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DESTRUCTION THE POLICY
The methods of destroying tlie
herring fisheries has been decried
and condemned by Alaskans—and
by The Alaskan in order that this
part of our fisheries might be saved
from total destruction. Fertilizer is
a needed product and so is the oil
put up but so long a» these products
may be obtained from other sources
it is a wrong policy to destroy the
fisheries just in order to produce
revenue for foreign corporations.
NEW METHOD OF DESTRUCTION
Tons of herring have gone thru
the plants for oil and fertilizer;
many more tons have been destroyed
by the imported fishermen. Rut the
latest report from these grounds
is that the “imported” fishermen are
using dynamite to get their herring.
When a set is made, just before the
pursing is begun, the crew signals
the ‘dinkyman” who lights the fuse
on a bit of dynamite which is then
thrown into the “set. The herring
are stunned so that those which do
not come within the set are destroy
ed and thus destruction is contin
ued.
After the herring industry lias
gone the way of the salmon then
the Bureau of Fisheries will turn
to and take measures of conserva
tion that will hurt the industry in
its variousi angles.
“An ounce of protection is wortii
a pound of cure” is an old axiom
but it is a whole lot better than
“locking the stable door after the
horse is stolen.”
WHEN THEY’R GONE,
THEY’ll GONE
. The cannery Foghorns and 11
ounces nave been declaring tha
the run of salmon was two week;
late this year, that on account o
peculiar weather conditions the fisl
refused to come in to spawning
grounds. However, Eagle Busch
mann is quoted as saying the rui
finally got here and as proof of tin
fact, he put up 117,000 cases of sal
man.
This kind of bunk is nothing bul
the drivel of ignoramuses who post
as “fish experts.” Men who are sy
eophants of the canning industry
and hope to benefit by their cater
ing, kowtowing and singing in de
fense of the system of depletion
There is no truth in the statement
that the run of salmon was twc
weeks late. The salmon are com
ing in, since there are now no traps
to obstruct their passage, but not
in such quantities as would justi
fy the opening of the fall season
for fishing.
As proof of the failure of the
run—proof conclusive that the first
run salmon did not come at all wt
point to the cohoe run which is now
making its appearance. This sal
mon makes its appearance with the
August-September run of salmon.
The first run of salmon never got
to the spawning grounds therefore
the run was not “Late” but the late
or fall run of salmon is now reach
ing the streams in small numbers
butnot in sufficient numbers to jus
tify heeding the petitions, letters
and personal urgings of interested
canners.
To do do 3o is to make a certain
ty the complete destruction of fu
ture cycles.
Sometimes a bank cashier saves
up enough to pay his running ex
penses when he gets more people
wonder how he got it.
White lies are apt to leave black
marks on a man’s reputation.
The price of libery is eternal vigi
lance—and it is always payable in
advance.
WE GO BACK TO THE RECORD
[Remarks of HENRY W. ELLIOT
before Committee on Merchant Ma
l
line and Fisheries, Considering H.
R. 2394, October 21, 1927.
* * * Naturally, these canners
and their help are deeply interest
ed in the continuation of their busi
ness. They don’t want to stop as
long as they can see a chance to
make expenses; as long as they can
see a fish surviving from tlie-runs
fished last year, they expect to make
I expenses. They are determined to
cliauce it risk; it, rather than stop.
1 do not blame them. 1 will say
right here, gentlemen, I would be
sitting there to-day and listening to
that gentleman’s (Mr. McCord’s)
arguments with great satisfaction
Looking to-day at these canners,
and studying the records of the de
pletion of those salmon runs caus
ed by their work, are millions of
good American citizens who have
no envy or fault to find with that
salmon fishing as long as it does
not threaten to destroy the source
of a fine national economic indus
try. But when the increasing re
cords and positive proof is put up
to these millions of good citizens
that this fishing as now conducted
is certain soon to eliminate the sal
mon from Alaska streams, some
one, two, or more citizens are sure
to arise as spokesmen from among
the great mass of their kind and
demand a halt to that work. It
is just an accident in my life that I
am here. There w'ould be others
if I w'as not here. They would come
from New York, from Maine, Chi
cago, and they would come from
: San Francisco.
I This spectacle of a great natural
> resource, like the salmon runs of
:\Alaska, being ACTUALLY PUT If
s ■ DANGER OT A COMPLETE SUB
N MERGENCE AND DISAPPEAR
i'ANCE WITHIN THE NEXT THREI
; OR FOUR YEARS because a hand
'ful of men want to skate to-day ov
i er the thin ice of its LAST EXIST
j'ENCE, taking the desperate chanci
’of not breaking through this year
I
] even if they are sure to go dowi
next season, is presented to you b;
i the canners who now crowd you
■ committee room.
