The emancipation of ihe working"
*; * class must h<“ the class- conscious wforlE
of the viking class. -- KAB,L }JARX
■
■_ SOCIALIST
no. io. FAIRBANKS, ALASKA, FEB, 15,1914
—--- - . _■ _
Communication.
THAT GRAND JURY REPORT
Kditor Alaska Socialist:
I have read the articles in your last
issue on politicians and was especially
interested in what you said about our
local so-called Democrats. But I think
you were too hard on the Democrats a s
a body. I admit there are rotten, graft
ing Democrats, but there are honest ones
too.
Now, take the article in a recent issue
of the Alaska Citizen headed “Grand Ju
ry Report not political trick”, a paper
owned by the great and reliable Demo
crat, Mr. Caskey, where he tries to show
that the grand jury was immaculate and
representative and that efforts were not
being made to oust Judge Fuller and
district attorney Crossley from their pos
itions. If Caskey can reconcile his attit
ude in that article with what appeared in
his paper criticizing the make-up of the
grand jury in previous issues I will eat
my hat-band, rim and all. Not alone did
lie show u p t h e characters o f some o f
the grand jury in his paper but i n priv
ate conversations with his friends he
actuallv had nicknames for them, and
all this time he was praising Fuller and
Crossley as being straight arid fearless.
In that article he tells us that 13 ont
of the 18 grand jurors who signed the
report were married men ,—jnst as if
that had anything to do with the play.
Better leave out the marriage question.
Wonder to me he didn’t use the phrase
*
"holy bonds of matrimony”. There are
all kinds of marriages- married for con-!
venience, marriages for love, marriages ;
for-fear-of-tlie-grand-jury, marriages by :
absent treatment &c.
The truth i s Caskey had intended t o
keep on backing up the judge and the
district attorney at this critical stage
and make further exposures about the j
make-up of the notorious grand jury but
was compelled to reverse his engines by j
a visit from Martin Harris, Rothand the j
innocent and smooth going Griffin, and \
then he danced to the tune of “turn a- j
bout, jump about, jump Jim Crow” just
as he did when he had prepared charges '
against marshall “Stubbs” Erwin for
having a prisoner working on the trail
coming in. Caskey didn’t fire that shot j
because, to use Caskey’s own words “I
t
will let “Stubbs” do anything he likes
so long as he gives me what I want”, ,
which meant, of course, the printing, &c |
This rotten branch of the local Demo- ‘
cratic party thought they s a w a chance
to make room for Roth as district attor
ney and for Tom Macgowanas judge-pur
innocent-minded Tom: Wouldn’t we be
nicely fixed then ?
The whole business was bad enough
but Caskey and his paper has made the
affair smell more stinking and “tozier
ized”.
A DEMOCRAT.
i
FAIR VIEW HOTEL
First Gass Accommodations.
ROOMS 50 cents AND $1
Your Patronage Solicited
FRONT STREET PHONE 245 A
MISSNELLIE O’LEARY
BILLY GORHAM
GOLDSMITH
Watches Repaired
Opp. Gordon's Glass Block
;
Cushman Street ;
HYDRA-HEADED MONSTER
SHOWS ITS CLAWS
“NIGGER IN WOODPILE" BEGINN
ING TO SHOW HIMSELF
TOWARDS WATERLOO
The preliminary skirmish has been
fought. The legal Napoleon of the N. C.
was driven back upon Paris, so to speak
and forced into a silence amounting to a
temporary Elba.
Whether he will “escape and retake
an empire by the force of his genius”
remains to be seen. At present, his for
ces are nursing their wounds and their
wrath, appealing to public opinion,
which seems to have fled them, as they
orate before a bar where any one m a y
practice for two bits.
THE TRIAL
The trial of Louis Klopsch, editor of
Fairbanks Facts, for contempt of court
was a scene well calculated to arouse a
question in the minds of spectators.
Seven attorneys appeared in the case,
an incident without a parallel in Fair- I
banks. Yet, if it were, the intention o f
the defense to overawe the court with
an array of lawyers the attempt was a
complete failure. The court did not over
awe worth a darn. On the contrary, the
sight of four attorneys seemed to have
an antagonistic effect. The scene was
not altogether unlike Bobby Burns’ off
hand description of a trial:
They clenched their pamphlets i n their j
Jsts,
They quoted and they hinted
Till, in a declamation mist,
Their argument they tint it;
They gaped for’t, they graped for’t,
They found it wasawa mau,
So when their common sense came short
They then put in the law, man.
