The Chitina Leader
CHITINA, ALASKA.
Entered as second-class matter, November 12, 1910, at the postoffice at
Chitina, Alaska, under the Act of Congress of March 3, 1879.
ONLY NEWSPAPER IN CHITINA
Published every Saturday by
WILL A. STEEL—Editor*, Manager* and Proprietor*—HARRY G. STEEL
Office: Hotel Chitina Building. Cordova Office: Daily Alaskan
Seattle Office: 551 Colman Building.
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
One Month .I -50
Six Months ..... 2.00
One Year .t.. 2.50
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.
CHITINA, ALASKA, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1913.
JUMPING AT CONCLUSIONS
Our neighbors over at Seward evidently take with all
seriousness the talk of a petty officer on the cruiser Maryland,
who expressed the opinion that the Bering coal was not of h
good steaming quality. They overlook the fact that the coal
taken from the Cunningham claims was of a mighty inferior
quality and is not to be compared to the good, clean, hard coal
contained in regular seams, even on the same claims. The
government has not yet given the result of the analysis and
steaming quality of the inferior article sacked last summer and
exposed to rain, snow and frost during the winter. The Seward
Gateway contains the following:
“The news contained in dispatches conveying the informa
tion that the Bering river coal has failed to stand the test
applied by the United States navy, naturally leaves the Mat
anuska fields as the sole source of fuel supply, in Alaska, for
warships. The importance of this fact cannot be over
estimated.. It means that Resurrection bay will be the site of
the naval coaling station, as well as the chief naval point in
Alaska.
“We do not wish to appear so petty as to boast over the
fact that the Bering river coal is not adapted to the uses of
the navy. Looking at it from a broad standpoint, it is a
regrettable fact, and however much Seward may be benefited
by the finding, it is nevertheless to be deplored, from the stand
point of Alaska as a whole.
“It has long been generally known that the coal in the
Bering river fields contain smaller veins and the product when
mined appears like screenings. In the Matanuska fields the
veins are large and strong and the coal may be taken out in
massive lumps. Coal that was mined by Frost and associates
in 1906, now lying on a dump, retains its substance and resists
the elements of erosion to a marked degree. It is just the
character of coal required by the navy—solid, firm and lumpy—
and contains, according to tests applied, a sufficient percentage
of fixed carbon to render it of first rank for steaming or fuel
purposes.”
A STRETCH OF POWERS
Under the title of “White Slaves” Harper’s Weekly has
an editorial in reference to the Diggs-Caminetti case which is
both intelligent and courageous. It points out the absurdity
of a law which makes Diggs and Caminetti legally “white
slavers” and the Warrington and Norris girls legally ‘white
slaves.” All four, apparently, took the same delight in
drinking sprees and joy-riding. They came from the same class
of life, they had about the same dgeree of education, which was
not inconsiderable. Poverty pressed no more heavily on the
girls than on the men.
y If any were “slaves,” then all were slaves equally--slaves
to their own passions and love of pleasure. It is a legal fiction,
carefully embalmed in the Mann law, that in sexual matters
women are without volition or intent, but remain forever the
merely passive, self-helpless victims of men and opportunity.
It is not justice to send Caminetti and Diggs to prison as
“white slavers,” for that they are not. Nor are the young
women in the ease “white slavers” or anything but wayward,
“fly” girls, who knew perfectly well what they were doing.
But such is the hypocrisy of lawmakers, judges, and news
papers that Diggs and Caminetti will go to prison as “white
slavers,” with hardly a voice to point out that they are not
guilty of that offense, however much they deserved punishment
for their criminal acts. It is for their general worthlessness
slavers” and the Warrington and Norris girls legally “white
of its powers, is reaching out and sending them to a federal
prison for a term of years, while their paramours, having been
advertised from coast to coast, will probably now go on the
stage and make a great deal of money.
According to the rulings of Judge Van Fleet in this trial
if a boy of 18 should pay the car fare of an immoral woman of
twice his age across a state line or in the city of Washington,
he would be liable to 20 years in the penitentiary for white
slavery. Overzealous legislation, enacted in an excess of
reforming emotion, always defeats its own purpose and results
that the federal government, by a perfectly enormous stretch
unless it is amended.
