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"To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as
•early as possible, is a worthy object of any good government."—
anranam Lincoln
Address all Communications to Dally Nome Industrial Worker,
Box 210 Nome, Alaska. Phone, Black 134
All changes In standing advertisements must reach this office at six
•'clock each evening to Insure insertion in the following issue.
Advertising rates made known on application.
Entered as second class matter March 1, 1011, at the post office at
Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March I, 1870.
Nome, Alaska, June 1, mill.
JAMES J. IIM.I;.
The death of Hill removes from
the sphere of American industry
and finance a notable figure among
many notable figures. He is a type
of genius that has found far larger
development on the American con
tinent than in any other section ot
the civilized world. That type has
been called “empire builders” be
cause they presented many things
in common to the world conquerors
who spread the realms of great na
tions far afield.
With Hill the comparison seems
more fitting because he has been
associated with the growth and de
velopment of the great northwest
and generally to him has been ac
credited all that growth and that
development.
Papers addicted to flattering the
great and powerful freely concede
that without Hill the northwest
would still be a frontier and his
persistency and his energy Is alone
responsible for its up-building and
its prosperity.
It is in this conn©' tion to be said
that most histories are based upon
the same awkward fallacy. The
scribes taking cognizance of the
processus of events down the chap
ters of human story ascribe the
historical movement to this
or that great man and
plainly intimate that without
the existence of such an one. It
might have been and probably
would have been entirely different.
But corrector is the view that
holds that Hill himself aws but the
creature of circumstances. It was
his goed fortune to ride upon the
crest of the wave of development
that swept over the fertile acres or
the northwest, and associated with
an Industry of paramount import
ance in that development he could
not have been financially and In
dustrially other than he was.
His claim to greatness lies in that
his character end hi3 genius was
adjusted to the circumstances of the
development of the northwest and
ho made the most of that ready
made adjustment it was his fortune
to enjoy. Hill was a railroad man
ager and railroad hu'lder of unite
unusual characteristics. He was a
good judge of subordinates. He
was not troubled by over scrupul
ous methods in the manipulation ot
his holdings. He had shrewd ideas
that the main purpose of railroad
construction was to get the trains
running over territory which would
prove productive, and thereafter to
let the maintenance take care of it
self. Being personally interested
in his railroad he avoided the
troublesome necessity of watered
stock that proved such an annoy
ance in the history of the Nerthern
Pacific, and he had ever before him
the mistake of that road to avoid
and to be warned by.
He was not In the strict sense of
the word a pioneer, and he wa3
wise enough to recognize that
while there is considerable of ro
mance and interest and excitement
in pioneering, as applied to the
railroad industry it did not pay. It
usually led straight into the re
ceiver's hands. And Hill had the
shrewd Canadian faculty for desir
ing to be his own receiver.
The Great Northern railroad was
constructed through a territory
whose development sooner or later
was inevitable. It needed na
ghost to come from its troubled
grave to tell a financier that the
wheat fields of the Dakotas, tne
rangos and mines of Montana the
wheat and lumber resources ot
Washington would richly repay ex
ploitation. And if Hill did not lead
there through with his Great North
ern, another would have done so
with another road.
That the road hastened the de
velopment of all these resources it
is not possible to question; but it
is ridiculous to credit Hill with that
development.
As a railroad man Hill made
many and egregious mistakes. Bu.
he was a careful man. and full of
care in nothing more earnestly
than in his financial alliances. He
i was not a stock gambler even to
l the limited extent was Harriman
He had not Harriman’s imagination
and we may well doubt if he had
his ability. Mellen, now the fallen
one who trying to rehabilitate the
New York New Haven and Hort
ford discovered only that that road
was the graveyard of railroad repu
tations, wr.s a man with greater
ability than Hill.
Mellen with a strictly limited
power v/hen president of the North
ern Pacific really worsted Hill in
every deal. Hill covctted the con
trol of the Burlington, but he could
only accomplish that in alliance
with the Northern Pacific. Hill
wanted the Seattle and Internation
al road. Mellon bought it from
under his nose. Hill wanted the
Monte Cristo road and Mellen again
manipulated it so that that road
passed into the possession of the
Northern Pacific, giving direct and
easy connection with Hill’s own
town of Everett. Along the entire
rival lines of the Great Northern
and the Northern Paeific the same
superior strategy of Mellen was ma
nifested. It ended In the downfall
of Mellon through the influence of
Hill with J. P. Morgan who how
ever lightened the fall by pretend
ing the necessity of the New
Haven for a man of Mellon's cal
iber.
