The Nome daily nugget., 1916-12-14

be- Are the federal officials In any oivsion the masters of the people? Are they dlctators of how we should think and of how we should vote?
 Our laws. We take it. are the rules WL,ch we make through our repres"n- tttives for Inc control of the acts of I'll so that t!i may be equally pro- tected- Our laws are not imposed scmo hi~ er power. They ',, of O. own nisng and have force ,aly wter they re for the comm,> pod. N ire tha men whom we seIecl to enforce our laws particularly supe- rior. They are usually men of high c z rarter n" of ability but 'o roIe so than many other men in or broad land. Our best judges, district at- toraeys, marshals and clerks know ttat they are servants of the people and that theirs is a sacred trust They aim to administer justice with ou: petty personal spite and with due allowance for local customs. Not all, unfortunately, are of this hest type. We have seen a perfectly good law clerk appointed district judge ard have seen him lose all sense of lls relations to the community. His ss lary was big, seekers for favors fawned on him, social honors fell to his lol. and he became imbued with the idta that he was greatly superior to tho people he was chosen to serve. relhaps. all of 1t, and is now a law ele,k again.
 We have seen a judge with the si,r c kind of a distended cranium lold his job because of strong sena- toiinl backing far into his second tenn in spite of the fact that man of John Rustgard's ability couldn't win a case before him although he usually won his contention on appeal This judges fault was personal venom. He carried it too far and Is now liv- Ing oa the pennies he so carefully saved.
 miserable thing to contemplate i5 that the peoples representatives In the administration of their laws shouId avar send human haiDo to thot hell on earth, the penitentiary, be- cause they disliked them. Such things seem to have been done and 1t Is a wonder whenever 1t has happened In free America that the spirit which animated the Boston Tea Party did not assert itself. It did finally come to the surface in the Hanford case in Seattle but 1t was many years in coming.
 Reliable men who came down the Yukon last fall told of a reign of terror in the upper country. They reported that merchants. miners, and operators did not dare to assert their political principles, did not dare pro- test against injustice. For fear of what? Of their masters, or of their servants? A free people should be afraid of neither.
 We do not know how many reversals court must have nor how many proved cases of injustice are neces- sary to convice the bureaucrats at Washington that a certain set of federal officials in Alaska are un- worthy to further hold office. Prob ably a great many But we remem. Der what the Ku Klux Klaa did in the south when officials were 100 domineering. We remember what the vigilantes have done from time to time in the great west in the in- terests of justice, and we marvel Ut the moderation often shown by Alas kans under great provocation.
 For fear that some over-w wise peo- pie will read between these lines things that are not there, we will say that our present judge Is a high minded gentleman, as all know, and that we are so well pleased with him that we hope he will stay with us another four years. Our district at- torney Is equally honest and clean.