The Cordova daily times., 1921-03-25
WILL NOT STOP WORK STARTED
 ALASKA ROADS

The plan for the seasons work by the Alaska road commission based on an army appropriation of $450,OOO will be continued by the commission just as if the bill had become a law l instead of having been vetoed, ac- cording to Col James G. Steese, president of the commission, who has returned to Juneau. Col Steese has been absent from Juneau since No- vember 1, most of that time having been spent in Washington, in con- neCtion with his official duties.
 Col. Steese expects the army ap- propriation bill to be taken up early in the special session of congress that will convene on April Il. There seems to be no reason to believe that we will get less than the $425,- 900 allowed us by the last congress, and it is possible, of course, that that amount may be increased" said Col. Steese. However, we will proceed on the assumption that our appro- priation will be available by the end of the fiscal year. To do otherwise would result in the loss of many weeks of the best part of the sea son and throw our entire program into confusion and entail serious de- lay.
 "On March 1, We had in the Alas ka fund $130,000 which will carry us probably until May 15," said Col. Steese. "The appropriation can hard ly be made available by that time and if it were not for the co-opera- tive provision of the territorial road law, our position would be somewhat complicated. In fact, if it were not for the cooperative law, the Alaska road commission would be compelled ! to abandon it's program for certain sections and concentrate it's energies on those districts in the territory where there are the greatest number of activities"
 Some of the projects planned, and on which we plan to do actual work this season which would suffer but for the cooperative provisions of the territory" said Col Steese, "are the kantishna-gOyernment railroad pro- ject, the Chatanika-E Eagle creek route, the Ophir-Tacotna road, in the Fourth division; the Cache creek-Talkeetna project, in the Third division; and much of the work proposed for the Seward peninsula. The commission does not mean to minimize the i'm portance of any of this work" stated Col. Steese, but should we be forced to shut down on account of lack of funds, we would be left no alterna- tive but to shut down on some and probably all of them"
 With the cooperative agreement possibly between the Alaska road commission and the territorial road bureau, Col. Steese stated that he was confident that the commission would experience no difficulty in keeping alive all of it's projects until it's full appropriation was available. The commission, he said. expected to do more work than had been under taken for years furnishing employ ment for many men in all sections of Alaska
 Under the army measure which was lost through pocket veto by the then President Wilson, the Alaska road commission, said Col. Steese, was au. thorized to make a survey of the feasibility of extending the narrow guage railroad, now connecting Nome and Sheldon, distance of S6 miles on to Candle, approximately l25 miles farther. If this is consid- cred economical and practical, said Col. Steese, the commission will prob ably recommend the extension and it will be included in the estimates for 1922
 T am certainly glad to get back to Alaska" said Col. Steese, adding that q don't expect to nor want to go back to the states for some time to come" The idea of congress, he said, was to cut off every dollar possible from all requests for appro- priations. He was given an extended hearing before the house committee and was generously treated by the senate committee. The telegrams sent by Alaskan commercial organ izations, and individual citizens to members of congress and especially the senate committee, he said, were of valuable assistance in securing the appropriation finally granted.