The Chitina Leader
CHITINA, ALASKA. -■ J{ *'V W j
: \ 1 ** j | - ’ j \
Entered as second-class matter, November 12, 1910, at tlie 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 and Proprietor.
<ftflce: Hotel Chitina Building. Cordova Office: Daily Alaskan
Seattle Office.: 551 Colman Building.
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
One Month ......f .50
Sik Months .,. 2.00 i
One Year . 3.50
ADVERTISING RATES
Made known ppon application. They will be round reasonable for the service
given. Official publication for legal advertisements pertaining to mineral lands
of the Copper River district.
CHITINA, ALASKA, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1914.
TO MAKE NAVIGATION SAFER IN ALASKA
The Pacific Coast rarely ever becomes thoroughly aroused
on any one question, but from one end of the coast to the other
representative public bodies, transportation and fishing com
panies, fishermen’s organizations, and individuals, are lining
up solidly behind Secretary of Commerce Iiedfield in his
strenuous fight to secure from Congress sufficient funds to
enable the Lighthouse Board to erect and maintain the sorely
needed aids to navigation, and the Coast and Geodetic Survey
proper equipment for expeditiously charting the waters of
Alaska, says the Pacific Fisherman.
Although Congress has declined to grant his requests the
secretary absolutely refuses to' accept defeat, and is again
preparing to carry on the fight during the winter session, and
it begins to look as though the only hope of escape for Con
gress is in granting his demands, for he has plainly shown
since he assumed office that when he sets his mind upon attain
ing something he generally succeeds in getting it.
The Fisherman prints an article in its Alaska Edition for
November showing the terrible toll which has been exacted
from the commercial, fishing and governmental fleets of the
Pacific while navigating in the waters of Alaska. The list
contains the names of 281 vessels, valued (including hull and
cargo) at $12,792,250, and this list is far from complete. In
it no account is taken of the vastly larger number of disasters
■in which the vessels were later on saved. Owing to the meager
records, it has been impossible to show the total loss of lives,
but the records extant show a loss of not less than 500 lives,
the greater part of whom could doubtless have been saved had
Congress done its plain duty by the territory.
In this, as well as in other matters, the secretary has
shown that he is keenly alive to the needs of this coast, and
he is today, so far as this region is concerned, undoubtedly the
most popular officer in President Wilson’s cabinet.
EDITORIAL COMMENT
It is safe to say, without fear of successful contradiction,
that not one soldier in ten of any of the great powers involved
in the European war can give an intelligent reason v for his
presence on the firing line—assuming that he is there by his
own free will. It is certain that the heads of the govern
ments involved have failed to present any issue justifying war
which cannot be more than matched by far greater evils at
home, that they have made no effort to remove.
Some unidentified clam-fed philosopher has said that
citizens should pay their taxes as cheerfully as they make
Ghristmas gifts. Many do; but even they cannot reduce the
tax bill by making up their minds that the rate is too high.
The Daily Alaskan has a tip that next year’s taxes will be at
least 25 per cent lower than those of the past year—which will
help some and in part offset the high cost of living.
New Jersey, where ancient “blue laws” which provide
punishment for a man who kisses his wife on Sunday have
not been repealed, and where a modern cave-dweller disguised
as a dispenser of justice is still to be found, has earned space
in the freak column of the metropolitan papers. This particu
lar judge sentenced a boy to 120 days in jail for violating the
•game laws, in killing a rabbit which was eating up his
vegetable garden.
“The Panama Canal has cost $353,000,000—ten days’
cost of the great war,” says the New York World. Whether
the statement of the daily cost of the war is correct or not the
fact remains that whatever the cost it is paid for the destruc
tion of life and property, while the cost of the canal is invested
in a work that gives service to mankind.
Several different styles of atrocities have been described
by European war correspondents, but none has yet discovered
anything resembling the embalmed beef atrocity so painfully
familiar to Americans who served in the Spanish-American
war, and which was the outgrowth of true American
“paytriotism.”
Intimations that Russia is becoming peeved at the slow
progress of the allies in the west, and becoming restless over
the consequent delay in its own grabbing of Constantinople
may point to a rift in the Triple Entente big with possibilities.
