The Cordova daily times., 1919-11-19
RAILROAD IS
 ESSENTIAL TO
 DEVELOPMENT

descence of the mining industry by the accomplishment of economical transportation from the open waters of the Pacific to the navigable water ways of the Interior" according to J. l.. McPherson, manager of the Alaska bureau of the Seattle Cham Der of Commerce, in report submit ted to the committee on territories, when the subject of the appropriation for the completion of the railway project in Alaska was before that body for consideration.
 "The present avenues of communi- cation are long, circuitous and costly water routes, open for only five months of the year." continued MT McPherson, "the expense of which is deterrent of development throughout the vast interior of Alaska, except only of the richer placer deposits, and this condition gave rise to the waste ful methods which have resulted in creaming the gold fields.
 The discovery of rich placers at tracted to the Alaska interior a sturdy type of men and women and resulted in the discovery of large areas of low grade placer ground, which, with the economies made possible by rail transportation, may be made com mercially profitable; of the extensive quartz deposits, a number of which have been profitably worked despite a fuel cost of from SIP to SIS per cord for wood deposits of antimony, tungsten, placer tin and other valu- able metals, and of large areas of arabic land suitable for grazing and the raising of the hardier grains and vegetables. The development of these resources is, however, almost wholly dependent upon economic transporta- tion facilities, which can best be SUD- piled by the Alaskan railroad, now un- ucI COll0 U uItloll by lllC 6oNOl liiliCiit' These people, looking forward to the early completion of the railroad, have been courageously hanging on and working at loss in many instances, in the belief that with cheaper trans portation it would be possible for them successfully to develop these resources and build for themselves comfortable homes and permanent industries. The limit of ability to contend with pres ent uneconomic conditions has been reached. They must stop unless re- lief is soon furnished War condi- tions. have added to their burdens. The gold-mining industry was the first to be adversely affected by the rapid increase in costs, and as these ad vanced costs could not be passed on to the consumer, operations were largely curtailed. As the present principal industry of the Alaskan in terior is gold mining, that section was most seriously anected.
 'The present conditions in the re- zion to be served by this project are no criterion on which to base the ul- innate traffic possibilities, but they do tend to show the region is poten- tially rich in mineral and other re- sources, which, if rationally devel- oped on a broad, constructive plan, nent industries, the establishment of permanent population, and ulti- mately in a large and profitable traf- fife. If the building of railroads through a new country awaited the growth of a sufficient traffic to war rant their construction, none of our pioneer transcOntinental railroads would have been built, and our pres ent frontier, instead of being in Alaska, would probably be east of the Rocky mountains. Traffic for the Alaskan railroad will come from the facilities and economics afforded by the improved transportation. It has been only during the last few years that even those best able to judge would concede that Alaska will be a land of permanent and prosperous people. No one grasped the full ex- tent of her vast undeveloped wealth of natural resources.
 "The climate will not prove any bar rier to the development of Alaska, and will be no deterrent to those ac- customed to similar climatic condi- tions. Success will be attained through settlement by men and women from northern climates, and these will find that the climatic con-