Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-01-05
SOME MORE WARDS.
Uncle Sam Must Now Look
After the Eskimos.
INTERESTING REPORT ON ALAsKA.

| The Native Food Supplies Destroyed oy
| Our whaiers and Fishermen and Some
thing Necessary To BE Done Quickly
Comment of ON eials on the Suit Against
the Tariff Bill by Marshall Field & Co.
The shah of Persia Visits an Ameri-
can Mission mt Teheran.
! WASHINGTON CRY, Jan. 5.-Dr Sheldon
| jackson. of Illinois, United States general
agent of education in Alaska, has submit
| ted preliminary report TO the commits
| sioner of education on his observations in
| that territory last summer. He says that
| the Eskimos from time immemorial have
| lived upon the whale and seal of their coasts
| the fish and aquatic birds of the rivers
aud the caribou or wild reindeer OF their
vast inland plains The supply of these
In years past was abundant and furnished
ample food for all the people. But fifty
years ago American whalers having ex-
hausted the supply in other waters found
their way into the Northern Pacific ocean.
The whaier Was Relentless.
Then commenced for that section the
slaughter and destruction of whales that
went steadily forward at the rate of hun
dreds of thousands annually until they
were destroyed and driven out of the Pa
ciflc They were then followed into Ben
ring sea and the slaughter went on, the
whales taking refuge among the ice fields
of the Arctic ocean, and thither the
whalers followed. In this relentless hunt
the remnant has been driven still further
into the inaccessible regions around the
north pole, until they are no longer with
i'll the reach OF the natives or anyb body else.
Other Food Supplies Annihilated.
DIR. Jackson says that the great herds OF
buffalo that once roamed the western
prairies have been exterminated for their
pelts as the whales have been sacrificed
for the fat that encased their bodies. With
the destruction of the whale, one large
source of food supply for the natives has
been cut off. Another large supply was
derived from the walrus which once
swarmed in large numbers in the northern
seas. The whalers then turned their at
tention to the walrus, destroying thousands
annually for the sake of the ivory in their
tusks.
Walrus, Seal and Salmon.
He says that where few years ago the
walrus was so numerous that their bel
loW1u gS were heard above the roar OF the
waves, this year he cruised for weeks
without seeing or hearing one The wal
rus as source of food supply is already
practically extinct, and the seal and sea
lion, he says, once so common in Behring
sea, are now becoming so scarce that it is
with difficulty that the natives procure a
sufficient number OF skins to cover their
boats, and their flesh, because of its rarity,
has become a luxury. Five million cans
of salmon are usually shipped by Ameri-
can canneries from Alaska, and the bust
ness, which is still in its infancy the re-
port says, means starvation TO the native
races in the near future
The Governments Duty Laid Down.
DIR. Jackson says that in this crisis it is
important that steps should be taken at
once by the present congress TO afford re-
lief by appropriating money to feed them
as is now done in the case of many North
American Indians. In conclusion he says
that congress should appropriate money,
which in effect would reclaim and make
valuable vast areas of land otherwise
worthless, would introduce large perma-
nent and wealth-producing industries
where none previously existed, and would
take barbarian people on the verge of
starvation and lift them up to comfortable
self support and civilization"