The Alaska daily empire., 1923-08-07
FOOL REFORMERS'' WERE AT THE
 BOTTOM OF IT.

Harold Phelps Stokes one Of the best and m scientious writers on American ploties and eco s. but an Fastener to whom has been sold Dry of conservation, writing in the New Y t, under a Seward telegraphic date line, says:
 This trip of President Harding to Alaska has, l believe. effectively disposed of the no- ton that what was chiefly holding the Ter ritory back was Federal Government re- mote blind bound up in red tape, and dom mated by lot Of fool reformers who wanted to lock up it's resources forever
 In his last annual report Gov. Scott Bone officially sponsored thiF doctrine. which has been seduously cultivated by Secretary Fail and his successor Secretary Work. in their efforts to center control of natural resources in the Department Of the Interior. Of course. 1t was promptly hailed the very gospel of salvation by all those private interests which hate the name of Clifford Pinchot, because they think that he and his successors in the conservation movement deprived them of their legitimate opportunities
 The hypothesis 1 speak Of doubly per neious because it raised so many false hopes If Government red tape and Govern ment wrongheadednees were responsible for the stagnaton of the territory that Gov. Bone likes ct talk about why then this visit of President Harding would surely work magic. Red tape would be cut out. policies changed and, preetc, the land would flow with milk and honey, with gold, silver, and pulp.
 or course nothing Of the sort is going to happen and now the President knows il; and he has had to go up and down the countr, singing "Oh Ever So gently and tactfully that the millennium is not about to descend on Alaska that il must be slow process of development, that the qualities Of the pioneers cooperating with the trans portation line which has now been opened he had just driven the golden spike and was mofalizing about twill do more to work out the development of this wonderland than anything which the Government of the United States could do.
 Even l write the President has shut himself up in his cabin for the afternoon to prepare his speech al Seattle which is to be something in. the way of report on Alaska l can well imagine the embarrassment when he tackles that task for he came up here with great bare of trumpets The Gov ernment had mismanaged Alaska and every thing had gone wrong. He would come up here, find out what the matter and set 1t right Now he knows he can't set it right.
 No man alive could set it right all at once, not if he were gifted with infinite wisdom and granted unlimited authority. for the fate of Alaska lies in the lap of those gods who work through natural and econ omic law and they are jealous gods and their mills grind slowly
 Pity President Harding sitting al his desk there looking out through his portbole at the snow mountains that ring Resnrreo tion Bay trying to enuncate a policy and program that will bend those lofty peaks to his will
 Here is the doctrine I refer to as il ap- pears in the opening paragraphs of the report of the Governor Of Alaska to the Secretary or the Interior for the year 1922 have heard it phrased even more vigorously and M ,,l..
 10 Gov. Pinchot and his school by persons not under the inhibitions of official utter ance
 Stagnation was Alaakas portion under academic treatment for q decade and more Theory did net spell progress but a positive going backward. Conservation policies en- tailed a blighf If the argument sometimes strongly advanced, that Alaska's rich re- sources should be preserved for posterity be valid, Ii would be equally and increasingly valid as the centuries roll on and the Ter riiory remained forever hermeticaly sealed. bht common sense answers that hoarding is not conservation and that natures laws. eyer pehencieht' call for minimum of artificial protection and dcctrina1 acceleration.'
 l might interrupt this recital right thera 10 remark that the conservationists them selves characterize this talk about how they are out 10 Jock up Alaskas resources as downright misrepresentation They insist that no responsible oonservationist from the days when MT. pnchot was Chief Forester down to date shas ever advocated that the natural resources of Alaska be so hoarded forever dramatically sealed
 The great natural forests of Alaska are today open 10 exploitation and those in charge Of them anxious to see them exploited. az Gov. Bone himself points out elsewhere.
 No, Mr Stokes has il all wrong Governor B 'bsoiutiey right Pinchot conseryationists t of fool reformers. were responsible for ruption Of Alaskan development. When u