Digital Bob Archive

Once President William Howard Taft was in the White House, Lewis Shackleford, who had recently been named both National Committeeman and head of the Republican Central Committee, secured the judgeship of the First Division for his law partner, Thomas Lyons, and began to build his Juneau political machine. He began to be called \"the boss\" in some quarters and in newspaper headlines he was often simply \"Shack.\"

Ed Russell of the Alaska Daily Dispatch sometimes called Shackleford's close associates \"the court house gang\" but another editor, W.C. Ullrich of the Transcript, said it was the \"rule or ruin crowd\" that ran the Alaska Daily Record, edited by \"Gloomy Gus\" O'Brien. Ullrich named Governor Wilford Hoggatt, Shackleford, Judge Lyons, Robert A. Kenzie, Henry Shattuck and Clem Summers. Kenzie was superintendent of the Treadwell Mine, Shattuck had just been appointed Clerk of the Court by Judge Lyons, and Summers was head of the First National Bank and had just been named Jury Commissioner by Shattuck.

Juneau newspapers had long depended for part of their income on the court printing, which in the past had either been let to the lowest bidder or distributed equally among the three papers. Russell and Ullrich were therefore outraged when Shattuck awarded all of the printing to the Record without calling for bids.

On Saturday, August 21, 1909, Russell published a comment in his editorial columns: \"There would be a nice condition of affairs with Judge Lyons on the bench, Big Clem as jury commissioner and all around fixer, Clerk Shattuck paying political bills with court printing and furnishing wet nurses for the gang, and brother Lewis Shackleford as floor leader. What a nice deal this would be.\"

That evening Russell was sitting in the Frieman Bros. Cigar Store and Billiard Hall on Front Street. There are some conflicting accounts of what followed, but it was something like this: O'Brien, Summers and Shattuck entered the place and O'Brien struck Russell over the eye with brass knuckles, cutting a gash. Russell grappled with O'Brien and seemed to be getting the best of him but was also being kicked from behind by Summers. A member of the city police force, Sam Harris, sometimes known as \"Six Shooter Sam\" entered and attempted to arrest O'Brien. Shattuck and Summers interfered and asserted that he had no authority because although he had been appointed by Mayor Valentine, he had not yet been confirmed by the City Council. Harris did arrest O'Brien and Shattuck put up $200 bail to get him out of jail.

The next week O'Brien was indicted for assault and for resisting arrest; Shattuck and Summers were indicted for interfering with an officer; Russell and Ullrich, who had commented on the affair in their papers, were indicted for criminal libel, as were editors at Douglas and Skagway. In the end, however, all charges were dropped except the one against \"Gloomy Gus\" O'Brien who was fined $200.