The Alaska citizen., 1915-01-04
CORRESPONDENCE


 Richardson. Alaska. Dec. r. 1914. Editor Alaska Citizen.
 Dear Sir: In your issue of Dec. :, current year. there appeared an article under the heading Better Road Laws are Planned" in which Senator-EleCt Q. r. Gaustad sets forth his views on roads, trails, and mining laws, and expresses his in tentions of having them put in bill form and passed at the coming ses- sion of the Alaska Territorial legis- lature, praying for the hearty CO., operation of his fellow legislators in making them law
 Trusting you will allow me space in which to express my views on same l will compliment Senator Gaustad on his idea of board of overseers, his mode of collecting taxes and of expending public moneys collected from licenses on the roads and trails of the country.
 But the idea of letting them out by contract is a step out of keeping with progressive legislation. because if we have board of overseers We can surely trust them to hire a capable and trusty foreman who knows when a man is doing a fair days work. and when this is done We are getting our roads built as cheaDly as We are supposed to-
 In support of above view just ask some of the men who worked on the Valdez trail last summer They will answer in chorus that they did not spend much time in the brush.
 Furthermore if We expect to have government-built and operated railroad. would it not be setting q bad precedent to have our legisla- ture pass a bill providing for the construction of public highways by contract? Would it not be putting temptation in the way of our board of overseers to have a contract to allow bogus work to be done?
 It has often been the history in the past, it will often be the his tory in the future as long as con tractors last
 As to mining laws. MT. Gaustad would re-establish the right of men owning continuous claims to do as. sessment work in one place, instead of scattering it all over them. Now assessment work is simply required to show that the man holding claim thinks enough of it to work it and that he is not holding it in hopes that something might turn up in his vicinity and thus enable him to unload it, unsighted and unseen. for suitable consideration.
 Now how did the men MT. Gaus- tad speaks of come to own contig- uous claims? Did they pay their hard money for them If so. they sNould be exempt from assessment work one year for each s1OO so paid. as they showed their good intentions when they bought the ground, other wise they would not have bought it. But perhaps this would come in conflict with United States laws governing patents on mining ground
 On the other hand, if they ac- quired contiguous claims by the old power of attorney system, they have sinned against the best intentions of our early lawmakers and against the present desires of the American people, and their penance should be to do sl00 worth of work on each and every claim.
 Respectfully submitted
 VIM. O'CONNOR
 (The writer of the foregoing seems to have put Q new construction on Nr. Gaustad's plans, for it is not un- derstood that board of road sup erVisors is to be organized, or that the work must necessarily be done by contract. A part of the com munication, which had no direct re lQtion to the subject. was omitted to ave space Ed