THE SDITAROD PIONEER
Published Every Saturday Morning at Idltarod, Alaska
Vol. 8 CHARLES A. DERRY, Editor No. 11
ARBUCKLE & DERRY, Publishers
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OUR QUARREL WITH GERMANY
When the infamous McLemore resolution was before the
United States congress, and the country faced the possibility of
an abandonment of all neutral rights at sea- rights which had
been maintained and recognized as international law for years
President Wilson boldly put the question squarely up to the legis
lators as to whether they wished to abandon those rights. The
answer was an emphatic “No,” and subsequent developments
showed that the answer represented the wishes of the nation. The
abandonment by the United States of principles so well estab
lished as the rights of neutfal nations in time of war would have
stamped the action of-the great republic as cowardly in the ex
treme. As the most powerful of the neutral nations, the United
States was looked to to take the lead in this matter. In other
words, it was the duty of the United States to save the world
from international anarchy. To have adopted the McLemore
resolution would have been an act of betrayal on our part.
It is surprising that individuals, and even newspapers, should
still be found to advocate the cowardly course of submitting to
illegal demands of warring nations that our vessels shall avoid
certain lanes of ocean travel on the threat that they will be tor
pedoed. The Fairbanks News-Miner, discussing the question, puts
forth a rather startling proposition, and one which, we are per
suaded, can be justified neither on patriotic grounds nor on rea
son. but purely as an outburst of pacifism. That newspaper says.
“The ocean and the waters along the British coast are
the highways and streets of the world, and all have un
questioned right to traverse them. The question is: Is
it good sense to travel trouble-infested and disputed
routes? Is it worth while to bet the lives and the
property of a nation upon the belief that the fighting
nation wall not dare ‘land’ upon a neutral? In the ab
sence of further encouragement, it is enough for us to
know that the United States is not today at war with
Germany. We may be excused for expressing the hope
that she never will be—with Germany or any other for
eign nation.”
In extenuation of its position the Fairbanks newspaper gives
a hypothetical case of a street fight in which the combatants
block travel. A citizen desiring to exercise his rights to pass
along the street is killed or injured. The News-Miner decides that
the citizen, while perfectly within his rights, and conceding that
the belligerents would be at fault in his injury or death, would b»
alone responsible for what happened to him.
The case given is not at all analogous. Under the circum
stances suggested a man would be a fool to endanger his life in a
street quarrel. But suppose the fighting were continued. Suppose
the belligerents kept the street blocked indefinitely while they car
ried on a feud, and each warned neutral citizens that they must
not use the street during the term of the quarrel, and further, that
they must not have intercourse with the other belligerent. The
argument of the pacifists is that the residents of the city must
patiently await the outcome of the protracted fighting,, that their
business must suffer, and they must be denied unquestioned rights,
for fear of incurring the displeasure of one or the other of the
parties to a quarrel in which they are not supposed to be inter
ested. It is perhaps unnecessary to say that the average citizen,
thus deprived of his rights, would immediately provide himself
with a shotgun and clear a way for himself through the streets
which he is entitled to traverse. To do otherwise would be to
acknowledge the impotency of law and lack of courage on the
part of the individual to demand what is his own—in other words,
to invite further encroachments on his rights and to store up for
future generations a heritage of injustice and tyranny.
The position of the United States on this matter is clearly de
fined. There has been no undue haste in proclaiming that posi
tion. But the President and his advisors have spoken, the con
gress of the United States has backed them up. and the people
themselves have shown their determination in the matter. The
time for questioning the nation's attitude in the matter is past.
Like the News-Miner, we would deplore war with Germany,
or with any other nation, but the hope that war may be avoided
is coupled with the wish that peace be not bought by abandon
ment of rights which, were the case reversed, Germany would in
sist upon just as strongly as does the United States.
