Convention of Alaska Native Brotherhood
at Kake, Alaska, November, 1923
The tenth annual convention of the
BROTHERHOOD was held last No
vember. Ten towns sent delegates
while three towns sent messages.
The population represented by these
delegates is over four thousand.
These Natives of Alaska, called In
dians for want of a better name, as
sembled for the purpose of discus
sing the problems of life. This is
without parallel in Alaska. The
nearest approach among the edu
cated citizens of Alaska is the an
nual convention of the Parent Teach
er Associations who, however, con
fine their discussions to school prob
lems.
No gathering, even of politicians
anxious for party victory compares
with the scope of these conventions
of Indian delegates. The topics em
brace principally, Practical Religion,
Education, Commerce and Govern
ment. Each year sees a &reat ad
vance in their grasp of the questions
involved as the different leaders ex
plain how necessary the full pro
gram is to the advancement of the
native.
Another remarkable thing to
seen at these conventions is the
large number of able speakers and
thinkers which the Native People
have. They are not very strong on
parliamentary law, but they under
stand to the fullest the niceties of
real courtesies. They cannot read
and write, perhaps, but they have
done their own thinking, and come
to their own conclusions. These men
and women have been trained from
their earliest youth to see, record
and remember facts. They under
stand wild life and know their ha
bits. They know the habits of fish
it’s history, the present dangers,
and know the solution. All this in
spite of their illiteracy. Further
more, they are aware of the dangers
that threaten them through the de
pletion of these resources. We were
forced to learn that illiteracy does
not mean ignorance.
If they were governing Alaska,
judging by the decisions of this Con
vention, Alaska would have better
schools, just laws for the aged peo
ple and orphans. Wild life would be
protected and the fisheries would be
preserved for all citizens alike. Laws
would be without prejudice to any
race or class of people. It seemed
to us as we listened to their debates,
that Alaska, Through their manage
ment, could easily regain the pris
tine wealth of game fur and fish that
abounded here when the land was
ruled by the ancestors of what are
now called “ignorant Indians.”
“By their fruits ye shall know
them.” Even when tested by the
highest standard of culture, educa
tion or economics, the resolutions of
this convention asking for certain
laws or advising certain policies will
be found to be worthy. These peo
ple declared for a model workmen’s
compensation act in which the com
pensation of the injured workman
should be based on percentage of
wages; compulsory insurance with
the State; payments of benefits by
the State along the lines of the Act
introduced by Senator Charles W.
Brown of Nome in the last legisla
ture.
They endorsed the game and fur
bill introduced in Congress by the
Hon. Dan A. Sutherland and con
demned the so-called alternative
game bill backed by Governor Scott
C. Bone for the reason that the lat
ter bill is a political measure pri
marily, whereas the interests of the
territory demand that the first con
sideration should be the game.
They demanded that all fish traps
and fixed engines for fishing should
be abolished. Their arguments on
this point might not satisfy Dr.
Charles Gilbert or the Hon. Henry
O’Malley or Sec. Herbert Hoover with
its scientific profundity, but yet they
proved their case every time. The
system of argument was simple, and
was in this form: “For ten or fif
teen years (according to the parti
cular stream offered in evidence) I
fished this stream with fifteen other
crews, and every year we could catch
and did catch 50,000 or 100,000 (as
the case might be) fish. There was
plenty of fish every year. But in
1907 (or whatever year) the cannery
placed a trap there and two years
later or thereafter, this fish stream
had no fish. Today no boat crew
stays there.”
This argument was the general
form, and it seems to us that it is
scientific; for as we remember the
definition of science of our school
days, it was that science is nothing
but the orderly arrangement of facts
from which certain deductions na
turally follow. Dr. Gilbert would
have the Indian count the scales of
the fish, perhaps. But for the illit
erate Indian, his miiiBfcftr satisfied
when he can remember from his own
experience that after many years of
intensive seine fishing, no depletion
followed because a seiner must sleep
at night when the fish may then es
cape, and he makes too many water
hauls. He also knows that depletion
has always followed the building of
the trap which is always placed
across the creek or at some other
point in the direct path of the fish.
Singularly, the Bureau of Fisher
ies never have a representative at
these conventions of fishermen and
never ask them to express their
ideas or give their experiences. But
whenever the Bureau wants to know
something about fish, they send a
representative to Juneau and call a
meeting of R. E. Robertson and Bert
Faulkner, the two most prominent at
torneys of the big canneries, and
ask them to resolute some wisdom
for their edification. And wonderful
to relate, these men who get all
their information about fish from
law books, always have the resolu
tions as desired in form and sub
stance by the Bureau. “And still
the wonder grows, that one (or two)
small head could carry all he knew.”
This convention endorsed Home
Rule for Alaska, and division of this
Territory. This they did because the
different speakers represented that
no hope for fair treatment of the
resident population in respect to the
preservation of our natural resources
could come in any other way. It was
singular 'how in each instance, the
different speakers proved his case by
citing fact after fact to support his
opposition to the carpet-bagging sy
stem of government. The records
of succeeding governors who came
from the outside, the inefficiency of
the Bureau of Fisheries, the sub
serviency of officials to big cannery
interests and big mines were brought
up. This would prove to Mr. Robert
son and Mr. Faulkner, above attor
neys, that these Indians should not
vote. But to us, we could see no
difference either in the argument
advanced by them to that advanced
by the most educated, and we have