CHARLES H. WILCOX
The people of the Third Division
ought to send Mr. Wilcox back to the
next Legislature. He got an appro
priation of $5000 from the Legisla
ture to clean out a creek near Valdez.
Valdez used to be a very important
town in Alaska. That was when it
was made the divisional headquarters.
But now it has sunk so low that its
representative must reach down into
the taxpayer’s pocket and take there
from $5000 to clean a couple of fish
streams near there. Mr. Wilcox says
those streams have never been clean
ed before, and therefore thinks that
since “everybody’s doing it,” Valdez is
entitled to a cut in the pork.
We wonder what the salmon that
used to swarm into that Valdez creek
did before the taxpayers began to
put money into the treasury of Alas
ka. But that was in a cruel dark
age, when the savages of Alaska
ruled thiscountry and cared nothirg
about the suffering which the poor
fish did as they went up that creek
(it was not called Valdez then) to
spawn. It has never occurred to Mr.
Wilcox that the streams were full of
fish—hatcheries were unknown, and
there was not $5000 to give to faithful
henchmen or fellow townsmen in
graft or foolish pay.
Next to Boss Murray, he of Kenne
cot fame, Mr. Wilcox had the keenest
intellect among the forces of those
who voted away the largest sums of
money from the taxpayers. He be
came Speaker of the House through
the assistance of Boss Murray, as
sisted by Harry G. Watson and
Thomas Jensen. And for a time we
thought he would make a fair pre
siding officer.
We have been in many assemblages,
and seen many more, but of them all,
Charles H. Wilcox was the most un
fair and the most biased. Time an 1
again, he degraded the Chair by at
tempting to badger and annoy those
speaking. His appointments to com
mittees were always one-sided, even
in the most trivial matters. When
the House resolved itself into the
Committee of the Whole, he would al
ways call Bobby Sheldon to preside;
“says one Democrat to another” as it
were.
On one occasion, H. H. Ross raised
a point of order insisting that the
Committee of the Whole House was
not to be treated as a standing com
mittee, but that when that Committee
arose the consideration of the bill
went right along whereas Mr. Wilcox
ruled that we had to drop the discus
sion until the next day. During re
cess, it was proven to him by Rule
23 that he was wrong. But do you
think he would correct himself? Any
fairminded man would have done so.
When the protest was raised the next
day by William L. Paul when the
journal was read, Speaker Wilcox, to
his disgust, had to make the motion
himself and reverse himself on record.
An even more flagrant example oc
curred in this. Rule 53 says that a
substitute bill can only be introduced
before a pending bill is engrossed.
The bill to enlarge the powers of the
Canvassing Board had passed the sec
ond reading, being engrossed and re
ported by Bobby Sheldon as engross
ed, when Boss Murray yanked it out
of the House and back into commit
tee. Then Boss Murray introduced
a substitute bill—so named on the
face of the bill. The point was raised
that this was contrary to Rule 53, but
Speaker Wilcox ruled otherwise, and
Boss Murray with his three Demo
crats, one Demo-Independent, one In
dependent, and three Republicans
backed him up.
Speaker Wilcox was very anxious to
help the resident fishermen until he
had a chance to vote for a bill plac
ing a $25 tax on non-resident gill
netters, and $50 on non-resident sein
ers, and then he voted against the
bill. He is like a lot of so-calle.l
friends of the resident fishermen, glad
to give lip-service and nothing more.
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THE NUGGET
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