TANANA LEADER
Issued every Thursday.
Sam J. Callahan. Publisher
Subscription.—One year, $10; six months.
$5; one month, $1; single copies, 25 cents.
Advertising.—Rates on application. Right
reserved to reject any advertisement.
Thursday, June 30, 1910.
FOR DELEGATE
JAMES WICKERSHAM
. THE ONLY ISSUE INVOLVED.
Let there be no mistake about the
issue involved in the coming election
for delegate to congress.
That Alaska is a territory of the
United States; that citizens of the
United States living in the territory
have the right of local self government
if they want to exercise that right; that
those now here and those who may elect
to come have the right, under such re
strictions only as have hitherto applied
in undeveloped territories of the United
States, to take and use for their own
needs and purposes the unappropriated
natural resources, including land, min
eral, timber and water—these are the
things contended for by Wickersham,
and advocated with such zeal and fidel
ity to principle that the administration
so far, at least, has been unable to in
fluence congress to stamp them with its
disapproval.
That Alaska is a dependent possession
of the United States, bought, paid for
and held and administered for the
purpose of producing wealth for the
United States; that people here have
i.o lights except those from time to time
granted, through congress, by the United
States—that is the theory that would
be strengthened by Wickersham’s de
feat.
There is no other issue.
ANOTHER REVISION COMING.
Vice-President Sherman in a speech
not long ago defended the tariff and
thought that instead of a downward re
vision the next time it is considered the
need will be apparent for a revision up
ward. He stated that the country was
generally prosperous, or, to quote his
own language: “And it is estimated the
advance in wages granted this year will
equal the stupendous sum of $500,000,
000. While this splendid result has
come to the wage earners—and it is a
fair assumption that it must have come
first to the employing class—it has come
in equal measure to our farmers.”
Yes, and it has come in the fullness of
plenty to the politicians who robbed
Peter and divided the plunder with
Paul. Next time it will be a revision
down-and-outward of the party that
eked out its reign of corruption by a
brazen series of false pretenses.
Tub prestige of the Taft administra
tion is somewhat like the description of
Alaska’s population, “scant and badly
scattered.”
THE CROWN-COLONY PLAN.
The following was printed in the
Fairbanks News-Miner of June 16. It
was credited to Harper’s Weekly and
was printed without comment. The
! News-Miner may or may not approve of
it. Discriminating readers will note the
insinuation that, while the British
crown-policy system might be best for
Alaska, the “neglect” of her colonies by
the British empire is not just right: the
neglect, of course, being the failure to
take from the colonists all their power
of free and independent action. It is
respectfully requested that the article
be given thoughtful attention:
Alaska is having its day just now; all
roads political, and some financial, seem
to lead that way. But it cannot be de
nied that the great province is amply
entitled to some serious attention. It
has waited for its day long enough, in
all conscience. The neglect of congress,
decade after decade, to legislate properly
concerning it has been a most discredit?
able thing. Unlike England’s neglect
of her American colonies, it has not
proved salutary, either for Alaska or the
rest of us. Some of the unpleasant
fruits of it we are now tasting. It was
seventeen years after the purchase of
the vast peninsula before congress gave
it any system of laws whatever; and
then all it got was a provision that the
laws of the territory of Oregon should
extend over it “so far as the same may
be applicable!” Subsequent legislation
has been spasmodic and unsystematic
and never thorough. Even the discov
ery of the immen.-e wealth of the region
has not yet secured for it a satisfactory
government.
The Beveridge bill was objected to be
cause it made the governor and legisla
tive council appointive, by the president,
and not elective. Senators hastened to
declare this not in accord with American
ideas. Some charged also that the leg
islative council would have too much
power, although the bill piovided that
all its work must be submitted to con
gress for approval or rej< etion. What
the bill really proposed was to make
Alaska substantially what under the
British system would be called a crown
colony. Nobody who has studied the
British empire doubts that the crown
colony arrangement suits certain parts
of it well, or that it provides an excel
lent intermediate stage for certain pos
sessions which may nevertheless event
ually deserve and secure partial or com
plete self government. That the devil e
is not of American origin sheuld not for
a moment stand against it. The only
question ought to be whether it is 11
present the best arrangement for Alaska,
whose population is still scanty and
badly scattered, and whose distances
are so magnificent as to make ordinary
political association and co-operation de
cidedly difficult. The bill ought to have
been considered more carefully and car.*
didlv. Mr. Beveridge, having aban
doned it, now comes forwerd with two
other bills; one to make permanent, by
act of congress, the withdrawal from en
try of all Alaskan coal and other de
posits, the other providing that the-e
deposits shall not be sold, but only
leased. Both are on the right line;
either these or similar measures ought
to be at once perfected and passed. But
so ought Alaska to have a proper and
complete government, suited to its pres
ent stage of development.
