*•
HOT SPRINGS POST
J
Vo! 2
Published Every Saturday at Hot Springs, Alaska,
BY CEO. M. MR BUCKLE No. 10
SUBSCRIPTION RATES:
One Year.$10.00
“ (if paid in advance). 8.00
Six Months. .. 5.00
Six Months (if paid in advance)... $4.50
One Month. 1.00
Single Copy..25
Advertising Rates on Application.
Application has been made for entry as Second-Class Mail Matter at the Hot
Springs Postoffice.
ARE BARKING UP THE RIGHT TREE NOW
The working miners of the Tanana and the few opera
tors who are not hopelessly in debt are now beginning to
see that their interests are identical. Had they but real
ized the proposition two years ago, and instead of fighting
among themselves had presented a solid front for the ban
ishment from Alaska of two of the most notorious monopo
lies that ever cursed a country where civilized man took up
his residence—the Northern Commercial Company and the
North American Transportation <fc Trading Company—
many wrongs might have been by this time righted.
Had one-tenth the money foolishly extended during the
past year for importing worthless and inexperienced labor
ers into the Tanana been used in “wising up” the proper
officials at Washington to the frightful state of affairs
caused by the excessive transportation tariffs exacted by
these iniquitous twins, it is safe to say that the freight rate
would be reduced at least 35 per cent.
Opposition is a thing these concerns cannot stand.
Whenever a vessel of any carrying capacity whatever shows
itself on the Yukon river it is “hounded” by the two big
companies until the owner of the boat is compelled to sell
or quit the river. Anything in the way of competition
causes them to show their fangs, and if they cannot over
come and control it, they will “dog it”—as did the N. C.
Co. at Nome; and when their work becomes altogether too
coarse in a community, their small branches are ostensibly
“taken over” and conducted by private parties—in most
instances by popular employes of the concern.
But whenever the N. C. Co. can get its famous “tliree
quarter-peterson” hold on a community, such as it has on
the town of Fairbanks, its gluttonous nature reveals itself,
and it is the happy monarch of all it surveys—and what
everybody else surveys. In Fairbanks the N. C. Co. con
trols the electric lighting, the steam heating, the water
works, the fire protection power, wharves, a theatre- -and
every person in the town pays dear tribute to Alaska’s
blight. There was one public utility in that city that for
a fewT years remained untainted by a grasping tentacle—the
telephone system—but now a large block of that concern’s
stock is 4 ‘controled” by a 4 ‘tool” of the big octopus whose
careful training has taught him to “gobble” a “good
thing” when he sees it.
These large concerns are, in most cases, very unsatis
factory bodies to reason with, as all their business in the
Northland is transacted by agents whose instructions are so
concisely drawn and instilled into them that they admit of
no deviation;, the only discretion they are clothed with is
to “charge all the traffic will possibly stand.” A young
employe’s promotions are mostly due to his ability as ar-suc
cessful extortionist; if he is an affable young chap, a “good
mixer,” is willing to spend a goodly portion of his meager
salary in socially “boosting” the company, and would (to
protect the octopus) take a customer’s right eye with the
same charming sang froid with which he “takes a shot,”
his future with the company is assured.
This is a struggle for living conditions—for existence,
as it were—one in which there is no room for personalities,
it is much too large a subject for that, and none should be
allowed to creep into the controversy. The Post possesses
not a moment’s animosity toward any individual connected
with the transportation monopoly, but is against the deadly
effects of “the system” by which the people of interior
Alaska are “peoned.”
Following is a copy of a telegram sent last week to the
attorney general of the United States at Washington—it is
a step in the right direction, and every honorable effort
should be made by all Alaskans to break the transportation
monopoly that has retarded development ever since Jack
McQuestin was a cheeekaco:
Miners and prospectors of the Tanana valley
ask your department to send an agent to investi
Discovery Roadhouse
JIM DRUMMOND, PROP,
Good, Clean, Comfortable Beds.
Warm Horse and Dog Stables
RO BAR SULLIVAN CITY
gate the Northern Commercial Company’s monop
oly of transportation and distribution and the
price of food and supplies in the Tanana valley.
Gold output 1908 ten millions, yet operators are
bankrupt, and laboring men are unpaid and hun
gry. Five hundred men living on one meal a day.
Prices fixed by Northern Commercial Company:
Potatoes $12 a bushel; smoked meats $40 a hun
dred pounds; flour $9 a hundred pounds; sugar
35 cents a pound; coal oil $2 a gallon; candles $8
a box; raining machinery and supplies 300 per
cent, above Seattle prices.
WILLIAM T. BURNS,
President Miners’ Union.
ROBERT BURNS,
Secretary Miners’ Union.
JOHN RONAN,
_ Operator.
The R>st is pleased to welcome the first number of a
very newsy four-page four-column newspaper published at
Tanana—The Leader. The paper is edited and published
by Jas. M. Gallaher, and the business men of the town
show appreciation of the publication by liberal use of its
advertising space. We wish The Leader great success.
SETTLED CASE .
OUT OF COURT
The miners of Tanana are fast arising to a sense of justice that
is now in the camp, but a natural result. For years claim jumpers
and legal sharks have preyed upon bona fide miners until they will
no longer stand for it, and are taking the law into their own hands.
Out on Scroggie is a well-defined quartz ledge. Work has been
carried on for three years on the properties in question, and they
have now uncovered $40,000 of pay ore. The owners of tin? prop
erties are poor men, and they cannot go as fast as they would like
to, but they have done enough real work on their properties to le
gally hold title to the whole section. Lately it was jumped.
With the coming of the quartz excitement, the staking ghouls
and affidavit men began to search the hills for quartz prop
erties to jump, and one of them, an ex-policeman of Fairbanks,
landed on thfe three-year old development on Scroggie. He staked
the whole bunch, and procured sn affidavit man to help him. Then
he squatted in a cabin and waited for the lawsuit and the rakeoff.
