Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1901-02-24
GIVING CITIZENSHIP TO
UNCIYILIZED NATIVES
OF ALASKA.

1t has been commonly supposed that
when the government could persuade
Crazy Snake and his tribe of Snakes
and the rest of the Choctaws and
Apaches and Digger Indians to ex-
change their tomahawks for ballots,
everybody in the United States of the
male gender would be enfranchised. It
has been discovered, however, that up
among the glaciers of Alaska there
is a large body of males, who, up to
date, have taken no part in the govern
ment of the United States. 1t is singu-
lar that they should have been so long
overlooked, but now no time will be
lost in making them a part of the cleo
torate.
The chairman of the committee on
territories, William S. Knox, of Massa-
chusetts, mas introduced a bill provid-
ing for the admission to citizenship
of Alaskan natives now residing in that
territory, and their defendants, mem
bers of the uncivilized tribes Dur
ing the thirty-four years in which
Alaska has been part of the United
States, no one, not even the natives
themselves, hare felt any concern as
to their citizenship.
When Chairman Knox, of Massachu-
sets, has succeeded in his laudable
purpose let us hope he will find time
to cast his eyes in the direction of his
W State in his search for the dis
franchised. In not another section of
the United states, perhaps, are there
within the same area as many highly
educated women; in none is there a
larger proportion of women taxpayers.
In no State have women been trying
longer or more earnestly to secure the
franchise.
How comes it then that he is so
deeply concerned about the Esquimaux
and so utterly regardless of educated
citizens Of Massachusetts? If approach
ed on this subject he would probably
make the h~ackneyed reply: when
the majority of women ask for the bal
lot they will get it."
Have the majority of the Alaskan
men asked for it? Have the various
tribes of Indian men been enfranchis-
ed because the majority requested it?
Did the majority Of the Hawaiian men
express a desire for it? Did a majority
of the Porto Rican men insist upon
being made voters? Is universal male
suffrage provided for in the new Gu
ban Constitution because a majority
of the men have petitioned for it? Is
there in the whole history of our gov
eminent one-just one-instance where
any class of men have had the fran
chlse bestowed upon them because a
majority demanded it? Not in one
single case has this been done, and yet
legislators, politicians, editors, minis
tiers, lawyers, dismiss the plea of wo-
men for representation with the illog-
ical remark: when the majority ask
for it they can have it." If they are
told that the petitions of the women
of the United States for the suffrage
exceed those for this purpose of all the
men in the country combined since the
government was founded, they simply
answer: THE majority of women must
ask for it" And then when the hun
dreds of thousands who have asked for
it and worked for it turn away in de-
spair the political dragnet is put forth
again to gather in another catch of
immigrants, negroes, Indians, Hawai-
ians, Porto Ricans. and EsquimauX.
whose sole and only qualification for
the exercise of the franchise lies in the
accident of having been born of the
masculine gender.
AS women look upon this perform
ance year after year, they may be par
doned if they repeat the prayer of DR..
Lyman Beecher: 30. Lord, grant that
we may not despise our rulers; and
grant, Q, Lord, that they may not act
so we can't help it.'-Ida Hustled
Harper in New York Sun.