That is precisely what all this agi
tation among the canners amount!
to as they gather here in your com
mittee room today.
Oh yes; they want to save th<
fish—they all declare that they ar<
not desirous of “killing the goldei
goose,” etc.,—-perish the thought!
but they want a “fair bill” to gov
ern them—not a “drastic and idl<
one” to “ruin them” and “then nol
save the fish,” etc.
Then when that “fair bill” is
drawn, it is so drawn that it puts
off any interference with them o1
the least consequence for at least
one year to come; then by that time
they will have a fresh amendment
and a new game to play for the
coming season after that. By that
| time their work will have been sc
well rubbed in that the replenishing
of our salmon runs of Alaska will
take 15 to 20 years of complete
close time as against only 3 or 4
years if we start that complete close
time January 1, 1921.
SCIENCE—IT FINDS OFT HOW
HOW FISH SWIMS
Do you know how fish swims?
It had been assumed that his solo
means of propulsion was the move;
ment of his tail, successively lash
ing the water on right and left. A
scientist who doubted this froze a
fish so that he was incapable of mo
tion, but still alive. They put the
fish in a tank and, to their amaze
ment, he swam off.
Close examination disclosed he
propelled himself by sucking water
into his mouth and expelling it thru
| his gills. The principle, it is said
' is to be applied in the construction
of a new marine engine, which is
similarly to suck Its way forward
and propel itself by expelling the
water behind.—Washington Herald.
(Bd. note—That sucking proposi
tion sounds pretty much like bunk
a bureau of fisheries scientist would
put forth. One of them recently is
quoted as saying “I know more
about fish than any man in Alaska.”
And he never saw a fish more than
throe years ago. Scientists!?!?!
INTERNATIONAL HALIBUT COM.
MISSION WARNS INDUSTRY
(Continued from last Week).
‘‘The total landed from the whole
coast has not markedly declined, the
highest recent year being but 10,
000,000 pounds below the year of
maximum return. The total yield
has not, however, been maintained
on the southern banks. There the
decline in total taken has clearly
begun, so that to maintain the to
tal for the whole coast the fishery
has had to shift to the westward
There the yields frbin the individual
banks have increased despite the
fact that the actual abundance is
on the decline, the amount taken
from the banks near Kodiak having
tripled in the last three years. This
; shift of the fishery with the decline
of the southern banks was taking
place a3 eary as 1911, and has con
tinued consistently since. The pro
cess cannot go on without disaster.
‘‘The scientific studies have been
equally productive but, of course,
have dealt less with the condition o£
the: l^anks than with the factors
which must have' taken into account.
As we have seen, the statistics show
that the southern- banks were more
! expensively depleted, something
i which could not occur unless the
| population on those’ banks -were t >
| some degree independent of those
| to: the westward. But it has re
! mained for the - biological work to
j show to what extent this was true.
! By tagging;x.the—fish it has shown
: that,..there ts very little interchange
fi ue^wt*tai me vitrious soucnern oanKS,
. | ou which are * left- , only immature
.! fish. wOn fhe other hand, the evi
i
j| dence which. is accumulating seems
_ | to show it hat in the Gulf of Alaska,
. where mature fish comprise the ma
. jor portion of- the population, there
, I is an apparent migration, an ap
parent movement of the adults,
i “Through the study of structur
j al characteristics there is evidence
. to show- that the halibut on the
coast are not a homogenous race.
| but that in their earlier - years a>:
j least they are comprised of races
readily - distinguished one from th«
I other. There are big-headed, slow
, growing, races and small-headed,
. fast-growing races, but on the off
. shore banks there is some evidence
that these races intermingle when
mature.
, “Some progress has also been
| made in the study of spawning plac
| es and - depths at which spawning
,! occurs. Floating fertilized eggs
jhave been taken at a depth of over
| 200 fathoms, and a few larvae, have
been taken, smaller than any pre
vously recorded. This material is
important from the standpoint oi
the drift of the eggs and larvae, and
the -corresponding spawning migra
tions of Hhe adults, but the ma
terial so far obtained from this line
of work is scant. Just as it was
well under way our field work wa*
stopped—the chartered halibut fish
ing vessel Scandia, was wrecked
and all the expensive deep-sea ap-j
paratus was lost. The season was
too far advanced to permit of fur
ther worki - We know, however,
'that-the results will prove of great
importance in connection with the
facts indicated by other lines of in
vestigation, and we hope dring the
comng winter to add essential facts
to our knowledge.
