The Alaska citizen., 1915-08-16

compelled 10 readjust allotments and suspend work on new pro ieCts in your district.
 RICHARDSON. Then the fat was in the fire al the way round, and general wal went up from the people of th' First division. The Juneau Empire on the subject. says:
 Representative Heckman is in favor of dropping the suit begun by members of the legislature from the First division to SC cure an injunction against the expenditure of the territory's re- ccipts from the Tongass Nation al Forest according to informa- ton received from Ketchikan. Mir Heckman takes the posi- ton that it were better now 10 make the best of a bad case. He says everybody knows that the First division waas robbed by the legislature. but that it cannot afford to lose the use of its forest receipts and S30,0O0 that the road commissioners had allotted to the First division also
 MT. Heckman gave expression to his views through an inter view given the Ketchikan Miner, His statement was based upon telegram from Col w. P. Rich ardson. president of the Alaska board of road commissioners. This is MT. Heckman's interview in the Ketchikan Miner:
 The above telegram, received last Friday, speaks for itself, and pu;s the question of the division of the distribution of the Forest Service funds now in the Terri torial treasury squarely up 10 this division.
 Tt will be remembered that after hard fight during the last session of the Territorial legislature, the majority from the other divisions refused to allow this division to have the cash rightfully belonging to it which had come from the sale of timber in the Tongass Forest reserve Then when Col Rich ardson. head of the Alaska Road commission. went north this spring, and the matter was brought to his attention, also the urgent need for roads in this division and he promised he would try to get us some money to take the place of that filched by the other divisions. That he had secured $30000 for Us he notified Messrs. Heckman and Sulzer several weeks ago, this amount being sufficient to take care of the road work in this region. Then, acting upon in structions from members of the senate and the house of repre- sentativeS from this region. Rep resentative Held recently under nh, fn prevent the other divisions get ting any of the Forest Service money, except that from the Chugach National Reserve, which is located in the Third division. On hearing this. Col. Richard son sent the telegram, copy of which appears in this column.
 Why. common sense demands that we make the best of a bad bargain and drop this thing. We have been robbed by the other three divisions. This is ac- knowledged by every fair-minded man in the territory, and to make up for it, Col Richard son has taken from the money he had planned to spend in the other districts, the thirty thou sand dollars he stated was avail able for use in this division, and of course, if our action in applying for an injunction against the other divisions is going to interfere with his plans, it is no more than right that We should drop the injunction pro ceedings and clear up the mat ter. An injunction, even if we won, would tie up matters for another two seasons, and if we lost. we would be out not only the cash in the treasury, but also the $30,000 the road con- mission is ready to allot for the southeastern Alaska work. To my notion, that $30,000 available for use this summer will be far and away better than a lawsuit with possible defeat and the as surance that even if we won, we would have to wait for an other session of the legislature to make the necessary appro- priations for us to have the cash, and that will be my answer to Col. Richardson's letter and the different members of the legisla-