The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-07-30
POLICING THE KLoNDYKE.

1t is not matter for congratulation
to the American to perceive the SUI
perior efficiency of a foreign govern
ment in the matter of furnishing police
supervision of the Klondyke region.
The emergency is pressing one, as all
can understand who know anything
about the growth of mining communi-
ties in regions remote from civiltzd-
ton. There is always vast amount
of disorder before the rough and-ready
elements, gathered from the four cor
ners of the earth, settle down to COM
pact society. If the rule of law is not
extended over them from the begin
ming, they have to hew out a rough
justice for themselves, usually under
the presiding influence Of Judge Lynch.
With the tremendous rush that is now
going forward to the Alaskan gold
fields, there will be great need of some
form of authority to press the unruly
and to take in charge offenders against
the law. The Canadian government
has acted promptly and efficiently. Its
mounted police in the Northwest Terri
tories is force magnificently organized
and cut out for just this kind of work.
Accounts which have been published
in the G % b of the development of
the Trail Creek camp, and the swift
and stern repression of any attempt at
disorder in towns of as quick growth
as Rossland, show how admirably fit
ted is the Canadian police force for this
kind of work. AS far as the British
authority extends in the new mining
district, order will be preserved and
property and personal rights respected.
On our side there is a melancholy
contrast, in the dawdling and hesita
ton of the authorities at WASHINGTON.
They have had it in mind to detail a
force of soldiers to look after the main
Upper Yukon, but have got themselves
so tied up in manifold bands of red
tape that they do not know whether
to do it or not. They are trying to fig
ufe out how to reconcile the civil gov
eminent Of Alaska, under a territorial
governor, with the detail of a por-
ton of the army to places under his
jurisdiction. Which authority should
F. be paramount? Should the govern
or command the soldiery and the
authority of the seer Atary of war be
set aside, or should the military arm
supersede the civil? Pondering over
these questions of precedence, nothing
ait all has been done thus far; and, on
the American side, the newcomers in
the Klondyke regions will be left to the
tender mercies of irregularity and yio-
lence until the government gets ready
to act.
1t is good rule, in such cases as this
to preserve order first and settle ouas-
lions of relative authority afterward.
There should not have been a moment
lost in ordering enough soldiers to main
tain order into the Klordyke region. adj
justing afterward the relation between
the civil and the military departments
OF government. Our republican sys
tenn of rule, with its strict lines of de-
marcation between the different depart.
ments of government and it's Jealous di
vision of power between the federal
and the local authorities, is invalua-
BILE, and has been proved under test.
At the same time, it has certain disad-
vantages; one of which, as shown in
this instance, is the inability at times
to act with the promptness that might
be desired