The story of Hill’s control of the
situation as far as an employer of
'abor is concerned is no better and
no worse than many others. Labor
to those captains of industry is a
matter of secondary importance.
The necessity of the situation Is
profit making and dividend seeking.
Hill had no mission to provide occu
pation for well paid workers or to
develop for the convenience of pros
perous settlers the country tributa
ry to his road.
The main thing was that his rail
road should prove remunerative;
add to his own wealth and that of
his fellow owners. Anything that
contributed to that fortunate con
dition was well; anything that did
not was ill.
; It is manifest that the most im
portant feature of the control of an
i industry by this man—as is the
J most important featuro of Industri
al control by any man—is the
enormous power that it gives. Over
thousands he has got literally the
power of life and death. He can
discharge thousands from the oc
cupations which afford them the
means of subsistence and he can
with a stroke of his pen lower the
standard of living of hundreds of
thousands. Few if any ever dwell
upon this enormous power which Is
exercised over the people by thoc.*
who control their livelihood. Yet
It is without question tho gravest
of all matters involved in such pri
vate ownership. The question
whether or not thoy serve the pub
lic efficiently and well or ineffective
ly and ill is as nothing compared
to that.
It does make a terrific lot of diff
erence socially and morally and po
ltically if thousands are to be in
dustrially subject to one man. You
cannot expect that under such con
ditions free men will thrive. If to
day or tomorrow for uttering sen
timents opposed to the industrial
overlords here or there this man of
that is to be ousted from his living,
such a condition is not conducive to
freedom.
Giving Hill all the credit for his
powerful Intellect and unquestion
able administrative ability, his pe
netrating judge of human character
and his capacity to make the most
of the opportunities were his,
surely it is too much power for
any man to have that he can call
his tho lires and destinies, the opi
nions and the beliefs of thousands.
To hide this real issue with the
Sunday school fablo that
everyone can be a Hill, just as
evcjy American child is taught the
impossible fallacy that it may one
day be president is only to add to
the evil. It serves merely to con
ceal t'/.e truth that it is an undesir
able condition that there should bo
any person who held the industrial
power over the masses that the
ownership and control of the Great
Northern conferred upon James J.
Hill. There are many things that
have served strikingly to reveal the
extraordinary powers held by suen
a man as Hill and through Hill the
Great Northern railroad. But the
state of Washington will recall the
corruption of a Judge of the Sup
reme Court and the machinations
of Gordon in Spokane.
These were perhaps no worse
that prevailed in the State of Ca
liforna where the Union Pacific un
questionably controlled the dicta of
the Supreme Court of that state
for a number of years; corrupted
the Sacramento legislature and
made a subsidiary corporation ot
the government and courts of the
state of California for the Union
Pacific.
May be like Warren Hastings,
when Hill recalled the ease witn
which judges and legislatures were
converted to his tools he would say
“By God, when I think of it my
own moderation astonishes me".
And when one does fairly review
the situation and the small extent
to which Hill or the Great Northern
did pervert the legislatures and the
courts notwithstanding the willing
ness of the courts and the legisla
ture to be perverted, his modera
tion is not so discreditable.
Yet that moderation is hardly to
be noted. The entire beginning ot
the Groat Northern has been identi
fied with law juggling and legisla
tive handling which would if ever
j written form a history in itself.
Men have been known in Seattle
' and in other cities, professional,
polilicians and lobbyists, as Jim
! Hill's men. They were alike demo
crats and republicans, and no mat
ter which party was in the ascend
ant Jim Hill's men of one persua
sion or another were sure to be
there.
This is a reflection of the tre
mendous economic power of the
railroads. It is too much power
whether abused or well used for
any one man. The best autocrat,
.said a Russian writer, is a bad em
peror. The best captain of indus
try because he lias power that no
man should hold over the lives ot
others, is a bad example. That
power which is possible of abuse
and Is abused, and indeed in the
nature of things must be abused, is
one that is associated always wlf.n
private ownership and which is the
most serious t.rgument against any
such thing.
Jim Hill will be cited now tha.
he is dead as showing what a man
can come to who striwo with
all his power to succeed. What
he did others can do, and
therefore it behoves everyone
man who possessed a power as great
to apply himself with the same
energy and faithful service to the
end that he too may be such as
Hill.
That kind of pap is based upon
air castle mathematics which takes
no stock of the fact that the per
centage of Hills is do small that for
all purposes of calculation in the
industrial scheme they are neglig
ible.
