The daily progressive-miner., 1919-04-01
Continued from yesterday)
The Project Is Left Disiointed And
 Wrecked

1 From Mile 225, at Taikeetna. there
 is an unconstructeo gap of 14S miles,
 to Mile 373 on the Nenana River; i there is also an unconstructed gap in ! the narrow gauge line between Ne mana and Fairbanks. no provision or estimate has been made for bridge
 actoSs the Panama River. which makes the gap doutly difficult, for no coal
 may reach the Fairbanks mining
 camps until further action by Con-
 eress The project is thus left in a dis
 jointed demoralized and wrecked
 condition, with the various parts of constructed road north of Matanuska Junction entirely useless until, in some future time. they can be united
 and combined into enc complete thru i line. Immediate loss and depreciation and immoderate expense for protection and watchmen must follow the cessa- tion of construction while waiting for future legislation and appropriations. No part of this disjointed main line north of Matanuska Junction-more than one-half the whole line mileage i is capable of performing useful sery ice in this dismembered condition. ] Unless Congress shall make imme-
 diatc provision for closing these gaps
 and completing the main line to Fair banks, the whole project, except the | Matanuska Branch, is a waste. The relief from excessive rates On the ] Yukon and Panama Rivers so long ex- pected by the mining, mercantile and home-making interests of these river i regions will be postponed indefinite i lv, and the White Pass and Yukon
 Route steamboat monopoly in the riv-
 CTS will have gained all it fought for before the Senate Committee on Ter ! ritories ill 1914-because of the aban- | donment of the mcompleted through 1 line.
 i Bureaucratic Railroad Construction 1 In the light of experience it is plain that it was mistake to attempt to 1 build this railroad through a new Bu- reau organized in the Interior De
 partment. The Act authorizing the construction provided a well devised plan for doing it by contract. But you declined to ask for competitive
 bids, to let a contract for construct ing the whole job, or any large part of it, and formed the elaborate Bureau called the Alaska Engineering Com- mission, in the Interior Department and began it's construction by day wages.
 On page 763-5 of the Book of Esti- mates. 1920. that organization isl spread out for official inspection, headed by three Commissioners, each drawing s10,000 year salary, great- CT sum than either of them ever be- fore received There they are -E Commissioners, Managers, Superintend ents, Editors, Disbursing Officers, etc. -726 of them. all drawing high annu- ! al salaries, winter and summer, !. whether they work Or not, for build ! ing a pioneer railroad line in Alaska. | Then follows a long line of lesser Of ficials,-Foremen, Pack Masters, Cap | tains, Stewards, Engineers Electri- | cians Sawyers, Butchers, Bakers, etc, --1345 other men who draw good wag- es but who do not build railroads,-a total of 2,071 non-railroad builders in | the Organization or overhead" class
 On page 765 is the list of laborers, railroad 'builders,-the pick and shov- el men'-4they who build grades, lay ties, place rails and spike the road to- gether 2,061 in number,-less than 50 percent of the total number of em-
 ployees. And that conditions has been
 the rule since the Alaska Engineering Commission began the creation of this
 Bureau in 1914-there have been morel civil employees in the / offices and
 yards than laborers in the construc-
 tion camps There has been perfec- ton in bureaucratic organization, ex cessive overhead attachments, gross expenditures for plant and useless
 buildings, and too little attention toI
 the grading and track laying along
 the main line.
 Look at the estimate on page 765
 for payment of employees for the ifs cal year 1920, salaries S967,295"
 wages" s305.465," Salaries" in the
 bureaucratic organization. Wages" to
 railroad builders. Seventy-five per cent for overseeing, and twenty-five
 percent for construction work. Notice, too, that the 25 percent includes a
 large number of employees who do not construct railroads,-so the true
 sum to be paid to actual railroad
 builders is really much less than 25 percent Of the total sum expended for salaries and wages.
 The following statement was prepar-