Wickersham’s Address Before Rotarians of Ketchikan
. .“Business men too often think
iliey are either too busy or too
important to attend to their
duties as citizens. How often
do we hear a merchant, a bank
er or other business man say,
“Oh, I am too busy to vote,’ or
‘to pay any attention to politics,’
or politics is too rotten for me to
give it my attention!’ That bus
iness man is not only not a good
citizen but he is not a good busi
ness man; he is too lazy or too
ignorant to inform himself upon
those conditions which surround
him and his business. Some
day he awakes to find that
another more active and fre
quently less scrupulous com
petitor, by paying attention to
such politics as apply to busi
ness, has destroyed him and
marked him a failure.
“At bottom business success
depends on the character of our
n.ws—both business laws and
legislative—under which you
are obliged to carry on your
trade. The most important of
these laws in Alaska are those
made by your own legislature.
The worth of laws depends pri
marily upon the kind of men
selected by the voters as law
makers, and when the business
man refuses to give intelligent
and active attention to the
choice of lawmakers, he not on
ly abandons his duty as a citizen
but abandons his business sue
cess to that active competitor
who elects and guides your legis
lators along the lines leading
to his success and the ruin of
your business.
“Alaska’s coastal region once
possessed the most valuable na
tural resource of any similar
area in America—the salmon
fisheries. You know the history
of their exploitation and their
present tendency toward de
struction. You know who con
trols these fisheries—who now'
exploits and monopolizes them
and where the millions of an
nual profits which they produce
are invested. You know that
Seattle, Portland and San Fran
cisco now garner the entire be
nefit of that greatest resource
of Alaska while you have plenty
ot time to stand on your wharves
and see the ships go by. You
know that Alaska gets less than
one per cent of this great annual
crop and that 99 per cent of
’t goes into the tills of outside
business men. You know that
the Indian fishermen have been
discriminated against, starved
and driven from the fishing
areas, in company with Alaska’s
lesident white trollers and seine
men. You know these resident
fishermen have been entirely sup
planted by outside fishermen
lrom Puget Sound, the Columbia
Ifiver and California, who come
into Alaska waters for the brief
season and then return to their
own fishing grounds in Wash
ington, Oregon and California
for the remainder cf the year.
1’ou know that the Alaska fish
eries are controlled and worked
exclusively by these exploiters
while your resident people stand
.dly by unable to secure employ
ment. You know that these
starving and helpless resident
fishermen in Southeastern Alas
ka have been forced to appeal to
a young Indian lawyer for help,
while the business men of Alas
ka looked on and refused to as
sist Ihem.. You know that later
even the white resident trollers
a?id fishermen have been oblig
ed to look to this same Indian
leader for protection. You know
know that he has fought a long
and losing fight for their right
to fish in their home waters,
against odds which no white
lawyer had the courage or the
capacity to battle. You know
{hat these Alaska Indian fisher
men, out of their meager wages,
established a newspaper, for
publicity, and that the white
business men of Southeastern
A’aska refused to subscribe to or
to advertise in its pages. You
know of the heroic struggle
these Indians have made for the
protection of their right to fish
freely in the waters of Alaska
and how they and the white
fishermen have been crushed
while courageously fighting for
food for their families. You
know that all these resident
Alaska fishermen were once
.your good customers and their
wages assisted you in building
ihe First City of Alaska. You
1 now that the wrongs heaped
on them have now become a
wrong to you and your business
in this city.
“And, now, what have you
business men of Southeastern
Alaska done to assist these resi
dent fishermen—your friends
and customers—in their strug
gle to save the Alaska fisheries
for the support of a resident po
pulation of .Alaska fishermen?
Nothing! You have refused
them sympathy and assistance
during the years they have
fought to save your business.
You have neglected to assist
these men—your customers—
who once gave you a bank ac
count and a successful business.
Now, however, you have dis
covered that the wrong to them
was equally wrong to you. You
are feeling the effect of the in
justice and injury done to them
hy your cunning outside oppo
nents who have captured the en
tire fishery wealth of Alaska
and are carrying it past your
wharves to Seattle, Portland and
and San Francisco. What do
you local business men get out