The Cordova daily times., 1920-09-03
(From Literary Digest)

UnCl6 sam ueouS HlOlt COdl, WOOu pulp, fuel oil, and other essential material supplies from Alaska. These seem to be the outstanding facts en- phasized by the recent visit of Sec retary of the Navy Daniels to our northern territory. The secretaries, reports J. J. Underwood in the Seattle Times, found that by establishing a coal base midway between the Orient and the United States on the Aleu- tian peninsula, the shipping board vessels plying between Seattle and the Orient could save a thousand [> tons of cargo-carrying capacity on Deach voyage, or enough to pay for it. self through increased earning capa- city within a period of ten years. This would also make it unnecessary to ship coal from Virginia and Pennsyl- yania to the Pacific fleet. Further more, says this paper, both secre- taries are very much concerned over the threatened shortage of fuel oil as the United States shipping board operates many oilburning naval yes sells because of their increased steam radius, speed and fighting capacity, and these are not easily changed to coal-burners Alaska's oil resources, we are told, are just beginning to be exploited.
 That Alaska needs more home rule 7 for the prompt and efficient devel- opment of her vast natural resources is the contention of many papers in widely separated parts of the union. Washington should give the Alaskan territorial government wider discre> tion, for Washington can not know Alaska's needs" argues the Syracuse Post-Standard; and Secretary Payne is quoted in the New York Times as saying: What Alaska needs is more men and women and less government tai regulations" More specifically the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch tells us that
 Alaska is getting sick and tired of being interferred with in her de- country, who know nothing about conditions up there. There are many real men in Alaska-men who have gone there to make their homes, men who have developed themselves along with the development that has taken place in the country, men who are capable of saying what ought to be done and what ought not to be done.
 The Alaskans ask only that the government create a board of devel- opment the members of which shall be Alaskans, and leave to this board the working out of the destiny of the territory. It is 9 simple request and one that ought to be granted as soon as congress is in session."
 ~ Mails to and from Alaska are now handled as freights," declares the Seattle Times, consistent champion of Alaska. In other ways, we are told, the people of the territory, six thousand miles from Washington, are poorly represented. True, points out the Times, they are represented in congress by delegate, but he does not have vote. The chief hindrance to good government in territory, declares this paper, is "the burden of federal bureaucracy" Con- tinues the Times:
 Naturalization of Alaskan govern ment in Alaska offers the only so- lution of political and economic problems confronting the northland government should be accorded the territory. The dead hand of Washing ton bureaucracy should be removed from it's affairs.
 "A change in the governments pol icy toward the territory is due in the near future. Having completed railroad there, the Federal au thorities must see to it that the line pays-if not at once, then as speed, fly as possible. There is but one way in which that end may be achieved Alaska must be made at tractive to settlers and investors. The first step must be the bringing of federal control, to whatever extent exercised, closer to the country.
 "A bureaucracy never developed a country! The American West was rescued from the wilderness by in dividual initiative. Ambition to sue ceed in life, to get ahead, to be. come financially independent things, coupled with the spirit o1 adventure, caused men to forsake the comfort and safety of civilization and nross on into the new lands