Digital Bob Archive

MARCH 31, 1884-Alaska citizens are watching with great interest the progress of S. 153 through the 48th Congress, and this is especially true of owners of lode mining claims in this district. S. 153 is the bill that if passed by the Congress and signed into law by President Arthur will give Alaska some kind of civil government. Petitions have been sent to Congress asking for a territorial government for Alaska, complete with a legislature, but Senator John P. Jones of Nevada, who holds an interest in John Treadwell?s lode mine on Douglas Island, says that this is unlikely to happen in the present bill.

Owners of lode claims, including Mr. Treadwell, are in hope that the bill will make United States mining law applicable to Alaska. They also want a United States Marshal and a United States court to enforce the mining laws and to settle disputes between claim owners. Without these protections, it is impossible for owners to borrow money from banks for the purchase of the machinery necessary to develop their claims. Senator Jones and his colleague, Senator John F. Miller of California, who has mining interests in that state and is one of the owners of the Alaska Commercial Company, are expected to be influential in getting these items included in the final bill. It was debated in the Senate on five successive days in January and has now gone to the House. There is hope too that the bill will also extend the homestead laws to Alaska, as there is no present method of gaining title to such claims.

Not all citizens are enthusiastic about the bill, and saloon owners view it with trepidation. Under present regulations, it is illegal to import intoxicating liquors, but the regulations are silent upon the legality of intoxicants that are manufactured here or may reach here illicitly. Both the Army and Navy have been fairly diligent in the suppression of hoochinoo stills and the sale of liquor to Indians, and Juneau residents in 1882 adopted their own code of laws for this purpose. But saloon owners here and in Sitka have been little disturbed by either the military or the Customs officers so long as they did not sell to Indians. What disturbs the saloon men now is the fact that Dr. Sheldon Jackson, the Presbyterian missionary, is a proponent of the bill and is in Washington lobbying for its passage. Dr. Jackson is known to be an ardent prohibitionist and is said to have worked to get a prohibition clause inserted in the Alaska bill. Alaska has no other spokesman in Washington at the present time.