The Nome daily nugget., 1914-06-02

Arizona, the poorest state of the | United States in wagon roads. has l thirty-scVen times as many miles ol road in proportion to it's area as AL l aSka Connecticut the state with tn,
 best showing. has 1.76O times the mile age of Alaska and the entire Unite ! states has over 500 times as great {, 1 proportion. Of eighteen foreign coun- i tries, Australia. the poorest. has l55 i times as much, and Engand anG Wales, the greatest have 1.S4O times as much.
 In a sparselY settled country, since individuals must travel relatively greater distances in the processes of commercial communication, the neces- sarv mileage per capita must he very great. On this basis. taking the states west "f the Mississippi Alaska has less roads per capita than any Ne vada. the state whose conditions ot topography, population. age and in dustries are most similar to Alaska has seven times the mileage of roads per capita.
 In the matter of expenditures Ne vada is the only state spending as small an amount per square mile for roads as Alaska while New Mexico with hn spends nearly six times as much. ui allows for about twelve times as much road work per square mile. if We con slider the costs of labor etc It should also he noted that over large areas of Nevada. New Mexico, etc. wagon or even automobile travel can pass almost without hindrance. while in Alaska wheeled transportation is in almost every locality quite impossible until roads have been constructed
 The above brief outline indicates the present situation in Alaska accordne ot Captain James GOrden Steese, in an articel in the January Review of Re views The road commission has at 94 different routes. The maintenance of these 94 different roads requires ar annual expenditure of $125,00O. To com plete the projects already undertaken will require $2.7SOOOO Projects which will arise with the development dur ing the next ten years will requl~ about $1,SOO.OOO. A total of $725O, 900, distributed over the next ten years would provide Alaska with a complete system such as immediate needs justify, and probably sufficient to meet all reasonable demands until the territory is sufficiently developed to take over internal public works as q part of it's own government.
 Alaska has been slowly developing for sixteen years. Eight years ago the first steps in road construction were made. The first steps in railroad building were made even earlier, but | so far all have been unsuccessful, chief l ly because the railroads could land l freight at their freight platforms and had no road feeders to distribute their | tonnage. No railroad can be success full without roads as branches or feed I CTS any more than a tree can grow by | it's trunk alone without branches and | leaves.
 A railroad must have large tonnage and trunkline roads such as proposed for Alaska cannot hope to succeed except. as they become arteries of trade supplying large areas. Such areas must extend some distance from the railroad line and terminals and they can be made tributary thereto ! only by means of branches. In highly developed country the larger of these branches may be small rail- roads or even small systems, but the road and it's customers, the mine the farm and the factory. is a wagon UT u tTuCh.
 Great natural riches can make country productive even without the assistance of roads. as Alaska proved before 1906. Since that ime the eyi- dence of the value of the few exist ing roads has been demonstrated, and the necessity of completing the road systems has been made manifest :.
 If left to itself. Alaska will con- tinue its slow rate of development and by building it's own roads and creat- ing industries sufficient to warrant private enterprise. 1t will in half a century become an empire in spite ot all h;ndrance. By the construction of highways as the development of the country demands them, this period