The Cord ova Times
Member of Associated Press Day and Night Telegraphic Service __
YOU• MK~IIiTxrMBEK~j:».:> ” (’()Rl>oYA. ALASKA, THESE*AY AI’IML 1918 PBICE TEN CENTS
BRITISH NAVAL RAID BLOCKS ENTRANCE TO CANAL
•-—--- -----:_ ___—-—-——-—
ALASKANS TO
BE DRAFTED
ON MAY 1
JUNEAU. AipHl 23.—Complying
with telegrajifcTc instructions from
Provost Marshrti 'General Crowder to
day, the governor's office announces
that the date tor the going into effect
of the draft has been advanced, and
registrants wiill be called on May S,
instead of Uame 30, as formerly xn
nounced.
■--—•
'DATELESS.—New German thrusts
mi the western front still are held in
abeyance. "The allies are preparing
for the expected blow, raiding on fhe
northern and southern battlefields and
feeling out their adversaries.
'The Germans are massing southwest
of Ypres.
'General Ludendorff has ordered
that no more mass attacks be made
probably on account of the escesrffoi
losses involved.
British Advance
LONDON. April 23.—The British
last night advanced north of ,Alh«£j
on a thousand-yard front. They made
a gain of two hundred and fifty yards.
Still Hammering Rheims
PARIS, April 23.—Active artillery
operations continue on the Somme
front, opposite and east of Rheta*.
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SALES STILL
WASHINGTON, April 23—Reports
issued by the treasury department to
day Indicate that the third Libert;
loan bond culles nwv total ^1,596,709,
900.
Until further reports have 'been re
ceived it will he impossible to de
termine .whether :St. Louis or Minne
apolis districts exceeded their quotas
first.
Tire T welfth District
SAN FRANCISCO, April 23.—Th.
Twelfth federal reserve district ha
subscribed $139,284,750 to the fhVn
Liberty loan. The quota of the dit
trict is $210,000,000.
California Leads in Honor Flags
SEATTLE, April 23.—The Tollowin
from Liberty loan headquarters, ur
<ler date of April 22, has been receive*
"by Colonel Lenoir of the signal serv
ice:
"Four hundred and forty-eVgti
honor flags have been awarded in th
Twelfth district. Every city am
county in Oregon now has its fla;
Granite county was given twenty
seven stars.
“California is leading In the num
ber of stars, with 195. The total sut
scriptlons of the district, according t
official figures are $134,417,300. Th
percentages of quotas subscribed b
the three principal cities of the dis
trict are as follows: San Franciscc
52.98; Los Angeles, 57.85; SeattR
48.33. VAN SMITH.”
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Bartley Howard will leave tomorro’
morning for Strelna, where he wi
make his headquarters for a couple (
months, having accepted a contra*
from the Copper River railway t
erect seven houses along the Chitir
branch of the road.
I
LONDON. April 23.—Berlin dis
patches- say that Argentina and TJrn
guay are expected to declare war
against Germany soon.
The 'German newspapers have been
’notified in order to prepare the people
for flits development
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HRE EARTH TREK
IE FELT IN CALIFH1
I SAN JACINTO, Cal., April 23.—
Three more earthquake shocks yes
terday made Hemet and San Jaehnto
shiver, but there was no further de
strnetion
THREE GERMAN SHIPS SUNK
t «
U)N\X)X, April 235.—-First bold of the Admiralty Geddes
told the Imnse of'coramnns ttoday'fcat a British naval raid in
all prohwbiKtr had succeeded in Hocking the entrance of the
Bruges ■canalL British stormingpatties had landed at the Zee
hrugge mole, he-said, where a'German destroyer had been tor- ;
pedoed and two blockading ships had been sunk at the entrance
of the Binges canal. The piling beside the Zebmgge mole had
been blown up by am olwsolrtte submarine filled with explosives.
The British loss, said the first sea lord, consisted of a de
.sir oyer and two coastal motor boats.
It ns believed that the British tried to block the channels be
tween (Intend and Zeebnigge, through which German subma
rines pass on their way to the North sea and English channel.
