The daily progressive-miner., 1919-04-02
(Continued from yesterday)
Waste In The Nenana Division

(Contnued rom Yesterday)
 Waste In The Nenana Division
 In the organization of the Alaska l Engineering Commission in May 1914,
 you designated Thomas Riggs, Jr., a
 member thereof, at salary of $10,000
 per year and put him in charge of ! construction north of Broad Pass, in
 the Tanana district, with headquart- I CTS at Nenana. At the time of his ap-
 pointtlent Mn Rigs had never worked on r.. ld, or in railroad work; he had never even surveyed CT 2 railroad
 Or worked in railroad office; and his only acquaintance with railroads was
 as a passenger on railroad trains.
 You had known him intimately for
 many years and had full knowledgs of his experience and incompetency be-
 fore his appointment, His wasa so-
 cial and political appointment and an
 offense against the Alaska railroad project,
 Riggs had charge of construction | work on the Nenana-Fairbanks Divi-i sion for four years-from the time of his appointment as Governor of Alas ka, March '. 1918, During that time
 he had constructed only seventeen miles of main line south from Nenana,
 and but five miles of narrow gauge main line near Fairbanks-22 miles in
 four years! And fourteen miles of
 the main line south of Nenana. built below the flood level of the glacial
 waters of the Nenana River were
 washed out and destroyed by incom potent location, thus leaving him al credit of miles of standard gauge
 main line south of Nenana, and five
 miles of narrow gauge near Fairbanks
 in four years Herewith is g graph ic drawing marked Exhibit A" with two photographs attached which show the conditions on the line south of Ne mana as the same were exhibited to me
 by the officials of the road in Septem-
 Der, 1918,
 The line was originally located be- low the level of the surface of the river and when the summer thaw threw out the, glacial flood it natural ly took down the borrow pits and
 ditch along the railroad grade and, following the laws of nature, cut the grade down like sugar, thus utterly destroying the line for miles as shown photograph "B", Your attention is al so called to photograph 70" on the safe charge for it srows the recon struction of this line by a competent railroad builder on higher ground in September and October 1918,
 On September and ', 1918, in com pany with Engineer-in-Chief Brown and your special examiner, MT w. A. Ryan, I was taken over both these lines the one mdercut and destroyed the other a mile Or two away on higher grcund,-two parallel lines for distance of 25 miles, The recon structed line had been built from Mile south of Nenana, that being the only part of the Riggs road which could be saved on account of incom- petent location. The road was aban- doned from Mile 3 to Mile 2S south of Nenana and rebuilt on the higher level Of the 25 miles destroyed by Were. completed, graded, tracked, sur this incompetent location II miles faced and trains running over it; q bout miles beyond that were graded ready for the track and the other 3 miles were under .construction.
 At the average cost price per main line mile there was loss on the 14 miles of completed road of nearly S2,- | G00000, in addition to the loss of 8 miles of grading, and three miles un- der construction, probably $2,500,0 900, and a years loss of time in the com pletion of the road, and the end of the authorization and appropriations, which effectually forbids the comple tion of the main line over Broad Pass sntil Congress shall pass new legisla- tion and additional appropriations.
 But you will answer. this was just one of those unavoidable accidents in cident to all railroad building. No one knows the weakness of that defense better than you do, for Billy Ryan.has long ago advised you of the true facts--though he has probable prcpar- ed a defense for yu better than the facts will justify. The less ofthose S25 miles of railroad was the result of the l drunken inefficiency of a locating en- < gineer, acting under an incompetent Commissioner in charge of the Ne mana Division, neither of whom ought to have been permitted to handle the { public funds, and would not if you had given the matter that careful at ! tention wlich railroad contractor would have given the job.
 Herewith attached and marked Exr 'litit E, is feftcr addressed to you.