Collected, then, they tried again,
And opened wide their arms then,
His Honor sat with rueful e’e
And eyed the gathering storm then:
Dike wind-driven hail it did assail,
Or torrents oer a linn, man,
The bench, so wise, cast up his eyes
Half-wakened with the din, man.
Marquanv, the Parnell of the Fairbanks
bar with his convincing voice, his re
markable personality, his classic features
and kindly half-sad eyes which somehow
6eent to have been meant to grace a nob- ■
ler cause, availed nothing. Neither the '
suavity of McGowan, the analytical mind
of Stevens or the contemptuous count
enance of Pratt won for '.lie defense.
Bion Dodge, for the government, leap
ed upon their arguments like a fury.
His yoice carried the pent up indigation
of years. Blow followed blow, unmerci
ful, unremitting. And the spots he fail
ed to bruise were plentifully lashed by
Crossley who closed the case which
seems to be the beginning of the end for
sotnebody.
IIIf SEAL DffMI
Kow who was bn trial? If it were
Klbpsch, editor of Facts, what need o f
four lawyers. A ■vtor'kingman would b e
in Juffk to haw one. And only when the
"fanuua Stiwf £ows upstream will a
workingman without money be found in
court with enough lawyers to smother
him.
.One of the lawyers stated to the court,
sort of by way o f excuse, that Klopsch
had no money. That all of the attorney’s
were busy-, and no one caring to devote
his whole time to the case, they had all
concluded to coiat. This excuse would
lie laughed out of court if it were not
made by one of the logicians.
Who or what yvas on trial then in dis
trict court on I'eb. 6th? What influence
yvas back of Klopsch which called forth
a quartet of the best legal talent in Fair
banks ? Did they merely leap forth like
so many minute men to defend the rights
of a free press hs against a tyrannical
judge yvho sought to throttle the truth ?
Hardly. Lawyers are good enough
fellows, but they have a way of letting
the truth look out for itself unless there
be something material in sight.
THE $500,000
Barnett is said to be worth $1,400,000.
Abont $500,000 is said to be due the de
positors of the defunct Washington Alas
ka Bank. The present receiver, Mr.Noves
who was appointed by Judge Overfield,
has begun suit against the directors, for
mer receivers and their sureties for this
amount. Next November, it is said, Bar
nett will be made a defendant in a eiivl
action, and apparently nothing can de
feat a judgment.
During the argument i n the Klopscli
trial for contempt, assisant U. S. attor
ney Dodge stated, in substance, that the
purpose of the Klopscli publication was
to precipitate a situation that would res
ult in the removal o f Judge Fuller be
cause he could not be handled by the
lawyers for the bank looters.
This W. A. Bank business is, evidently,
then the tap root from which has sprung
the poisonous vine of interlocking laces.
Well and shrewdly a plan seems to have
been laid to make a clean sweep of
Crossley, Judge Fuller and other obnox
ious persons, not because Crossley was
extravagant with government money and
Judge Fuller protecting shady doings of
clie receiver, Mr. Noyes, but because
they stood in the way of that $500,000.
pie. These men could not be handled so
they must be got out of the way, Being
Republicans, the Democrat administrat
ion could be employed as a lever when a
sufficient sentiment had been aroused a
gainst them.
However, it apparently did not work out
just right. The bank looting faction have
been put on the run. They are now look
ing for a place to hide, and, it is said,
the grand jury is to be investigated.
Crossley is said to be somewhat of an
investigator himself.
FACTS
So Facts has proven to be more or less
fiction. But its editor deserves some
mention. He played the game well from
the bank looter standpoint. If not brave
he was at least bold. He succeeded lor
for a time in arousing popular opinion
against theforces that are trying to make
Barnett come through with the deposit
or's money. If he chooses to be the tool
of some one else, it is his own funeral
and nobody has a better right to go to
it. A tool is valuable so long a s h e can
be effectively used.
Here we might pause to state the ob
ject of a Socialist publication lending
its columns to at expose of capitalistic
tricksters
If we were merely' addressing a socia
list audience, it would be.unnecessary to
relate the putrid manipulations of the
’’better classes.” Socialists already
know that a system of robbery must pro
duce robbers. We know that a diseased
tree can not bring forth good fruit. No
thing but graft can logically' emanate
from a sy'stem founded o n the exploita
tion of the producing class.
