THE IDITAROD PIONEER
Published Every Saturday Morning at Idilarod, Alaska
Vol. 7 CHARLES A. DERRY, Editor and Publisher Ho. 1
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Ono Year 510.00 Ono Month 51.00
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THE NEW YEAR
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” and
New Year's day is essentially a day of hope. We
give expression to the spirit of hopefulness by the
making of good resolutions on this day; and in spite
of the fact that these are in many cases short-lived,
this custom is in itself a hopeful sign. It will be a
sorry day indeed for the human race when the desire
to combat the old Adam that is said to be inherent
in all of us dies out, and we are content to let our
naturally perverse inclinations have full sway.
The Chinese have a New Year’s custom which
commends itself to the emulation of the western peo
ples. It is customary for a good Chinaman to liqui
date all his debts on the last day of the old year, so
that he may start the new year with a clean slate,
and the Chinaman who is unable to do this considers
himself disgraced. Not the material side of this cus
tom is what should appeal to us. although that is
commendable enough; but would it not be a much
better and more endurable world were it possible for
each of us io start with a clean slate this New Year’s
morning—with all the animosities, jealousies and
hatreds rubbed out and relegated to oblivion ? And
when we consider how small an atom the human
being is in the general scheme of things, and how
comparatively brief our stay on this planet is, does
it not seem that we are wasting our time and oppor
tunities on trifling grievances and disappointments?
The great hope of humanity this New Year’s day
will be centered in the termination of the great world
struggle that continues its wasteful course in Europe.
Will another New \ear’s day see the gigantic crime
continued, or will reason and sanity yet prevail, and
the millions who are now struggling at each other’s
throat be allowed to return to the peaceful avoca
tions from which they were called by a war that, no
matter how it terminate, must crush with its weight
oi w'oe and misery generations yet unborn?
fhe hope of the world is for peace.
PEDDLING HOT AIR
Naturally, a newspaper desires to say all the good
words possible about the community in which it :s
published, and should its efforts result in attracting
capital to be used in developing its home town and
district, it feels that it has done something worth
worth while. This desire to serve its own community
sometimes leads it into grave mistakes, and often the
desire to “boost” results in direct and serious injury
to many worthy persons who have taken the “boom”
literature too seriously. There are newspapers,
however, which do not care to place themselves in
the equivocal position of encouraging stampedes to
their districts that are not warranted by facts. These
newspapers consider the business of purveying news
in very much the same light as that of selling gro
ceries, hardware, or any other commodity for which
there is a demand. If a merchant were to advertise
that he had a certain line of goods, and his patrons
learned that he was lying, he would lose their con
fidence, and likewise their business. It is precisely
the same W'lth newspapers. There are newspapers
whose every issue contains accounts of rich strikes
which arc found upon investigation to have origi
nated mainly in the imagination of the writer. Were
these publications to contain a story of a genuine
bonanza find, it would be ignored by their incredu
lous and suspicious readers. The Ketchikan Pro
gressive-Miner, discussing this subject, puts the mat
ter very aptly when it says:
Of course we find extremists at both ends of that argument.
For that reason we find it difficult to justify the assertion that
the pessimist is worse than the optimist, because both are bad.
But to our way of thinking, the optimist, or “hot air peddler," is
just as dangerous as the pessimist. As a matter of fact, it was
the hot air peddlers who retarded the growth of Valdez, Seward
and many other towns in Alaska. The glowing reports sent out
by hot air peddlers of those towns brought in capital and others
who, after finding the true situation of affairs, departed, carrying
along with them contempt and disgust. It was the hot air ped
dlers who led so many poor devils on wild goose chases all over
Alaska. It was hot air peddlers who led so many unfortunates to
invest their all in the Midas Creek proposition of 1901-02. Yes,
indeed, if you want proof, go back along those trails and you will
find many silent graves, silent evidence of hot air peddling. If
capital alone was subject to hot air peddling it would not be so
bad, because capital can afford to experiment, but when a man
disposes of his little holdings to follow a trail of hot air, it becomes
quite easy to make a choice between the optimist and the pessi
mist.
