We

the southeast of the Chickaloon field is where we have leases. have had difficulty in getting men to go in with sufficient amount of capital under our leasing system to put the kind of plant and make the kind of development we think is necessary. It not only takes development of the mine and a good deal of money for that and for tipples at the mine, but we have got to have facilities at Anchorage for dumping.

Mr. SHERLEY. What does that Martin's coal sell for at the mine now?

Secretary LANE. We have bought some coal at $4 a ton.
Mr. SHERLEY. Is that at the tipple?

Secretary LANE. Right at the tipple, at the railroad.

Mr. GILLETT. Is the Government the only purchaser?

Secretary LANE. No; the dealers in Anchorage also buy it. You know we have a town there of, I suppose, six or seven thousand people.

The CHAIRMAN. How much money do you want in addition to what you have now?

Secretary LANE. $4,000,000.

The CHAIRMAN. To what date will that carry you?

Secretary LANE. That will carry us through to July 1 of next year. The CHAIRMAN. What work is to be done up here in the Susitna Valley from Mile 71; is there some work to be done there?

Secretary LANE. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it extensive?

Secretary LANE. There are two or three mining properties along Willow Creek that we want to get coal to, and we propose to lay the track up along this line, which is already cleared and graded, and it might be we will be able to get up still farther into here [indicating] this next year. This work up here [indicating] is rather important, because this field means the coal supply for this mining district over here [indicating]. The difficulty in completing this lies in the putting in of a steel bridge across the Tanana River. The CHAIRMAN. You stated, Mr. Secretary, that the cost of the work along Turnagain Arm is about 22 per cent now in excess of the estimate.

Secretary LANE. Generally, the work is about 22 per cent more. The CHAIRMAN. Is that during the last year or since the beginning? Secretary LANE. No; that is based upon the estimate per mile of road complete and the actual cost per mile of road completed from the beginning of the work.

The CHAIRMAN. Then your cost now is greater than 22 per cent? Secretary LANE. Yes; our cost now would be greater than 22 per

cent.

The CHAIRMAN. Because at one time-I think it was either last session or the one before that-they were running under their estimate.

Secretary LANE. Yes: and there are small portions of the road from Anchorage up that have been built at less than the estimate. For instance, take the item of rails alone. We bought our original rail at $30. Then we bought our next body of rail at $35, and the present contract for rail this year is $40, and that is a very low price.

The CHAIRMAN. I thought you were holding the steel barons down. Secretary LANE. I do not know to what extent we will be able to sit on them, but the prices so far that we have obtained for rail have been moderate as steel prices go. For instance, the Baltimore & Ohio paid the same price at the same time that we did for these $40 rails. The CHAIRMAN. But they evidently are muleting everybody. The United States Steel Corporation in 1914 made $27,000,000 and in 1916, $257,000,000.

Mr. GILLETT. Have you kept your force up there right along?

Secretary LANE. Yes; and that is one of the reasons why it is very desirable to allow this amount of work to go on, so that we can hold our men together.

Mr. GILLETT. Despite the need for engineers in the war, you are going to keep them up there, are you?

Secretary LANE. Yes. There have been a few men who wanted to come in, and they have been allowed to go off the work, but I have declined the approval of the general policy of letting those men go off that work.

Mr. GILLETT. They can go off if they want to.

Secretary LANE. Oh, they can resign, of course.

Mr. CANNON. After all, so far as you have gone, from a financial and commercial standpoint, have you any reason to believe that we will get any considerable amount of coal or any considerable amount of anything else up there that will halfway justify the building of this road?

Secretary LANE. I think we have, Mr. Cannon. I do not think there is any doubt about it. The further you go into the investigation of the resources there the better you are satisfied that there are things there which have not been revealed. That is almost an unknown land, and we have in the Matanuska Valley a large body of coal which can be brought out and made available for the Navy and for the coast. You know now that we are sending coal-when I say now I mean within the last two months-from the Pocahontas and New River fields by rail from those West Virginia fields across the continent to supply our Navy in San Francisco. I do not know what that costs, but I would suppose it would cost $14 or $15 a ton by the time it gets there.

