The Alaska citizen., 1911-12-04
AFTER MANY DAYS.

| The new light shed on the in
/ side" history of the DR. Jameson
raid by John Hayes Hammond ii
/ his talk at Boston during the ptst
| ing better understanding to peJ-
! pie on this side of the Atlantic o.
the causes leading up 10 the wa
/ which followed the raid" To peo-
/ pie who had the opportunity to be
! come acquainted with those causes
the marvel has been that such
vast amount of Instrumentation ever
came to be disseminated TO prejudice
the minds of those who were anxious
. to arrive at correct understand
ing of the trouble in the South Al
rican republic and that it succeeded
| so thoroughly in Disgusting the
truth beyond possibility of recogni-
ton
1t was the boast of one of the big
New York dailies that it occasoned
the war with Spain, and that it
could stop it at any such time as it
saw fit And. in like manner, should
il be their desire to do so, could the
saffron-tinted press claim that it so
represented conditions in the Trans
wall and the Orange Free state as 10
enlist the sympathies of the people
irtcf
in the exigency occasioned by the
necessity for a big and continuing
sensation. they were pleased 10 term
the persecution" of kruge" and his
bureau. For it certainly is fact
that the majority of Americans who
had to rely on the newspapers
for their information in regard to
the causes of the war We're lined up
against the Uitlanders.
And now Hammond tells us that
il was Americans who instigatei
the Jameson raid. the prologue of
the war. That the uprising was the
result of the injustiCes heaped on
the outsiders by Kruger and
few bureaucrats who had control OF
the republics finances. That those
iniustices had reached such a stage
as to be unbearable. and that re
form associations We're their logical
Outgrowth. Although the press dis
patch does not say so it is also Ger
tain he pointed out that these Tit
landers suffered from taxation with
out representation" to just as great
in Revolutionary days, so nobly
threw off the CALLING yoke imposed
by King George and HIS gang OF
bureaucrats. For. though they We're
taxed out of all reasonable proper
ton, the residents OF the Transyaal,
other than native Beers, could not
even so small matter as the con
duct of the schools at which their
children were educated, nor were
they eligible for jury duty.
Hammond probably also referred
to the fact that it might be urged
that these Uitlanders did not have
to stay in the country if they did
not like it, and that the Beers had
perfect right to run their
cwn country as they saw fit; but it
is also likely he told of how they
came to be there. How Kruger, at
the time of the London convention,
in 1850, had assured English "api
talists whom he wanted to open up
the Rand, that they and their EN-
ployes would be accorded the same
rights as those enjoyed by tho
Beers except in regard to the fran
chise, and that this even woulG be
extended to them after they had
been in the country for reasonable
length of time. And of how, after the
mines had been opened up by the
expenditure of millions, Kruger saw
that he was no longer dependent on
capital and could extract the dus.
himself without the aid of the Tit
landers, and so went back on all
> his promises and started his interest
ing little game of "freeze-out."
The Americans who were on the
Rand at the time of the raid, and
later, when the war broke out. were
of exactly the same type as are
the Americans at present in Alaska
They went there for the same pul-
pose They were no more given 10
, strife for political reasons than We
| are, and we have no right to take
it for granted they were less capable
of Judging right from wrong or TO
accept it as a fact that they were
freebooters willing to go to any
length for personal gain. And these
Americans, perfectly acquainted with
the actual conditions, not only threvt
in their lot with those opposing kru
| ger injustice, but were instrumental
in precipitating the revolt. No one
who was in South Africa at the time
. will doubt the statement that al
least ninety per cent of the Amer
cans in the Transvaal were opposed
to the policies of Kruger. And it is
Just as certain that their active up-