Evening star., 1927-10-22
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

"Pigs is pigs" but they are only
porkers, while reindeer are something
else, and when it comes to increasing
and multiplying and replenishing the
starving Esquimos and hungry Ameri
cans, they have pigs beaten.
There was a news item published
day or two ago stating that the
United States Government was plan
ming a complete census Of all reindeer
in Alaska, and for that purpose all
the CRITTERS" were to be rounded up
and counted. The writer Of that item
evidently had pictured a grand trek
Of those festive racers Of Santa Claus,
all to one corral in Alaska, where
somebody would keep tally as they
entered the modern Noah's Ark. 1t
transpires, however, that there will
be no such spectacular assembly. but
that, according to the annual prac-
tice, all owners Of the reindeer will
make their usual roundup and count
Just as they are accustomed to do
every July for branding and Autumn
for butchering.
y y X X
Nevertheless, there is a story in the
development Of this great food supply
which did not exist on the American
continent 40 years ago, and which
now has become almost overwhelming
in amount. There would be one rein
deer next Christmas for each and
every man, woman and child in the
city Of Washington If Santa Claus
would part with them all. And they
are multiplying at the rate Of from SO
to 45 per cent annually. BY Christmas
1928, there will be three quarters OF
a million; by 1929, perhaps more than
a million. Multiplying As per cent
annually brings frightful vision of
the future menace of a reindeer in
vasion overwhelming America. BY
1880. there will be 1,6S2,000 reindeer;
by 1888 we must face 5,6S6,000 rein
deer. The herds will overrun all
Alaska and sweep down across the
line, "Fifty-four-forty." so that before
the middle of the century there will
be more reindeer than voters in the
United States.
There is no race suicide known to
reindeer.
They feed on moss and other wild
pasturage in the open country, not
thriving so well in forests, though
they are fond of eating willow twigs.
1t costs about 81 a year to raise a
reindeer, and, counting the income
from their milk and eventually from
their horns (good hatracks). their meat
(which tastes somewhat like venison),
their hides, which make good soft
leather, and even their hair, which
makes warm lining for Winter clothes
and is otherwise useful, it looks like
a good investment to buy a reindeer
for $40, feed him a year for 81 and
harvest the profits. He beats dogs
as a carriage horse" drawing a sled
over snow hummocks, to say nothing
of his flying" with Santa Claus sled
right over roofs and up to chimneys.
There Is only one company of
packers now shipping reindeer meat
out of Alaska, and it raises some
$4,000 animals of its own, besides
buying from Eskimos. From 1918
to 1925 that company sent us some
100000 pounds Of reindeer "venison," !"
and now that it has purchased a re-
frigerator ship and has found the
supply embarrassingly great, there is
prospect that the shipments will
rapidly increase. Why chew tough
cow when one may be served Alaskan
''venison"?
It seems, indeed, to be the most
atrocious example of the irony of fate
to find that the development Of rein
deer in Alaska Is in the hands of the
United States commissioner of educa-
ton, rather than under the Depart
ment of Agriculture with it's Bureau
of Animal Husbandry. Yet the peda-
gogues are not trying to add rein
deerology to the "readin'. 'ritin' and
'rithmetic" of the average students
curriculum.
Nor are they training the young
reindeer in special tricks, as animal
trainers do with dogs and horses. No
reindeer is taught to lie down and
turn over, like dog. None is trained
to watch his owners hat or gloves.
Then why have school teachers as
reindeer Jockeys?
That query brings back the story of
the origin of reindeer in Alaska,
through the activity of DR.. Sheldon