The
ALASKA SOURDOUGH
Published for the Sourdough and
the Chechako as well, by A. B. Calla
ham.
Subscription price, $3.00 a year;
Six Months, $1.60; Three Months, $1.00.
Single Copies Ten Cents.
Issued Every Tuesday
Application made for admission to
the Mail as Second Class Mail Matter,
and Conditional Permit Issued.
Home Office, Old Methodist Church
Building, Douglas, Alaska. Tel. 36.
HOME RULE FOR ALASKA
Some sort of Home Rule legisaltion
is practically certain from the next ses
sion of congress.
President Taft’s present plan, for a
legislature partly appointive and partly
elective, has plenty of precedent on
this continent. At one time New Mex
ico had a territorial council, part of
which was appointive and part of which
was elective. The first council for the
Yukon was made up of appointive and*
elective members. First a majority ap
pointive folio-wed by a majority elec
tive and at last a body wholey elective.
Should the present plan of President
Taft prevail, there is little doubt that
in a very short time, the Alaska legis
lature would be wholey elective.
‘—After you have home rule, ’ said
United States Senator Poindexter at
the meeting in Juneau last week, you
will wish you did not have it. Al
readv there has grown up in southeast
ern Alaska some objection to ha\ ing
the whole of Alaska included in a ter
ritorial organization. The Sulzer plan
has a good many friends in this part
of the northland.
POLITICAL MEETING
Juneau enjoyed her first political
meeting of the year at Elks hall on
Wednesday evening.
The Seattle Times announces that a
combination has been effected by the
La Follette and the Wiekersham forces
in Alaska, and that they are to work
in double harness. There can be no
doubt about the political' sagacity of
the movement.
The meeting at Elks hall was the
first for many years at least when the
“other crowd, ’ ’ had the ear of the
statesmen, and there has been the usual
complaint that some body wanted to
speak, and was not allowed. As Chas.
Hopp said so aptly, however, in regard
to the same complaint anent the Fish
er meeting at Ketchikan, a postage
stamp would still answer every pur
pose.
WINTER SPORTS
Tho Sourdough desires to urge with
all its might that everybody turn out
and encourage the Douglas Winter
Sports Association. Nothing will so
much help to make Alaska a desirable
place to live as winter sports.
The way to have a cold all winter,
is to hug the stove. Ice skating, ski
ing, toboganning are joys which are
only for those who live in rigorous cli
mates. To skate, to ski, to slide down
the long tobogans defying the winter,
is to enjoy it. The Scandinavian young
men and women of Douglas who are
pushing the winter sports association
are doing a great deal for the commun
ity. The time may come when our
Christmas day program may be a big
ger sporting event than the Fourth of
July.
NAT! ,AL POLITICS
In a recent number of the Saturday
Evening Post, Mr. Gifford Pincliot pre
sented his objections to the renomina
tion of President Taft. All of his ob
jections related to events preceding
the retirement of Mr. Ballinger from
the interior department. Mr. Pinchot,
as if tactily admitting that the con
servationists could find no fault with
his administration since that event, laid
stress on the importance of those acts
because they followed the innaugurat
ion, and disclosed the nature of the
man before* his intentions were dis
turbed by thoughts of second term.
The tariff sentiment which has mani
fest itself in the United States sineo
the inauguration of Mr. Taft is dis
tinctly democratic. How much of it,
in Republican ranks, will accrue to the
benefit of Mr. La Follette, is problem
atical. Unquestionably, so far as the
Republicans are concerned, President
Taft has recovered some of his lost
ground since the appointment of Mr.
Fisher, a Pinchot conservationist, to
succeed Mr. Ballinger, and sinco his
successful fight for the passage by
congress of the reciprocity measures,
notwithstanding his vetoe of the wool
bill. The defeat of the president for
renomination is by no means a foregone
conclusion.
FOR THE SULZER PLAN
The Ketchikan Miner is heartily in
favor of the Sulzer plan of dividing
Alaska into three territories. In an
editorial that paper says:
Congressman Sulzer solved the prob
lem of the government of Alaska when
he suggested the division of the dis-,
trict into three territories, each to have
territorial government.