-♦
THE GERMAN KAISER
Anything of an authoritative nature, or claimed to
be such, about such an interesting personality as the
German kaiser is sure to be read with avidity at the
present time. A man named Joseph McCabe re
cently has published a book on “The Boyhood of the
Kaiser,” and a writer in the London Sunday Chron
icle, in reviewing it, brings out the following, which,
whether true or not, will be of especial interest in
view of the recent rumors that Wilhelm is a sufferer
from cancer, a disease which, in spite of sensational
efforts to conceal it, caused the death of his father,
Emperor Frederic:
Is Wilhelm a throw-back to the Hohenzollerns of less civilized
days? If it were not that this present war of rival civilizations is
the most brutal and inhuman in history one might the more read
ily jump to that conclusion.
If you asked the first dozen fairly educated Englishmen you
met- what is the full name of the kaiser, eleven of them. I imagine.
would gel it wrong. It is Frederic William Victor Albert. Until
bis Inter teens he was known in the domestic circle as “Fritz.”
Why he abandoned his first and proper name, in spite of his im
mense admiration for Frederic the Great, and has chosen to call
himself William, he has never deigned to explain. Perhaps his un
happy relations with his father, who was named Frederic, will ex
plain it.
The "Victor Albert” reminded Germany and himself too pain
fully, no doubt, of his English blood; anyway, it was “long ago
buried deep in the dust of the family archives.”
Everybody knows that there is something wrong with the
kaiser's left arm; but few people are exactly informed as to what
it is or how it arose. Mr. McCabe attributes great importance to
this defect :
"Ills left arm has been paralyzed or atrophied since birth. The
polite biographers assure us that the physician who presided at his
,11th was unskillful, and that this clumsiness led to an accident
which, in nine mysterious way. ruined the child’s left arm. Ex
cept the Socialists, who have repaid with some very plain speaking
the emperor’s vituperation of them, the Germans seem to be quite
reconciled to this remarkable fable; as if a prospective heir to the
throne of Prussia would be ushered into the world with a clumsi
ness which—if it could happen at all -would not happen to one in
a million peasant babies."
The simple truth seems to be that, from the llohenzollerti side,
Wilhelm received a legacy of disease -syphilitic or tuberculous or
cancerous. "II is quite plain,” states Mr. McCabe, “that the nerv
ous system of little Fritz was congenitally tainted, and this may
not be entirely unconnected with the fact that his great uncle,
Frederic William IV (whom of all the Hohrnzolletns ho most
closely resembles) was insane and had to be removed from the
throne.”
Fritz's appearance as a boy supports this view. Admiring ladies
tell us that he was a pretty, delicate, giilish-looking child. Ilis skin
was very tine and white, his cheeks brightly colored, his hair al
most golden, and his mild, large eyes of ajduish gray. Mr. McCabe
warns us that he is “not pandering to the foolish notion that the
kaiser is insane, though this congenital disease may help us to un
derstand sonu features of his character.”
His left arm is quite useless; it is shriveled, and four inches
shorter than his right. Before he is photographed which very
often happens he has to lift his left arm onto his sword hilt with
his right; he eats with one hand; and he can only ride horses spe
cially trained for him. But he swims and fences and hunts and
yachts and generally takes a great ilea! of vigorous outdoor exer
cise; and he lives soberly. Thus he has built up a powerful frame
from unpromising beginnings.
“His naturally firm will has been, as the Germans say, dipped
in a bath of steel, and the fierce will and untiring energy are the
two fundamental facts of his career and personality. The third
fundamental fact is his prolific and romantic imagination, which
is very obviously connected with his congenital defect."
If this line of argument be sound, what a tragedy is here- the
birth of a misshapen baby in a Potsdam palace fifty-six years ago
has preciptated the Armageddon of 1914-lo, and hurled to their
deaths some millions of men gathered from all the lands of the
globe.
