The Seward gateway., 1922-04-11

- ..-...-. ment to consider our judges Remem- Der I am talking about carpetbaggers. Ireally don't admire carpetbaggers or advocate .carpetbaggery. although an indiscriminating person might suspect me of having great interests In the sub ject. suppose 1 have read every car petbag report issued in the history of this Territory, and have never known a single carpetbagger to report fact with any degree of exactitude, but in one single instance, and that was the report of Mir. Scott c. Bone the other day that the dry law is enforced abso- lutely in Alaska, and that man can not get drink of intoxicating liquor anywhere in Alaska from Portland Canal to Point Barrow. So, having suspicious of bureaucratic reports except this one about the absence of SAAt~&ASS so oOS O LII udNC lOohCu further into the history of our judi ciary, and find that our experiences have been particularly unfortunate, al most as unfortunate as in the charac- ter of the other carpetbaggers foisted upon our defenseless land.
 l. Of the first eight judges sent suc- hu tha ht1r ment to rule over us, not one served out his term, and seven of the eight were dismissed from the judicial bench under charges ranging from serious de- linquencies of purely personal char acter to high crimes and misdemean- ors in the Constitutional meaning of that phrase, The average length of ser vice of these judges was approximately two years. This covers Alaska's judi cial history up to the year 1900. when the Territory was subdivided into three judicial districts, each having a Federal judge of its own. Under the new arrangement, instituted primarily to provide additional jobs for carpet bag favorites, the character of the Alaskan branch of the Federal judi ciary has improved as a whole That was really the object in view in creat. ing the new jobs, to take care of peo pie who would not fit in we'll where folks were squeamish about such tri- fies as personal decency in their pub lie officials, and because Alaskans could not help themselves. And at this point I wish to correct an error set afloat by the tall sycamore of the Wa bash, the Honorable Daniel w. Voor- hies, sometime Senator in Congress from Indiana Said Senator Voorhies, Lets make a lot of new judges up there. Among lot, surely there would be one reasonably honest judge" The distinguished Senator was in error; dead wrong! Honesty has nothing to do with Alaska officialdom. It's only matter of jobs.
 But even under our new judicial ar rangement 1t has been an exceptional period when some of our Federal judges in Alaska were not under charges of corruption; but, at that, only four of them have been actually removed from office under charges since the increase of the force One other was recommended for removal, and nobody doubted he would join the vanished wearers of the stained er- mine. but political influences in the States saved him-influences that must have been indeed powerful when one recalls the tremendous obstacles to be overcome in bringing a Federal Judge to account, much less actually accomplishing his removal from office. No other indication of the general character of the carpetbag judges who have constituted the Alaskan Federal Judiciary is required, one would think, than to point to those eleven separate judicial scalps hanging at Alaska's belt. It would neither interest nor ben ct you for me to go into the specific circumstances and conditions which made possible this monstrous record. It originated with. and has its full and complete explanation in the system of bureaucratic government imposed upon the unwilling people of Alaska; a sys- tenn a'ik 2 fatal to the people govern ed and to the characters of the off, cials who do the governing. ~
 'A Now should like to take while about conservation. Conservation, as you may know is my pet aversion. It is not fundamental |. It is merely an incident, largely fungus outg-owth of a corrupt and inefficient system of ad- ministration. It will disappear quickly