The Daily Alaska empire., 1931-08-29
FOREST SERVICE STILL FOR ALASKA PULP AND PAPER eDEVEL OPMENT!

The United States Forest Service at Washingtc s strongly opposed to compliance with the reque f the American Paper and Pulp Association tn here be no pulp and paper development in flask The Forest Service has stated it's position throue high official, and it is strongly in favor of u ontinuation of the efforts to push development A Washington letter to the Editor and Publish f New York tells the story as follows:
 If the request of the American Paper and Pulp Association that negotiations for the sale of National Forest pulpwoods in Alaska be halted is approved by the Administration officials that action will be taken over the protest of the U. s. Forest Service. In fact the service has already turned thumbs down the Associations protest but must wait until the matter is passed on finally by Secretary of Agriculture Hyde, who will not return to the capital before the end of the month
 Although the letter of the Association was in the nature of a personal appeal to the President to aid the present newsprint in- dustry, it sidetracked immediately to the Forest Service, where it aroused nothing but indignation. Part of the letter reads as follows:
 Under the conditions present in the ac- companyng survey of the opinion that all pending negotiations should be dropped and that no other offers of Alaskan or other National Forest timber entang paper or pulp mill construction should be made until need arises.
 ITO thrust unwanted production upon overexpanded industry struggling with diminished demand and vanishing profits would make a bad unemployment situation worse and further depreciate a capital in- vestment of over $800.000000 in the United tates, Canada, and Newfoundland.
 "The survey shows there could be no possible gain to the consumers of newsprnt; that the present supplies of pulp-wood are ample, and that the continental newsprint industry is equipped to produce 100000 tons in excess of the average consumption over the past five years '
 This part of the letter made public in New York. While officials of the Forest Service were willing that the entire letter be made public. the office of the Secretary of Agriculture decided otherwise.
 The negotiations referred to have been underway for some years between the Gov ernment and I. and J. D. zellerbach of the Crown zellerabch Corporation and George T. Cameron representing the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times. Both parties were issued preliminary permits four years ago to determine the advisability of launching the projects and a year ago asked for licenses to harness sufficient water power in the vicinity of Juneau and Ketchikan to operate the mills they planned to build. It was the plan then to spend S2000O00o on the projects and the initial capacity of the mills was placed at 270 tons of paper day.
 These licenses rendered forthwith by the Federal Power Commission but, cording to officials, the present depression and the overcapacity of paper mills that has resulted prompted the coast firms to call a temporary halt in the plans
 font hot tha tioti dar- mant at present will undoubtedly provide sufficient excuse for the Administration to hold up "a final decision on the request