There are no bad hereditary phenomena coming from the Eng
lish mother, as Mr. McCabe incidentally informs us. Princess Ade
laide Victoria, the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria, who married
Prince Frederic of Prussia, was “an entirely healthy and fine
minded woman.” As we are all aware, she was never accepted
gladly by the German people, but was known ail her life as “the
Englishwoman.”
tier husband appreciated Princess Adelaide, and shared the
obloquy under which she suffered. After his death the kaiser per
mitted Pisniarrk to assert in print that, following the Franco
Prussian war, the German statesmen had been obliged to exclude
Frederic from their counsels, because he communicated facts to his
wife, who sent them to England, whence they were given to the
French.
Bismarck quoted Marshal Bazaine as his authority; and Ba
zaine at once denied that he had said anything of the kind. But
the kaiser kept silent; and he has never defended the memory of
his parents in this matter at any time.
- ~ - ♦
Not the least of the accomplishments of the Wilson adminis
tration is the clearing up of the Mexican situation, which now
bids fair to result in a lasting peace in our sister republic. Had
Wilson listened to the jingoes and declared war a year or so ago
we might now be fairly embarked in an era of destruction and
bloodshed which would have cost both countries dearly in both
men and treasure before the Mexicans could have been subjugated.
Overruled in the A B. C. conference with reference to the recogni
tion of Carranza, President Wilson bowed to the verdict and set
about the task of assisting in re-establishing law and order in
Mexico. Probably the Mexican question is not settled with the
victory of Carranza, but American capital can now return un
molested to the spoliation of Mexico; but it will not lie under
United States rule, as it desired.
After a lengthy and unexplained silence. George Bernard Shaw
again has broken out with the following gem of wisdom: “I hope
we are all agreed that we should never go out of our way to de
stroy or beet down Germany in such a way that we could not
fight her again whenever she thought herself capable of taking us
on. Jesus Christ told us not to hate our enemies, but he did not
tel! us that v.e must not tight them. We must conduct the war
with decent pugnacity, as gentlemen should. We have got to get
the Germans out of Belgium. If we do not do this we should be
dishonored and beaten." It reminds one of the remarks put into
the mouth of one of his characters by the man to whom Shaw
compares himself to his own advantage, one Wild am Shakespeare:
"I am Sir Oracle. When I ope my lips let no dog bark.”
-^
Gradually it is being drilled into the minds of the great em
ployers of labor that the “rough-neck” is really a human being
after all. It is being found that he resents injustice and appre
ciates being treated as a human being, which must be quite a
revelation to the captains of industry. It is related that the
superintendent of the Conemaugh division of the Pennsylvania
railroad has adopted a “white list” to replace the old-time “black
list.” Instead of posting the names of delinquent employes, the
division now publishes a monthly list of those whose service and
conduct have been meritorious. Since the new plan was adopted
j the cases requiring discipline have decreased by two-thirds. The
I “white list” recognizes excellence and stimulates endeavor. The
I “black list” only arouses resentment.
-A
Mr. Edes, chairman of the Alaska engineering commission,
which has in charge the construction of the Alaska government
railway, was asked by the Seward Gateway whether any statement
had been made to the effect that only 2 per cent of the men em
ployed on the railroad work were foreigners, but he was unable to
make any definite stab ,u;eut on this subject without looking into
it more thoroughly. KJt Mr. Edes, as chairman of the commis
sion, ought to be able to make a “definite statement” on this sub
ject, as well as upon several other matters that have created a
great deal of discussion of labor conditions on the government
railway project.
-«
General Friend, at Earl Kitchener’s orders, has announced the
present status of Ireland in the imperial armies of Great Britain.
Aside from Irishmen in the armies when war began and enlisting
outside of Ireland, General Friend/said that 81,000 had volun
teered. There are now in the field fifty-three battalions of infan
try of 1,000 men each. In addition to the sixteen battalions of
the regular Irish regiments of peace time, there are four Irish
divisions in the new British army, twelve battalions in the Tenth
division, twelve battalions in the Sixteenth and thirteen battalions
in the Thirty-sixth.