--V
THE PROHIBITION LAW
In public affairs it is not expected that all persons will he
satisfied with the ultimate disposition of a vexed question. But
the prompt compliance of congress with the wishes of the people
of Alaska in the matter of prohibition would seem to be one
thing which should not call for criticism by the people of the ter
ritory. Yet the Juneau Empire gives voice to the following:
“When the Alaska prohibition bill was pending in con
gress Representative Curry of California contended that
many features were in the Wickersham bill that were
not in the proposition that was submitted to the people
of Alaska at the late election, and he asserted that these
were propositions that the people of this territory should
decide upon. The California representative gave expres
sion to one of the reasons why the prohibition law in
Alaska should have been an Alaska-made law. The
legislature that convenes here next month should have
passed the prohibition law. It would have done it had
congress granted a full territorial form of government.
Congress would have given Alaska a full territorial form
of government if Delegate Wickersham had asked it to
do so. As a matter of fact, Delegate Wickersham did not
even aid the California congressman who desired to let
Alaskans decide upon certain phases of the prohibition
statute. He wanted a federal law and wanted it quick.
He always stops short before the home line is crossed.
The above is in line with a lot of twaddle that is being printed
in the territorial press relative to the prohibition law. The fact
of the matter is that the question of “full territorial government’
is in no way connected with this question. The people of Alaska
overwhelmingly voted in favor of prohibition. Congress, at the
suggestion of Delegate Wickersham, who introduced the bill, gave
them their desire promptly. It may be said in passing that the
statute passed by congress could not be improved upon by even
our territorial legislature. It is a gem of its kind, and will pro
vide Prohibition with a capital P. And the prompt action of our
delegate is typical of the man. Always, with one exception, he
has endeavored to give his constituents what they wanted, and
this was responsible for his repeated re-election to his position in
congress. The one exception was when he abandoned support of
President \V ilson s administration, which was favored by the
Alaska people, and espoused the cause of Hughes, who would have
been an unknown quantity in Alaska affairs. For thus flying in
the face of the wishes of his constituents Delegate Wickersham
narrowly escaped defeat at the polls. The experience seems to
have taught him a lesson, and his prompt carrying out of the
wishes of the people in the prohibition matter is commendable.
The criticism of the delegate seems unjustified. Had the ac
tion suggested by the California congressman been taken, the
carrying out of the expressed wishes of the people might have
been postponed indefinitely. It will be remembered that tw'o years
and more ago there was a bill before congress which contemplated
prohibition for this territory without consulting the residents of
Alaska. A sincere protest was made, and at the suggestion of the
territorial legislature the matter was submitted to a vote of the
people, and the congressional measure was held in abeyance. That
Delegate Wickersham refused to be made a catspaw of in an at
tempt to defeat the will of his constituents is greatly to his credit.
Word has reached Fairbanks from Washingtou that Delegate
Wickersham has just named Raymond Johnson of Tacoma, Wash.,
son of J. A. Johnson, manager of the Frye-Bruhn Company, meat
dealers, for a cadetship at Annapolis. The state of Washington
has four representatives and two senators in congress, each of
whom has the appointment of two candidates for admission to the
naval academy. The delegate from Alaska has the naming of two
also. It would appear that there are no boys in Alaska ambitious
to take advantage of the excellent education and life career of
fered by the government through entrance to the naval academy.
Otherwise, what becomes of Wick's famous slogan, “Alaska for
Alaskans"? But perhaps the delegate, in the largeness of his
heart, believes that the state of Washington does not receive its
ful! share of these favors, and generously donates one of Alaska's
appointments.
-«-»
Speaking of Isaac Sowerby, the Democrat elected to succeed
John Heid, deceased, as a member of the territorial legislature for
the First division, a Juneau admirer said: “I doubt whether Ike
Sowerby is any better known as an insurance man than he is as
an all-round sportsman. He is an out-of-doors man, and his par
ticular weakness is fish. There never w'as a fish yet that failed
to respond to Ike’s advances. The fellows with him may be
skunked, but always at the end of the day ike will show up with
a goodly string and that deprecatory smile of his. Ike has also
sound theories on solo and know:s when to frog. The concluding
sentence of the above tribute stamps Mr. Sowerby as eminently
fit legislative material.
-♦-:
“For more than a year we have received The Iditarod Pioneer
and each copy of the same has been wrapped in a sheet front one
of the big mail-order house catalogues. This is certainly a novel
method of discouraging mail-order business in Alaska." So says
the Skagway Alaskan. Our contemporary is advised that we are
merely complying with the government’s injunction, recently is
sued in the interest of conservation, to utilize waste paper.
