THE CHITINA LEADER
CHITINA, ALASKA
Entered as second-class matter, November 12, 1910, at the postofflce at
Chltlna, Alaska, under the Act of Conbress of March a, 1879.
ONLY NEWSPAPER IN CHITINA
Published every Tuesday by
HARRY G. STEEL, Editor and Proprietor.
Office: Hotel Chitlna Building.
Cordova Office: Daily Times.
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
One Month .I -50
Six Months .2.00
One Year . 3.50
ADVERTISING RATES
Made known upon application. They will be found reasonable for the service
given. Official publication for legal advertisements pertaining to mineral lands of
the Copper River District. t
CHITYNA, ALASKA, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19157"
“ALASKA DAYS WITH JOHN MUIR.”
The Daily Times is in receipt of a very interesting and
attractively printed book on “Alaska Days With John Muir.”
The author is our former townsman, Rev . S. Hall Young, an
Alaska pioneer and for many years superintendent of Presby
terian missions in this Territory. As the title of the book
would indicate, it is an account of Dr. Young’s associations with
thh great naturalist. The book should have a place in all Alas
ka libraries. The cfescriptions are by one whose knowledge of
Alaska is thorough and whose graphic pen is directed by a
sehollary mind. But, above all, is the intimate view the reader
gets of one of the greatest, if, indeed, not the greatest of the
Pacific Coast’s naturalists.
Dr. Young came to Alaska in 1878, and the “Days” of
which lie writes are those of the following two years when he
and John Muir explored the mountains and inlets of Alaska’s
Southeastern coast. Muir Glacier got its name from what
John Muir wrote about it following their visit to it.
“Alaska Days With John Muir” is from the publishing
house of Fleming II. Revell, of New York and Chicago. It is
neately printed and bound. It contains 226 pages and is sold
for one dollar.
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PANAMA CANAL DEFENSES.
A good deal of discussion is going on as to tlie nature of
the defenses intended to protect the Panama canal.
Ordinary fortresses have, in the present war in Europe,
proven only able to delay, not to stand off an army. Can they
be improved upon at Panama?
Would it not be better to expend' the money on submarines,
aeroplanes and the wireless? Or to wait a year or two and see
if Hayes Hammond, Jr. cannot perfect his apparatus so that he
can guide a destroyer from the shore and destroy any hostile
ship within a few miles of land ? And are the gun makers ex
perimenting? The Germans and French have demonstrated
that the limitations of guns have not been reached. Then if
old Panama smells as it did three score years ago, cannot some
chemist utilize that ord'or in a way to make the German noxious
gases seem like a fresh bouquet by comparison?
General Sherdian was want to declare that earth banks
made the best forts. Earth banke with underground galleries
in which guns could be loaded, then raised and fired and then
lowered again. The most terrible fort that could be built on
the1 isthmus would be out of Panama fever, if it could be con
fined and' at the right moment let lose upon an army. It would
in three days work a Senacharib destruction.
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COUNCIL REGULATES SCHOOL FUNDS.
An important decision has just been rendered by Judge
Brown in the district court when he refused the application of
the Valdez school board to the town council to make a cash
appropriation for school purposes, holding that the council
has absolute control over all municipal funds and may use its
own discretion in disbursing the money. He held that the
concil could not be compelled to make any particular school
appropriation but is simply bound to furnish funds in its dis
cretion to maintain the schools.
During the past few years there has been more or less
friction in some Alaskan communities between the school
trustees and councilmen as to the mode of appropriating muni
cipal funds for the maintenance of the schools, and some serious
clashes have resulted. Under the ruling of Judge Brown the
council is the sole judge of the funds necessary to run the
schools, and the inference is that it can say how this money
shall be expended.
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INCREASE IN WAGES PREDICTED.
The Seward Gateway intimates that it has “inside infor
mation’’ to the effect that wages on the construction of the
government railroad' are shortly to be increased. The state
ment is published in connection with the following criticism
of an old-timer on the wages paid and' conditions generally at
Anchorage:
“The Seattle Daily Times recently published an interview
with Paddy O’Neill, the famous mine foreman of the Juneau
country and the man who is called the “champion tunnel
driver,” in which he dwells with particular emphasis on the
small wages paid to the railroad workers by the government.
A man like that looks at the wages first and quits a district
where wages are small, not so much because of the fact that
wages are small in itself but because he knows that where
wages are small the people and the modes of life generally
will be “small” as a consequence. The conclusion come to by
the interviewers is that Anchorage is a good place to keep
away from.