Mr. SHERLEY. We are doing the same thing for the Canadian market in the Northwest.

Secretary LANE. They are doing the same thing?

Mr. SHERLEY. I think they have been shipping coal, some of it from Illinois, but some of it also from the eastern coal fields, up into Canada and out into the Northwest. You know there is a great part of that country that has no coal at all, and they are dependent upon the States for their coal supply.

Secretary LANE. The Crow's Nest coal field is a very good field just north of Spokane, if you remember, and that is a coking coal. They have used that in the copper mines, but it is probably not extensive enough or has not been developed sufficiently to supply the needs. There is no coal except the Puget Sound coal from the tip of Lower California right up to Alaska, excepting that bit that is in British Columbia. Now, there is need for this Matanuska coal

if there is to be established a smelter on Prince William Sound, which is a very likely industry. There are big deposits of copper up there that now can not afford transportation down to Tacoma where the smelter is, and if we can get that coal out to Prince William Sound they can establish a commercial smelter to smelt that copper. Mr. SISSON. Do you find copper in abundance there?

Secretary LANE. Yes; they have one island in the Sound itself that is almost solid low-grade copper.

This valley, so far as it has been investigated-and it has been investigated by our own people somewhat and by the Agricultural Department and a survey made of it-promises to be a very good agricultural valley. The Mount McKinley country, from what all the geologists say, is a very promising country, but really has not been explored. Of course, the primary purpose of this railroad was to get a line from the ocean to the interior so that these people in the great Yukon and Tanana Valleys would have a means of ingress and egress additional to the river, which was closed up a good deal of the year. Mr. SISSON. Does that open up any English territory?

Secretary LANE. Yes; you have got to go into the White Pass country and down the Yukon River, all through the English territory, for a 1,500-mile strip.

Mr. SHERLEY. You mean by water?

Secretary LANE. Yes.

Mr. SHERLEY. And not by rail?

Secretary LANE. No; you can not do that by rail.

Mr. SISSON. I was asking if this railroad opened up any English territory?

Secretary LANE. Oh, no. I beg your pardon. This railroad does not do that at all. It goes directly through the heart of our own territory in Alaska.

AUTOMOBILE FOR USE IN SEATTLE, WASH.

The CHAIRMAN. You are also asking authority to spend $1,800 for an automobile in Seattle?

Secretary LANE. Yes; that is for the purchasing agent. We think that would be a beneficial expenditure, because it would save a certain amount of time.

Mr. GILLETT. I think we would want to have more specific information about that, Mr. Secretary.

Secretary LANE. We have there a considerable body of men who are engaged in purchasing supplies, and they have to go from the office down to the wharves and to the railroads and run around a great deal in carrying on this purchasing work. My own information upon the subject, of course, comes from the men who are on the commission, and their judgment is it would save our people time and remove the necessity for a larger clerical force if this automobile could be supplied. We, of course, can get along without it, but if we do not have it it simply takes up the time of men unnecessarily in doing this work.

4400-17-8

FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1917.

ST. ELIZABETHS HOSPITAL.

STATEMENT OF DR. WILLIAM A. WHITE, SUPERINTENDENT, ACCOMPANIED BY MR. M. SANGER, STEWARD AND DISBURSING AGENT.

CONSTRUCTION, EQUIPMENT, AND FURNISHING OF SEMIPERMANENT BUILDINGS.

(See p. 117.)

The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, you are asking $200,000 for the construction, equipment, and furnishing of such semipermanent buildings at St. Elizabeths Hospital as may be required to provide additional accommodations for patients. Why?

Dr. WHITE. To take care of the insane of the military forces. You know that there are going to be a very considerable percentage of insane in the Army.

The CHAIRMAN. Why?

