The Cordova daily times., 1920-04-21
FOOLS OF APRIL

It is plain from the work they are
 doing at Washington and what the
 chairman of the committee before
 whom they are performing says of their work, that the divided Alaska house" in A1aska's interests at Wash ington are not goinng to be able to do any harm this sessiOn-any way you want to take it. When pOliti eians and grafters fall out in pursuit of an advantage, honest men have a
 brief respite from the threat that menaces.
 There they are before a vital com
 mittee at Washington, all and sundry the great men who have been most ly made by being able to claim the
 North as their country, and there and now they are fighting each other to standstill, one side to get leg is1ation giving more power to that side in Alaska, and the other gang fighting to prevent it. They are call ing each other names, and if the com mittee can bring itself to believe that any or all of them can tell the truth, then their rag-cheWing, criminatiOns and recriminatiOns would teach the committee nothing else so we'll as that 1t had better sidetrack the IegisIa- ticn in question until men who can- not be accused of u1terior motives ap-
 pear before that committee in re- gard to said legislation, and Chair man Jones intimates that something like that is due to happen. In the oH8eantime, the real AIaskans can sit back and enjoy the spectacle, now that there seems to be little menace in it-figuring upon probable results. l
 How many Alaskans know those live men who are occupying all the l Alaska limelight at Washington to- day-Semmes, Leehy, BaIlaine, Riggs and Wickersham? How many know them for the enduring monuments they have raised to themselves in Alaska by their own personal efforts and achievements? Wickersham has come closest to having built up in Alaska, although the latter years have seen him mostly attempting to tear down, as in opposition to every thing urged. He built a home in Fairbanks and lived in it several years; ne had many years more than score, on the Alaska payroll through his political ability and his pull. Riggs has had three connec- | tions with Alaska that we know of first skfrting the territory on the boundary survey, next as a commits sioner to help build a railway and next as governor of the Territory. No house built by his hands or for him at his expense marks any part Of Alaska we have ever visited. Bal lafne promoted a townsite and rail way at Seward-the railway was failure and so far as he is concerned the townsite was an Alaska failure, considering his efforts, for the de- linquent tax list of Seward year after year shows the name "Bal1aine" oc- eupying most all of it's descriptions. Leehy and Semmes, we take it, are Seattle lawyers, put on the territor- ial payroll by Riggs, and engaged in the effort to earn their wages-if either of them ever tended bar in Alaska we never heard of it. And, those are the "Big~Five" who repre- sent as holding our fate in their hands. If they really do, although we never heard it intimated that they do, then sa1tpeter won't save Alaska.
 Those men, or their representatives are the men who are telling the world | through Henry Ford's Weekly that AIaska's resources are so tied up and | conserved that the poor prospector can't take logs from the public do- main to build cabin for himself, or wood from the trees to keep that | cabin warm. What the (hec) do they suppose the prospector and miner live in, if not cabins, or how they keep warm in winter? Wouldn't | tslat jar you? And wouldn't you