The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-11-25

in exchange for the native commodi- of the Diomedes have from time to time obtained So much Whiskey from the whalers that they sometimes travel along the north coast of the Seward peninsula as far eastward as Kotzebuc Sound and the surrounding country, trading it to others. The pecuniary profit to the whalers is enormous, and the moral less to the natives is propOr- tionately great. Physical and moral degradation, murder and suicide fol- low in the wake if this Whiskey traffic. White men are sometimes killed by natives frenzied with drink, and the natives kill one another. too. But dis ease resulting from drunkenness and from the consequent neglect of sani- tary safeguards in hostile climate in other words from eXpOsure-have claimed more victims among the na- tives than crimes of violence, and children uncared for by drunken par ents have often perished miserably.
 "The moral ruin of Eskimo women by American whalers in the Arctic has been and still is one of the most awful abuses. Season after season the captains of whaling vessels take on board their ships native women, whom they keep with them during the sum mer cruise in the Arctic. It is often by no means true that the native wo- men want to sell themselves to the whaling captains, but they go on board the ship to trade, and the captains Tr-iFh nd TI11nG when they get them in a drunken state they weigh anchor and carry them off; in other words kidnap them. The crimes which the captains have committed against them ought to be unimaginable. They are worthy of Turkish bashi-bazouks.
 And it is impossible to understand the continued federation by the Government of Christian people, such as the people of the United
 States, of these terrible wrongs. Igno- rance of the subject cannot success fully be pleaded. A United States rev. enue cutter has every summer for years past visited the Arctic, where her officers cannot have failed to learn long ago of the dreadful crimes against the Eskimos that have from year to year been committed by the whalers And the officers of the Brueau of Education, through whose efforts Government schools have been built on the Arctic coast of Alaska-at Cape Prince of Whales and at Point Barrow and else where-and put in charge of Govern ment teachers, and who have for series of years visited Arctic Alaska in their persistent and almost wholly fruitless efforts. to make the domestic reindeer of value to the Eskimo peo- pie, they, too, must also have learned long since of the criminal conduct of the whalers toward these same people. What have the officers of the revenue cutter and the officials of the Bureau of Education done to put stop to it? So far as I am informed, absolutely nothing has been done to that end by the officials of the Bureau of Education up to the present time.'' J'.. .,..,.. Some arrests, he says, have been made by orders in the revenue cutter service and the department of justice, but not nearly as much as might have been, has been accomplished The patrol service of the cutter, says MT. Knapp, is very inefficient, He con cludes with a strong appeal to the Government: for greater protection.- Living Church., "@