The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, March 18, 1918, Page 13

B e a® ' P L SEE Be Give Coal Land Looters a New Chahce & I Congress Plans Repeal of Restrictions on Plunderers of Natural Resources o in Alaska—The Balhnger Case and Senator Nelson’s Whitewash Report L (ol ) J *y < A 5 yRFey L5 ol i 7 One of the chief streets of Anchorage, a city of 5,000 people, at the head of Cook inlet, Alaska, laid out and promoted by Uhcle Sam in connection with the s building of the government Alaska railroad. The government-owned and operated railroad and the government coal deposits are menaced by an act of con- { gress now pending, which would repeal part of the legislation passed to protect the people and their natural resources after the famous Ballinger scandal. ‘"f”‘ S Washington Bureau, ministration, could do as well as Goethals’ force eight-hour day, with recognition of the usual rights " Nonpartisan Leader had done. established by coal miners’ unions—the right to o o N Richard Achilles Ballinger Seattle tried to turn the coal lands of Alaska, estimated to be worth at least $1,000,000,- 000, over to the Morgan-Gug- genheim syndicate, he laid the powder train for the biggest political explosion in the career of the Republican party. Be- fore the American public got through with its re- sentment at the Alaska coal lands scandal it had Including the old roads that have been acquired and put in running order, the last progress report ‘of the Alaska railroad shows that 299.5 miles of road are now being operated, and that 158 miles additional are in various stages of construction. The entire system will be running smoothly and_ carrying freight and passengers for the whole of Alaska by 1920. Senators Clapp, Poindexter, Gronna, Bristow and “La Follette led the fight to redeem the government’s record in Alaskan affairs by constructnig this gov- purchase their supplies where they please, to em- ploy their own check weighman, etc., and to be assured of every possible safeguard against mine accidents.’ To destroy the Alaska coal lands act, by repeal, would be one of the most flagrant breaches of trust ever committed by a lawmaking body. Not only would it be a betrayal of the nation’s property rights in the $1,000,000,000 worth of Alaska coal; not only would it be a betrayal of the victory of- the coal miners in getting a legal guar- ks done three things: ernment railroad system, with the aid of other anty of the eight-hour day and the other objects ¥t had utterly discredited Ballinger and his back- DProgressive Republicans of the time. The Big for which their unions are maintained and strikes ers, including President Taft, and had split the Business element in congress wanted the govern- are fought; not only would it be a repudiation of Y M.,._._: ‘_,, }, - 1;4‘_..._1 ¥ - Republican party, thus permitting the Democratic administration to come into power. . It had driven through congress the Alaska rail- ‘road act, under which the government.was directed to build a railway in Alaska, at an initial cost of $35,000,000, that would open up the coal fields to development for<the benefit of the nation. It had put through congress the Alaska coal lands act, under which half. of the coal lands in the far north were reserved to government develop- ment, and the other half was fully safeguarded as to government control of every-detail of the mining operations, the profits, the labor conditions and the distribution of the product. * - Secretary of the Interior Lane has taken especial pride, during the past four years, in reporting to the American peoplé from time to time the prog- ress of construction of Uncle Sam’s raifroad. There has been no graft, no watered stock sold to inno- ment to assist private capital to build a railroad for the territory, but the Ballinger affair had made it dangerous for any politician to stand out for the further assistance of the Morgan and Guggen- heim interests there. TO REPEAL COAL ACT WOULD BE TREASON So when the railroad legislation was followed by the enactment of a speclal law for disposing of the Alaska coal lands, the Spirit of the country still prevailed, and every attempt by the Wall street and Seattle commercial buccaneers to get into the bill anything which looked like a plan for giving the coal to the corporations, was promptly squelched. Senator Poindexter was the principal author of the measure, which guaranteed- to the American people the chief benefit from all development. of the coal, whether by public ‘or the whole purpose of the building of the govern- ment railroad. It would be a betrayal of the vic- tory won by Brandeis, Glavis, Pinchot, La Follette, Poindexter, Kent, Norris and their associates in that great mternal revolution known as the Bal- linger affair. SENATOR JONES AUTHOR OF INFAMOUS AMENDMENT Now, that betrayal is planned! . ' In section 2 of the Walsh mineral lands bill, ~ which has actually passed the senate and is pending in the house committee on public lands, there has been inserted an amendment which wipes off the statute books the Alaska coal .lands act. Senator Wesley Jones of ‘, Washington offered that amendment, on the senate floor. . % s cent purchasers, no bribing of local legislators nor pnvate operation of mines. And for the first time This is the same Senator Jones who offered a corruption of the économic or political life of in American lawmaking, the act provided tha resolution in defense of Ballinger and made a * Alaska by railroad magnates, as was the case = leases should bind the operators to abide by the speech in defense of Ballinger at the height of i with every one of the pioneer rail- . the scandal in January, 1910.. That A &“* roads of the western states. speech is to be found in the congres- 3 } ) : _...}lw.« _,.....,m:;_-.k, e ?, = o 5 mfimmmw e e TR B ROAD TO BE COMPLETED WITHIN TWO YEARS Alaska has been elated at each suc- cessive step in the orderly develop- ment of the government railway. Prxvate]y financed railroads, long since ruined by stock speculation and unsound ~management, have been taken over and restored to a con- dition in which regular traffic could be handled. Vast engineering works have been carried through to success, despite every obstacle of that arctic climate, and despite the hindrances that have come with the war. . There has been an honest effort to get the railroad put through from the ice-free port of Seward to the Mata- nuska and Bering river- and Nenana coal fields, and up over the Broad pass to Fairbanks, with even‘less waste ‘of man power and of materials than Goethals had when he built the Pana- ma. canal. Indeed, the canal people, who ' are - army engineers, had ex- pected to build this railroad, until Secretary Lane decided that he would prove that. civilian engineers, under: a nonmilitary depsrtment of the ad- mmn ’rmm ‘ Loading conl in Alaska on the government-owned—railroad. An amendment adopted in congress to the Walsh ‘mineral land bill would withdraw the prin- ‘cipal restrictions against the looting by pnvate corporations of Aluh coal lands, now owned " by the peOple. sional record of that month. Ballinger had been commissioner of the general land office, under Roose- velt. He resigned to return to Seattle to practice law in March, 1908. A year later he was made secretary of the interior by Taft. The testimony in the famous investigation of the Alaska coal lands grab, conducted by a joint congressional committee of which Senator Knute Nelson of Min- nesota was chairman, shows that Bal- linger acted as legal adviser to Cun- . ningham, the locator of the Cunning- ham coal claims in which the Guggen- heim-Morgan syndicate betame part- ners, during that year. He had tried to help the looters get these fabu- lously rich lands clear listed while he was in the land office. When he be- came secretary of -the interior he made it his first business. Louis Glavis, a field agent of the department, pieced the record of the claims together, saw that the claint- ants were crooked and that Ballinger was a falth]ess public servant, and refused to report favorahly ‘on the ‘claims. The story becawme pub) The country rang with it. Ballinger blus- il 5 SIS S