The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1914-01-25

LAW MUST SAVE
ALASKA Indians
Archdeacon Stuck Says Illicit
Drink and Disease Are
Destroying Them.
sLAMEs Low WHITES
Declares "Squaw Men" Despite Many
BLAMEs LOW WHITES"
Declares "Squaw Men" Despite Many
Ofenses. Now Seem Immune
from Conviction.

an enforcement of the laws seemngiy
impossible under present conditions. is all
that can save the several Thousand In
dams of the interior Of Alaska from ex-
tinction, 1t was asserted last night by
Rev. Hudson Stuck, ID. D.. the Protes-
tant Episcopal Church's archdeacon of
the Yukon DrsStuck, who has spent the
last nine years in mission work IN Alaska
and who. II will be recalled. climbed
Mount Mckinley last summer, came to
Washington with Right Rev, p. T. Rowe.
ID. D., Bishop of Alaska, for the last
eighteen years and probably better in
formed on that territory than any other
man.
1.-THE 5000 or 1900 Indians resident in
interior Alaska are dying out from the
ravages of liquor and communicable dis
eases introduced by the Iow-down
Whites" DIR. Stuck said last night in an
interview at the Cosmos Club. where he
has been staying during his weeks visit
to Washington. These people will be
exterminated within a few years unless
the government affords them protection.
Their death rate now exceeds their birth
rate. Weakened by drink and diseases
from which they had hitherto been inn
mune. they are developing tuberculosis
rapidly.
Unlike Other Indians.
They are a people worth saving. for
economic as well as for humanitarian
reasons. Though of the same race as
the other Indians of North America, they
lack the ferocity that characterizes SO
many tribes of the aborigines. They are
kind and gentle. Unlike other Indians.
too, they are self-supporting-they are
not wards Of the government in the sense
of being dependent upon the government
for maintenance. At the same time, they
are the oAly people, in my opinion, who
will ever be permanent residents of the
greater part of interior Alaska. 1 think
that in most of the interior country white
men will never find it profitable to live.
Now, consider the men who are de-
stroying these simple. inoffensive. and
useful people. They are known as the
'low-down whites and that is a very
good designation. They are persons,
who. as we say in Alaska, have turned
loose all holts' and dropped. They do
not drop to the level of the native. A
white man cannot live on the level Of
the native; he is above or below that
level. These low whites have dropped
below the natives. They belong neither
to the trading class nor to the mining
class of whites. but, like parasites. live
upon the Indians With liquor they con-
trive 10 rob the men and corrupt the
women. They destroy both. Maybe they
trap 4 little or hunt a little, but they
do not really work. They merely drift
from one post to another and live by
a shrewdness that decent man would
sCorn to use.
Legal Proceedings Ineffective.
Against thsse people the law in
Alaska seems powerIess. Many of
them have been indicted and brought
to trial, but they are almost always
acquitted. The ineffectiveness of le-
gal proceedings of almost incredible
costliness is appalling. For example.
in Cne case recent witnesses had to
travel 500 miles by river to appear be-
fore the grand jury. which returned
a true bill. A few months later they
had to travel 400 miles by trail The
defendant was acquitted, as usual, and
the trial must have cost more than
$1,000"
DIR Stuck explained that along 1900
miles of the Yukon in Alaska there
are only six deputy marshals, and that
the lack of immediate authority in a
country Of such magnificent distances
made court proceedings so tedious as
to deprive them of any real results.
He believes that the establishment of a
similar to the Northwest
Mounted Police of Canada would clean
OUT the Yukon Valley. The members
of such a constabulary should be, of
course. he insisted, free from any in
fiuence of politics, and the officers in
trusted with a judicial authority, SO
that trials could be had expeditiously
and fairly.
I'VE need that force to protect the
Indians from the low whites" DR.. Stuck
continued. THAT is essential to the pres
ervation of the native Indians of Alaska.
We are conducting hospitals and are
about to build two more on the Yukon,
but our work there will be futile unless
we have the help of the law. The low
whites can corrupt Indians faster than
any agency in therworld can cure them.
But with a proper enforcement of the
law. and with the aid of our hospitals
and improve their lot in life. Both the
church and the government schools have
done much good. Especially is this true
of the boarding schools. Wherever the
is ready to take over a, day
school We give way and help in what
ever other way We can. Our endeavor
has been not to make white people of the
Indians. but to make them better Indians.
We are not trying to wean them away
from their ways Of life. but only to i'm
prove those ways. Our school boys and
girls fish and trap and dry foods for win
ter. 1t would be foolish to make farmers
or skilled artisans of those Indians whose
lives are spent and will always be spent
in regions that are not arabic and not
conducive to high development of the in
dustrial arts. But we select the most
boys and girls and educate
them along lines which they and their
fellows can follow to best advantage.
For example. We have brought boys to
the United States to learn mechanical
trades that they may return and be in
structors to the other Indians. We have
three half-breed boys at an Industrial
school in Massachusetts now. A good
among the Indians is helpful:
he can help them with their sleds and
stoves and traps; an electrician would be
useless.
I'VE are doing much good In this way.
But all our efforts, all the governments
efforts, every endeayor of whatever kind,
will be futile without an enforcement of
the law"
Dr. Stuck expressed approval of Sec
Rotary of the Interior Lanes recommen-
dalton that the national affairs. as dis
from the local affairs. of Alas
ka, be administered by a board of direc-
tors or some similarly constituted bureau.
He agreed with Secretary Lane that the
Federal governments authority over
Alaska is too widely distributed. an OBJ
lection which the Secretary voiced in his
last annual report.
Discussing Secretary Lanes report, DR..
Stuck expressed keen interest in the Sec
retsfy's showing that the Federal gov
ernment's functions are discharged by
many different agencies. the following ac-