The Cordova daily times., 1918-10-10

opponent stated that the law passed by congress year ago. dispensing with the necessity for doing assess mont work on mining claims during tn" years 1917 and 1918. did not apply tu Alaska and that those who had failed to do this assessment work had left their claims open to relocation, or tu b" "jumpcd.' in other words. He laid the blame for this cOnd.t@- on Delegate SulZ"r. As " lawyer. n" advised clam-holders to do their 2s- scssmcnt work in order to avoiI jay risk of loa:l2 their claims. This DOT tion c. H.s slsy,h W,& approximately "s follows.
 The miners and prospcctors of Ngsay h.1a b,"r abo"iAg under tn" dc,9siou ;hat during the war p'riod they would not Dy compelled to do the "ruua! @sacssm"nt work on their mining claims. They gained this im- precision through the passage of a bill by the national congress suspend in. the operation of that section of the United States mining law 1ciat ing to annual assessment work dur. ing the period of tn" war T'.H l. ' urallv supposed that the suspension of this section of tho federal mining law applied to Alaska as well as the United States proper Tn" United States mining laws do not apply to Alaska. and hence th" suspension of any section thereof by act of congress does not apply to the mining laws of Alaska This requires a little further elucidatiOn to make it clear and to show why the United States mining laws do not apply to this territory.
 When Frank Waskey. Alaska s first delegate to congress from Alaska, went to Washington. he thought he had to secure mining law especially applicable to Alaska. He did secure the passage of such an act, which superseded the United States mining laws so far as this territory was con ccrned Later at the first session or the Alaska legislative assembly. an other mining law was enacted Whether this territorial mining law supcrscdes the Waskey mining law is a moot question. But tn" question as to which mining law Alaska is m der. as between the Waskcy act and h, nl aHf nnnpT sideration now. The point l make is trat the suspension of tn" annual as sossmrnt work Or mining claims ap plies to those located under the United States mining laws. The congress did not suspend this section in the Was key act. and of course it did not suS- pend this section in the territorial act. It remains for the territorial legisla- ture to perform that function if 1t so elects. Now. we are under ether the Waskey act or the territorial act, and they differ in many respects. The ma tiOnal congress has not suspended the assessment section of the Waskey act and the territorial legislature has not suspended the assessment section in Had he been on his job 1t would have been an easy matter for the acting delegate, Mir. SulZcr, to have had the congress pass an act suspending the assessment section of the Waskey mining law, but it Is quite apparent that he gave the matter no thought whatever.
 "I point this matter out to miners and prospectors merely for their pro toctioA. If they possess valuable holdings | advise them, as lawyer, that if they wish to protect them they must do the annual assessment work as usual. or they will awake some time to find themselves involved in eXpen- sive litigation, should the claims be come relocated"
 WiIlfuIIy Mslea adins Miners
 Now. l dislike very much to take issue with Judge Wickersham on
 
 cause he is a lawyer, and am not. And l would not presume to do so in this instance were convinced that he meant what he said But am not so convinced In fact. what I am con vinCed of is that Mir Wickersham is willfully misleading the claim-owners of Alaska into doing many thousands Of dollars worth of unnecessary as seasment work on their claims merely for the sake of making case against his opponent. The hardships and OK pcnse to the miners and prospectors involved count as nothing against the political juggling of this friend of Alaska"
 When the law was passed. n year ago, there was much telegraphing be- tween Alaska and Washington to learn