“That is probably a hasty conclusion and it will have a
very serious effect as it is bound to be read all over the coast.
It should be remembered that working for wages on a railroad,
small or big, is not the question to take into consideration in
speaking of the government road. The chief purpose of the
railroad is not to bring in railroad laborers but to develop the
resources of the country served. This fact should be kept
before the minds of the people outside who are now inclined' to
to take the low standard of wages on the government railroad
Work as an indication of a low standard of future life in Alaska
“While speaking of this the Gateway would like to make
a prophecy. The rate of wages on the railroad work will be
increased before long. There is some little ground on which to
base this prediction but no more can be said.”
FUEL AND TRANSPORTATION OUR NEED.
The certain knowledge that by the supply of cheap fuel
lots of placer mines in the Fairbanks and other districts which
are now lying idle, can be worked profitably ought to be enough
to show us that the building of the railroad will awaken vast
parts of the territory to life. Commissioner Biggs pointed out
some time ago that the bringing of Nenana coal to Fairbanks
will permit the operation of great areas of placer ground in the
Tanana valley. The same is true of other districts through
which or near which the road will pass and the touching of
several districts by the rails will mean practically discoveries
of new camps.—Seward Gateway.
If any of the members of the Alaska Engineering Commis
sion were at all familiar with conditions in the Copper River
valley they might have dwelt at more length upon the great
development that would result throughout the greatest mineral
ized belt of Alaska by the opening up and development of the
vast area of coal in the Bering river field. But possibly this
would be expecting a little too much of those who are entrusted
with the building of a $35,000,000 government owned railroad.
As we understand it, most of the time of the Commission this
summer has been devoted to selecting a townsite for Anchor
age, the selling of lots to the highest bidder and the employ
ment of foreigners, at cut rate wages, to carry out an adminis
tration measure. The pioneers of Alaska* who have blazed the
trails and through the hardships sufFered by them have startled
the world with the result of the rich gold and copper discoveries
made, do not seem to figure in the railroad scheme. They are
neither given employment or is any effort being directed to
furnish them with cheap transportation to their properties,
many of which cannot be operated until placed' in rail com
mnication, in the face of the fact that the Copper River
valley is not only highly mineralized, but the value of its ore
shipments is today greater that that of all the gold produced in
the entire territory. These now come from two mines and there
are scores of others on the coast. While we do not begrudge
any construction that may be done for the westward it is
certainly beginning to look as though many of the government
satellites are deliberating ignoring the claim for recognition of
of this section of Alaska. And this in properties that would in
crease this tonnage, if provided with necessary transportation
facilities. *
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We trust that President Wilson, by this time, realizes that
the American people are standing behind him in his diplomatic
relatiohs with European countries, which he is conducting with
credit to himself and honor to the United States.
Students of economics are likely to conclude, from the man
ner in which England is pressing women into the factories, that
the labor problem, after the war, will present new, sharp and
troublesome edges.
The middle west has formed a league to promote the build
ing of a merchant marine and perhaps its first act will be to
scuttle Senator LaFollette.
Barbers are coming back into their own. They are serving
as surgeons in Russia. Probably after amputating a leg the
barber says unctuously, as is the habit of the craft, “have it
sliinged ? ’ ’
Photographs of the lynched Leo M. Frank are in tremend
ous demand for Georgia parlor albums. Perfectly natural that
the citizens who have lived through an acliivement of such
moment should desire to leave to posterity visual evidence of it.
According to an interview published on the Pacific coast
Isaac Guggenheim, head of the family that is so largely inter
ested in Alaska the Copper River & Northwestern railway will
be extended to the Bering river coal fields just as soon as the
government allows that fuel to be mined'.
The trouble that the freighters are experiencing in taking
a cargo of copper concentrates from Prince William Sound to
Tacoma emphasizes the necessity of establishing a smelter at
Cordova, where these concentrates een be brought on scows at
little cost and also avoid the danger of damage or loss to the big
boats, on account of this cargo shifting while in transit.
“It would seem that President Wilson can hardly ignore
this cool defiance of his recent note,” says the London Stan
dard, of the Arabic incident. This is in line with the taunts of
all the English papers. They are humorously difficult for the
moment on the “cool defiance” of the latest English note to this
government, which practically told President Wilson that Eng
lish violation of the rules of the sea is not a matter that need
deeply concern him.
