Valdez daily prospector., 1916-10-25
wILFUL ExAGGERATION.


 It often happens that a man who has not spent much time in Alaska or who has not been in more than one or two parts of Alaska is unable to appreciate what has been done all over the Territory For instance, new arrivals in the Territory cannot pos sibly see what has been done in the matter of road building. It must be said that there is little excuse for the manner in which Delegate Wick ersham spoke about road building in his speech in Seward. Whether 1t had been prepared for or not cannot be said, but in answer to his question from the platform men in the audi ence sadi something about six miles of roads here and seven miles of road there and so on, giving the impress sion that the work done was very lit- tie. MT. Wickersham also said that the payment of poll tax brought the funds available to the Road Commis- sion from three and half millions to five millions. It is a pity that a Del egate to Congress would give such a |, example of exaggeration as this. It is safe to say. perhaps, that all the poll taxes collected in Alaska did not amount to a tenth part of that sum.
 But with regard to the road build ing: It might educate some of those new arrivals to tell them that hun dreds of miles of good roads have been built in the territory and in many instances in places where road build ing was exceedingly difficult. The employees of the road commission in many places are the pioneers and their bases of supplies are often very far away, so that the expenses of building are very great. But in spite of the many drawbacks splendid sys- tems of wagon roads exist in differ ent camps. Of course these people have never seen the fine roads travers- ing the Panama valley. They do not know the difficulties besetting the work in building highways over the tundras In the Nome division.
 Ruby has recently gone on record as thanking the Commission for the fine road to Long Creek, a road which itself is about 40 miles in length.
 Leaving aside altogether the mem- bers of the Commission one need only mention men like Dan Jones, John Zugg, Bob Sommers and our own An ton Eide, superintendents of road building in the various divisions, to show that Alaska has been lucky in the men who build it's trails. The other day a bridge was built on Cache creek and this reminds one that one bridge alone near. Nome, over Nome river, cost twenty thousand dollars and had to cost that much to be any good.
 And there are such bridges and roads in. every camp from Ketchikan to Gold Run. Even in Circle City you can travel on roads built by the Com mission. Faraway Iditarod has its roads to the creeks. Even Tolovana has a road from Fairbanks.
 Oh, heavens, any man who knows anything about Alaska and its 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 to Seward and never got any farther does not know and such a man when he speaks only blows in blissful ignorance of his ignorance. The Gateway is simply saying all this because 1t considers it its duty to tell the truths which it has learned by many years of experience in different parts of the territory.
 There is no denfense of the Con- mission needed. It is merely a matter of justice and we hope that this will be the last time it will have to allude to the subject.-Seward Gateway.