The Cordova daily times., 1920-02-12
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1920
CHANGING MAIL ROUTES

 nercial Club to change the route now used to bring mail into Interior Alaska to Seward and the Broad pass for next winter comes as no surprise to Fairbanks people, who are per fectly familiar with similar efforts which have been made for the same purpose in the past. Its inclusion in a program for the development of the Interior is also not surprising to those who have watched the methods of the club in the past.
 Fairbanks realizes that the days of the Fairbanks -Chitina mail route are numbered; that the time is coming when faster, surer and more eff sient service can be had, and when the time does come no one will well come it more heartily than will Fair banks. If the present route is un- satisfactory to Nenana, it is much nore so to Fairbanks, where many nore interests are to be served and more people are demanding mail The creeks adjacent to this town draw through the local office for more mail than Nenana itself, exclusive of the commission, distributes. All of the patrons of the local postoffce will welcome the time when the time re- 4aired for mail transportation can be cut to the shortest possible limit But Msst of them doubt that it can be aene next winter
 Nenana asserts that it can be brought in next winter in two days less time than it will take on the present route. The club, however, makes an unsupported assertion. It produces no figures to substantiate it's claim, probably for the reason that none are available. It might be pos sible for Nenana local mail to arrive earlier by that route; it wouldn't hurt the case to concede that it could. But that it would shorten the time of de- livery to the other sections of the Interior by so much as a single hour is something that has got to be proven. It is fatuous reasoning that would conclude that the delivery of mail to Nenana day, or even two days, sooner than is now being done would add to the development of In- terior Alaska. Nenana is primarily a railroad town, built around a con- struction camp, fostered by the gov- ernment for the protection" of it's employees from vice and disease that has always heretofore existed in all frontier railway construction centers. Economic reasons had no place in it's foundation as a town; it filled no demand caused by Alaska develop nent. We say these things without any intention of knocking, and be- cause they are self-evident. Having come into being, there is no more ex- euse nor justification for Fairbanks knocking Nenana than for Nenana to knock Fairbanks. Common sense de- nands that both towns unite in work ing for the salvation of the territory. It is wasted energy for one town to try and take away something that the other has. A commercial club seek ing to justify it's existence by such enterprises is a parasitic growth on honest business interests. It's first duty is to go after new things. Pro- mote harmony between towns instead of discord and factional bitterness.
 The situation in Interior Alaska to- day requires the united effort of every iRhabitant in securing remedies for it. And it can't be improved by changing a mail route from Cordova te Fairbanks to Seward to Nenana The immediate hope of the Interior is it's gold industry The very exist eace of that industry is threatened by high costs of operations. Every ounce of energy possessed by the Nenana Commercial Club, the Fairbanks Com nercial Club and all other interests,