(To be Continued next Issue.).
It’s a wise; worin that stays un
der cover and deprives the eary
bird of his breakfast.
SUBSCRIBE for The ALASKAN.
DANCE HALL FANNY
A Tale of Gold Rush Days
By AHN-KUTTY
“I don’t know,” said the steward
ess, ‘‘how it is that a young girl so
pretty and so intelligent, as you are,
can lead the life you are now lead
ing. There's nothing but miseryi
and the gutter ahead. Do you ever
stop and think of tomorrow?”
This bit of conversanoii between
the stewardess and Dance Hall Fan
iiy was on the City of Topeka,
Inarch, 1896, as the boat steamed*
'up Lynn Canal. The van of tlie^
| gold rush was on board,—miners,
prospectors, promoters and an over
grown sprinkling of the parasitic
underworld. Fanny Belle Graham
—she said that was her real name,
but there’s a doubt about it—was
one of the underworld passengers
and red liquor had been her food
and drink from the time the lines
were cast off at Tacora.
‘‘Ah! cut it,” said the tipsy girl.
“You talk as if none but the nutty
I plucked the primrose. When 1 was
I poor—and respectable—I lived
j down on the Oakland mudflats with
[mother and three younger sisters.
I Father was dead. He was a pay
' master for a big flour mill and one
[afternoon a stick-up guy argued
dad out of a weekly payroll with a
: sixshooter. I can remember when
! we had nothing to eat but seagulls
land tule roots and clothes the con
: derailed sacks from the mill dad
| had died for. Nobody knew me
| then, of course. Just as soon as 1
kicked the Oakland mud out of my
i
.toes and painted a red number over
my door, I had friends galore. Al
so, I had money. Then came the
Bible pushers, moralists, lie and
‘ she-slummers » and fat dowagers.
^ and all of ’em telling me 1 was
| naughty and an awful blot on so
ciety. Why didn’t they come and
.tell me T was hungry and half nak
! ed when I lived in a hovel on the
mudflats? And, say, nurse, this
; Keely cure stufi you’re pouring into
: me is rotten. It’s so rotten worms
[couldn’t live in it. Let’s chop it off
j the bill of fare. I’ll be sober, all
i right, when I hit the shore. I’ll
IK, IV J 11
; good—in two or three years and i
iyou’r still on this old tanker, nurse
I
! I’ll buy you something that’ll cau3>
! you to remember Fanny, the jagged
Let’s go on deck and get a lung
full of salt air before l hobnot
with the snow peaks.”
So Fanny mushed in to the wile
Eldorado of the North. For tw<
[long years she rolled a hectic dowr
! grade—and prospered. For twe
long years she sheathed her heart
in ice, smothered every redeeming
impulse and made talons of hei
hands to claw in the gold. And
she knew her game. Money she
was after, even over the wrecks oi
those around her, but she was a
spender within limits. And when
those spending times arrived, when
Fanny thought it the proper time
to advertise, what a wild half week
there’d be. A mining camp would
take a rest for the remainder of
the week to recuperate. She play
ed no favorites in location, for all
the diggings, every creek and camp
knew her, swore by her and cursed
her. She was in the van of every
stampede and though many of the
new “finds” turned out to be false
alarms, she came out richer in yel
low wealth than when she went in.
When Fanny first set foot in Bon
anza she met James (Jamesy)
Pellington, and Pellington to the
very end was Fanny’s man and he
could see no other woman than
Dance Hall Fanny. In the orange
grove lane of life these two would
have been lovers that the world
loves and mates that the stars
would smile on. On thisi coarse
side he was just her man, she, his
woman.
Pellington came in, on the first
rush to the North, a black sheep
in a family of another name. He
had never committed any crime,
but in his home sphere in Californ
ia, he was looked on just as no|
good. He was rather tall and thin,
good looking, a fair musician and
wofully lazy. Strange as it may
appear, he neither drank nor smok
sd, but always he held .loosely, an
unlighted cigerette in one corner
of his mouth. The impression
would be and was that he was an!
inveterate smoker. He lived with
Fanny and traveled with her, but!
made his living piano playing n1
dance hall or saloon.
It was in January of their third!
i
winter in the land of pick and
shovel. Pellington sat dozing in
one of Fanny’s big arm chairs at j
three in the morning. He liad!
pounded his fingers sore on Wing’s
piano, but all through the evening'
he had seen nothing of his woman.!
He nodded in his chair and wait-!
ed. She came in as the hotel cooks *
were getting up and, without re-!
moving her wraps, slipped an arm!
around Pellington’s neck and set
tled into his lap.
“Wake up, Jamesy! Here, listen,!
