TANANA LEADER
Published Every Thursday at Tanana, Alaska.
V«/. *
SAM J. CALLAHAN. EDITOR No. 9
Oto. M. Arbaebla. Manager
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DEGREES IN MURDER
The plea of Arthur E. Barney to murder in the second
degree, having been accepted by the district attorney as a
just estimate of the killing of Charles J. Smith, who was
awakened at midnight and called to his door and ruthlessly
shot to death while unarmed and unoffending, naturally
prompts an inquiry as to what particular circumstances
necessarily attend a homicide in order to make it first-degree
murder.
That there are degrees in murder is as certain as that
there is difference in the mental and moral makeup of indi
viduals. No two persons are exactly alike, and no two
homicides ever resulted from exactly the same chain of
events. There can never be any hard and fast rules by
which the degree of culpability of one person taking an
other’s life may be gauged. The general run of men would
be inclined to excuse an involuntary killing, the result of
accident or insanity; to mitigate somewhat the penalty
in case of provocation too great for the average man to
bear; and to place the strongest condemnation on the
slayer who is most wanton and brutal in his bloody work.
If the study and scientific application of law has reached a
point where the enormity of the crime of murder shall be
placed in adverse ratio to the aggravating causes leading
to the taking of human life, it is very near that stage in
evolution where to kill a man simply to see him kick would
be rated as an indiscretion rather than a crime.
If Barney and Smith had quarreled, as passably good
men sometimes do, and Smith by his actions had shown
that if occasion offered he would fight and perhaps kill
Barney, and a fight in the open had followed whereby
Smith lost his life, would the district attorney have de
claimed that Barney was guilty of murder in the first
degree l Probably. Probably it would be right, under
such circumstances, for him to do so.
There are degrees in murder, just as certainly as there
is difference in the mental and moral makeup of individuals.
CONSERVATBOi'd OF FUR BEARERS
The address of F. T. Congdon at Ottawa on the con
servation of Canadian fur-bearing animals has the merit of
going deeper into the subject than merely clamoring for
measures for prohibiting their killing and use. The suc
cess of his proposed introduction of hares into the country
to provide a more stable supply of food for the carnivorous
fur bearers is problematical, but it is at least a tacit admis
sion of the fact, too generally overlooked by the law makers
for the American portion of the north country, that the
food supply is an important factor in maintaining the num
bers against certain depletion.
The protection of the fur bearers might receive the
painstaking and systematic attention of the department of
agriculture at Washington with profit to Alaska. The
work to be effective would have to be thorough, and a mass
of data would have to be collected and intelligent deduc
tions made therefrom.
, Rabbits, ptarmigan and mice, in the order named, con
stitute the greater part of the food of the principal fur
bearers of this country. A few years ago rabbits died off
rapidly, owing to a plague that decimates them periodi
cally, and by the fall of 1908 they had been reduced from
vast numbei-s to almost extinction. The animals which
feed on rabbits also dwindled, as did also ptarmigan and
even mice. The scarcity of food would probably account
for the falling off in snch animals as martens, lynxes, foxes,
etc.; but there is reason to think that the disease of the
rabbits had been communicated to the animals eating them,
.thus more directly bringing about a comparative level.
1 The lynx is the most wastful of all the animals. He
: not only demands a fresh victim for every meal, but spends
his leisure in hunting for the sport he gets out of it. It
is readily believable that when lynxes were so numerous
three years ago they may have destroyed in a twelvemonth
more ptarmigan than have been killed by hunters in all the
years since the acquisition of Alaska. In order to better
understand this it is only necessary to know the ptarmigan
at their breeding time, when in defense of their brood both
males and females become ready victims to even a clumsy
enemy.
If human beings should be eliminated from Alaska
entirely such fur-bearing animals as inhabit the territory
would not inevitably become much more numerous. It is
certain that the placing of restrictions upon hunters and
trappers alone will not guarantee an accumulation of great
wealth in inland-furs. If a thorough understanding of the
habits of the fur-bearing animals, their source of food sup
ply, the extent of destruction by their wild enemies and
the nature of the diseases that afflict them, it would then
be possible to intelligently set about increasing the wealth
from a source that is practically everlasting.