Here, is the answer to the argument
of the unwieldiness of the country gov
erned under one head; here is the rem
edy of the chief objection that has been
raised against territorial government.
No man who has lived in Alaska can
honestly claim that Alaskans are in
capable of self government—the diffi
culty as we have seen it has been that
the territory was too large, too difficult
of access and with interests too diversi
fied to be handled as a unit without the
tremendous friction which has tended
to make the name Alaska almost a joke
in the eyes of the American people.
There can be no doubt in the thought
of any fair minded man that with any
thing like a square deal southeastern
Alaska, under any name, is not only
ready to be made a territory with all
the responsibilities that the word im
plies, but with a very few years of pre
paration would be fit to enter the Un
ion as a full fledged state. The same
is true of southwestern Alaska. Both
districts are peopled by practically the
same kind of people. Both are adjacent
to the seaboard, both have almost the
same class of resources, and both have
permanent towns and settlements.
The country north of the Yukon is
different, as Mr. Sulzer says, in cli
mate and conditions it more nearly
comes up to the general idea of Alaska
as entertained by the average Ameri
can, and it has been the thought of
coupling our portion of the district in
solubly to this region that has deterred
many people from allying themselves
with the territorial government move
ment prior to this time.
Now, however, these with those who
have gone on in advance and blazed the
way can meet on a common ground and
work, not only for a territorial form
of government for this region, but for
ultimate statehood. Sounds pretty
good, doesn’t it?—Ketchikan Miner.
O’BRIEN AT MARSHFIELD
Copies of the Marshfield Evening
Record have arrived in Juneau with a
salutatory by A. R. 0 ’Brien on the edi
torial page. It is a six column, eight
page paper, and it looks as if it were
edited by O ’Brien—no higher comple
ment could be paid to it than that.
BIG MOOSE LODGE
The Douglas Moose will organize this
week with at least 58 members in the
1st class. The Juneau lodge will come
to Douglas 100 strong to participate in
the initiation. Supreme Deputy Organ
izer Lindemann believes the Douglas
lodge will have two hundred members
before the charter closes.
BUT ITS PUBLIC OWNERSHIP
“If the United States,” says Captain
States of the Lone Fisherman, “would
put the price of a battleship into a rail
road from tidewater to the coal fields,
the Alaska coal question would be set
tled.”
FOR SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS
Commissioner Grover Winn entered
judgment last Friday for the plaintiff
in the case of McKanna vs. Thomas,
in the sum of $75. The case will be ap
pealed.
Sourdough, bargain rate, $2 a year.
‘THE OLD SLUICE BOX”
By Mike Me©
Where the rocks are gray, and the mountain steep,
And the gulch below looks dark and deep;
Where the gnarled pines in their rugged pride,
Loom gloomily up on either side;
Where the ancient moss lies crushed and thick
Where once was heard the shovel and pick,
Where the shadows lie heavy upon the rocks
There lies, half buried my old sluice box.
Through it the idle stream lazily glides
Gently washing its mouldering sides
Sides that once were mouldy and dim
From the yellow dirt that surged within,
While across the stream, on the gravel heaps,
The agile squirrel silently leaps.
And the crested quail, fluttering, drops
For its evening drink from the old sluice box.
Ah, many a day, with a weary hand,
Have I tossed in its bed, the glittering sands
And dreamed, as I leaned on its rotting side,
Raking the depths of its turgid tide,
Of father’s gray hairs and dear mother’s smile
Of dear ones at home who were waiting the while
The wanderer’s return—but time snearingly mocks,
The days that I toiled at the old sluice box.
From the moss grown rocks on which I lean,
I gaze down into the sluggish stream;
The face I see has graver grown,
And my voice, it seems, has a soberer tone,
And the wanton winds, with my hair at play,
Show that my locks have all turned gray;
Yet 1 long for those dear qld days gone by;
When my spirits were light and my hopes were high—
I could welcome again the rough hard knocks,
To be mining once more, with the old sluice box.
