The weekly Alaska citizen., 1918-05-06
SHORTAGE OF MEN WILL DELAY COMPLETION OF RAILROAD FOR
 TWO YEARS; MUCH DATA GIVEN

dUic HOOu OI water, Wnlle III the winter it pushes slowly forward again. Just now we run the line up on a trestle, high above the gravels, but the glacier, working away, has always the capacity to change the entire topography of the country. Still. the difficulty is not insurmountable."
 As was done at Panama, the com mission has proceeded to its task without any intervening contractor The actual labor has been performed by "stationmen," hard-bitten set of old hands, who have come through the era of railroad constructing in the west. Each of them, or per. haps a pair or group, agrees to construct 100 linear feet of the grade whether it involves cutting down through a hill. building up from a swamp. or blowing out the hard rock at a price based on quantity and type of material moved. Then they set their own pace, and their own hours, and literally work wonders The commission, standing behind. or. ganizes their commissary, tools, and equipment.
 Our figures indicate that the av. craze scale of wages we paid dur. ing 1917 would work out around $500 year." Chairman Edes said but it actually doesn't run a year for more than a part of the men because of the seasonal character of the work. have no doubt that we shall have to revise our wage scales upward this spring, for Alaska is not now the high-wage country that it was"
 As a side issue to railroading, the commission operates, on small scale, coal mines at Matanuska, on a branch line 3S miles from the trunk, and is doing some port dredg ing at Anchorage, and building docks and coal bunkers at Anchorage and Seward. It is also operating sec. tions of the line, in a sketchy sort of a fashion, incident to the con struction, with a passenger rate of six cents a mile.
 To date, $23,67O,00O has been spent upon the enterprise, out of a $35, 100000 estimate for the total cost which estimate Secretary Lane has raised to $40.O00,OOO because of high. CT costs of labor and materials. Lieut. Col. Frederick Mears, borrowed from the army for Panama railroad pur poses, was a member of the commits sion, but has recently been returned to the army, for railroad building in France, and in his regiment has in. cluded an appreciable number of the men of the Alaskan commissions $ staff. Thomas Riggs, the third mem Der, has been named by the Presi dent to be go eInor of Alaska
 One stretch of the main line amounting to 70 miles, was pur chased for a little over $1,0OO, ,O0O while more recently the commission 4cquired for $3O0,OOO 45-mile stretch of narrow gauge road, run ming out of Fairbanks to Chatanika All of the rest has been or will be built.
 As to whether the road will pay the commission ventures no predic. tion, and considers present traffic nc guide to possibilities.
 Since the United States took close to billion dollars from Al aska, the government has adopted the policy of making this return.' Chairman Edes remarked. land prob ably does not worry about the re suits. All our construction amounts to pioneering. Both the mineral and agricultural possibilities of the area opened are quantities virtually un known, and the railroad itself must be the final factor required to prove or disprove their value"
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