THE CUSSING HABIT
The jackal is a beastly beast; and when it hankers for a
feast, it has no use for nice fresh meat; the all fired fool would
rather eat some animal that died last year; and so the jackal,
far and near, is shunned by self respecting brutes, and slugged
with rocks, and bricks and boots. And men whose language
is decayed, who make profanity a trade, are like the jackal of
the wild which hunt around for things defiled In all your
rounds you’ll never find a healthy, clean and gentle mind pos
sessed by any son of wrath whose language needs a Turkish
bath. On great occasions there’s excuse for turning ring tailed
cusswords loose; the Father of the Country swore at Mon
mouth, and then cussed some more; that patient soul, the Man
of Uz, with boils so thick he couldn’t buzz, ripped off some lan
guage rich and brown, until old Bildad called him down. Great
men, beneath some awful stroke, let loose remarks that fairly
smoke, and we forgive them as we write the story of their
deeds of might. But little men, who swear, and swear, and
thus pollute our common air, are foul and foolish as the frogs
that trumpet in their native bogs.—Walt Mason.
TELLS RICH TO TOSS GOLD AWAY
Rev. Hush Birckhead, rector of St. George Episcopal
church in Stuyvesant square, New York, in his morning ser
mon on January 16, told J. Pierpont Morgan, Robert Fulton
Cutting, John Seeley Ward, jr., Henry W. Monroe, W. E. Cur
. tis, Charles E. Brown and other opulent members of his con
gregation what to do with their money, advising them to throw
it away. He said:
“I have been examining figures concerning the payrolls of
2,000,000 employes in the great mills, and have found that <
their wages run from $2.SO to $10.46 a week.
“There should be no poor, for there is enough in this
world for every one. even allowing some men to have large
fortunes.
“My friends, when the eye of God is upon you, you will be
glad to throw money away.
“It is not right that some should have more than they
want or need while others suffer. It must result harmfully in
some way to those who possess it.”
SAYS COMMISSION
BILL IS BARGAIK
Valdez Prospector: A private
letter reeeived this week from a
prominent citizen of Valdez now
in the East says it is currently
reported in Washington that the
Morgan Guggenheim crowd sub
scribed $200,000 to the Taft cam
paign fund upon an express con
tract with Frank H. Hitchcock,
then chairman of the Republican
national committee and now post
master-general in the Taft cab
inet, that Alaska should be put
under an appointive commission
government, and that the syndi
cate should name the members.
The letter proceeds to say that
the whole story will be exploited
in a magazine article within a
short time.
CALLED BEVERIDGE
BILL AN OUTRAGE
Washington, Peb. 15.—For two
hours late this afternoon the Bev
eridge bill for the government of
Alaska excited an interesting and
and at times warm debate in the
senate. Senator Borah, of Idaho,
urged that the bill be passed-in
the form in which it came from
the committee room. Senator
Crawford, of South Dakota, was
equally ardent in his denuncia
tion of the bill. He declared that
it was opposed by 90 per cent, of
the people of Alaska, and that it
was an outrage for the federal
government to impose upon
Americans a form of government
which they resented.
ED McGORMICK
TO RAISE HOGS
Ed McCormick, whose residence is
twelve miles below Rampart on the
Yukon, was reported at Tolovana on
Monduy of last week, returning from
the Outside. Mr. McCormick went
out early in the winter and is bringing
in four horses drawing sleds loaded
with live hogs.
The hogs are intended for breeding
purposes. Mr. McCormick has some
very productive ground at his pluce
and it is said he believes by raising
his own feed he can produce pork at a
profit. _
See us for Clotb Posters.
C0NG30N ON
FOB CONSERVE
A special to the Dawson News
from Ottawa, Jan. 21 says:
*‘F. T. Congdon speaking be
fore the conservism comini sion
tonight on fur-bearing animals in
Canada, advocated the establish
ment of pelting farms in Yukon,
the importation of Russian sable
and the introduction of hares to
replace rabbits. Mr. Congdon
contended that plague would not
attack the hare and the rabbit at
the same period, and the food
supply of carniverous animals
will not thus be removed, caus
ing starvation and depletion. The
speaker hoped to see in Canada
dressing of native furs before ex
portation.
ST. JAMES’ CHAPEL
First Sunday in each month, Holy
Communion 11 a. ra. Other Sundays.
Evening Prayer. 7:30 p. in. Friday
evenings, during Lent, Evening Prayer
and Litany at 7:30.
WlNTHKOP PEABOJJY,
Priest in Charge.
Stoddard Kay
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Rampart, Aka.
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