The evplcwit was Hnmilav to the attempt of Lieutenant Hobson to
block the Itarbm of Kanfiago during the Spanish-American
war.
Another Account
Fnmi another source comes the statement that the British
naval forces raided the German submarine bases at Ostend and
Zeebrugge. Five old cruisers, which had been filled with con
crete to block Che channel, were run aground, blown up and
abandoned by their crews- Incomplete reports said the raid
“met w ith a Toasanahlemeasure of success.”_
MOUNTAINS 8!
"
TCI, CENTRO, Cal., April 23.—Two
picnic parties and a number oL
smaller groups of pleasure seekers are!
:heia prisoners in the mountains as
a result of Sunday’s earthquake, whichj
rolled large rocks down the mountain
sides and blocked the roads.
SEPiTESlicIlllS
MIE ENTERED SEECH
WASHINGTON, April 23.—It is re
ported that Hungarians are now in
Belgium. Many troops trains have
passed through Liege.
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There will be a train for Chitina
at 6 o’clock tomorrow morning.
PRESIDENT WILSON URGES FURTHER APPROPRIATION
FOR CONTINUING ALASKAN RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION
j WASHINGTON. April 23—Presi
dent 'Wilson today sent to congress
j the report di the Alaskan engineering
i commission, w'hich is charged with the
I work of construction of the Alaska
^TSF^^taF^urgeS^rmitinua'tion of
! construction work on the railroad dur
| tag the -war, an'd says that $23,000,000
has been spent on the road to date.
"It estimates that'it will cost $40,000,000
to complete and equip the road.
The report says that 438 miles of
the road has been completed, and that
although labor is not plentiful in
Alaska, the commission considers it
advisable to furnish employment for
j What there us.
To Furnish Employment for Labor
A serious curtailment of work at
■ this tirtie, continues the report, would
be a grave blow to the country
; through which the road runs. Much
material is on hand, and labor will
not be cheaper for several years.
In conclusion the report says that
the Fairbanks district produced
$3,350,000 in gold last year, and the
! coal fields along the road produced
54,000 tons of coal last year. A big
■ crop of potatoes also was produced
SEATTLE, April 23.—Thomas
Riggs, Jr., who arrived here yester
day on his way to the North to assume
his new- duties as governor of Alaska,
says there Is no indication that the
Alaska government railroad approprf
* tion will be cut dow-n. The labor
shortage may delay work orn the road
this year, however.
Governor Riggs intends to tour
’ Alaska this summer to learn the ter
ritory's needs.
I _
WASHINGTON, April 23.-—Con
struetion of the Alaska railway is be
ing materilaly delayed by the war,
^ j and completion will be deferred In*
| definitely beyond the 1919 or 1920 date
1 originally projected for it.
While more than 6,000 men were
employed in the field during 1917, a
force of perhaps 3,000 is all that can
be maintained through the summer of
1918, and though the $40,000,000 un
^,j dertaking stands at a stage 65 per
cent toward completion, the remain*
! der may take much longer to con
struct than has the two-thirds so far
built.
A linking up of gaps In the coastal
section, and the pushing of main rail
v heads some forty or fifty additional
1 miles toward the Interior, is the limit
J of construction which the coinmis
t sioners feel certain that the shortage
o of men, materials and shipping will
a allow them to attain.
“That will be Alaska’s share of the
inevitable sacrifice war entails,” sail,
William C. Edes, chairman Of the
Alaskan engineering commission, dis-1
cussing estimates and uncertainties
connected with the enterprise. “Al
iteusb Mi&y. jsiW. ¥&*
intervened even under normal -Con'd”
lions.
“During the last two seasons we
have practically completed the coastal
sections of the line, along \VHiCh we
were enabled by transport conditions
to work simultaneously at a number
of points. In the future we Shall be
constructing straight up into the In
terior, extending the line at most ’from
only two points.”