-*-—
COAST PAPER IS UNDULY EXCITED
(Valdez Miner)
The bizarre creations of Mr. Foster’s fancy may have existed
in Alaska in the early sixties, but nowadays the population of
Alaska is drawn from every part of the United States, and we
might say of the world. In New York itself the citizens cannot
be more cosmopolitan. The author can find thousands of men in
the hills more familiar with New \ork than he himself, and the
New Yorker may rub shoulders with the man from Boston or the
cheechako from Chicago. The whole fabrication of misstatements
from Mr. Foster’s article seem to emanate from the fact that when
our people find a traveler who is easily gulled and hunting for the
unusual they give it to him, and the more he swallows the more
they supply to him, until he is stuffed to repletion with the fig
ments of fancy his fertile imagination pictured before his arrival in
the territory." He is regaled with the stories he wants, while his
sources of information laugh at him for his gullibility. So far as
his story goes it is worthless, except as a wild, weird concoction of
something that has never existed only in the fancy of the untrav
eled cheechako from the extreme East. It is appalling to consider
the ignorance of the customs'and conditions of Alaska throughout
the States, and it seems to have run to seed in New York.
-•
THOSE IGNORANT ENGLISH
(Literary Digest)
Mr. Curtin gives, he assures us, the exact words of a German
pastor on the battle of the Somme:
“Many wounded men are coming back to our church from the
dreadful western front. They have been fighting the English, and
they find that so ignorant are the English of warfare that the
English soldiers on the Somme refuse to surrender, not knowing
that they are really beaten, with the result that terrible losses are
inflicted upon our brave troops.'^_
King George approved the cabinet reorganization, thus raising
the question, What would have been the result if he hadn t!
Pittsburgh Gazette-Times.
Russia announces that the allies have agreed to let her have
the Straits and Constantinople—provided, of course, that she can
get them.—Kansas City Star._
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THE BIRTH OF ST. PATRICK
(Samuel Lover—1797-186G)
On the eighth (lay or March it was, some
people say,
That Saint Pathrick at midnight he nrst
saw the day;
While others declare ’twas the ninth he
was born,
And ’twas all a mistake between midnight
and morn;
for mistakes will occur In a hurry and
shock,
And some blamed the babby—and some
blamed the clock
nil with all their cross-questions sure no
one could know
IT the child was too fast or the clock was
too slow.
Now the first faction fight In owld Ireland,
they say,
Was all on account of Saint Pathrick’s
birthday:
Some fought for the eighth—for the ninth
more would die,
And who wouldn't see right, sure they
blackened Ills eye!
At last, both the factions so positive grew.
That each kept a birthday, so Pat then had
two,
Till Father Mnlcahy, who showed them
their sins,
Said, “No one conlil have two birthdays,
but a twins.”
}
Says ho. “Roys, don’t be flg-htin’ ror eigrht
or lor nine,
Don’t he always dividin’— but sometimes
combine;
Combine eijrht with nine, and seventeen is
the mark,
So let that b" his birthday”—“Amen,” says
the clerk.
“If he wasn’t a twins, sure our hlst’ry will
show
That, at least, he’s worthy any two saints
that we know!”
Then they all jrot blind dhrunk, which com
pleted their bliss,
And we keep up the practice from that dav
to this.
-+
GERMANY’S OFFER OF PEACE
(The Outlook)
Germany is now willing to take part in
that general European conference which, on
the part of Great Britain, Sir Edward Grey
proposed in the last days of July, 1914. At
that time Germany flouted the proposal,
nreferring the appeal to arms. After two
tears of experiencing this appeal to arms
she admits it (in the words of the chan
cellor! to be “a catastrophe . . . which
injures the most precious achievements of
humanity,” and she now proposes to talk
the matter over.