Hon! Say, we’re through. We’re!
going outside.”
“What’s the excitement, Fanny!
girl; anything happened?” !
!
A whole lot has happened. The
mail came in a little while ago.1
and I got this; see?” and Fanny
held a closely written letter before
Pellington’s sleepy eyes.
“Read it, dear. You’r more awake
than I.”
“Well, here’s the gist of it. You
know I sent Moms money to buy a
little farm last year. Moms and the
girls have settled down on it. They
have a new house now, a big gar
den ready for spring, some chickens
and pigs, a moo cow and two ponies.
—and just imagine, Jamesy, a baby,
a wee boy baby. We’re going out,
I’ll say.”
“That’s all marvelous, Fan, but
where does the baby come from? I
didn’t know—I hadn’t heard any
thing—”
“There’s a deal you don’t hear,
boy. Moms is always mothering a
baby, but the poverty years would
n’t allow any such luxury. Now,
with the new home there must, o.
course, be a new baby, and this wee
kid is from an orphange. Let’s see
|—we’ll go out with Gervas, two
■weeks from Monday.”
“We?” Pellington looked down
in Fanny’s flushed face and grinned.
“Why I haven’t dust enough to car
ry me either to Valdez or Cordova
1 !
ji might get out alter the ice breaks,
| ou a steamer by rustling cargo or
(packing firewood. I could get to
?>St. Michael that—
j “You’ll get out. with me, that’s
all. Now, I’ve $20,000 in my belt,
1 haven’t I? So? Then I’ll an
nounce our going—my going—at
Wing’s next Monday. I’ve enough
pocket change for that occasion. T,
and the boys’ll drink the joint dry
and I’ll be in your care , Jamesy
after that till I sober up. Then
we’ll prepare for the trip, and I’m
glad I’m going. I’m done. I’ve
lost my voice, a lot of my good
looks and T’m awfully vulgar, [
know. But I hated low-down, miser
able poverty. I wanted gold and I
got it. I got mine while the min
ing was good, didn’t I, Jamesy
And you like—love—me, don’t you
boy? Don’t call me ‘your woman’
any more, dear. Call me your
‘sweetheart.’ ”
“You are my sweetheart, Fanny
girl.”
The Monday night at Wing’s was
quiet—in the beginning. A few
men and women at the bar, a game
or two running and Pellington idly
(Strumming on a black piano in thr
■ far corner. It wasn’t publicly
i
known, as yet, that Fanny was to
sing her swan song and go on a final |
rampage. But at midnight, heavily1
be-furred an$ scantily attired, she
burst into the big hall and mounted
the bar. Flushed with liquor ,eyesf
brilliant, voice, firm, she address
ed the small crowd.
( To be Continued)
MAKES FIRST SHIPMENT OF
CRAB S
Manuel Isom and Harold Shields
arrived in Kethcikan last week from
Kasaan with their first shipment ot
crab3 to Seattle. Mr. Isom stated
that preliminary scouting for crabs
in that section showed excellent re
sults so that his company hopes to
make regular weekly shipments
through Ketchikan to Seattle and
California markets.
QUALITY
and
QUANTITY
For. Less
At
Modern Grocery
Buy at Star Bakery and Save Money
fresh Doughnuts, Cup Cakes, Coo' i
and C innamon Rolls
Always on Hand Fresh
STAR BAKERY
AMERICA FIRST arrives in Pe
tersburg Friday morning, leaving
for Juneau via Kake and way ports
about noon.
H AIIOW TRA NSPORT ATI ON
COMPANY
JAC0B1TZ TAXI
DAY & NIGHT SERVICE
Stand at Arctic Hotel
Phone 35
ALASKA CAFE 1
George Kim, Proprietor
Meals at all Hours
Good Services, Fair Prices
We Solicit Your Trade
When in Town Stop at
TTfi tTArni7
First Class Rooms
Reasonable F^ates
CARL ROGER, Pro.
'O v vvOvOXtO;
$
&
14 I ES
Home Service Mending
of Laundered Goods
We give full value for your
money.
H. OYAiN/lA, PRO.
Sanitary Market
A Roast you’li like
The Very Choicest Beef
Mutton and Pork
Vegetable in Season
SITKA HOT SPRING
HEALTH RESORT
Rate $3.00 per
day and up
Dr. Goddard, Pro.
Built
Attractively
You car get
the latest de
signs in
Sash, Doors
& Mil! work
diiect from the
manufacturer
at monej-sav
ing prices
If' rite today
for FREK il
lustrated tat
aloe.
•MILLWORKwSjJ
1 SUPPLY CORP».\ /W