Assuming the usual congressional
appropriations become available, the
commission, which still has some
doubts about its ability to secure even
half the labor force it had a year ago,
will center its efforts during the com
ing summer upon the completion ol
the main line from Seward to An
chorage, both of which are Pacifie
ocean ports on the Alaskan southern
seaboard, between which a rail gap
of seventeen miles now exists.
Main railheads, in addition, will be
pushed some forty or fifty miles to
ward the Interior terminal, which is
Fairbanks, opening the line approxi
mately from Mile 215 to Mile 265, dis
tance estimated from the ocean ter
minus at Seward northward. In
Alaska, except in certain places and
on certain types of work, the com
mission has found that construction
is only practical during the summer
after May 15.
The Alaska railroad, stretching up
5G0 miles in trunk and branches to
ward the Arctic cot -e, literally fur
thest north in lailroad building en
terprise. and as it s'i.ntfs today, has
2GC miles of rails laid, has grades and
cuts complete 1 far ahead of rails, anl
location engineering entirely com
pleted. It does not quite touch 'he
polar zone, for its northern limit at.
Fairbanks is 120 odd miles south of
the great circle, but its tracks cut
across an area where the sun shines
for twenty-two hours a day in June,
and Chairman Edes admits that the
daylight saving prescribed in the
United States will appear trivial from
an Alaskan viewpoint.
Engineering and transport prob
lems of no mean magnitude have been
solved and are being solved in the
construction of the line, for it locat
ors and even its grade crews must
hold themselves abreast and ahead
of the pioneer settler. With work
proceeding from both ends of the line,
a glance at the maps will show the
transport line built up to supply the
Interior terminus, stretching up from
the United States through the Pacific I
and Arctic oceans to the port of St.’
Michael, at the mouth of the Yukon
river. Steel, powder, food and equip
uter myst go thousands of miles by
^'r^jrtwfcr<4]r*'abtpped to river boats,'
nSrceo upward against the currents of
the Yukon and Tanana rivers, and
then overland by a last painful stage
of pack and wagon train to Fair
banks.
Until last November the commis
sion had a steamer, an army trans
port borrowed for the work, but then
the army took it hastily back for the
more important duty of carrying sol
diers. The commission will now de
pend upon commercial transport fa
cilities. already greatly restricted, to
deliver 5,000 tons of freight this year
over the circuit whose magnitude can
be comprehended from any map. Sup
plying the southern terminus will pre
sent less difficulties, for the sturdy
ocean tugs can still put out from Pu
get sound and go safely up the “inside
passage,” sheltered by islands from
the Pacific winds, and bring the
clumsy, heavy-laden barges into Sew
ard and Anchorage.
Building the line itself, across tun
dra wilderness, smiling valleys and
sharp-edged passes alike of the Arctic
coastal range, the commission has met
conditions and problems strange to
the railroader. For a part of its dis
tance it skirts u living glacier, and a
glacier, as Mr. Edes remarks, is “a
ticklish thing.**
“You never know what it is going
to do," he says, “and from it we al
ways look for trouble. We don’t ac
tually run over the ice, but we have
to skirt the gravel of the terminal
moraines. And in the summer the
ice recedes, loosing a veritable flood
of water, while in the winter it pushes
slowly forward again. Just now we
run the line up on a trestle, high
above the gravels, but the glacier,
working away, has always the ca
pacity to change the entire topogra
phy of the country. Still, the diffi
culty is not unsurmountable.”
As was done at Panama, the com
mission has proceeded to its task
without any intervening contractor.
The actual labor has been performed
by “station men,” a hard-bitten set of
old hands, who have come through the
era of railroad constructing in the
West. Each of them, or perhaps a
pair or a group, agrees to construct
100 linear feet of the grade, whether
it involves cutting down through a
hill, building up from a swamp, or
blowing out the hard rock, at a price
based on quantity and type of ma
terial moved. Then they set their
own pace, and their own hours, and
literally work wonders. The com
mission, standing behind, organizes
the commissary, tools and equip
ment.