-u—u—u
A MILLION-A-YEAR FOR ROADS
The Fairbanks Commercial Club has inaugurated a move
ment that is of vital concern to the people of Chitina and
Cordova. They aim to secure from Congress an appropriation
of $1,000,000 a year for the purpose of building automobile
roads in Alaska. And one of these necessarily will be the
government road from Fairbanks to Chitina over which auto
mobiles have already run in the remarkable short time of less
than 40 hours running time. The Alaska Road Commission has
maintained that with a larger appropriation this road can be
improved so that it will be just as accessible in the summer
season as during the winter. And that would mean that instead
of the people of Fairbanks and the interior country spending
two or three weeks in going or coming from the coast to their
homes that they could make the 321 miles from Fairbanks to
Chitina by a pleasant automobile ride during the course or two
or three days, and then cover the 131 miles between Chitina and
Cordova in a comfortable passenger coach with diner on the
railway. It would be a wonderful saving in time, and would
also prove of great convenience and value in the transmission
of mails during the summer season.
When Governor Strong and Colonel Richardson were]
recently in Fairbanks the matter of an annual appropriation!
of $1,000,000 was taken up with those officials. They pledged i
their cordial support to the idea and upon Governor Strong’s
recent return from Nome to Seattle he stated that in his annual
report he would strongly recommend the granting of the
desired sum by Congress. Colonel Richardson will undoubt
edly do likewise and it should devolve upon every community
likely to be benefitted to co-operate with the Fairbanks
organization and work industriously for a “million-a-year”
appropriation.
-o—o—o
A MEMORABLE ANNIVERSARY
It was in 1896 that the first rich discovery of gold wasj
made in the Klondike. The anniversary of that occasion has
since been a source of annual jubilation wherever the old sour
doughs have been located. In commenting on the subject The
Dawson News says:
Klondike is 17 years old today, and the people of the realm
are proudly celebrating the anniversary. The pioneers, the
men who blazed the way and made it possible for all others to
be here and enjoy the advantages, are deservedly in charge of
the celebration.
Nineteen years have elapsed since the Yukon Order of
Pioneers was organized. Many since that time have been called
on the last stampede, and each year sees the number of gray
haired veterans rapidly grow less.
Klondike should, and does, appreciate the labors of these
men who have sacrificed their lives in the development of the
land which they now leave a golden and inexhaustible heritage
to those who come after.
The succeeding generations never will know nor be fully
able to comprehend the hardship and the privation suffered
by the first men to enter this region and lay it open, a trophy
and a tribute to the world.
New camps—many of them—will be opened in the North
land, but none will be born with the same romance and the
same toil and sti’ess of Fortymile, Circle and Klondike.
The fearless army which came to these earlier camps had
no predecessors to teach them the way of conquering the frozen
areas. All had to learn and pay for the knowledge with the
great price called experience. Those who open future northern
camps inherit the knowledge, and know how to go prepared.
They know how to mine in the frozen gravels, how to travel in
the dead of winter, how to cope with a thousand and one
conditions which at first were solved only through suffering.
And while appreciative of the matchless opportunities that
lie on every hand, let everyone gather and rejoice in the North
land empide and pass the laurels to the first in the land—the
I YUKON SOURDOUGHS.
AAA •
It is reasonably safe to say that F. R. Brenneman is one of
the most popular men in the Third Judicial Division. A day or
two ago he was a deputy marshal at Katalla, with limited
duties and powers. Today he is the United States marshal
with considerable patrongae and favor to dispense.
Experienced miners predict that there will be considerable
winter work done in the Chisana. After the ice forms and it is
possible to haul double enders from McCarthy there will soon
be plenty of grub taken into the new diggings, while many
thawing appliances will be sent in so that the ground can be
worked and rich dirt taken out for the spring clean up.
Governor Blease says he wants to go to the United States
Senate. Even the harshest critics of the Senate will hardly
wish any such misfortune on it.
Dr. Holmes, director of mines, is assuming a broad view of
the rights of Alaskans. When told that some prospectors had
found a good coal seam in the Chisana country and had been
advised to go to work on it and get out some much needed fuel,
lie is credited with having endorsed the advice. A couple of
years ago it was considered a penitentiary offense to mine any
of Mr. Pinchot’s coal that he would like to reserve for his
great grandchildren.
President Wilson seems more anxious to get good men
into public office than he is simply to take care of Democrats.
The only objection urged to Edgar Battle, of Seattle, was that
he had not supported President Wilson, although he has always
been a Democrat. The President didn’t regard that allegation
very seriously and named him for postmaster. After a lengthy
delay he was yesterday confirmed by the Senate. In the Presi
dent’s own town of Princeton he appointed a Republican as
postmaster.
Scores of stampeders who went into the Chisana gold
diggings by way of White Horse and Dawson are now returning
via McCarthy and'Cordova. Our contention that this route
would eventually be accepted as the shortest and most com
fortable way of reaching the Chisana is being most conclusively
demonstrated by the men who were at first led to believe other
wise. Time rights all errors and wrongs.
