The Cordova daily times., 1921-08-18


 United States shipping board going into service. where the traffic losses would be so great, but rather to bring out the fact that the ene- mics of Alaska invariably select the transportation question as the one thing to be attacked and invariably the fact given in rebuttal cause these attacks to recoil on their own heads Nothing is quite so dangerous as for layman to endeavor to work out any transportation problem, but when he goes to steamboating and especially steamboating in Alaskan waters, he must be a shipping stu dent of northern traffic and operat- ing conditions before he can intelli- gently grasp even an apparently su- perficial steamship question.
 A great many different companies have been operating to and from Alaska during the last forty years, and during that entire period no company has operated its fleet nor has any individual operated a single vessel where the fleet or the vessel were filled to capacity, either freight or passengers, during the en- tire season.
 We have a copy of the weekly news letter. Volume &, No. 49 pub lished by the United States depart. ment of agrculture. The leading article therein deals with tue pulp wood resources of Alaska and the article is evidently furnished by the forestry bureau. The article is unimportant in itsel', as 1t Is mostly repetition O, general knowledge pertaining to the extent of the for ests of Alaska. But the Big Stick having been applied tC this, along with other bureaus, the forestry service by this Innocent little article is evidently applying a nice coat of whitewash and for that reason we cannot allow 1t 10 pnss unnoticed.
 The forestry bureau, Tor many years past. has been one of the most inefficient and impractical of all the inefficient and impractical bureaus of Washington. It's alminis tration of it's Alaska reserves has been nothing short of a crime. Con nseryatiOn as applied to Alaska was based upon the demands of the wealthy and influential lobby of east ern coal operators of the Atlantic, who were and, even before the Alas. ka land withdrawals, had been sup plying naval vessels ou this coast with fuel The coal situation was purposely obscured in the great 1 conservation craze and the most un- heard of valuation was placed upon the timber of the north. A sentiment being created against the ruthless waste of timber, the coal mines were prevented from being opened to the detriment of the Atlantic coal lobby. | And mark this well; the value of | forests of Alaska was almost nil when speaking of commercial lum- Der. For if there is any value to the greater portion of those forest reserves it can only be in the value | of minerals or oil located thereon, | plus the use of the timber for cut 1 ting as pulp wood No amount of talk can ever change the actual | facts in the case. Conservation in l Alaska was the crime of the century and it was successfully put over by a lobby wishing to prevent the de velopment of extensive coal meas ures in the north,
 That crime was committed some fifteen years ago and 1t has cost this country hundreds of millions. Today Alaska Is stagnant, yet it contains within it's borders untold riches tightly locked up by this bu- reaucatic rule and at this moment, when the political cry is a demand to unlock the doors eastern coal has a fifteen-year grip on the navy bunk ering trade on the Pacific; Canada and the Scandinavian countries a fifteen.year grip on the pulp trade, while the same number of years have been lost in the prospecting and development of minerals on the reserves.
 The new railroad is beautifully built but the future traffic is beau tifully concerved. There isn't any.
 But to be entirely fair, is 1t not natural for our senators or repre-