Dr. WHITE. Well, there is a considerable percentage in the Army in time of peace and there undoubtedly will be more in time of war. The CHAIRMAN. What buildings are you going to erect?

Dr. WHITE. The idea in asking for this $200,000 is this: We know there are going to be a great many insanes to provide for. We do not know, of course, how many of them are going to be sent back to this country. There is no definite policy which has been established by the War Department so that we can figure on anything exactly, but we have got to be prepared for them when they come. This $200,000 is for the purpose of building buildings not now, but for the purpose of putting up semipermanent structures rapidly as the needs develop, so that we will be able to take care of these people as they come in. We have the right to expect at least 1,000 insane for every 500,000 that are added to the Army under ordinary conditions, and we know from what has been experienced in Canada, if we are to expect the same conditions that the Canadians have had, that approximately 20 per cent of the troops that are invalided home are mental and nervous cases. They have brought home something like 40,000 troops. So that we are bound to have a very considerable number of them.

The CHAIRMAN. Forty thousand invalided troops?

Dr. WHITE. Yes; that number has been sent home on their hospital ships, and 20 per cent of those are mental and nervous cases. We also know that the English and French did not make adequate provision beforehand for their insane, and they have had a great deal of trouble with them as a result. If they are not adequately provided for, they are going to be all over the country in general hospitals and not properly taken care of, and that will interfere with the care of the other soldiers, so that they ought to be properly segregated and properly cared for. We have succeeded in getting the Army and Navy people to accede to the plan of adding to their large base hospitals a separate building specially erected for mental cases to be in charge of a psychiatrist. We-when I say we I mean the people who have formed themselves into a committee to help out in this matter-we have succeeded in getting a psychiatrist assigned to every one of the large camps and cantonments for the examination of the enlisted men, so

that, as far as possible, marked defective types will be excluded, so that we will not have to take care of them at the front when they break down there.

The best we can figure, we will probably have several thousand cases to take care of, and in order to provide the accommodations I have asked for this money to build units that can be readily constructed, something after these plans [indicating]. This is practically the plan which the Army has adopted for its units at its base hospitals. I would not want to be held down as to the interior arrangement, because that will have to be changed according to the type of patients we get.

The CHAIRMAN. How many stories will it be?

Dr. WHITE. Just one story-a wooden building.

LAND ON RIVER FRONT FOR FARM.

In addition to that, I am asking you for the land on the river front, so that we can locate the buildings about our present buildings and use that land for farming.

The CHAIRMAN. They have leased that land.

Dr. WHITE. Yes, sir; but the lease expires in December. They could turn it over to us so that we could farm it.

TRANSFER OF PATIENTS TO PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS THROUGHOUT UNITED STATES.

In addition, I am asking for authority to incorporate in the law this language [indicating], which will permit the Secretary of War to send to the public institutions for the insane throughout the United States which are willing to accept them, such patients as go insane in the Army, preferably picking out hospitals in the districts where the patients live. For example, in New York if they had 20 beds at Rochester and there were 20 men from that district they could send them there.

The CHAIRMAN. You want authority granted the Secretary of War to transfer to the various public hospitals for the care of the insane of the country that have facilities for and will receive them, patients of every class entitled to treatment in St. Elizabeths Hospital, and that they be admitted on the order of the Secretary of War? Dr. WHITE. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And you want authority granted the Secretary of War to transfer to the nearest available public hospital for the care of the insane any insane patient who is in need of treatment from any military hospital, preference being given to the hospital nearest to the place of the patient's enlistment?

Dr. WHITE. Yes, sir; that is to the hospitals that are willing to accept them, not to force them, of course.

The CHAIRMAN. And you want to take the money appropriated for the support of St. Elizabeths Hospital to pay for those patients at these other institutions. How would you ever be able to know what happened?

Dr. WHITE. If the Secretary of War transfers anybody, why, he has a record of it. This is to be paid for on bills submitted and approved. They will be Federal charges. The purpose of this is to mobilize the beds in the hospitals for the care of the patients that