The Nenana news., 1923-01-20

railroad and that increase in the population and business preceded and increase in transportation fac ilities and was the sole, and direct cause of the increase and better ment in transportation. The writer frankly admits that he does not know which was first, the hen or the egg, but he does know that transportation does not infallibly create traffic while traffic will in- fallibly create transportation. There fore, the conclusion Is inevitable that Alaska's problem IS to create traffic. IL isn't even necessary to think about transportation, much less worry and agonize about it. When a man takes g good strong dose of carbolic acid he is wasting energy to worry about the result. The natural result will follow. Ma ture Is still wonderful-and cer- tain. Natural laws are entitled to more confidence than Washington or Olympia or Juneau laws, which after all are only statutes, and most of them like pie crust. 4 law is not law unless at carries with it an inevitable penalty.
 That transportation is not an A. laskan problem is easily proven by past experience, and it is on past experiences that we base our ex- pecrations for the future. The dis coyery of gold in the Klondike, not Tn Alaska at all, but in Canada two hundred miles from the information al boundary, was the event that snatched Alaska the unknown out of obscurity and concentrated upon t the eyes of the world. The Nome discovery a year later magnified it's prominence. Before those discov- cries there was very little trans portation service to Alaska. Practi- caly none on the Yukon River. Comparatively no one wanted 10 go to Alaska. Ten times the service then in operation would not have caused any more people to go than did go. Then came the gold discov- cries and the great gold excitement and stampede. Ten thousand, twen- ty thousand, fifty thousand, one hundred thousand people wanted transportation for themselves and their supplies to Wrangell, to Dyea, to Skagway, to Chilkoot, to Valdez to Nome. Did they get it? Only a fool would say no. Was it main tained as long as there was de- nand for 1t and business to support and justify it? Yes, positively. Dur ing the summer of 1900 there were about seventy vessels in the road stead at Nome at one time, and a. bout ten thousand people were landed at Nome during June of that year. Would the sailing of seventy vessels from Seattle last June for Nome have caused ten thousand people to go to Nome, or caused the shipment of any more cargo? No, most positively Would the sailing have caused the ship ment of one more ton of freight o- couSa1 3,,=4 o,a r~oro. --.--.. : z, go to Nome than did go anyway? Again, No. If ten thousand people had wanted to go from Seattle would that fact have caused the sail ing of seventy vessels from Seattle or whatever number would have been necessary to carry the ten thousand passengers? Yes most pos itively.
 When two trains per week will handle all the business will the op- eration of six trains each way be- tween Anchorage and Fairbanks in- stead of two cause the discovery or development of any mineral pros poets or the clearing of any land and raising of wheat? Can Fair banks agricultural district ship any wheat before raising it? Can the railroad by running empty trains induce or force settlers to go into the country and clear land and raise and ship wheat or can settlers by going into the country clearing land and raising wheat and offering it for shipment induce or force the