In estimating this offer of peace we must
acquaint ourselves with the causes of the
war, the “obscure fountains from which its
stupendous flood has burst forth,” and the
purposes of those who are responsible for
the war. If the advocates of Germany are
right— if England, France and Russia were
leagued together to destroy Germany; if she
saw them contriving to hem her in. pre
venting her normal development, and plan
ning to destroy her, as a traveler sees ban
dits lurking in ambush in the road before
him, and she attacked them in self-defense,
and has now succeeded in thwarting their
murderous designs—then her peace pro
posals may be regarded as magnanimous.
But we do not so read history. On the
contrary, we believe that Germany inherited
the ambitions of Frederick the Great and
imported the ambitions of Napoleon the
Great. Germany believed that the Teutons
should dominate Europe and control the
civilization of the world. Her overweening
ambition poisoned her miseducated con
science. She was as conscientious as Philip
II. of Spain and Louis XVI. of France.
Democracy was as abhorrent to her ruling
powers as Protestantism to the Duke of
Alva. She prepared to crush democracy
and watched for her opportunity. Her
preparation was made with extraordinary
efficiency. Her navy, her military railways,
her army register including every man ca
pable of bearing arms, her extraordinary
equipment prepared and ready for every
possible contingency, made clear her de
signs to the few thoughtful men of Eurone,
but were all disregarded by the thought
less—that is, the majority. She waited and
watched for the opportune moment and
the justifying occasion. The discontent in
Ireland and India, the factional fights, reli
gious and political, in trance, the rising re
volt of the repressed peasantry in Russia,
made the time opportune. The assassination
of the crown prince of Austria furnished the
occasion. The offer to arbitrate the ques
tion of Servia’s responsibility for that crime,
the urgent request of England, seconded not
only by France and Russia but by Ger
many’s own ally, Italy, to attempt a peace
ful settlement by an international confer
ence she promptly, not to say haughtily, re
fused. Her time had come, and she struck
the blow for which she had been long pre
paring.
In the war which followed she was as
ruthless as her military leaders could have
desired. She violated treaty rights, disre
garded international law, made war upon
non-combatants, perpetrated murder on land
and piracy on the high seas, by her meth
ods drove Italy into the ranks of her ene
mies, and set the moral sentiment of prac
tically all neutral nations against her. She
has failed. True, she has kept her enemies
off her soil; true, she has won some dra
matic victories. But she is a nation be
sieged. Her colonies are gone. Her fleet is
bottled up. Her hopes of conquest are de
stroyed. Her people, wonderfully submis
sive to her authority, wonderfully loyal to
their fatherland, are perplexed They are
still submissive; they are still loyal; but
they do not understand, or, to speak more
accurately, they are beginning to under
stand. She cries Halt! and calls for peace.
This is our reading of history. If we read
it aright, the object of her proposal is clear.
It is to unite her people, to justify herself to
the mind and conscience of the neutral
world, to introduce dissension in the councds
of her enemies. . . .
It has been claimed by some English
newspaper writers that Germany should be
punished for her crime against humanity.
It is not the business of other nations to
judge and punish a sovereign nation. Judg
ment and punishment may be left to God.
The example of the United States may be
pointed to as one which has worked well and
is worth following. The North made no
attempt to punish the South, or even the
leaders of the Southern revolt. But it is
the duty of the nations to take such meas
ures as will forever make it impossible—or
at least improbable—that the spirit of Fred
erick the Great or Napoleon will ever inflict
anothef such tragedy on Europe as the war
of 1914. Justice and mercy unite in de
manding that the war, terrible as it is, go
on until that protection for future genera
tions is assured. Peace without that assur
ance would be more terrible than war.
-*
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One team of horses and one of mules,
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IMAGINATIVE YOUNG GIRL
ACQUIRES FAME IN GOTHAM
BUT DREAM IS SHATTERED
'From a miner's cabin in the eternal snow
wastes or the Koyukuk, In Northern Alaska,
to the United States to live in reality among
the wonders of a civilization of which
gnarled miners told her glamorous tales in
her childhood, is the story concerning
Louise Sachen, 1U years old, who has Just
arrived In New York arter a six weeks’ trip
by dog sled, steamship and train, and there
she Is now, eager to see the high buildings,
the wonderful “shows” and the marvels
which she has heard are to be found In
America.
