. Klondike : the Chicago record's book for gold seekers. of Alaska. The present district attorney hasshown commendable zeal in his endeavors to enforce thelaw, believing that all laws should be enforced until re-pealed. It must not be inferred from the way juries stand inregard to this class of cases that Alaska is in any sense ofthe word a lawless community. The courts here standas high and are as able as in part of the United States,and crime is as surely punished here as elsewhere. Ourjuries are not composed of saloonkeepers, but of minersand business men. The miner can always be relied upo
. Klondike : the Chicago record's book for gold seekers. of Alaska. The present district attorney hasshown commendable zeal in his endeavors to enforce thelaw, believing that all laws should be enforced until re-pealed. It must not be inferred from the way juries stand inregard to this class of cases that Alaska is in any sense ofthe word a lawless community. The courts here standas high and are as able as in part of the United States,and crime is as surely punished here as elsewhere. Ourjuries are not composed of saloonkeepers, but of minersand business men. The miner can always be relied uponto mete out equal and exact justice to all; hard working,large hearted, and just, it is a libel of the basest kind tocall him lawless or the community in which he lives a law-less one, and I am glad to bear witness that it is onlymalicious and irresponsible persons who do so. As the matter now stands, as I said in my last annualreport, this prohibitory liquor law is most demoralizingin its effects. It begets a disregard for all law, fosters m-^Mdt;^,. BOOK FOR GOLD-SEEKERS. 417 smuggling, and causes a large class of citizens, who oughtto aid the civil authorities, to be against them, and crimesthat ought to be punished and would be, were it not forthis law. go unpvmished. Being against the govern-ment in this matter they are almost unknowingly againstit in others; and a desire to get even often outweighsall other considerations. ^leanwhile the sale of liquorgoes on openly, and none of the people in the districtseem to be opposed to it. Prohibition, unless supported by a large body of liiecitizens of a community, means here, as it means every-where else, free whisky. Laws, to be enforced must bejust and reasonable, and must have the support of thepeople, and even though, as in this district of Alaska, theyhave no say in their making, in the end they have all tosay, when tlicy, as jm-ors in the jury box, are called uponto pass upon its violators. The present law should be re-pea
Size: 1225px × 2040px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidklondikechic, bookyear1897