-♦
The German Kladderadatsch ha-s a striking cartoon in a recent
issue. It shows a stretch of sea, with the Stars and Stripes floating
above a sinking American battleship, with victorious German bat
tleships standing by. The sun is just rising above the horizon.
The legend is: “Some day the dawn is going to break above the
stars.”
-*
A Berlin dispatch tells us that Vienna is dseirous of retaining
the friendship of the United States. And yet the reports seem to
agree that Dr. Dumba was decorated by the emperor for his serv
ices in America, thus putting the stamp of official approval upon
the acts for which President Wilson demanded his recall.
-♦
J. P. Morgan undoubtedly retained his appendix longer than
he had any right to expect. In view of the Morgan bank account,
the family surgeon should be given credit for great self-control in
delaying the operation as long as he did, remarks the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer.
-♦—
A San Francisco shipping company operating vessels to Hono
lulu Ls to build a new million-dollar liner to fly the American flag.
How can this possibly be done under the seamen’s act when other
companies have said it was impossible? asks the New York W'orld.
-♦
“Man was made to mourn,” wailed the Scotch bard, “but,” adds
a present-day philosopher, “probably it was never intended that
he should spend much of hi? time at it.”
NAPOLEON AS EDITOR
Napoleon’s one chance to get even with
his foes on the British press was to return
their lire in his own official paper, the Mon
iteur, where he showed himself a pretty
good fighting editor, with a ready command
of a large and brilliant vocabulary of vitu
peration. It was in the columns of the
Moniteur that he labeled England “a nation
of shopkeepers turned filibusters,” and de
scribed her government as the rule of a
"mad king and a prime minister who was
like an old nurse,” while through the same
medium he spread abroad the report of the
unhappy necessity that actually had arisen
of placing George 111 in a strait jacket.
Finally he inserted in the Moniteur a re
port from General Sebastian!, a Corsican,
whom he had sent on a scouting mission in
the East, declaring that France could re
capture Egypt with 6,000 men, and he re
plied to British military preparations with
the announcement that France would have
500,000 soldiers to avenge the republic
against England. At those thrusts the Brit
ish lion roared the louder, and the speech
from the throne proclaimed still further
measures for the defense of the island realm.
At the very next session of the English
parliament after the signing of the treaty of
peace the king’s speech had breathed a war
like spirit, to which Napoleon retorted by
sending this extraordinary challenge to Lon
don : “The first consul is but 33 years old.
As yet he has destroyed none but states of
the second order. Who knows what time
it would take him. if forced to it, to change
anew the face of Europe, and to revive the
empire of the West?”—“In the Path of Na
poleon,” by James Morgan.
--
. A NEW GENUS
A famous botanist, whose experience i
tcl'i by Answers, found a plant that he did
not know. At that moment a shock-headed
lad strolled along the road and stopped to
gaze open-mouthed at him.
“I say!" called the botanist urgently. “See
that plant there—that pale pink one in the
corner? Do you know it?”
“!!h huh!” said the country boy, brietty.
“What’s its name? Do you know what
family it belongs to?” .
The lad, jerking a grubby thumb over his
shoulder toward a little cottage, said tersely,
“ ’Igginses!”
♦
THE USE OF SALT
Most persons, if asked which we use the
more of, salt or sugar, probably would say
sugar, but the statisticians at Washington
figure that the per capita consumption of
salt in the United States last year was al
most exactly l'JO pounds, and of sugar 80.14.
The statement is, however, somewhat mis
leading. No person could eat two pounds
of salt a week and expect to live. Much
that is set down to the tier capita consump
tion is really used in curing meat and fi.-h
that later on are exported, and in making
pickles arid freezing ice cream. We con
sums more ice cream than a'l the rest of
the world put together. Youth’s Com
panion.