Will
The full text of the decision of the
United States court of appeals in the
case of United States vs. Nagle, the In
dian has been received by District At
torney Rustgard.
Briefly the court holds that all the
general laws of the United States apply
to Alaska, and the Indian citizenship
law along with it. Under it, every In
dian who ha3 severed his tribal relat
ions, is entitled to vote, buy whiskey,
to take up homestead or mineral claims
and to take out licenses as pilots and
officers of boats.
“The case will be appealed, how
ever,” said District Attorney Rust
gard, “and the question taken to the
supreme court.”
Heretofore the belief has been, both
at Washington and in the territory,
that the general laws of the United
States did not apply to Alaska. It has
long since been determined that the
constitution did not follow the flag, and
Alaska has been classed with the in
sular possessions, to which the consti
tution and the general laws did not
reach. The constitution provides that
every one born in the United States
and under its jurisdiction is a citizen
of the United States. In the nited
States, Indians living under the tribal
relations are held not to be citizens,
because they recognize the authority
of the chiefs and therefore not to have
been born under the jurisdiction of the
United States.
“If the decision of the United States
court of appeals stands,” said District
Attorney Kustgard, “there is nothing
in the world that can prevent an In
dian from voting at the next election.”
it®
W. G. Beattie, superintendent of In
dian education for southeastern Alas
ka, believes that the Douglas Indian
village should be moved. He believes
that a strip of ground along the beach,
possibly north of the Douglas water
front, should be set aside for a new
village, and none but Indians allowed
to reside there.
“There are many obstacles in the
way of moving the village,11 he said to
a representative of the Sourdough last
week, “and I have no definite plans
as to how the project is to be aecom
plished, but I intend to bring it about
if possible. Undoubtedly the present
invironraent is bad.”
Since the appropriation procured by
Governor Clark for the enforcement
of the law against the sale of liquor
to the Indians, the Douglas Indian vil
lage has been much improved. Some
very good men are among the white
men who reside on the beach, but a
large portion of the white men who
dwell there are tough characters. The
holdings along the beach, both by the
Indians and the whites, have consider
able value.
In a broad brimed slouch hat, a gray
flannel shirt, and an exquisite bag in
his tailor made trousers, United States
Senator Poindexter had a delightful
time posing as the typical western sen
ator on both sides of the Gastineau
channel last week. He spoke Thursday
night still in the flannel shirt, in a hall
where three hundred men and women
had danced in full evening dress only
a few nights before.
Senator Miles is not only a poser,
however, he is a politician par excel
lent. He is the possessor of a east
iron nerve, and an astute sense of what
will take with the crowd.
“I saw you in Spokane once when
you were prosecuting attorney there,
Senator, ” said a man who met him in
Juneau.
“Yes sir,” said the Senator, “I
knew you perfectly.”
“But Senator,” protested the other
man,“I was only there a few days.”
‘‘Certainly,” said the senator, “I
remember that too; remember it per
fectly. ’ ’
At the meeting Thursday night it
was amusing to listen to him feel for
his crowd. The wily Miles is pract:ced
on Washington audience, and neither
in western Washington or elsewhere
doe3 he fail to find out what his crowd
wants and cle-J-ere the goods lie got
his strongest applause on Thursday
night when he praised Judge Lyons.
The senator knows the judge’s folks
back in eastern Washington—his bro
thers and his brother-in-laws and his
uncle Pat.
The next day after the oratory, Gro
ver Winn said to his honor as a group
diseussed the meeting on the following
day.
“I noticed, judge, how skilfully you
maneuvered for that seat in time to be
in line for the boquets. ”
“Oh, Miles is a good fellow,” said
the judge. “Yes, he knows all my
folks down in Washington.”
“Think I heard him speak of your
uncle Pat,” somebody said.
“Oh, yes, he knows my uncle Pat^
and he likes all my folks. You see my
uncle Pat had three daughters, and
every one of them married a Democrat
politician. And when these son-in
laws of my uncle Pat are not busy
with the Democrats, they get busy and
insurge. ’ ’