including the United States. Away over here [indicating] is the Panama Canal, and here [indicating] is Alaska. A vessel sailing from Seattle to Japan is obliged to skirt south a little to keep from striking the Aleutian Islands. From San Francisco by the way of Hawaii to Yokohama you travel more than 1,000 miles out of the way. From San Francisco to Honolulu is 2,090 miles, and from Honolulu to Yokohama is 3,450 miles. From San Francisco to Yokohama via Honolulu is 5,540 miles, while from San Francisco straight across to Yokohama by the northern route is 4,470 miles, a difference of 1,100 miles in favor of the northern route.

In Alaska is the place for the naval base of supplies, and not away out at Hawaii, 1,100 miles away from the direct line to the Orient. In Alaska is coal in abundance. Here are the finest harbors in the world-Seward, Valdez, and Cordova, and other harbors which are always open and never closed by ice. You can build a railroad from any one of them to naval coal. The proposition of this bill is to leave it entirely to the President to determine where the road shall be built from. He can open up these coal mines, bring out the naval coal, erect your naval base there, and the United States can back up against those tremendous mountain walls, with the great interior coal fields to support it, and no nation on the earth could drive your fleet out or take away its coal and supplies.

There is a feature in this bill pledging the public lands in Alaska for the return of the $35,611,000 necessary for the building of this railroad to the United States Treasury so that the burden is laid upon the public lands in Alaska and not upon the United States. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. What agricultural population is Alaska susceptible of supporting?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Norway, Sweden, and Finland are on practically the same latitude as Alaska. The conditions are not very different so far as the Tanana Valley is concerned. Our agricultural land is equal in area to all three of those countries, and they support 12,000,000 people on agriculture alone. We have in addition to the resources of those countries coal, copper, and gold and the fisheries, and other resources which they do not have. They have fisheries, of course, but neither coal, copper, nor gold. I think the agricultural portions of Alaska will support 10,000,000 people, and taking that in connection with the development of coal, copper, and gold resources of the country, which are practically inexhaustible, it is hard to tell how large a population the country can support.

Senator WALSH. You referred particularly to the Tanana Valley, and you would estimate that as 50 miles in width and 300 miles in length?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Yes; but if you will notice this map over here, just below the Tanana Valley is the Susitna Valley, a very large, good agricultural country. The Tanana Valley extends away to the westward. It connects through the Kantishna Valley with the Kuskokwim, and all that country in there marked with blue is land susceptible of agriculture. But as you get farther west, toward Bering Sea, the country gets damper. There is more moisture to the westward, and it is not so good as it is farther to the east, but it is susceptible of raising grasses and stock, and very largely adapted to many branches of agriculture.

Senator WALSH. My inquiry was intended to develop, if I could, about what area of agricultural lands the proposed lines of railroad would traverse.

Mr. WICKERSHAM. The proposed lines of railroad would traverse the Susitna Valley, which is one of the best of our valleys. It would then traverse the Tanana Valley, and probably the Kuskokwim, and going up from the right here it would traverse the Copper River Valley.

Senator WALSH. That apparently opens up an insignificant area of agricultural land.

Mr. WICKERSHAM. No; it opens a very large area.

Mr. BALLAINE. Then the other road also begins and comes across the Susitna Valley, and cuts then to this point in the Kuskokwim Valley.

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Both those roads are proposed in the report of the Alaska Railway Commission.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. In that connection, Judge Wickersham, if lines of road are constructed connecting those southern waters there with the navigable waters in the interior of Alaska, how many miles of transportation line will be open, by water and by rail?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Probably 5,000 miles. I have seen a statement of the total mileage of the navigable waters in the interior which those roads would reach at something over 5,000 miles.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. So the connection of the navigable waters in the interior with the bays down to the south will open a large territory?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Yes; it will open up a very large territory for navigation in the summer time. Of course our rivers freeze by the 10th of November-or about that time-and they always open about the 10th of May.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Along the navigable waterways that these railways would connect with, is there any agriculture?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Along the Tanana and many of those interior rivers, yes; and to some extent, of course, along the Yukon itself. But the Yukon, if you will notice, makes a big bend north toward the Arctic Circle, where conditions are not so good. When it gets beyond that and turns south again, it is better; but all those high northern valleys have some agricultural value.