♦
Fresh Olympia anti Eastern Oysters, SI.50
per can. Iditarod Meat Co.
FOR SALE
Two horses, harness, two sets of blankets,
No. 4 sled with rough-lock, pole, doubletree
end neckyoke, wood and freight racks. Price
for entire outfit, S550. Apply G. Wada.
FORFEITURE NOTICE
To Millie?- c. Hess?
Ymi an* hereby notified tlwt T. tin- under
sd gated. have expended during: the year nine
teen hundred and thirteen i 19 t :r- one hun
I dred doiars (8 loti) and during- tin* year
nineteen hundred and Fourteen t 19i4 the
>mii 1■1 one* hundred dollars <8I0U) in labor
I and improvements upon tlie Mammy Asso
I nation placer mining- claim, on left limit
I i.r .Moore creek, a tributary of the Takotna
i fiver, in .Mount McKinley mining- district,
j Fourth division. T* rritnry of Alaska, notice
or which i- found in Volume !. at Pag-e 190,
of the records «*r said Mount McKinley min
ing- district, in order to hold said claim un
der the provisions of Section 232 1 of the
Revised Statutes, and tin* amendments
thereto approved January 22. 1880, con
cerning- annual labor upon mining- claims,
; being- the amount required to hold said
! placer mining claim for the periods ending
m the 3 1st day or December. 1913, and on
the 31st day of December, 19 14.
And if .within ninety days after the pub
lication «T this notice you fail or reruse to
contribute your proportion of such expen
diture as a co-owner, your interest in the
Mammy Association placer mining'- claim will
become the property of the subscriber, your
co-owner, who has made the required e.\
‘ pendiliire, by the terms or said section.
CKCIL BARLOW.
; First publication. Oct. 23. 1915.
Fast publication. Jan. 22, 1910.
CLEANING AND PRESSING
ALL KINDS OF FUR WORK
Suits Cleaned and Pressed, Fur Coats and
Robes Lined, and All Kinds of
Fur Work Done
IV1RS. CHAS. LARSON
Orders may be left with Mrs. Thornton
LARSON BROS.’
WOOD SAW
Any Length Handled
Any Part of City
lelephone
Mzitabler Bros.
GENERAL
FREIGHTERS
DAILY STAGE SERVICE
Best of Everything
ALL THE TIME AT THE
Arcade Cafe
FLAT Cl TV
_____
Open D a v and Night
;
Professional
Michigan, 1381 Alaska, 1910
Kentucky, 1391
George Woodruff Albrecht
COUNSELOR AND LAWYER
IDITAROD, ALASKA
The Pioneer Attorney or iditarod
E. M. STANTON
Attorney at Law
Office: Corner Willow and Second Sts.
Iditarod Pioneer Building
CHAS. E. TAYLOR
Attorney at Lav/
BANK BLOCK
First Avenue Iditarod
Fred Harrison
ATTORNEY AT LAW
Room 1 Over Merchants Cafe
DR. MOORE
PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON
DRUG STORE
- -____
DR. H. E. AURINGER
| Consultation Hours in Forenoons anil by
Appointment
DR. H. BEHLA
| DENTIST
Appointments by Telephone
FLAT CITY
Fresh Meats
seDoncist.[OITAROO I¥1 £EAT CO> ph°ne 13
Gold St., Flat City
Mrs. Geo. Mutchler, Prop.
Nicely Furnished Rooms Barn for Horses and Dogs Baths in Connection
MARRY DONNELLEY
EZEEE GENERAL MERCHANDISE
DISCOVERY, OTTER
THE BEST OF EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME
MERCHANTS' CAFE
gaBBa^MJ GOOD MEALS
SHORT ORDERS J
FIRST AVE. OPEN DAY AND NIGHT H"'"""'.'!™
Prop.
KWGPING to have your patronage in the
future as we have received it in the past,
we wish you a happy and prosperous New
Year.
McMAHON
GENERAL MERCHANDISE
FLAT CITY