Seward daily gateway., 1925-12-15

Alaska Railroad to SeWarQ The nS- cal year report for 1926 will show an increase of travel by this route. M
 scrappine the Railroad
 Talk of scrapping the Alaska Rail- road has been revived. Whether the railroad should ever have been built l is now beside the question. We have l it, and to abandon it despote the loss in its maintenance, would amount to reversion of the American policy of progress. This railroad was completed only in June of 1923 It's construction was hurried and some of it's structures are flimsy and temporary in character, menaced by glacial rivers, and it's tracks are underlaid by ice at some fdepth the year round. All of which makes it's upkeep expensive and out of proportion to it's earnings.
 When the construction of the Alaska Railroad was originally proposed the claim was made that with adequate transportation facilities mines in the 1 interior of Alaska would be opened and flourish. In 1915 these minerals were valued at S32,790,O00. By 1924 they had decreased to $17,457 ,000. Production of coal in Alaska in com petition with the States has not been feasible. Neither has the cost of pro- ducing other miners been sufficiently profitable to attract capital although the Government has provided the means of shipping them out.
 Conversion of the right of way of this railroad to truck highway, con- | fstruction of branch railroad from Portage Creek to Portage Bay, aban- donment of the line from Anchorage to Seward entirely, or the use of that division only in summer, largely for tourists, have all been suggested. There is little commercial use for a railroad between Anchorage and Sew ard as both are seaports. It might be maintained in summer, it is sug- gested, as a pleasure road and the freight carried to Anchorage by water. Automobiles require hard-surfaced roads. These could hardly be built in Alaska for less than s5O,OOO a mile for surfacing and widening of the railway right of way. There are no such roads at present constructed in Alaska and the effects of extremely cold weather on them is unknown. The alternate freezing and thawing of the surface in Alaska would be dis astrous to truck roads, whether hard
 urfaced or not. Gravelsurfaced roads are now impracticable in Alaska for heavy trucks except in periods when the roads are frozen
 Automobile traffic would encounter similar instructions from slides in winter as do the railroads; their re- moval would be more expensive than similar clearing from a railroad right of way.
 Looking Forward
 Alaska is rapidly becoming Host province" Without the inspiration of elf-government or freedom of local initiative, opportunity for expansion has been curtailed by bureau officials made hesitant by limited authority. K Alaskans have not been encouraged to develop pride of territorial growth l or independence of administration. The maximum population of 75,000 whites has shrunken to 10000 and production from it's natural resources wavers and recedes.
 Inevitable Alaska must compete in the markets with it's products Climate and sail and transportation are deter mining factors in agricultural competi tion and are necessarily weighed when development work of any sort is con templated. Climate and soil condi tions are fixed by nature. Transpor tatiOn costs can only be eliminated by home production and consumption
 The situation of Alaska calls for a prompt sympathetic study by Con gress. Its natural resources and their possibilities; it's methods of govern ment and their effect; the attitude which we should assume toward it whether governmental control should be constructive in type, or continue to cultivate dependency, or be re- moved entirely, should be weighed by the legislative branch of Government The suggestion that all of the Govern ment's activities in Alaska be merged into one department should have the immediate consideration of Congress
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