“Our figures indicate that the av
erage scal^ of wages w e J^a id dur
ing 1917 wouIc^^voMc^mit around
$1,500 a year,” Chairman Edes said,
“but it actually doesn't run a year
for more than a part of the men, be
cause of the seasonal character of
the work. 1 have no doubt but that
we shall have to revise our wage
scales upward this spring, for Alaska
m not now the high-wage country that
it was.”
As a side issue to railroading, the
commission operates, on a small
scale, coal mines at Matanuska, on
a branch line thirty-eight miles from
the trunk, and is doing some port
dredging at Anchorage, and building
docks and coal bunkers at Anchorage
and Seward. It is also operating sec
tions of the ilne, in a sketchy sort ol
fashion, incident to the construction,
with a passenger rate of 6 -cents a
mile.
To date, $23,670,000 has been spent
upon the enterprise, out of a $35,
000.000 estimate for the total cost,
which estimate Secretary Lane has
raise dto $40,000,000 because of
higher costs of labor and materials.
Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Clears,
borrowed fro mthe army for Panama
railroad purposes, was a member ot
the commission, but has recently been
returned to the army for railroad
building in France, and in his regi
ment has included an appreciable
number of the Alaskan commission’s
staff. Thomas Riggs, the third mem
her, has been named by the President
to be governor of Alaska.
One stretch of the main line,
amounting to seventy miles, was pur
chased for a little over $1,000,009,
while more recently he commission
acquired for $300,000 a forty-five-mile
stretch of narrow-gauge road running
out of Fairbanks to Chatanika. All
of the rest has been built or will be
built.
As to whether the road will pay.
the commission ventures no predic
tion, and considers present traffic no
guide to possibilities.
"Since the United States took close
to a billion dollars from Alaska, the
government has adopted the policy of
making this return,” Chairman Edes
remarked, “and probably does not
worry about the results. All our con
struction amounts to pioneering. Roth
the mineral and agricultural possibili
ties of the area opened are quantities
virtually unknown, and the railroad
itself must be the final factor re
quired to prove or disprove their
value.”
OIL LEASING
BILL BEFORE
THE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, April 23.—The gen
eral coal and oil land leasing bill was
reported from the house committee on
public lamds yesterday. It provides
for five oil prospecting permits to the
same party or parties in Alaska,
against three in the States.
The area that may be taken up in
Alaska is 640 acres to each discoverer,
and double time is allowed in Alaska
to earn the leases by discovering oil.
More liberal royalties also are al
lowed.
The secretary of the interior is
granted the right to waive royalties
in Alaska for the first, five years.
Bona fide claimants who made im
provements before 1910, the year of
the withdrawal of coal and oil lands,
or $500 worth of improvements before
the passage of the act, are given
equitable recognition.
After extended hearings the com
mittee has granted our recommenda
tions to encourage developments.
CHARLES A. SULZER, Delegate:
a
-'~~-”—
EL PASO, Texas, April 23.—A Mexi
can federal force of sufficient size
to be regarded by American military
officers as a menace to the American
border has been concentrated in Oji
naga. in the Juarez sector of the in
ternational line.
All American patrols and outposts
in the district have been reinforced.
Intrenchments have been discovered
on the Mexican side of the border op
posite Fabens, Texas. Natives cross
ing to the American side say men are
being armed against a possible inva
sion of Mexico by American troops.
The excitement is believed to be
due to propaganda work of Germans.
—:—+
WASHINGTON, April 23.—The
state department is investigating the
press reports of the ill-treatment of
American prisoners of war in Ger
many. If found to be true the ad
ministration may consider measures
of retaliation, if protests are unavail
ing.
There are more German prisoners
of war in the United States than
American prisoners in Germany.
ALLIED TROOPS
■' COAST RAILWAY
_
MOSCOW, April 22.—British and
French troops have been landed at
Mourmansk, on the north coast ot
Koka peninsula, to reinforce the Brit
ish marine detachment landed there
several weeks ago.
Allied troops are co-operating with
the Bolshevik forces in protecting the
Mourmansk coast and railway against
attacks of the Finnish White Guards.