The Alaska daily empire., 1919-10-22
THE ALASKA BUREAU AND WHAT
 II IS DOING ARE DESCRIBED

telephone rang. tooi up the re-
 veiver.
 Gan you tell me where the Alaska Engineering Commission is located ?" asked a mans voice. 1t is NOT in the telephone book.
 Look again." said as sweetly as
 possible. Tt is located at the Bel Street terminal"
 Then gentleman from Chicago breezed in, all hurry and importance
 T represent wholesale clothing house. Can you let me have a list of all the merchants in Alaska, and say-can I get to Dawson without going into Canadian territory? Cant sell in Canada and have no time tc waste. How long will it take me tc see all the merchants, and have you any idea as to expenses? What kind of accommodations do the boat. offer? Have crossed the Atlantic 3c times. How long do the boats re main in port? Do they serve de cent meals? What sort of clothing do the people wear? What kind of stores do they have? Is the trip very tedious?
 I showed him Charles Goldstein's fur catalogue just received and some of the stores pictured in the albums.
 Say! This is great! but where do they buy? Had no idea there was anything of this importance
 left him looking over the ads in the Juneau Empire, wondering in my own mind if the passage of the ST. 100000 appropriation bill for the com pletion of the government railroad in Alaska by the House of Represen tatives at Washington had not been the means of defiecting this Atlantic crosser's course Pacficward. Was Seattle to be cheated out of her mar gins?
 Have you any idea what salaries are paid fish and fur inspectors il' Alaska?" incurred modest yout' from somewhere. Are those pos tions under civil service?'
 "What are the prospects for phy sician in Alaskan" This from young naval officer wearing glasses "No," he continued apologetically I've never been there. Am marrief' and. my wife wants me to leave th' navy and settled down. She was teacher, and our minds have beer turning Alaskaward."
 The minds of many of Uncle Sam boys in blue and boys in khaki ha' been turning "Alaskaward" judgin' by the questions asked, and it wa wonderful how many of them ha' or hoped to marry, teacher willing to help them get start our Hast frontier" Some wantef to be stock raisers,-one young fel low wrote to inquire what reindeei would weigh dressed for market, and where he could buy reindeer fo breeding purposes. A young soldier who had seen Is months service in France thought he might make goo' as a deputy marshal in Alaska. and asked many questions about judicial divisions and appointments. Anothe! fellow, a sailor, had fishing in mine and wanted to know where he couif buy fishing boat and what it woul' cost; also the price paid for salmon at canneries.
 Stenographers, teachers, private secretaries, telegraphers, store clerk and bookkeepers seemed possessed with a mania for going to flask; and few of them had the price of ? ticket. It was a red letter day wher a large smiling woman entered the bureau library and asked what the chances were for a cook and dish washer. I gave her considerate al tention and consigned her to the care of Mir. E. J. White, chief of the Alas ka Bureau of Publicity.
 But position seekers and tourists were by no means the only kind of people who visited the bureau. Men with money to invest spent hours studying the books of maps prepare by Mir. McPherson,-m deplctine every phase of Alaskan resource and industry, in fact a modernizcd flask whose mineral, agricultural, fishing commercial. social, educational, clim atic, maritime, judicial, political, re ligious and governmental develop ment is pictured in such concise man ner as to be apprchendcd at singlt glance; maps which so intereste' President Wilson when shown to him at the nations capital as to make him forget time while examin ing them. Sometimes these capital ists poured over bound volumes of clippings. making pen cilled notes therefrom, and asking scores of questions.
 What value do you place upon these?" I asked one gentleman for whom I had spent an hour hunting data.
 Fifty per cent; neither more nor less," was the answer.
 Sometimes it was copper deposits. sometimes oil they were after, and they ransacked government reports. studied charts. freight rates, labor questions and congressional bills. Alaskan cables. wireless, aerial nav ;roxso. ,,o,o d;souccod iu thu hrraaf