Jim Hill will not be cited as a
man who possessed & power as
many a king, greater than many a
feudal baron, and as one who exer
cised the right of control over the
human lives of the masses in this
democracy to an extent only par
allelled under serfdom.
But that is the literal fact, it is
the fact above all others that is
most pregnant with instruction. Hill
is in his grave. After life’s fitful
fever he sleeps well. The gold he
amassed, the art treasures, the
friends he made, the financial ambi
tious he fulfilled trouble him no
more. But the centralized power
that he gathered into his hands
through the fortuitous circum
stances of his life, remains after
him, a legacy full of menace to the
people and full of danger to demo
cracy. And this, the evil that he
did, will iive after him, while
whatso good he did will be inter
red with his bones.
Tents 10\12, 10 oz. duck $8.00,
10 ft. conical tents at $10.00. 16x20
tent $15.00 at Crooks, next *Fire
Department.
MINERAL APPLICATION NO. 0283
U. S. Land Office, Nome, Alaska,
April 18th, 1916.
Notice is hereby given that the
Flume Dredge Company, a corpora
tion organized under the laws of
the State of California, with Its
principal place of buciness and post
office address, Mills Building, San
Francisco, California, has through
Jas. M. Streeten, its authorized
agent, whose post office address is
| Nome, Alaska, made application for
! a United States patent for No. 14
Above Discovery placer mining
claim, situated on Melsing Creek,
in the Council City Recording Di
strict, Territory of Alaska, and de
signated as Mineral Survey No.
1172, which said placer mining claim
is described according to the plat
and field notes now on file in tho
U. S. Land Office 'at Nome, Alaska,
with a magnetic variation of 21
deg. 38 min. E. as follows:
Beginning at Corner No. 1, a
spruce post 4 ft. long, 6 ins. dia
meter, in earth mound, scribed 14
Ab 1 1172 on N. face, whei ce U. S.
L. M. No. 1172 bears S 59 deg.
34 min. W. 380.3 ft. Thonce N. 35
I deg. 35 min. W. 544.4 ft. to Cor.
No. 2; thence N. 56 deg. 27 min.
E. 1376.6 ft. to Cor. No. 3; thence
S. 37 deg. 56 min. E. 526.4 ft. to
| Cor. No. 4; thence S. 55 deg. 37
min. W. 1397.6 ft. to Cor. No. 1,
j place of beginning, containing an
: area of 17.025 acres.
This claim is situated on Melsing
Creek about four miles north of
Council City, Council City Re
cording Precinct, Alaska. Lo
cation monur.eiit No. 1172 is
a schist stone 37x20x5 ins.
18 ins. in the ground, with mound
of earth 4 ft. high, 6 ft. base, situa
ted about 30 ft. above the bed if
Melsing Creek, on the south sids
thereof, in latitude 64 deg. 55 min.
N., longitude 163 deg. 39 min. W.
The location notice is recorded In
Vol. 10, page 132, of the records
Council City Recording District, Al
aska.
The adjoining claims are as fol
lows: On the northeast No. 15
Above Discovery on Melsing Creek;
on the southwest. No. 13 Above Dis
covery on Melsing Creek; claimants
unknown; on the northwest ana
southeast, claims unknown; all un
surveyed.
O. A. ADAMS.
Register.
Date of first publ., April 20, 1916.
Date of last publ., June 21, 1916.
' THE NOME INDUSTRIAL WORKER
is prepared to handle
all kinds of
JOB PRINTING
Let us figure on your
work. Call up Black
134 or call at
THE INDUSTRIAL WORKER OFFICE
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White Boots
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Cheap John Store
Kent Transfer Oo.
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Phone Main 139.
MURPHY HAS THE GOODS
i
Summit Shirts, Stetson Hats,
and Connelly Shoes
DIU-BAK CLOTHIN’G. A Suit of this will answer any miners
requirements, and lias proven the best goods of the kind on the
market to date.
MURPHY
ifiLnrdnuiifitfiaaren
ARXIC SPRING
WATER
Always at your Service.
Prompt delivery— Blizzard or
Shine at asual Rates Id
Buckets $1.00. 50c. a Barrel.
~ A. D. POTKET.
Phone Red 128.
laaazia/i!
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MEET MARKET
Wholesale and Retail Dealer
In Beef, Pork, Mntton, Veal,
Ham, Bacon Poultry and Fish
Game In Season. All treats
Stock. No old or damaged.
W. H. Webb prop. Phone M.15
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