Senator NELSON. The upper bend of the Yukon River is about 10 or 12 miles across the Arctic Circle at old Fort Yukon?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Yes. They raise nice gardens there, and the gardens at Eagle are so good that it is sometimes difficult to tell head lettuce from cabbage.

In closing, I will call attention to Senate Document No. 882, Sixty-second Congress, second session, being data relating to Alaska, and giving the figures shown on these charts and the maps that I have exhibited here.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. A mere reference to that will do away with any necessity of their being published in this record, will it not? Mr. WICKERSHAM. Yes.

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN E. BALLAINE, OF SEATTLE, WASH.

Mr. BALLAINE. Mr. Chairman, Judge Wickersham has covered the general situation in Alaska so thoroughly that I will confine my statement to a few features.

One very important provision of this bill is that the President is not obliged to build over any particular route. He has a free choice of any route or routes in Alaska. He may designate that all of the 733 miles be built from Haines to Fairbanks, or that it all be built from Cordova, or from Valdez, or from Seward, or any other port in Alaska, or part from each or any of them. Under the provisions of the bill he will have authority to purchase the Copper River and Northwestern Railroad and extend it from Chitina to Fairbanks, or he may purchase the Alaska Northern and complete that road through the Susitna Valley to Fairbanks, with a branch to the Kuskokwim River, if he so decides. Or he may leave out those places altogether and build from Iliamna, on Cook Inlet, to Holy Cross Mission, on the Yukon River. That is a very important provision, because there has been a difference of opinion among Alaskans themselves as to the best routes for the development of the greatest amount of resources in Alaska.

Of course, if this bill passes and goes to the President, I will try to show him that the most of the resources of Alaska lie in the country that would be reached by building from Seward through the Susitna Valley to the Tanana River, and possibly a line over to Rapids, on the Yukon, with a branch from mile 195 out of Seward over to McGrath, on the Kuskokwim River.

Others will favor different routes. In an open hearing those of us who are able to show the greatest amount of resources will probably have the best of the argument. I think we all-of all political parties and all factions of political parties and all sections in Alaskahave entire confidence that President Wilson will do the best thing for Alaska and for the country. I certainly have that confidence in him, though we are of different political parties. I was one who insisted that this whole matter of the selection of routes should be left absolutely without restriction to the President. If he decides to refer those matters to his Secretary of the Interior, I have the same confidence in Mr. Lane's honesty and sound judgment.

The Susitna Valley, I believe, is the best of the agricultural districts in Alaska. I think that probably the people of Fairbanks will concede that point. The Susitna Valley is mostly from 100 to 500 feet above sea level. It is farther south than the Tanana Valley. It has a southern exposure to the sun. The annual precipitation, snow and rain, ranges from about 14 inches at Kenai to 21 inches at Tyonok, 35 inches at the mouth of the Talkeetna River, and about 12 inches in the Matanuska coal district. The mountain range cuts off the heavy moisture from the Pacific coast, so that the rainfall in the Susitna Valley is just about a normal rainfall for good agricultural production. The summers are probably a little warmer there than in the Tanana, due to the difference in latitude. The difference is not very perceptible, probably two or three degrees. The winter climate in Susitna Valley is not so severe as in the Tanana for the same reason; it has the advantage in latitude.

The grasses that grow all through this Susitna Valley, as you will see from the reports of the Agricultural Department, and also from the reports made by the Alaska railroad commission, are more vigorous, and all forms of vegetable growth are more vigorous there than in the more northern latitudes of the Tanana Valley.

I say this not with any intention to detract from the agricultural possibilities of the Tanana Valley, for it is a very rich valley and has large agricultural possibilities. They are growing apple trees successfully at Knik in the Susitna Valley, and you will know from that that the winter climate there can not be very severe.

I grew up on a farm in eastern Washington, which is one of the best agricultural districts in the United States. I lived on a farm until I was 19 years old, and I know what agriculture is and what is required for agriculture. I have spent about 12 years in development work in the part of Alaska tributary to the Susitna Valley. I believe from experience on a farm in the early part of my life, and from what I have seen every summer in the Susitna Valley, that it is as good a farming district for grasses, hay, and all kinds of vegetables and berries as eastern Washington from Spokane to Walla Walla.