Considering the change in naval tactics by the activities
of German submarines and German mines, there seems to be
room for questioning the accuracy of the name given the
•British battleships known as “dreadnoughts.”
JUDGE JENNINGS SCORIFIES JURY
Alaskans who have acquired the habit of upholding the
laws and paying taxes will find something of special interest
in. the language used by Judge R. W. Jennings of the United
-States District Court at Juneau when he dismissed the recent
-federal jury after it had rendered a verdict of “not guilty” in
the case of the Astoria & Puget Sound Packing Co., which had
been on trial before him for alleged infraction of the fisheries
laws of this territory. The case and the verdict were similar
ot several others which preceded. The judge, highly indignant
and angry because of the farce and miscarriage of justice,
.gave utterance to the following eloquent and scathing words:
“There is not a petty larceny thief, caught in the act, with
his hand in another man’s pocket, there is not a burglar caught
in another man’s home, there is not a murderer caught wit ft
the blood of his victim reeking from his hands that would not
rejoice to be tried by such a jury as you!
“The law in this case wTas absolutely clear in the court’s
charge to you, and the facts in the case were undisputed. You
have disregarded both the law and the facts and found a
verdict in your Own caprice! You are finally discharged from
gny further service in this court room!”
The Juneau Alaska Sunday Morning Post, in commenting
upon the trials of the cannery companies, says:
“It was with some difficulty that juries were finally
procured to acquit in the fish trap cases. The first four juries
were composed for the most part of men of well known
integrity and not specially distinguished for their pre-corpora
tion proclivities. As early as the second jury however, one of
the veniremen was a man of strong character who is engaged
in selling supplies to the cannery man, and it took a premp
tory challenge to dislodge him. The third jury, when the
veniremen were seated in the box, was a much better one for
the cannery people. Among, them was the head office man of
the cannery supply dealer, who, by the way was the foreman
of the grand jury which refused to indict C. M. Summers, once
president of the First National Bank, and this head office man,
remaining on the jury, fought hard for an acquittal and being
unable to obtain it, compromised with a conviction on one
count, an acquittal on the other, and a recommendation of
mercy. The fourth jury showed still further deterioration,
though it contained some good men, not controlled by the
canneries, and followed the example set by the third jury in
every particular.”
----
MEXICO'S TROUBLES FAR FROM ENDED
With General Pablo Gonzales, former loyal supporter of
General Carranza, deposed provisional president, proclaiming
himself president of Mexico and having 8,000 well armed and
equipped men at Pacliuca to back his claim; with General
Carranza in possession of Vera Cruz, and a larger army of
supporters loyal to him and his plan of opposing with arms
Provisional President Guiterrez, choice of the Aguas
Calientes convention; with Generals Villa and Zapata and
their big forces of seasoned fighters—they can hardly be
termed soldiers—co-operating to maintain order in the
capital and to. support Guiterrez—with all these conflicting
elements working overtime, peace and prosperity in Mexico
seem as far distant as they were when the Wilson administra
tion began its campaign of watchful waiting.
Mexico cannot be cured of Villaism, as its present ailment
may properly be termed, in a day or a year. Several genera
tions having the advantage of modern schools and adminis
tration of justice tempered with mercy will be necessary to
eliminate the virus of ignorance, cruelty, treachery and
superstition which the peons have absorbed during more than
400 years of rule by their money-mad Spanish conquerors and
oppressors. Villa and Zapata and their followers are more to
be pitied than blamed for their radical views and acts.
Villa and Zapata, the former peons, would either shoot
or drive from Mexico the oppressors and their representa
tives. Carranza, an educated man, a lawyer and diplomat
more closely in harmony with the higher class of Mexicans,
is their direct antithesis and would gradually remove the 1
cause of his coutnry’s troubles in a more humane manner. I
What the outcome will be no one north of the boundary !
can guess with any degree of certainty, while those south of \
it are not guessing—they are plotting, fighting or preparing !
for other revolutions. The United States has no legitimate* J
reason to meddle in Mexican affairs. There are individuals J
here who would like to see this government, commence a war !
of conquest in Mexico, but they discreetly refuse to exercise J
the privilege of shouldering guns and going down there as \
individuals to be made targets of “for the honor of the J
country” or “for the glory of God” and the Spanish J
oppressors. They are long distance warriors and imitation "
patriots.
