he knows, and where he stands.
 It will be remembered that Clifford Pinchot was here in September on his way out. He had come to Alaska with the avowed purpose of Investigating, and getting new proofs of infamy in re- gard to the Cordova bay scandal But when he was in Juneau, after his trip to the Westward, he refused to say wheth- CT the shores of the Cordoya bay had been gobbled, whether Cordova bay was a safe harbor, whether there was a tree on the tract which the president had released from the Chugak forest res erve
 The Pinchot silence was brok en on December 16, by an article in the Sat urday Evening Post.
 Now he says that Cordova bay is 2 good harbor, and all that he said against the president $ action is releas- ing the ten thousand acres of barren land tide flats from the forest reserve, was true, and true now. He favors the opening of the Boring river claims rath- CT than the Matanuska claims. The fact that the Bering river coal is more friable makes no difference, he thinks it could be made up into biquettes.
 Perhaps his most astonishing propo- sition is that the one great cause of holding back development of Alaska IS not that the government has held It back by reservations, not because we have so few railroads and those so short but that the railroad freight rates are so high. The fact that Alaska is I country of magnificent differences, the fact that all three railroads are short as to be insignificant, makes no differ. ence. The high freight rates are, ap. parently, very far reaching in theif effects. 3
 Nobody in Alaska has any sympa- thy with the high freight rates, howev- CT, and while the average Alaskan will not be willing to let him get away with the idea that the freight rates can suc- cessfuly made scapegoat for the in iquities of the government $ ice box policy and the neglect of congress, his objection to the freight rates will be generally regarded as alright in it's way.
 He says:
 "Let me repeat this statement: It is not the withdrawal of the coal lands that has retarded the development of Alaska, for every valid coal claim was excepted from the withdrawal What is holding Alaska back more than all other causes is the excessive rates for transportation.
 Some actual examples will make this clar. On the Alaska Northern Railway paid $1.3O to be carried 31a miles to point between stations, all though it is right to add that the regu- lar fare is twenty cents mile At this point I found homesteaders actually packing their produce to market in the town of Seward, because the wagon road bridge was down and the railroad was charging them at the rate of $2O ton for "a 3119 mile. haul, The rate for lumber from Seattle to New York is $17 a ton. Potatoes are carried from Northern Maine to New York City, a distance of about 700 miles, for $12.5o 3 ton in less than carload lots, or $6.I0 by the carload The contrast is suffici- ently striking.
 Senator Poindexter and I saw men walking and carrying heavy packs