The Alaska daily empire., 1919-10-22

reau provide entertainment for gov. ernment officials returning from a tour of inspection of the Alaskan railroad,-a small matter involving the telephoning to two 250 members of the bureau in the scope of couple of hours. And in the midst of the busiest days there would be commit. tee meetings, sometimes two at a time in the bureau rooms, or confer ences of august bodies of men or matters of state and national impor- tance. Unique among these was a committee of women gathering hand. 'craft for exhibition at a local fair MT McPherson's desk, writing table letters. files, in fact his whole office was draped with lovely and rare specimens of needlework, oddly out of place seemingly when few feet ing international business.
 With every mail from Alaska came bundles of newspapers which had to be looked over, blue-pencilled and placed on reading files. Old ex changes had to be clipped, clippings marked and tabulated under 150 heads, and then forwarded to MT. McPherson at Washington. With these went daily reports of every thing that transpired in the bureau, in order that he might keep in touch with Alaska while performing his al lotted task on the other side of the continent.-the task of impressin2 congressional committees with the truth about Alaska, that the thin end of the bureaus development wedge the final passage of the $17,000,0 900 appropriation for completion of the Alaska railway-might be. secured. Each day brought it's quota of in quiries by letter, phone or visitor. The information gained at first hand by myself during nine years of resi- dence in the various parts of Alaska, enabled me to answer the majority of questions without wasting much time in hunting through the references books and files. But at that it was no soft snap" and small wonder that Miss Lena White. the efficient and tireless worker in the Alaskan cause, wished to visit her parents for a change of atmosphere, however brief
 When MT. Hallowell, assistant tc the Secretary of the Interior, and his very charming wife, visited the bu reau, after the luncheon in his honor tendcred him by the membership Of 'he bureau. he was enthusiastic ir his remarks about the future oi Alaska. lie carried away with him several copies of the pamphlet Alas ka, Our Frontier Wonderland" 8 textbook on modern Alaska prepared by MT McPherson, and requesfe| that I send him dozen extra copies to Washington for distribution among his friends.
 Speaking of that pamphlet: Mis-:
 White and I had sent copy to erc
 of so schools in Seattle named in 8 letter of request, and here were let ters from principals of schools ask ing for a dozen extra copies for use in commercial classes with assur ances that it was repletc with valu able and interesting information thai could not be otherwise be obtained Some three hundred copies of thai pamphlet were mailed in response tC requests received during my four weeks stay at the hureau Each con, required four cents postage. WhC stood the expense? We'll. it's saft to say that the man from the fal north mentioned at the opening o
 this article did not bear any portion of it.
 To me it would appear that ths i, Alaska Bureau has performed ines timable service to the Alaskan causs