Good conduct is better based on self
approval than on fear of the police.
BILLIARDS POOL
Fine Liquors and Cigars
THE GRAND
Tanana
CHARLES CHANQUIST, Prop.
Alaska
MY PLEA.
Give me, () Fate, O Destiny, four walls beneath a roof,
A little easli that I may live and living hold aloof
From humankind of every mold, whoe’er, whate’r it be,
Who think a mint of hoarded gold can give them power o’er me.
Give me, O Guiding Star, a spot, beneath yon arching span,
Where I can hide, in peace, from that especial man
Who thinks because his prejudice is hard and cold and dry,
That he is more intelligent, more versed in truth than 1!
Give me, 0 Fortune, some far place beyond the eager tongue
Of him who sits in ignorance upon life’s lowest rung!
Sahara’s wilds, grim solitude, I care not where it be,
But let me live where man’s conceit I may no longer see!
Give me, O Luck, 0 Circumstance, the chance to get away
A thousand miles from that crass chap who has too much to say!
Preserve me from the gabfest trait, the overplus of speech—
From all who wag their jaws too much I would be out of reach.
—Lurana W. Sheldon, in the New York Times.
| ESPIONAGE AND SUSPICION.
I Some months ago, in commenting on
certain crimes that had been committed
! in Tanana, the Fairbanks Times attrib
j uted them to the intiuence of the sa
\ loons, the number of which the paper
concluded was unduly large in propor
tion to the population. The Times’s
! deductions in this regard will be ac
j cepted or rejected according to the point
[ of view of the individual considering
| them.
I However, in naming the remedy it
: thought should be applied, the Times
| said the present law affords a perfect
| system of local option, and that is the
i a. sertion with which we take emphatic
l •
; issue
It is true that by refusing to sign a
petition for it the issuance of a license
could be forestalled by a majority of the
residents; but it does not necessarily
follow that by signing such petition the
issuance of the license would be made.
The discretionary power of officials in
tervenes between the residents and one
end of their option, which relieves them
of responsibility and amounts to no op
tion on their part at all.
Again, if a resident should refuse to
sign one man’s petition he would have
no assurance that a more unworthy man
would not be granted a license: making
the proposition one of personal privi
lege instead of one involving the general
q xe.-tion of right and wrong—of passing
on the qualities of an individual or firm
instead of the sale of liquor as a matter
of public policy.
The present law qauses the sale of
liquor to depend almost exclusively on
intiuence of one kind or another, and
residents are right in not allowing their
personal likes and dislikes to enter into
the situation. Nearly every one either
makes it a rule to sign all petitions for
license or else none.
Otherwise the amount of local spite,
jealousy and suspicion — common to
Alaska settlements and inseparable
from a system wherein espionage plays
an important part — would be aug
mented in no small degree. Two or
three recent occurrences may be cited
as illustrations.
In a general store where liquor is sold
i money was on sevral occasions found on
Stoddard
Kay
THE
NORTHERN
Best Wines, Liquors a ml Cigars
Pool Tables in connection
Stoddard Kay
St. James’ Mission
Holy Euchurist the first Sunday in each
month at 11 a. m. Each following Mmday,
Evening Prayer at 8 u. in. Every Wednes
day evening, Evening Prayer and Litany at
8 o’clock. WIXTHROP PE A BOD V,
Priest in Charge.
u shelf near where the bottles of whisky
rested. Finally two natives were caught
in the act of clandestinely taking the
liquor and leaving the pay. The mer
| chant at once became fearful that ene
mies had conspired against him and had
: induced the natives to do what they did
with the object of securing evidence to
cause the revocation of his license—
! a proceeding which would not only in
I volve the loss of the money paid for the
j license, but would also leave him with a
: large stock on hand and no lawful means
of disposing of it. The merchant’s sus
picions may have been unfounded, but
1 his fears show that his property and
his reputation could be destroyed by a
malicious word.
On two occasions women have beeu
ordered instanter to vacate hotels where
bars are maintained, on a rumor that
the women had been guilty of miscon
duct before reaching Tanana.
Has any one heard from Belim re
Brown, who came to the north from
Bos ting town McKinley’s snow-capped
peak to crown? No, nobody’s heard
from Belmore Brown, who came all the
way from Bosting town to climb a
mountain and gain renown. God pity
Belmore—God pity us all—if he should
over a precipice fall and never reach the
summit at all, but drop like a heavy
leaden ball to the foot of some cruel
granite wall; his reputation would then
be small.