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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



15 years were required to enact an adequate water power 

 bill, so was it impossible for a long period to overcome 

 the opposition to any form of public ownership of coal 

 and oil deposits so as to carry out the original plan of 

 President Roosevelt for their use under Federal lease, in 

 Alaska as elsewhere. 



It is not necessary to return to old battlefields where 

 the fight for the public interest was won. This chapter 

 in the history of our natural resources happily is ended. 

 What are the facts of today? Run over the imposing 

 list of Alaska's resources fish, metals, timber, marble, 

 coal, petroleum, water power, fur, agricultural land 

 each of them is open to use, available to men of energy 

 and capital. Additional laws are desirable, it is true, but 

 on details not essentials. There is no handicap of any 

 consequence upon men who are prepared to put their 

 money into a real enterprise for developing any one of 

 Alaska's resources. Let us dismiss once and for all the 

 absurd notion that Alaska is padlocked. 



What then has held back the development of the 

 Territory? Primarily the stern facts of geography ana 

 trade her situation on the farthest corner of the conti- 

 nent, the cost of transporting her products to possible 

 markets, the value of gold and copper, the price of lum- 

 ber and paper, the cost of labor, machinery and supplies. 

 These are the things which hold in their grasp the econ- 

 omic development of Alaska not Federal laws or regu- 

 lations. Hundreds of thousands of potential farms in 



the Yukon Valley are still uncleared and untilled, not 

 because of administrative red tape, but because the re- 

 turns from agriculture, primarily on account of the 

 difficulty in reaching a market, do not attract home- 

 steaders. The Forest Service tried for years to interest 

 capital in paper manufacture in Alaska. The going 

 value of paper before the war, the opportunities for ob- 

 taining raw material in well-developed regions else- 

 where, and Alaska's handicap of distance turned the 

 scales against her enormous pulpwood forests. Con- 

 servative business men regarded the venture as too 

 hazardous ; yet governmental red tape is still a popular 

 explanation of the lack of a paper industry in the Terri- 

 tory. Changes in the paper market during the last three 

 years have brought Alaska's pulpwood into demand, and 

 the extension of the paper industry to her coastal forests 

 is now assured. 



Similarly with metal products. When the prices of 

 gold and copper drop or remain stationary while costs 

 of production rise, the mines operating low-grade ore 

 must shut down. Labor is left without employment and 

 towns without an industry. This is an important factor 

 in the present ebb tide of Alaskan prosperity. Obvious 

 as it is, the fact must be emphasized that the barometer 

 of Alaskan development reflects and always will re- 

 flect primarily the world's demands for her products. 



Many Alaskans are half blind to this basic fact. Alas- 

 ka is impatient for immediate prosperity. The spirit of 



OVER TWENTY THOUSAND FEET HIGH 



A cloe-up view of famous Mount McKinley, Alaska, taken from Chultina Pass near Mile 281 on the Government Railroad. Many Alaskans 



ay this railroad reached Fairbanks just in time to bring the people out. 