Knowing this, we, unlike the district
attorney’s office, would attack the cause
and not the e ffe c t. By abolishing the
profit system or the cause, bank looters
the effect, would disappear as naturally
as malaria from a drained swamp.
We would not punish, we would cure.
For the man who votes to uphold the
present order o f society i s a n accessory
to every crime growing out of it. Society j
is sick. It will not be cured by attacking
individuals. And only as individuals
serve as object lessons, is there any val
ue or any good taste in holding them up
to scorn. /
BARNETTE’S GHOST*
We want the gullible readers of the
subsidized press to understand that the
bank looters are still on the job. Barnette
and others are basking in the snnm- val-,
(Continued on page 4)
* • 1
For Fine Watch Repairing
SEE
The Live Jeweler
Commnnication
.
ANCIENT OLD PARTY MINK FOR ALASKA
Editor Alaska Socialist;
Kflowing that
a1 good Democrat is, necessarily, a good
republican; that a good Republican is,
by the same token, a good democrat; al
rso that a democrat is a republican and
j vica versa—knowing those things, as all
t
discriminating voters do. you would log
ically and naturally jump to the conclus
ion that a Good Democrat \®»s a Good
Republican, and vica versa.—eh? Dotv’t
kind reader, if yon love peace ever make
that fatal mistake! Yon’re sure to get
‘‘in bad’’ for good! Good Democrats and
f Good Republicans take these matters
! seriously and are always on the job. And
| bear in mind that, between the two,
| there’s a great distinction, also a vast
! difference. (Shakespeare said; "What's
in a name ?) To the pure al 1 things are
pure, and while a democrat at times tire
of democracy, and turns to monarchy,
and a republican turn from a republic to
absolute despotism, a good Republican is
always working for Republicanism amt
a good Democrat for Democracy. A 9 t<*
the constituent parts etc., which go to
make a Democrat or Republican—for re
liable information address W. J. B.,
Chatauqua Circuit, and B. Penrose, the
Lobby, D. C., respectively.
Now, with that great distinction be
, tween a Democrat and a Republican im
| pressed on the mind, note how our dear
j old parties did, in old party politician’*
vernacular, a flip flop; make a lightning
change. Seems but yesterday that our
! fair Alaska, at least Fairbanks, was fill
I ed with none but good Republicans—*~
I stalwarts, staunch and keeping the faith
; on election day, boldly and bravely be
j badged with the Rooster emblem, sport-,
i ing good cigars and shouting Protection!
| Taft! and the full dinner pail! (whatever
that signifies). Good Republicans every
where, and nowhere any kind of a Dem
| ocrat—but, not so fast, there was a lone
! some looking mortal who bore the dis
; tinction of the Lone Democrat. Look
now! Our fair land is filled with none
i
1 but Democrats—Good Democrats! (4
reward is offered for the whereabouts of
i the Lone Republican »f the 'fanana,
I Valley.)
I
As you will perceive in-Alaska;, we’ve
; a political paradox. In this land there
exists a system whereby a map, who’d
have no show to he elected to an office—
“acquires” said office-—gets there any
way.
Old-party bunk which made possible
such of our notorious national men and
institutions as the Boss Tweed ring,
Tammany, the New York cancer, Dick
Croker, Murphy, Boss Cox of Ohio and
Roger Sullivan of Illinois—all these and
more were fostered hv our dear old party
Convention system. The excuse—There’s
a Reason for any old organization in Al
aska is because it’s a mean to an end or
ends. The ends being the plum tree, pie
counter, corn crib and pork-barrel. You’ll
observe, no doubt, that in said means to
an end proposition, Alaskan voters a r»
analogous to the long suffering voters of
Alabama and the other states of that sol
id south. In spite of fact that the dis
criminating Alaskan voters have refused
to accept ^ single one of the many can
didates which the Old party conventions
ordered ’em to take—the old party is
still conventioni^ing. At the good Rep
ublican Convention, 1908 Boss Shakleford
told Judge Wickershani—elected three
times since— nay, nay. the delegatesliip
was not for him. And ordered us to vote
. «
for his John W. Corson of Seattle. That
year the good Democratic Convention
ordered John Ronan for us.
(Continued on page 4)