German socialists are protesting against any attempt to
hold the territory which German armies have taken, because
that would plant seeds of war that will be certain to germinate.
Right. But if the kaiser wins this war he is likely to hold to
his newly acquired acreage until a handsome indemnity is paid.
Carranza sends his best wishes and kindest regards to the
American people. Same to you, Carrie—nit!
* Another advantage of a Texas storm is that the snakes
crawl over the person who is floating along lazy-like with the
incoming tide, and sometimes they bite. The victim then has
recourse, without pritanical criticism, to the usual cure for
snake-bite. A prohibition law would be a rather serious thing
for a snake state.
The Germans seem to have received a hard blow in the
Gnlf of Riga, and Russia is transported with joy as the naval
defeat relieves, to a certain extent, the menace to Petrograd.
But the kaiser’s land forces gradually are creeping northward
and the capture of the Russian capital is not at all unlikely un
less severe pressure elsewhere distracts the eastern army.
The press agent of the mob that hanged Leo Frank hastens
to deny that the body was mutilated or that there was any in
tention to mutilate it. “We are given to understand that the
mob’s dignified and orderly aim merely was to carry out the
order of the court which had condemned Frank to death, and
that it was not overriding the law, but the governor’s order.
There are many who will accept all this as a squaring up of the
mob’s course with the law of God and man.
Usually, in order to know something about anything we
have to study it. Landlubbers of interior states who are ad
vising the secretary of the navy what to do for protecting the
coasts of the United States should be aware of this fact.
Steamboat inspectors recruited from alfalfa and corn farms
might be blamed for many of our marine disasters. The sea
men’s bill, inspired by a “nautical” senator who obtained
much of his information in Wisconsin, is an excellent sample of
how we do things.
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Two bits a word makes talking over the government tele
phone line between Seward and Anchorage rather expensive,
and is crowding the rate, especially when it is taken into con
sideration that the line was built by thirty-five cents an hotr
labor, and principally by “bohunks” at that. Consistency thou
art a jewel—but the flash is a “phony” one.
Those who have any doubt that time is passing will take
cognizance of the fact that it is time again to order the win
ter’s coal. Those who have not as yet fully recovered from the
effort of paying for last year’s supply will be doubly sensitive
to the clock’s speed.
CHE STATESMAN
DIES AT TOKIO
TOKIO, Sept. 1—Marquis Inouye,
one of the most famous of the Japan
ese satesmen, who has always ex
erted considerable influence in direct
ing the policy of the government, died
here today.
StrS GUGEIES
PISS
The Seward Gateway insists that the
Guggenheims are still active in the
Broad Pass district, notwithstanding
the statements of Stephen Birch to the
contrary. It says:
•‘Notwithstanding the statements to
the contrary, and to the effect that
the Guggenheims had abandoned the
Broad Pass district, the information
comes from A. D. Nash that the great
smelting people are still in possession
of the Golden Zone group of claims
in that country and were working
steadily on them with two men in the
early part of the present month. 'Mr.
Nash arrived a few days ago after
having looked over that country dur
ing the summer. ' He was at Colorado
City, the distributing point for the
Broad Pass, on August 4 and heard
there that the Guggenheims were still
in possession of the group mentioned,
which comprises claims Nos. 1, 2, 3
and 4. Mr. Nash was at the Golden
Zone group himself on August 3, and
found the conditions to be exactly as
they were represented. The Guggen
heims were still engaged in active ex
ploration. On the day on which he
left Indian river the Guggenheim
horses also left, having come down to
meet Dunkle who was representing
the smelter people in the Pass. These
facts, Mr. Nash says, show that the
Guggenheims are still there and oper
ating. About thirty-five people were
in the district this summer doing lo
cation and assessment work, but the
major portion of them have now gone
out. Mr. Nash says that insufficient
work has been done by anyone, even
the Guggenheims, to determine the
existence or non-existence of ore
bodies of sufficient size and value to
warrant commercial operation.
“While the district as a whole is
above the timber line a heavy over
burden of glacial deposits exists pre
cluding a view of the formations ex
cept where stream erosions has made
exposures, which only occurs in four
places over a length of six miles.
Exploration as a whole, Mr. Nash says,
will be done by means of sinking
shafts aid cross-cutting, therby mak
ing the work very expensive. Fuel is
available, coal having been discovered
in close proximity to the mineralized
zone. The claims that are on the
strike of the mineralized zone are held
by very few men who are at present
financially unable to undertake the ex
ploration work which is necessarily
expensive. The requirements, con
cluded Mr. Nash, are co-operation on
the part of claim owners and capital
before sucessful development can be
expected. Mr. Nash is a mining en
gineer of very extensive experience.”