John Lind, President Wilson’s personal envoy to Mexico .
during the Huerta interregnum, who won fame more for what '
he did not. say than what he did, broke his silence recently at
Chicago in a public address on the Mexican situation.
The dispossession of the Mexican people by their Spanish
conquerors is charged by Mr. Lind with having been the
primary cause of the troubles that have beset Mexico ever
since. Virtually the entire original population was rendered
homeless and reduced to peonage. How that has worked out
is seen in the fact that the whole state of Morales is today
owned by 27 persons. What else could be expected from such
conditions than the uprisings and revolutions that have
followed? And, as Mr. Lind says, the American people who
have escaped such vicissitudes, who know nothing in their
own experience of the intolerable oppression put upon their
Mexican neighbors, will never understand the Mexican
problem until they look into its social and economic causes
rather than its political effects.
Mr. Lind’s views, after all, coincide with those of every
thoughtful observer, that the basic cause of unrest in that
country is social and economic rather than political or
personal. The rises and falls of inilitai’y and political
chieftains are merely superficial. The seat of the trouble is
much deeper and until that is removed hope of permanent
peace and progress in the neighboring republic must be
postponed.
The ingratitude and suspicion which it is customary for
us to attach to the Mexican character are, Mr. Lind says, not
attributable to racial difference, but to generations of oppres
sion. Given an opportunity to develop freely as we have
developed he believes the Mexicans to be capable of staunch
friendship and offering great promise. Our attitude towards
our Latin American neighbors, both in Mexico and further
south, has too long been governed by racial prejudice and tack
of understanding, exactly the causes that have plunged
Europe into war. It is time Americans, seeing everywhere
about them daily demonstrations that supposed racial and
national incompatibilities disappear in individual neighbors,
took a broader view of human brotherhood.
■t*r* • r f -fT
Why Not Invest?
With the building of the government railroad from
Chitina to Fairbanks, the future of the Town of Chitina
is assured.
Lots are still offered at attractive prices and there
are many desirable ones remaining.
A few months later lots in Chtiina will be held at
largely increased values. Why not invest NOW!
GEO. C. HAZELET,
Agent Chitina Townsite Company.
TIN SHOP |
IN SHUSHANNA1
Xo more need to rarry
STOVES and TINWARE
over the long trail to the
interior, as we are pre*
pared to fill all orders in
our tin shop.
—
W. H. CARSTENS & CO.
SHUSHANXA - - ALASKA
Chitina GRILL
Good Eats for Particnlar People
Prompt Service. Popular Service.
Next to Chitina Hotel.
:HITIXA : : : ALASKA.
L I I
[ 0. ADRIAN NELSON II
: U. S. Mineral Surveyor !
c • !;
\ CHITINA ?. - - ALASKA 11
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jjp33 Let Lewis Help fc==^5
"Pointers for Anistenrs" will help you to better ffl
picture*—it’s free. Send ut your film* for develop- H
in* and printin*. Enlar*in*. Deselopin* 10c roll. JJJ
any size; printin*, ?c up. Cash with order. You’ll |||
find our work better. Photo supplies. Dept. S. jj||
• GROCERIES, HARDWARE J
• AND— I
; meat market!
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; We have a big line of .Sec- t
■ ond-Hand Goods, and can Z
■ save you money on your out- X
. fit. Bunk House, with free Z
. Cook House, in connection. $
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CHITINA HEIGHTS I
; c. A. SIMONS & CO. X
11 I WHHM4f I l 14
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HOTEL
WASHINGTON il
ANNEX
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8RATTLB / ! ’
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New, modern and fireproof. <
Alt outside rooms 1 >
The most conveniently locate* I I
hotel in the city. ; j
Rooms and suites are partlcu> !
larly large.
Very desirable for families or ! I
parties traveling together. \ \ "
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