The remark attributed to Mr. Charles Murphy: “He did
not play the game,” probably is apocryphal. It is at once too
true and too candid. “Give and take” has its own simple sig
nificance in politics. One may not take without giving; one is
not expected to give without taking. Mr. Sulzer knew the rules
well enough. He is out for not touching second.
The fact that rich pay may not have been taken from more
than three claims in the Chisana doesn’t indicate to the
seasoned prospector that the gold is not there in fabulous
quantities. He realizes that there has been no opportunity for
many of the claim owners to get to bed rock and make the
discoveries that may later stai'tle the world.
When George Carmac first discovered the Klondike he
didn’t take out enough gold to buy him an outfit. But on the
strength of his report that the gold was “there” a crowd
immediately flocked in and have been taking out many millions
of gold dust ever since.
And the latest is that a good seam of coal had been found
in the new Chisana sold diggings.
Even Tammany, shrewd as it is reputed to be, may find it
easy to go too far.
L. A. Decker, a recent arrival from
the placer district of the upper
Bremner, is in town on his way out
side. He has with him a bag of
clean gold nuggets and dust, weigh
ing about 16 ounces. Mr. Decker
has been working in a district that
has been but little prospected, but
which he believes will some day be
a good producer of placer gold.
He is operating on Golconda creek,
a tributary to the north fork of the
Bremner river and which heads in
the high mountains between the
Hanagita valley and the Bremner. It
is easily accessible for winter
freighting or summer travel through
a broad low pass to Monahan creek
and northward to the Chitina river.
Last summer Mr. Decker put in
his sluice boxes and expected to
make a good clean up this season.
He and his men freighted a good
supply of provisions, with dog team,
in from Long Lake on the railroad,
in April last. But when they
reached the Golconda creek they
found that all their previous work
had been washed away. The other
men then left for different diggings
and Mr. Decker remained alone and
started to again put in sluice boxes
so as to be ready for next season.
In the meantime he panned out a
little gold.
Mr. Decker states that the gravel
in the creek is shallow, running
from four to ten feet, and that it
will make a fine hydraulic proposi
tion. Good colors can be secured
with pan from the bars almost any
place. The gravel benches contain
gold and it is believed that the gold
content of the creek gravels is in
part a reconcentrated deposit from
the benches. These placers resemble
those on Chittitu and Dan Creeks.
One of these days Mr. Decker looks
for a big movement in the direction
of the headwaters of the Bremner,
and he predicts that some rich finds
will be made.
The land office at Juneau has
passed adversely ' on several more
coal claims in the Katalla fields. In
every instance the government made
charges of fraud in the matter of
making the locations, and also
charged that the claimants had not
opened up nor developed a mine on
the land located. All of the defend
ants allowed their interests to go by
default making no appearance at the
hearing that was ordered.
Mrs. Mathilda Burke, of Portland,
Ore., claimed 85 acres and had paid
in $850.00. Charges were made
against the entry in 1909. James
Campbell, of Georgia,.claimed 159.92
acres for which he paid in $1,599.20.
Charges were made against the entry
at same time as above. H. L. Pittock
claimed 160 acres for which $1,600.
had been paid in. C. H. Woodward
claimed 160 acres, but had paid in
no money. All of these claims were
located by M. A. Green as agent for
the principals, and are commonly
known as among the Green group.
E. O. Sawyer, Jr., representing the
Enterprise Newspaper Association,
sailed on the Sampson this afternoon
for the westward. He will make a
trip to the Matanuska coal fields and
write up his observations. Mr. Saw
yer recently returned from a trip to
the Chisana gold diggings and
secured much valuable information
of the conditions in that country.
The steamer Admiral Sampson
reached Cordova this afternoon
about 1 o’clock. She remained in
port until 5 o’clock sailing at that
hour for the westward. She brought
but few passengers, although several
went to westward ports from here.
While at Katalla last night a sudden
wind came up and interfered with
the landing of freight. Ben Durkee
was taking off 25 tons of coal on a
scow when the Sampson was com
pelled to cut loose and steam away.
The scow and coal went adrift.
Ten years ago the Valdez Pros
pector contained the following:
“Clarence Warner, Harry Fitch,
Joe Dalton and Nick Meckin re
turned to town this week from the
White river district, where they
spent the summer prospecting.
While they made no important dis
coveries either in placer or quartz
they believe the country has a min
eral future when transportation
facilities are provided.
In the absence of any showing
that veins, ledges, or gravel deposits
do in fact carry some valuable min
eral, in at least appreciable quanti
ties, a mineral protest will not be |
sustained.
Chitina GRILL
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