There is one settlement north of Knik where several families of Swedes and Norwegians are located. They have built log houses, cleared spaces from 1 acre to 5 acres, and have their log schoolhouse. It is one of the most flourishing communities I have ever seen. They are engaged wholly in agriculture and stock raising, in the primitive stages, to be sure. These people tell me that the Susitna Valley is comparable in every way with southern Sweden with the best parts of southern Sweden. They tell me that everything can be grown in the Susitna Valley that can be grown in southern Sweden. Within 2 or 3 miles of the salt water the conditions are not so favorable as they are 4 or 5 miles farther on back, because the dampness from the water sometimes retards the growth of vegetation.

Mr. WICKERSHAM. That is, the proximity of the salt water?

Mr. BALLAINE. It is the dampness; the same trouble that we have on Puget Sound. Vegetation does not grow so well right near the salt water as it does back 2 or 3 miles. But back 2 or 3 miles from that the conditions are normal. In 1902 a group of Seattle menmyself among them-started the Alaska Central Railway from Seward. We had spent a year and a half in examining the different railroad routes possible through Alaska. At that time the great attraction in that country was Dawson and the Klondike district, and the great demand in the newspapers and the magazines and in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, was for an all-American route to the Klondike. The War Department in 1898, and the Geological Survey in connection, sent out parties to explore possible wagon and railroad routes through the Territory of Alaska with particular reference to getting into the Klondike. The object was to avoid going over the White Pass and Yukon route and evading, if possible, the Canadian customs barrier.

Maj. Abercrombie surveyed a preliminary route from Valdez through to Eagle, the object being to strike the Yukon and to establish a tidewater connection with the Klondike territory.

My idea was, from what I knew of the agricultural possibilities in Alaska, and my experience as a boy on a farm in eastern Washington, that the greatest resource in Alaska in time would be agriculture.

The most enduring basis of any railroad is agriculture. And after going over the situation for a year and a half, examining all possible routes, I decided that the most practical route for permanent development in Alaska would be from Resurrection Bay. There was then nothing but an Indian hut when we examined that point where Seward now is.

I decided that the most feasible route for a railroad to interior Alaska would be from Resurrection Bay through the Susitna Valley to the Tanana River. It is 413 miles from Seward on Resurrection Bay to the mouth of the Nenana River on the Tanana.

Our plan at that time contemplated a pioneer railway to develop the agricultural and the gold-mining resources. The coal fields in the Matanuska district were known. We had samples of the coal, and had chemical analyses made of it, but we were not intending to build to the coal fields. We were planning to build a pioneer railroad at a cost of about $20,000 a mile. I built the first section of the road, 20 miles, and sold it to Frost & Osborne, of Chicago and Toronto. They completed it on to about mile 52, and failed. The Canadian bondholders then took it over and reorganized it as the Alaskan Northern. They own the road at the present time. They have extended on to mile 71.

If the President of the United States should decide that it would be advisable to have a continuous railroad from Seward through to the Tanana River, with a branch to the Matanuska coal fields, and another branch to the Kuskokwim River, he might, under the provisions of this bill, buy the Alaskan Northern, or he might build an independent road from Resurrection Bay. He could do the same from Cordova if he decides that the Copper River Valley is a more feasible route. But there is nothing in this bill which would in any way make it obligatory on him to buy either of those roads from Seward or Cordova. The day the bill receives the President's signature the Alaskan Northern would be worth exactly what the Government might offer for it, and not a cent more, because there is ample room on Resurrection Bay for all terminal facilities for a town of any size. The Government owns practically everything on the bay. Resurrection Bay has a shore front of 41 miles. Less than a mile of that is owned by other interests than the Government itself. There are 50,000 acres of land at the head of Resurrection Bay available for platting as additions to Seward, all of which could be platted and sold by the Government itself. I was the founder of Seward. I have large interests in Seward, but Seward is a very small fraction of the area that will be built over in town property when a railroad from that point shall be extended to the interior.

The Alaskan Northern-the first 20 miles of which I built-cost, as it stands to-day, exactly $18,300 per mile. I put this statement officially in the record so that in any future negotiations there may be, the Government may not be imposed upon.

Representations have been made that the road cost $55,000 and $60,000 per mile. But I state the exact cost of the first 20 miles from positive knowledge, because I raised every dollar of the money that went into it on my own notes, which I gave to the Shedd Bros., of Chicago, the Washington Trust Co. in Seattle, and to Frost & Osborne. Senator NELSON. Did not your company sell a lot of your stock out in Minnesota?