“Mr. Foster, were not those coal claims located with a purpose to dispose of them in a group at a profit?”

“No, sir.  I have told you on account of the great expense of development it was necessary to work together; it was also necessary that as many claims as possible should be taken.”

The prosecution, nodding affirmatively, looked at the jury.  “The more cunning and subtle the disguise,” he said, “the more sure we may be of the evasion of the law.  So, Mr. Foster, you promoted an interest in the fields, selected claims for men who never saw them; used their power of attorney?”

“Yes.  That was in accordance with the law then in force.  We paid for our coal claims, the required ten dollars an acre.  The land office accepted our money, eighty thousand dollars.  Then the President suspended the law, and we never received our patents.  About that time the Chugach forest reserve was made, and we were hampered by all sorts of impossible conditions.  Some of us were financially ruined.  One of the first locators spent one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, his whole fortune, in development.  He opened his mine and had several tons of coal carried by packers through the mountains to the coast, to be shipped to Seattle, to be tested on one of the Government cruisers.  The report was so favorable it encouraged the rest of us to stay with the venture.”

“Mr. Foster,” the attorney’s voice took a higher, more aggressive pitch, “were not many of those claims entered under names furnished by an agent of the Morganstein interests?”

“Well, yes.”  Foster threw his head with something of his old boyish defiance.  He was losing patience and skill.  “Mr. Morganstein himself made a filing, and his father.  That is the reason all our holdings are now classed as the Morganstein group.”

“And,” pursued the lawyer, “their entries were incidental with the consolidation of your company with the Prince William Development Company?”

Foster flushed hotly.  “The Prince William Development Company was in need of coal; no enterprise can be carried on without it in Alaska.  And the consolidation brought necessary capital to us; without it, our railroad was bankrupt.  It meant inestimable benefit to the country, to every prospector, miner, homesteader, who must waste nerve-breaking weeks packing his outfit through those bleak mountains in order to reach the interior.  But, before forty miles of track was completed, the executive withdrew all Alaska coal lands from entry, and we discontinued construction, pending an Act of Congress to allow our patents.  The material carried in there at so great a cost is lying there still, rotting away.”

“Gentlemen, is it not all clear to you?” The prosecuting attorney flashed a glance of triumph over the jury.  “Do you not see in this Prince William Development Company the long arm of the octopus that is strangling Alaska?  That has reached out its tentacles everywhere, for gold here, copper there; for oil, coal, timber, anything in sight?  That, but for the foresight of the executive and Gifford Pinchot, would possess most of Alaska today?”