| IDITAROD PIONEER f~|
Published Every Sunday Morning at Iditarod, Alaska.
FRANK t. BECKER, EDITOR
Vcl 1 090. BA. Arbuckle. Publisher No. 16
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HOW ABOUT JUDGE MADE LAW?
Out at Flat City they are working out a problem. It
is not such a problem as our forefathers worked out back
there in the days when the Constitution was in the making,
since it concerns different liberties. This thing is presented
to Alaskans in the full tide of their manhood, and it will
hold them for a while or until they get some semblance of
the power of government into their own hands.
This problem concerns us all. It cuts right under the
very corner-stone of our liberties, and our hearts rebel just
as did those sturdy old boys who marched down to Boston
harbor and used Lipton’s tea for a salt brew. We don’t
want someone to tell us what to do or how, even though he
be a judge of the district court in Alaska, and thereby czar
over all in his division.
There is a man sitting on the judicial bench in Fair
banks who undertakes to say that there shall be two saloons
at Flat City and no more. Does he bespeak the law, or is
he talking through his judicial bonnet ? Is it possible that
a man appointed to office by the President of the United
States has the power to take money from the pocket of one
man and put it into the pocket of another? Is it possible
that a judge before whom we must sit and listen can arbi
trarily move that we follow our bent or in deep humility
submit to his behest?
The judge of the United States district court is the
servant of the people, not the law-making power. The
sooner we realize that the better for our manhood and our
self-esteem. Congress, through an oversight, ordained
judges in Alaska with plenary powers in one of the most
assinine measures ever passed. It made them court of last
appeal in the matter of liquor licenses, and ever since that
measure became a law, judges in this territory have been
toying with the map of the country, making a town here,
destroying one there.
Is it possible that Congress gave Judge Overfield the
right to say there shall be only two licenses granted at Flat
City where conditions are such that any man of good char
acter, with the right kind of a house and the money in his
pocket can qualify equally well with those who have al
ready secured licenses ? Can you look in the book and see
where it says anything about refusing one of the fiist citi
zens of Flat creek, with house, character and accommoda
tions fit to serve a potentate ?
Aow then, how foolish and un-American it is to say
that Smith may have a license and Jones cannot when both
are living in the same town and are equally entitled to it.
How totally inconsistent with our laws and our ideals is
• this thought that one man can secure an advantage and
move on to fortune while his neighbor can be denied the
largess of an open-handed court, and all this because a
judge imagines himself a guiding genius of our destinies
instead of the servant of the people appointed to the bench
to decide our lawsuits.
We have a hunch that Overfield is trying to take a
middle path. He believes as Judge Lyons has so often re
marked that it is not a good thing to have saloons near the
mines. He had also heard of another evil that had existed
out there, known as the “blind pig,” where plenty of liquid
had been sold without proper regulation. These were the
two horns of his dilemma, and to escape either point he de
cided so limit the number of saloons.
We very much fear that Judge Overfield has taken a
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bum hunch. We think he is making a serious mistake,
and one that will cause him more trouule than any other
step he has taken. If it be true that Overfield has defin
itely made up his mind that he will refuse all other appli
cations for licenses even though there be a dozen who are
just as able to qualify as those already granted, then he
will stir up a smell that it is apt to spread all over the place.
“NASTY RUMORS”
Sunday’s Times contained an editorial under the caption of
■‘Nasty Rumors,” in which Commissioner Maltby of Iditarod is
suggested as being guilty of misconduct. The editorial was vague
md contained nothing that could cast reflections upon Commis
sioner Maltby—nothing save the reflections cast by the Times.
Inquiries among Iditaroders, including lawyers who have just
returned from that camp, show that Commissioner Maltby is mak
ing good in Iditarod, and that there are no complaints against him
there save such complaints as are registered by lot jumpers who
have been brought to time by him. The townsite of Iditarod is
well arranged, and the people there intend that Iditarod shall be a
hty that is good to look upon. Acquisitive people have had a de
sire to locate in the middle of the streets, jump the lots of others
and disregard the commissioner and his office, and he has handed
them what they deserve. That is all he has done there that has
been objected to, and the only objections in such cases are from
those who jumped lots and were driven off. It must have been one
uf those lot jumpers who gave the Times its information.—Fair
banks News-Miner, September 12.
FRAELBERTUS WROTE THE ARTICLE
Plat City, Oct. 20, 1910.
Iditarod Pioneer, Iditarod City:
To the Editor—A discussion having arisen in the Bunkhouse
Lyceum here the other evening concerning the authorship of an
article describing Shoomaker’s famous saloon in Washington, D. C.,
I have been commissioned to address you in the hope that you may
be able to determine the controversy.
One man thought Elbert Hubbard had written it, another said
Henry (not Bennett) James was the author, while the man from
Sullivan creek declared that the article in question sprung from
the brain of Editor Henry of the Hot Springs Ripsaw.
In the article is a minute description of a picture, entitled “The
Jealous Husband,” which may help you to find it. Very truly,
Constant Reader.
To Constant Reader—Careful search through the archives of
this office has been rewarded by finding the article wanted in the
Philistine for June, 1909. Therefore, it can be safely stated that
Elbert Hubbard, known as Fra Elbertus to thousands of readers, is
the author thereof.
Shoomaker's, on Pennsylvania avenue, is a saloon that has
been doing business at the same .spot for years, and has become a
national institution. Although surrounded by sky-scrapers, it is
but one story high and has cobwebs and an old army coat in the
window, where a tom cat sleeps peacefully.
