Seward daily gateway., 1925-12-15

knows. that ito go into the wilderness l of Alaska without a rifle would be suicide on account of so many wolves and bears, and can state a case where, man had to kill a moose in self-defense and had to go miles to get help to take the meat to town so that it would not go to waste. This man would not have killed that moose and put up job on himself just for the sake of killing 1t.
 was told that no objection would be raised to my carrying a rifle for protection, but couldn't shoot any, thing; that would be breaking the law. A person might just as we'll carry stick and go back to the time Adam was on earth.
 What chance would a man have with a bear? Here's little incident l that happened to prospector only last summer: He went to bed and l left the door of his cabin open. Dur ing the night he heard noise and
 woke up with start and saw a huge bear standing in the door. He hap
 pened to have his rifle at hand and
 shot him and he fell into the cabin.
 Now what would have happened if
 this man had no rifle to defend him.
 self with? Yet it's against the law for an alien to have rifle in his possession.
 Now for the second chance, which
 is the tax of one hundred dollars for
 a license each year for an alien
 prospector and miner to carry a rifle
 to kill his meat with. I ask, is this
 just and fair tax to the Canadian
 prospector and miner operating in AL
 aska? Where, I ask the Alaska Game
 Commission, can you find a prospec- tor and an individual miner away in
 the interior of the Alaskan wilder
 ness that can afford to pay tax of $100 for rifle to kill his meat with? :? Why, I again ask the Alaska Game
 Commission, was such an unreason-
 able tax put upon the Canadian pros
 pector's rifle? Was it to drive him
 out of the country? He surely can't
 prospect without it, and he can't
 afford. tof pay such an unreasonable
 tax of $1O, s15 or $2O, or this never
 would have been written, and every
 body would have been satisfied. The
 prospectors made Alaska and they
 were not all American citizens.
 Now will comment little on the
 third and last chance and that is of
 declaring your, intentions to become
 a citizen of the United States, which
 allows you almost the same hunting
 privileges. as. a citizen. To do this, of course, you have to go before the clerk of the court It might look a very easy, thing to do to some people, but they don't think of the man that is out in the hills prospecting and 1 1uS lOt 11uu new ulSSluSS dl1 Cllc time, a man that works for wages } only long enough to buy little out fit and strike back out into the hills again. What chance has he to go to court house a thousand miles away? How can he afford to go that far on nothing? I know of several that have wanted their papers for several years, but conditions were too hard to allow them to make an ex- pensive trip like that one would be to get them. Why can't the court meet the prospective citizen half way, and hold court in certain precincts each year so that they could get these papers. Tn court has the whole of the United States treasury behind it, but the prospector has only himself In conclusion, wish to ask Amer ican citizens now residing in Yukon Territory, Canada, how they would feel to have such an unreasonable tax put upo ntheir hunting privileges in