The men who had spent three years’ work or the property had
no money to defend lawsuits, so they called in a bunch upon the
jumper, and they went prepared. They took ropes, green-birch
switches, axes, and a parka which they deposited outside his cabin.
Then they entered and pleaded with the jumper, to quit being a
dirty thief and act like a man, but he wouldn’t do it. Then they
grabbed him, bound him, threw the parka over his head and lead
him to-the property he had jumped. There they tied him across a
log, and with the switches they lashed him till he begged like a
baby. Then they unbound him, gave him an axe and he chopped
down his location stakes, whereupon one of the outraged owners
threw a gurt on him and ordered him to eat the stake he had just
cut down. He was proceeding to do it, and on his knees was cry
ing for mercy (they had a rope around his neck and over a limb above him
when the others intervened, untied the rope, lifted him to his feet, gave him a
few swift kicks, and the jumper hit the trail, running like a jack rabbit, Ht
hasn’t returned.
A dozen qaen saw the punishment meted out and helped in it, but you can’t
find out the identity of any of them. Considering the condition of affairs here,
they did right, and the whole camp would unite in concealing their identity,
jor all men hate a claim-jumping thief as they hate a snake.--Tanana Miner,
BETTY KILLED THE BEAR
In a pioneer’s cabin out West, so they say,
A great, big, black grizzly trotted ono day,
And seated himself on the hearth, and began
To lap the contents of a two-gallon pan ,
Of milk and potatoes—an excellent meal—
And then looked about to see what he could steal.
The lord of the mansion awoke from his sleep,
And hearing a racket, he ventured to peep
Just out in the kitchen, to see what was there,
And was scared to behold a great grizzly bear.
So he screamed in alarm to his slumbering frou,
“Thar’s a b’ar in the kitchen as big’s a cow! ”
“A what!” “Why, a b’ar!” “Well, murder him, then !”
* “Yes, Betty, I will, if you’ll first venture in.”
SoJBetty leaped up, and the poker she seized,
While her man shut the door, and against it he squeezed.
As Betty then laid on the grizzly her blows,
Now on his forehead, and now on his nose,
Her man through the keyhole kept shouting within,
“Weil done, my brave Betty, now him ag’in,
Now a rap on the ribs, now a knock on the snout,
Now poke with the poker, and poke his eyes out*** -
So, with rapping and poking, poor Betty alone, • -
At last laid Sir Bruin as dead as a stone. * .
Now, when the old man saw the bear was no more,
He ventured to poke his nose through the door,
And there was the grizzly stretched on the floor.
Then off to the neighbors he hastened to tell
All the wonderful things which that morning befell;
And he published the marvelous story afar,
How “me and my Betty just slaughtered a b’ar!
O yes, come and see, all the neighbors hev sid it, *
Come and see what we did, me and Betty, we did it.”_—Anon.
Is i*8 your name written there? ^ Our eubscription book.
ADVERTISED LETTER LIST
Hot Springs, Aka., Mar. 1,1909.
Bain, John Johnson, N P 3
Baker, Fred J
Babcock, E R
Brago, Joseph
Burnard, Traf
Cowan, Geo.
Da mm, Theo
Hedlund, G A
Houston, Wallace
Hines, Herwan
If the above are
Johnson, Duncan
King, E R 3
Leske, W E
Lanthier, Naphtalie
Miller, Anton
Murphy, Barney
Peterson, F O
Salisbury, Geo A
Twaynor, Mrs E L
not called for in 30
days they will be forwarded to the dead
letter office, Washington, D. C.
F. C. MANLEY, P. M.
H. Spencer, Asst. P. M.
Valuable Horae Dies
One of the large gray horses belong
ing to Frank Manley died on Sunday
last on Eureka creek from spina)
trouble. The horse was a fine animal
and worth at least $500.
John McKenzie, on Chicago creek, a
tributary of Oswego, this side of
of Thanksgiving, has out a good win
ter dump of at least 5000 windlass
buckets.
CHA8. B. ALLEN,
Attorney at Law
Rampart, Aka.
Legal Papers Carefully Drawn.
ARCTIC BROTHERHOOD — Camp
Hot Springs No. 24 meets every Mon
day evening at 8 o’clock in hall over
Traeger’s store. Visiting brothers
always welcome.
B. A. Meyers, C. A. Davidson,
Recorder. Arctic Chief.
MAIL SCHEDULE
Arrives from Fairbanks Saturday p. m.
Arrives from Rampart, Sunday p. m.
Arrives from Tanana Sunday p. m.
Departs for Fairbanks Monday p. m.
Departs for Rampart, Monday a. m.
Departs for Tanana Monday a. m.
JAS. BLODGET,
Freighting
AND
General Teaming
Prices Reasonable,
Satisfaction Guaranteed
Leave Orders at Morrison’s
I
CHA8. A,
TRAEGER
LADIES' ADD GENTS'
Furnishing
Goods
Underwear, Sox, Mitts, Hats, Caps,
Boots, Shoes, Bold Seal and
Eureka Hip Boots and Shoos,
Blankets, Quiits, Moccasins, Axes,
Picks, Skovels, Drugs, Station
ery, Cigars and Tobaccos
NEW MEN’S SUITS
JUST RECEIVED
Latest Styles In Everythin#.
Site Guaranteed
HOT SPRINGS, ALASKA *
That gladdens
the eye .of the
trail-weary pil
grim on his ar
rival in Fair
banks is that of
FRACTION
Sideboard—whet e only the beat and
most reouperativw Liquors are di
spensed by skilled mi^olr«gists.
LOUIS SPITZ, PROP. " FAIMmIS, AtA.