Through the back door from the alley, judges of the supreme
court and members of Congress come in at all hours of the day, fire
the stove themselves and spit tobacco juice on the floor.
For the benefit of the Bunkhouse Lyceum we publish Hub
bard’s description of the picture that hangs on the wall:
The works of art at .Shoomaker’s, I am sorry to say, often border on the
risque.
There are horse pictures—one of Dexter—a picture of Jem Mace, Wilkes
Booth, John McCullough and Lawrence Barrett.
One picture In particular was pointed out to me with ecstatic unction by
the Judge. Its title is, “The Jealous Husband.”
The scene is the wife’s dressing room. The husband stands in the center
of the apartment, with thunder written on his brow. He is in evening dresa,
pulling on his gloves, viciously.
The wife Is evidently one of those fair ones who keep everybody waiting.
Her back is toward us, and she is looking into a mirror which reveals her
countenance. She has a powder puff ' her hand and is applying this puff to
her pretty face with a saucy deliberate : which adds to the exasperation of her
husband. Her hair is done up accordir,„ to Act of Congress; her nose is retro- j
usse; her pose reveals the slow and silent contempt of a woman who has been
told that she is it until she believes it.
There she stands on tiptoe, back toward us, her mug close to the mirror.
The strange part is her costume. Compared with her, Eve in the Garden
of Eden was overdressed. This lady wears only her half-smile of contempt.
Beyond this she resembles one of Correggio’s cherubs -only the putti of the old
masters always reveals the mark of the man-child.
But this is a mere matter of detail.
There she stands, in primrose daliance, powdering her dimpled cheeks.
As her husband, clothed and in his right mind, pubs on his yellow gloves
he voices a remark, does this jealous husband. And here is what he says,
‘'Teresa—you are—you are concealing something from me!”
And outside the night winds sigh piteously; the raindrops fall with inces
sant patter from the tearful eaves; the ciatteif of traffic is hushed to a faint
roar as the day dies, and from across the moor the ioon calls plaintively to his
mate on the rise of the night-tide “Cuckoo! Cuekdo!” and then aii is still—or
partially so!
TRADING POST
SUBJECT TO INQUIRY
That the legality of the Fairview trading post of this city is
already a matter of concern to the officials of the general land office
is the news as published in a late Fairbanks paper. The applica
tion has been protested by Metsker, special agent of the land office
at Fairbanks, who, in an interview, states that it has not been filed
in the land office at Nome where it should be, and that the claim
ants have forfeited their right to a trading post by violating the
regulations under which public land can be acquired as a trading
post.
In referring to the matter, Metsker said:
“I am informed that Stewart and McDowell staked the Fair
view trading site of 20 acres extent at Iditarod city and immediately
on staking they had it surveyed into lots and blocks, and have been
selling and leasing these lots for townsite purposes. Also that
Stewart and McDowell were not at the time of staking engaged in
trade and are not at the present time engaged in any form of trade
or manufacture on the ground claimed, and that they staked for
townsite purposes only.
"I have personally examined a contract between Stewart &
McDowell and another party doing business at Iditarod city, for
the leasing of a building on this trading site property. It recites,
among another things, that Stewart & McDowell staked the ground
as a trading site and recorded their location notiee in the office of
the commissioner, now in Iditarod city.
“Staking of ground for townsite purposes by an individual or
individuals under any of the public land laws, under the act provid
ing for the purchase of ground in the possession of or occupied by
an individual for the purpose of trade or manufacture, or any other
act of congress, or regulation of the general land office, is a fraud
pure and simple, as it would appear to be in this case. The only
way in which any property right can be acquired by any individual
for the purposes of trade and manufacture is by purchase thereof
from the general land office, which purchase is made through the
local land office of that land district within which the land applied
for is located.
“Iditarod City is in the Nome land district. I am advised by
telegram from the receiver of the land office at Nome that no entry
or record by Stewart or McDowell or for the so called Fairview
Trading company site has been initiated in his office.
“Any entry that may in the future be made by these parties
or by any other parties for the property or location has been pro
tested by me and a thorough investigation of the above matter will
be made by the general land office.
“No title to this ground as a trading site or otherwise can
possibly be obtained by any individual from the government as
long as there are any adverse claimants or occupants to or on any
portion of the ground. If this trading site is not held by these
parties and occupied by them solely for the purpose of some form
of trade or manufacture, their claims to the property are fraudulent
and they have no more right there than any other individual
occupying portions of the ground in good faith for purpose of
trade, manufacture or residence.
“Theonly way that title can be obtained to any portion of the
public domain for townsite purposes is provided by acts of congress
and by regulations of the interior department, and title cannot be
acquired by an individual or individuals except for all the inhabi
tants of the community through the regularly appointed townsite
trustee.
“There is no question but that in a case where title to the
public land has been fraudulently claimed and sales and leases
hare the right of action against the perpetrators of the fraud for
monies paid for rights or titles that are worthless, as they would
be in such a case as the above.”
Those new-fangled sanitary, conveni
ent and odorless water closets made at
the Pioneer Sheet Metal Works are in
big demand by parties desiring eco
nomical conyeniences, and cleanly and
healthful surroundings.
Carl Thiel made a hurried trip in
from Discovery city on Wednesday to
meet some of the new arrivals on the
last boats. He tarried not for long as
his growing business out there keeps
him right on the tob.
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