The Alaska daily empire., 1913-09-27
WANTED-A MILLION A YEAR

%
 IF CONGRESS will make an apprO-
 priation of one million dollars a
 year for ten years for the cOnstruc- ton of roads and trails in Alaska, one hundred million dollars will be added to the general wealth of the Nation by this Territory in a decade and a half. In other words the additional wealth that such appropriation would pro duce in the opening to development of known rich mineral sections that are now accessible, and of others which are practically inaccessible, the natur- al increase in production would reach that enormous sum. The reason is manifest The great bar to the devel- Opmeut of Alaska's vast mineral store houses is the lack of adequate land trans sportation facilities. No one who knows anything about this Territory will dispute this statement Good roads and trails are as much neces- sity in the development of the miner al and other resources of the country as railroads Perhaps more so.
 A system of trunk railroads such as is proposed in the bill now pend ing in Congress must be supplement- ed by a system of wagon roads and trails to serve as feeders for the rail- roads and provide them with tonnage. If Alaska is to be thoroughly devel- Oped along sound economic and indus trial lines the prospector, the miner, farmer and lumberman must be pro- vided with roads and trails to enable them to lay down their supplies at a cost that will not be prohibitive. Good roads and trails are not a luxury They are necessity, and there is scarcely a State in the Union today which is not in line in the work of i'm proving and extending its road sys- tems. Many States are eXpending mil lions of dollars annually in this work and their people do not complain be- cause of increased taxes. for they have been convinced by actual experience that the money so expended returns them a hundredfold
 The appropriations that are yearly made for road and trail building ill AL aska are got through the War Depart ment Ostensibly these roads and trails ares for military purposes. But anyone knows that they will never be put to such use. Therefore it is easy to con- cIude that these scanty appropriations are made through a subterfuge, and though it may not be particularly pleasing to Alaskans, this seems to have been the only way that Congress could be induced to make an allow ance for that purpose.
 It seems to The Empire, however, that the time is here to change the method and ask Congress to make a direct appropriation of million a year for ten years for the construction of permanent roads and trails in the Ter riJory. No longer should We be com peI~d to resort to subterfuge in order to set d 'ew thousand dollars a year, with which to open up the country to development and tighten the burdens borne by the men who are anxious and willing to uncover latent rich mineral and other resources.
 Ten million dollars invested by the government in roads and trails in ad- dition to forty millions invested in railroads. make total of fifty million dOllars-an investment, We submit, that, in point of material profit to. the investor, can not be duplicated in any other State or Territory. There would be no element of chance in it-but in- stead it would add hundreds of mil lions of dollars to the national wealth in the years to come.