DOING TIME FOR MURDER
GRIME NEVER COMMITTED
Through the Department of Justice
an Investigation Is being made of the
case of Joe Campbell, who was sen
tenced in Iditarod in 1912 to life im
prisonment for the murder of the Nel
son brothers in the Kuskwim district
in 1911.
This Investigation is said to have
been ordered by reason of the fact
that Campbell some months ago wrote
from the penitentiary at Levenworth,
Has., where he is serving sentence, to
newspapers in Alaska and to United
States officials, making inquiry for one
Billy Barnhart, He claimed with the
aid of this man he might be able to
prove his lnocence. Barnhart was
last seen by Campbell, according to
his story, at Russian Mission, on the
Yukon, on July 10, 1911, and the Nel
sons were killed at some indetermin
ate time, supposed to be in June or
July, 1991,
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Lieut. Mehaffey, of the Alaska Road
Commission has left Fairbanks for the
Tolovana and he will inspect the work
on the new road being built by the
Alaska road commission to the new
camp. The lieutenant will also in
vestigate the conditions in the new
camp and make estimates for the work
this winter and next year. The lieu
tenant Is greatly impressed with Alas
ka k
NEW YORK, Aug. 31—New heights
in ring finance were reached in the
signing of Packey McFarland and
Mike Gibbons to box in this city Sept.
11. These two glove artists agreed
to box ten rounds without decision for
a purse of $32,500, of which McFarland
is to receive $17,500 and Gibbons $15,
000. No title will be involved and
even though a knockout occur the re
sult will be without championship
value.
Underthe circumstances the paying
of $583 per minute to McFarland and
$500 per minute to Gibbons establishes
what is undoubtedly a new record In
limited round pugilism. Owing to the
boxing skill and reputation of these
modern ring generals the gate receipts
are quite likely to exceed by several
thousand dollars the purse and other
incidental expenses but there is noth
ing in local puglistic history to war
rant the idea that the receipts will ap
proach the figures reached in famous
battles of the past.
The largest gate receipts ever re
corded at a bout in New York were
$66,300 taken in at the Jeffries-Sharkey
twenty-five round battle, fought at
Coney Island, November 3, 1899. The
fight between Jim Corbett and Kid
McCoy, during the closing days of the
Horton Law, under which some of the
greatest bouts of modern ring history
w'ere fought, netted $56,350 at the
gate. Championship fights in Nevada
Australia and several other points
have drawn larger gates but many
famous flgthers including Nelson,
Gans, Britt, McGovern, Fitzsimmons,
Ketchel, Jeffries and Corbett risked,
and in some cases lost, their titles be
fore fistic gatherings, the recipts
from which did not equal the set aside
for Gibbons and McFarland.
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MOUNT M’KINLEY WAS
FIRST SEEN IN 1794
The Riant of the Alakn range be
held by Steller in 1741 was Mount St.
Elias, and 151 years were to pass be
fore the Italian Duke of Abruzzi plant
ed his foot upon the summit after
Americans and Englishmen had tried
vainly to attain it.
Mount McKinley was first reported
in May, 1794, by George Vancouver,
the British navigator, who at the time
was surveying the head of Cook Inlet.
He described McKinley and its neigh
bor, Foraker, as “distant stupendous
mountains covered with snow and ap
parently detached from each other.”
The Russians called the greatest moun
tain in their Alaskan domain “Bul
shaia Gora,” which means simply
“Great Mountain,” and to the native
tribes it was known as Denali, Doleyka
and Tralekr.
Princenton graduate, W. A. Dickey,
a prospector and miner, who explored
the Susitna river in 1896, was respon
sible for naming the great mountain
McKinley; and to the neighbor peak
Capt. J. S. Herron, U. S. A., gave the
name of Foraker three years later.
The first man who tried to scale
McKinley was the Hon. James Wick
ershain judge of the District of Alaska,
and now teritorial delegate to con
gress. He was somewhat of a moun
tain climber, having '“d'one” Mount
Rainier, but he got no higher on the
flank of the Alaskan Alp than 10,000
feet. More than one desperate siege
was to be made of McKinley before
the "mushers,” Thomas Lloyd and Pete
Anderson, gained the slightly lower
south summit and Dr. Stuck finally
won the supreme height. Prof. Her
schell Parker, of Columbia, and Bel
more Brown on their third attempt
fell short by a few hundred feet. “One
of the heroic euisodes in the annals
of Alaska mountaineering,” Mr.
