Evening star., 1917-01-14

who act as telegraph agents. and GER
tain other army expenses, Which some
of the officers of the government say
should be charged to this account. The
real expense is nearly a half million
dollars a year; and large amount OF
this is borne by the territory. AS d
result. the cost of messages is eXces-
sive The rate from Fairbanks to Seat
tie is 33 cents a word: and, the
minimum message is ten words, this
makes 1t cost $3.50 to send the shortest
telegram out of the country. If one
would send this telegram beyond Seat
tie. he must pay the usual telegraph
rates from that point to the place he
wishes to reach. The rates inside the
territory vary according to distance,
and dispatches range from % cents
upward.
It seems to many of the people here
that the government should reorganize
its telegraph charges They say that it
should look upon this country a de-
veloping proposition rather than as a
commercial one. Alaska has all told
hot more than $4,000 white people.
scattered over a territory almost three
times as large as Germany or France.
"Hhe telegraph system is necessarily
expensive. it has been built as a mill
tary necessity and is used as SUCH the
mated to it. a military message. how
ever trivial. takes precedence of busi-
ness message.
In many of the foreign colonies be-
longing to England and other coun-
tries there is n mixed minimum rate for
ten words to any part of the territory.
This should be so in Alaska. No ten
word message should cost more than
90 cents and nearby messages not over
25 cents. 1t may pay as a developing
proposition to give combined tele-
graph and cable rate of so cents for ten
words from any part of Alaska to
Seattle, with a night letter rate not to
exceed that amount. The telegraph
charges here should be arranged much
the same as the mails. whereby a two
cent stamp will carry letter to any
part of our country. This is especially
SO in Alaska, where the mails are
necessarily slow. and the telegraph is
the only means of quick communica-
ton.
During my stay at Fort Gibbon had
Il talk with a young army officer who is
now in charge of the telegraph lines
and wireless stations of the valley of
the Yukon. l refer to Lieut.. l.. T. Ma
son. who has served in the Philippines
and elsewhere. and who, for the past
two or three years. has been the chief
signal service officer in that part Of
Alaska.
Lieut.. Mason's district covers MANY
thousand square miles. reaching all
along the Yukon from the Canadian
boundary to BerlnE sea and including
Nome and the Seward peninsula. 4
large part of this territory is periodi-
cally visited by him. Last winter he took
one trip of several thousand miles.
travelling by dog team over the ice and
snow. He first. went to St. Michael. near
the mouth of the Yukon. and thence
over to Nome On his return he went
up to Fairbanks and from thence to
Eagle. near the Canadian frontier. and
then drove down on the ice of the
Yukon to Fort Gibbon.
This trip took more than four months,
I'D the whole of it was on sled or
cn foot. During the journey to Nome
Lieut.. Mason used a sled only, and
later had combination of a toboggan
md sled. The difference between the
Two is that sled has runners, while
she toboggan has fat bottom which
slides over the snow. His team con-
sisted of seven dogs. and he had only
one man along with him. During my
talk with Lieut. Mason | asked him
how he stood the intense cold He re-
piled:
The weather was not bad, and we
made 1t a rule not to travel when the
fell to more than 40 de-
grees below zero. We slept either in
the roadhouses along the way or in
a camp tent which we carried with us.
We could usually make an Indian hut