The above is a sample of the stories ap
pearing in New York and other Eastern
newspapers, accompanied by pictures of the
heroine, relative to a young girl who has
been much n the public eye. She told the
New York reporters yarns of the North of
the kind they wished to hear, and they
made “copy” out of her. The istories were
given such wide publicity that they at
tracted the attention of her father in Kan
sas City, and he was unromantic enough
to shatter her glory by telling the simple
truth about her really commonplace career.
A New York dispatch of January 30 tells
about the curious escapade of the girl as
follows:
"Louise Saehen confessed last night that
she had bent the truth a little here and
there in the 30,000 or 40,000 words she has
told New York in the last week about how
Broadway reacted on a mind which had
previously received impressions only of the
majestic scenery and the primitive human
types of the far North and of a few ham
lets of the hinterland through which she
passed on her way from Juneau to New
York.
“Instead of having lived since childhood
among rough but open hearted characters
■n bearskins in the much-filmed wild places
of Alaska, Louise admitted last night that
her impressions of New York were based
on the solid background of sixteen years of
Kansas City observation and experience. The
right way to look at her, she explained
yesterday, was as an ordinary Kansas City
girl polished by three years of life in Alaska.
“ ‘But, if what I had to say about New
York was good,’ she esked, Svhat did it
matter if I had lived in Kansas City?’
Had Been in Alaska
“Louise left her family in Kansas City
because she did not like them, and went to
Alaska for three years. She returned to
Kansas City last year, found she still did
not like it, and bolted for New York. She
wanted to disconnect herself from Kansas
City, which she did not like, and to identify
herself with Alaska, which she did like, so
she altered her history slightly when she
came here. As she added to this little
fiction in order to explain it. under the
cross-examination of interviewers, she built
up the gigantic and minutely-finished tale
which has filled several New York papers
for eight days.
“The most interesting part of it is how
she stumbled into fame. There is plenty
of proof that she did not anticipate the
blaze of glory with which she was received.
A person who, intending to set off a fire
cracker, touched a match to a New Jersey
munitions works, could not have been much
more surprised than she was to find herself
competing with Thomas Lawson and Rae
Tanzer for place on front pages.
Press Agents Pounced on Her
When sne came to tnis city on rrulay
before last with $120 and a fair wardrobe,
she told the hotel clerk she had lived aU
her life in Alaska and had never seen a
real city before. The hotel press agent was
calling up hotel reporters a. few minutes
later, but it was a busy day. and no one
paid any attention to the tip. Sunday was
a dull day, and somebody remembered about
the girl from Alaska. She was still at the
hotel and ready to be interviewed.
“There was plenty of novelty in her Mid
dle Western viewpoint. Her criticism of
subways, lap dogs, rouging and penciling,
French cooking, theaters. New York men’s
looks, New York women’s clothes and
Broadway lights were as quaint as if they
came from a white Eskimo or a man from
Mars. She had plenty of mental energy,
and. with expert help, produced brilliant
contrasts of crude but true-hearted love
making in the Arctic with artificial but
thrilling wooing in a large city, extempore
treatises on the double standard of morals,
beauty and health hints, advice on curing
blighted affections by retreating to vastness
and solitude.
Figured in the "Movies”
"She was photographed innumerable
times. She was filmed as a current event
for a Broadway theater. She was invited
to address the University Forum in the
Washington Irving high school, Temple Uni
versity, Philadelphia, and other gatherings
of intellectuals. She got an offer of $850 a
week to go into the ‘movies.' 5 esterday,
while she mourned because her father had
spoiled everything by revealing the secret
of her life in Kcnsas City, she pointed out
a stack of letters from all parts of the East
and as far south as Chattanooga, where an
enterprising patent medicine manufacturer
named Colson entreated her to take the
agency for Colson’s Baby-Honey in Alaska.
"Pop Spilled the Beans”
“ ‘Oh, Pop certainly spilled the beans,’ she
mourned. ‘He certainly did spill the beans
all right. I wrote him to say that I died
at the age of 2 years if anybody asked him.
