Hunter and other members then went and looked
up tlie trollers, talking to many of them. Per
sonal inspection of the plants revealed no sign
of waste.”
Such a procedure is perfectly ridiculous and
childish. The proper course would be to inves
tigate the plant while they were running and
the purse seines while they were operating,
h urthermore, it should have been done quietly
and preferable by some one who had come on
the grounds in the guise of a troller or perhaps
himself as a herring fisherman. But the Bureau
of Fisheries comes on the scene in their $30,000
yacht and goes not at all to points where the
Puget Sound Dagoes were actually catching
herring lor the fertilizer plants, nor is there any
indication that they watched the herring plants
in operation. It is sufficient for this style of
investigators to ask the owner of the herring
plant if the charges are true, and since they are
honorable men their denial is conclusive, and so
the whitewash is applied.
Radicals
We have been wrongfully accused so many
tunes oi opposing capital, who operate large
canneries, that we wish to quote what Charles
I). Garfield himself has said about the same
people. Mr. Garfield is an ultra conservative,
and is now the Secretary of the Alaska Bureau
ol the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. No one
has ever accused him of being a radical. There
fore it will pay such men as Congressman
Arthur Marion Free to read what one of his
kind, (we should say ‘of the higher type”),
has to say on this subject of large capital.
The article follows:
’ * he combined concerns (canneries) are the
ones practically in control ol‘ the industry today.
Of those controlling- the industry none are resi
dents of the Territory. Their people take little,
if any, personal or collective interest in Terri
torial or civic affairs; there is no constructive,
economic or social policy involved; they come in
the spring with their boats, supplies and em
ployes, diligently engage in the reaping of the
harvest and when it is garnered, load it into
the ships and depart with those who have as
sisted in the gleaning, giving little thought to
the elements which prepared for, seeded and
nurtured the crop; they come and go, having
reaped where they did not sow, as though they
had gathered a farm crop without contributing
to the perpetuation and cultivation of the soil.”
That ought to hold you for a while, Mr. Free.
“Rich Alaska”
In another issue we have printed an inter
view which Roy Sorenson, boys’ work secretary
ol the Y. M. C. A. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
gave in that city upon his return from Alaska.
He speaks of our country as “Rich Alaska.
A wonderful country, a most wonderful coun
try. Rut with hopes so slender, so tragic, its
people eking out existence at the edge of the
world.”
Without bias or thought of politics Mr. Soren
son pictures our true condition. “With wealth
at their backs, people of the seacoast can not
even support themselves. Their fuel, their
clothes, yes, their very food, they bring in
ships from the states.” He speaks of the can
neries of Alaska “yielding annually over $60,
000,000,” whose “workers dock back to the
states” and there spend the money, while Alas
kans. the bona fide, remain “snowed in, half
deserted, listening over the radio to the world
outside.” And we might add “the most of these
wishing that they were in the land of the sun
kist oranges.”
That illustrates the trouble with Alaska.
Seventy-five per cent of the fish which are
caught in Alaska are caught by fish traps owned
by non-residents. So that Alaskans do not even
have the comfort of catching the salmon for
these canneries, which are so largely owned
outside. In addition to this, the fish traps are
depleting the streams rapidly in order to in
crease the dividends of these non-residents. The
day is not far distant when Alaska will again
be “Indian country.”
Before Alaska can come into her own she
must rid herself of absentee landlordism, the
first step of which will be as follows: All fish
traps must be destroyed.
General Mitchell
Admiral Sims, formerly in charge of the
American Fleet in European waters during the
late war, says that General Mitchell has rendered
a great service to the United States in that he
has forced an investigation of our aircraft sit
uation.
Edward G. Morrissey, formerly Commissioner
and Justice of the Peace for the Ketchikan
Precinct, says that General Mitchell is a “Blah/’
Admiral Sims may know a lot about the war,
but we are going to stick to the former Justice
of the Peace.