The Seward gateway., 1916-10-21

It often happens that man who has not spent much time in Alaska or who has not been m more than one oi two parts of Alaska Is unable to appreciate WaI Has pe done all over the Territory For instance new arfVaS Ill the Territory cannot possible what has been dOne Ill the matter of road building It must be Sad thaJ Vere is little excuse for the manner m winch Delegate WICKET sham spoke about road building m ms speech Ill Se"atU Whether it had been prepared Tor or not cannot oe SO
 t in answer to his question from the platform men m the audience said something about SIX miles o1 roads hefe anu seven miles of road there and so On gVg Ie pIeSStO that the work done was very little Mr. NckerSha also said that the payment of poll tax brought the IuuS avail able to the Road Commission from three and half m- lions to five millions It Is pity that Delegate to COl press would gve such an example of eXaggerauOn as tS 1t is safe to say perhaps that all the poll taxes collected in Alaska did not amount to tenth part oI the sum Sug gested. .,4 .5.
 But with regard to the road building; It might edu cate some of those new arrivals to tell them that hundreds of miles of good roads have been built in the territory ana in places where road building was exceedingly dihcmr The employees of the road commission m many places are the pioneers and their bases o supplies are often very Tar away so that the expenses of building are very great bu
 in spite of the many drawbacks splendid systems oI wagon roads exist in different camps Ot c0Se l0Se peOpe have never seen the fine roads traversng the iahan valley They do not know the difficulties besettmg the work in building splendid highways over the tundraS m the Nome division Ruby has recently gone on record as thanking the Commission for the fine road to Long creek
 road which itself is about forty miles m length LeaV ng aside altogether the members of the Commission one need only mention men like Dan Jones' John Lug, BOO Somners and our Anton Eide, SupeIlntendenJS OI road buding in the various divisions to show that Alaska has been lucky in the who build its trails The other day bridge was built on Cache creek and this reminds one that one bridge alone near Nome over Nome nVer cost twenty thousand dollars and had to cost that much o be any good And there are such bridges and roads in every camp from Ketchkan to Gold Run Even in Circle city you can travel on roads built by the Commission Faraway Idarod has its roads to the creeks Even Ioo vana has road from Fairbanks. Oh heavens, man who knows anything about Alaska and it's camps knows what the Road Commission has done He could talk and write for hours about the work and the roads that have been built One who just took ship Seward and never got any further does not know and such man when he speaks only blows in bissu ignorance of his own ignorance The Gateway simply saying all this because considers 1t its duty to tell the truths which has learned by many years of experience in different parts of the territory There no defense of the Commission needed It IS merely mat ter of justice and it hopes that this will be the last time it will have to alude to the subject.