“ ‘Why, I was planning to wind a chain
of nuggets around the old man. I was
loing to bring him on as the old miner
that I said was my dad. I would have got
$850 a week if he had kept quiet. That's
more than he make.? a year as a sparrow
nurse in Kansas City.
“ 'What do you mean by a sparrow
nurse ?’
Dad Is a "Sparrow Nurse"
“ ‘He is a watchman in the city parks
head watchman. Can you imagine it? He
would rather be an owl watcher all bus life
I wrote to my family today that I never
wanted to have anything more to do with
them, and told them never to claim me. 1
won’t let anybody call me a Kansas City
girl. I am an Alaska girl, and if I have to
go back there to prove it I am going back
there’
“Louise said that her parents were Aus
trian, and that she was one of ten chil
dren. Her parents and older brothers and
sisters kept up their Austrian connections
and talked the language, she said, whereas
she became Americanized by working as a
telephone girl in Kansas City, after leaving
a convent school managed by Austrian
prie3ts.
“ ‘They did not have an American idea,’
she said. ‘They thought a girl ought to
marry young, and they wanted me to marry
the first Austrian who came along with
$200. 1 wanted to be an American, so I
left them and went to an aunt in Alaska
I worked as a telephone girl at Juneau.’
Her Juneiu Experience
“Someone who thought Louise might be
deviating again asked her about her work
in Juneau, and she satisfied him that she
was back on firm ground by the ring of
truth in her answer, ‘If we felt like it we
gave them the number. Otherwise we
would tell them to take out the phone.'
“It was there, she said, she met ‘Jim’ Ma
loney, who gave her the diamond earrings
and the engagement ring on her finger. 'He
bought the telephone company and I went
with it,’ she said. The $1,000 which she
brought from Alaska, she said, consisted f
savings of $30 a month for three years as
a telephone girl. The best evidence that
her fame burst upon her unexpectedly is in
the fact that she failed to assume a new
name, so that her week of greatness came
to an end as soon as Kansas City heard
about it. Asked about this fatal error, she
said she was afraid to. She had heard that
it was a penitentiary offense.
“ ‘One thing my father says is absolutely
false,’ Louise insisted. ‘That is that I was
a biscuit shooter. I never waited on table
in my life. Please don’t call me a biscuit
shooter. I have shot plugs in a switchboard
and even won a medal at Juneau for effi
ciency in shooting plugs, but that is all
Met “Nice People"
“Louise said she did not like the decep
tion she had been practicing, but that it
had caused her to meet a number of nice
people and to give her a start on what she
expected to be her new life, so that she did
not have the heart to say ‘I am a liar.’
“An accomplishment she has hidden dur
ing the week, because it did not go with
her delightful simplicity and ignorance, is
that she knows several languages.
“ ‘I know seven more or less,’ she said,
‘and I guess they will help me out here. I
learned Austrian and Italian at school. I
learned Russian, Belgian and French in
Alaska, and I know English and Kansas
City.’
Her Intentions Were Good
“Miss Saehen says she is not going back to
Kansas City. She is going to stay here and
go to work, and she is going to move away
from the fashionable hotel, where it costs
too much for any young woman with $50
and prospects to live.
“ ‘But, listen,’ she said, “my intentions
was good.’ ’’
Professional
Michigan, 18S1 Alaska, i>1*
Kentucky. l»»t
George Woodruff Albreomt
COUNSELOR AND LAWYER
IDITAROD, ALASKA
The Pioneer Attorney of Idiurod
E. M. STANTON
Attorney at Law
Office: Corner Willow and Seeoad 5t».
Iditarod Pioneer Building
CHAS. E. TAYLOR
Attorney at Law
BANK BLOCK
First Avenue Miaril
DR. MOORE
PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON
DRUG STORE
DR. H. E. AURINGER
Physician and Surgeoa
Office: Flkt City Hospital, Plat
Consultation Hours in Forenoon* an< Up
Appointment
FLAT DRUG STORE
_
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FLAT CITY
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TOBACCO CIGARS STATIONERY
CONFECTIONERY AND BILLIARDS
C. R. Cameron J«- Finnegan
THOS. McMAHON
DEALER IN
General Merchandise
FLAT, ALASKA