Seward daily gateway., 1932-03-08
LAZARUS AT THE
 RICH MANS TABLE

of Alaskan Bure us StrollerS Weekly says:
 These bureaus were placed here by a benign Congress which 1ur- nishes the funds to operate them all without cost to the Territory.
 Does Stroller's wish us to woer- stand that these bureaus are sell sustaining and not supported out of the current receipts of the Unit ed States Treasury? If so, why Is it that the nations greatest states men and economists are now dl- recting attention to the enormous costs of bureaus and commissions in an effort to thwart an oppreS- sive tipping of national taxes?
 Let us take the Interstate Com Aerce Commission as an nlustra- ton for the whole.
 Established in 1887, by 1900 1t mad expanded to three commlS- sions holding extra Legislative ana administrative powers and a salary list of II commissioners drawing s12.ooo each or $12o,O0O annually and with commissioners salaries, totaled sa2O 900. By 1923 there were B of these commissions, their cost with that of other extra-con- stitutional bodies m uniting to s550, ,000,O ,O00 per year
 In the words of the Senatorial Alaska Investigation committee: !: Who pays for tllis?"
 Unfortunately, despite efforts to secure the figures, it is impossible to segregate at once the items em- s.Aced in bureaucratic costs, but when it is considered that the fun gas growth outside the intent and wording of the Constitution has reached the number of 6o0,o00 one begins to grasp the magnitude of the noxious growth now all but strangling free government as con- ceived by the Fathers, of the Re- public. {
 Does Stroller's wish to tell us that the sum of s1so, ,2s8.88, given to the Territory in 1881 by the Forestry Bureau would equal the taxes returned if this resource was publicly owned and thus subject to taxation?
 Is ten billion feet of pulpwood ~sn an area capable of sustaining 5000 settlers, tied up under bur- eaucratic regulation from Wash lngton, more valuable to the Terri tory as revenue source if these 5000 settlers were paying taxes on an average valuation of S2,000 per 160 acres of timber, together with improvements, such as homes, mills, woodworking establishments n attendant business institutions ser wing this community? Multiply this by the coal areas, oil areas and the reserves choking every town along the coast of Alaska from the him. derland and the waterfront a n G attempt to compute possible tax able revenue and increment a q one begins to see why bureaucracy is the primary stagnator of Alas kan progress.
 Under private ownership could the Cameron-Zellerbach interests tied up for all these years since se- curing their permit, the vast for ests about Ketchikan and Juneau?
 The best comparative figures available are those for Washing ton, Oregon and Idaho, which com pare favorably with Alaska in point of resources save being a contagious portion of continen- tai United States. The assessed wealth of these three states ex- ceeds fifteen billion dollars. From these free resources such cities as Tacoma, Seattle, Portland and null tiple other communities have grown up, while Alaska has alternately forged step ahead, and slipped back, because she had only 10 per cent of her natural resources with which to trade.
 Stroller's maintains that "were the appropriations for these Bur eaus withdrawn and Alaska left to hold the sack, there would be a much greater howl over adminis trative neglect" {
 True. But if bureaucracy as a governing and trustee organization of Alaskan resources was removed it can develop itself to a point where it, unlike the proposal of stroller's, could take it's place as a self-supporting nation rather than stand with hand extended in a sycophantic mein, cravin g . o1,,,c frov,, o ,-,.o ,;o,,c pccynro;rx,