The Cordova daily times., 1920-06-11

what effort may be made to dodge the issue or befog the atmosphere by discussion; the fault lies directly with those Bureaus who administer Alaska affairs. in Washington and congress.
 To send out as a member of an Investigating committee an assistant postmaster general, whose bureau was the one directly responsible for the present inferior mail facilities, is one of the very latest illustrations of this unfair treatment Going back over the years that have flown, one only has to recall the stifling and crushing policies applied to Alaska by Clifford Pinchot in his successful plan of bottling up the territorial lands which has successfully blocked all progress and development in those reserves for the past decade.
 But one illustration will suffice to prove the fallacy of the PinchOt theOr- ies. The government railroad is built in part directly through the great Chugach forest reserve, larger in area than the state of Kentucky and one over which Pinchot shed many sentimental tears in his magazine and newspaper articles of ten years Vnt Der used on this railroad, with the ex- cepti0n of a limited amount for tenn porary work and for some of the ties, was imported from the states and laid down on the Chugach forest reserve at an excessive cost The timber on the right-of-way was burned off With nc attempt at salvage
 So that this publication cannot be accused of making any false state tnent, let us quote from the Engineer ing News Record, published rn New York. The article deals with the tim, Der bridge problems on the govern men railways in Alaska and in this article we find this quotation
 Douglas fir is used exclusively, except that Alaska spruce has been employed 70 e Iyuited extent for tenl- ro"aTy structures and few small spans"
 Let it be here recorded that the | !, ,1-rIo4 oer north and south of Anchorage and from the area since occupied by the Anchorage townsite, could have been utilized as supply for a small wood pulp plant located at Anchorage and this small plant could have furnished news print paper sufficient for the government to run off the Congress- l iOnal Record and all those highly in- | ferior press agent sheets which for the last four years have been going into waste baskets in editorial sane tums throughout the continent.
 Clifford Pinchot had that forest re- serve created because it contained, ac- cording to his purely idiotic computa- tion, billions of feet of vulnerable merchantable lumber. Yet when the government actually inaugurates a construction era in that section, It ruthlessly burns what the sainted Pinchot declared was valuable tim ber Then to cap the climax, the railroad construction costs were vis1- bly, increased by hauling most of the lumber needed from Seattle. In sev- eral cases cargoes of lumber were hauled from the Columbia river
 (The Central Pacific was construc- ted with wood burning locomotives
 These are but recent illustrations showing the utter lack of sound judge ment or good practical common sense in the administration of Alaska af- fairs. In succeeding articles the story of the natural resources or the country in their relation to 1ndustr1al development and the indifference shown to Alaska by the government dating from the period of Seward $ purchase more than half a century ago, will be detailed for the benefit of those who have but little concep- tion of the great value of the terri tory and the real reason why US oe- velopment has been repressed. by the most conservative estimate Alas ka has produced an even Dillon ool- lars worth of minerals, furs, fish ana other products of the sea, yet Seward arranged to purchase the territory TOT $7 100000.
 According to the historian, Prol Edmund s. Meany, a friend calleu upon Secretary Seward while he was lying i'll and but short time preceo- his death. The friend asked him what he considered the greatest act Ill HIS nolitical career, and Secretary seward