Brooks calls their great adventure.
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WAR DEPARTMENT MAY
BUILD KOTZEBUE PLANT
That the war department may build
a wireless plant on Kotzebue Sound
for the benefit of the residents of that
section is the word received yester
day at the governor’s office.
A petition for the erection of a wire
less plant in that section signed by all
of the residents there was sent to the
war department some months ago.
Yesterday the government’s office re
ceived word from the adjutant gen
eral of the war department that he had
issued an order for an investigation of
the merits and need of a plant in that
section and it will be constructed if
the need is apparent. The station
will be located in the Fairhaven pre
cinct.—Juneau Dispatch.
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Nifty job printing at the Times. V
1
BE EXTENDED
COALFIELDS '
A telegram from Tacoma says:
Prospective large developments of
mining properties in Alaska were dis
cussed here today by Isaaac Guggen
heim, of New York, senior member of
M. Guggenheim's Sons and director
of the American Smelting & Refining
Company.
“We have men scouting around in
Alaska and expect to open new copper
mines if we tint! the right properties,”
said Mr. Guggenheim. "If the govern
ment decides to open the Alaska coal
lanls we will extend the Copper River
& Northwestern Railway to the coal
fields. Alaska and the entire North
west are on the verge of a great in
dustrial and commercial awakening.”
LIGHT m ST, ELIAS
BE FINISHED NEXT YEAR
Superintendent R. R. Tinkham, of
the Sixteenth Lighthouse District,
with headquarters at Ketchikan, is in
Cordova for a few days. He is sup
erintending the extensive work that is
being done by his department at Cape
St. Elias^ and reports that they are
pouring the last concrete for the walls
of the tower, fog signal, storage sys
tem and development. This year’s
work will close between October 1 and
15 and by that time everything will be
under cover for next season's work.
The light and signal will be in opera
tion next August.
There are at present 35 men em
ployed at Cape St. Elias and a buoy
will put in this fall off the southeast
rock of the Cape, which will contain
a flash, a whistle and submarine bell.
RULES FOR SETTLERS
IN CHUGACHFOREST
An order received by the land office
at Juneau changing the boundaries
of the Ohugach National Forest. Sev
eral additions have been made to the
forest reservation, and several elim
inations have also been made. Lands
previously withdrawn from settlement
have been restored for homestead lo
cation and settlement in advance of
entry, in accordance with the an
nouncement published in the The
Times several days ago. The order
states that prospective settlers may
enter upon the land for the purpose
of inspection at any time, but that no
actual settlement will be permitted
until after nine o'clock on the morn
ing of September G. 1915. The period
for settlement in advance of entry
closes October 3, 1915. *
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CHISANA BILLY HURT
WHILE AFTER BERRIES
Chisana Billy Williams and friend
went looking for blueberries back of
West Dawson, on the Glacier trail.
Isaac Lusk put Billy next to “all
kinds of berries," where he could see
one berry and imagined he could see
bushels. Billy’s horse smelled bruin
in the neighborhood of the Eigthteen
mile roadhouse site, and took to his
heels across country. At the time
the horse ran away Billy and his
friend were walking behind the rtg.
Billy jumped in and endeavored to
stop the horse, but the line broke and
he either fell or was thrown out. Bill
was hit by nearly every part of th#
vehicle on the side on which he made
his exit. Result: A very badly dam
aged shoulder and arm, one knee badly
lacerated and the calf of his right leg
severely cut. Bill Is under the doctor’s
care, and hopes to be all right In a
week or so.—Dawson News.
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Get Patents.
Notice has been received at the
Juneau land office of the granting of
patents to F. J. Nolan for four copfter
claims In the White river district and
to R. M. Edwards for one copper claim
In the vicinity of Valdez.
censusoTgeII
HRS BEEN POSTPONED
BERLIN, Sept. 1—The Imperial
Ministry of the Interior has decided
that no census of the Empire will be
taken until after the close of the war.
A General Census was due in Decem
ber this year.
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Talk Not Always Cheap.
The rate for telephoning from Sew
ard to Anchorage has been fixed at
$1.60 a minute and fifty cents for each
additional minute or fraction thereof.