Norwich Bulletin Newspaper, September 3, 1914, Page 8

Three Men Now in Congress Were Pio- neers in Alaska—They Braved the Dangers and Hardships of Those Early Days. Senator Pittman of - Nevada, Senator Lane of Oregon, Representa- " tive White of Ohio and . Delegate Wickersham Were Once Real “Sourdoughs.” . Epectal Correspondence ; \WASHINGTON, D. C., V1914 T HEN thousands of man-hearted plo- neers poured into Alaska, drawn by the lure o' new- struck gold; when death-dealing Cbil- coot and White Horde opened peri: lous trailways into the new bonanza; when the utter- “most, hidden val- leys of the new cold land knew the camp gleams of prospectors who gutted the beds of whispering virgin creeks and then founght their way *out side’” with their precioys dust and nuggets, through storm swirl and disease and madness, three men of political destiny were among that arctic brotherhood. * * ¥ Today all .of them=“Sourdoughs,” ‘Alaska pioneers. to the very bone—are contemporaneously- in Congr: They are Senator Key Pittmantof Ne- vada, Senator Harry Lane of Oregon and Representative George White of Ohio—to say nothing of James Wickersham, dele- gate from the big land up yonder, who ot to Nome in 1900 just in time to offici- ate, as district judge, in the final rout of the grafters which Key Pittman, as first aistrict attorney of that troubled settle- men, had so well commenced. The present “‘Gentleman from Nevada’ and thé ‘‘Gentleman from Ohio” both brought our tidy golden stakes from the wilderness. ‘“The Gentleman from .Ore- ui of them brought back ‘'pokes’ full of rich experience, paid for in muscle, S toil, daring and starvation, disease and peril. They still dream dreams of bacoa and beans, placers, bench claims high above Discovery creeks, and of the long- gone “Dawson days, with its sin and blaze, and the town all open -wide! Tales they can tell of the long, slow, danger-ridden mush ‘inside,” when an arctic_death ran trace-tight with -each sled leader; of dog-team dashes to new through man-killlng. Yukon nights; of tented towns where the blare of the gramophone drowned the click of nervous roulette and the slap of cards from the faro dealer's hand, and of Midas months, when the Argonauts of the north had nothing to eat—save gold! * *® % . Xey Pittman's experiences alone would fll volumes. Every phase of gold-camp life is a familiar story to him, for he ran the gamut of all the wild new land had to offer in advehture and peril and ro- mance, finally bringing away twith him & wife. She was Miss Mimosa Gates, who made the famous ‘dog-team dagl, ;;r:. ‘:::”n City to Nome, across 2,200 Tozen wilderness, 3 her marriage. T L betire ‘Wnen Senator Pittma, n, wi office ;q:l‘g:nem.' and, . witr an ourat gy Opues With practically nis las passenger in 1897, four years old. lay behind Alaska gold him, s camps, rich in promise, lay Skagway, Chilcoot trall o Laigasoot Pass and. the long avy adventurer little trouble wntt he Coig Lashua, found their Horse rapids.” And that wes whbre Bos a was wh {nhnman S northern fame began, rgorl-( i e morning, heedless of fellow-travelers ‘who w$11°tz;§':‘3;i“’£nore oumu‘ s young Pittman growled. Sy “That's the way I feel about it!" 2 t Lashua replied, an Tasi d then they were in = . = * “The foam began to fly. It was soon so thick I could not see the bow of the boat,” Senator Pittman declares. would shout back directions little to right ‘or ‘hard left’”. anq I blindly obeying. working the steering oar, blindly guided the barge. “The boat swept to the rim of the Tapids. It paused for an instant, shaking 8s a dog shakes When he comes from the water. Then It took the seven-foot plunge over the first of the rapids, like a diver. My oar snapped. But by that time we were well out of danger, and for the first tim: *Cl ) —1 the first tme & ‘Chechahko'tenderfoot— Walking back up the shore, Pittman and his partner repeated the Performance half a doben times, bringing other boats through at a profit of about $§75 for each trip. “Jim o me. ‘A But In spite of the money he had made, | the young lawyer had only a lonely ten- cent plece in addition to his half a ton of grub when long afterward h Dawson City. b “Drinks were a dollar apiece, said the senator, “That's poverty." For the next two years young Pitt- man attended strictly to placer mining, after having gotten a start by chopping wood at $30 a cord. His mining proved successful. He staked many claims which paid well, and one of them he sold for $15,000. But the joys of placer mining paled, too, ™ recalling his plight. {owns several winning boats, I the hearts of any man, thére to resume his long-neglected practice of law. ‘When he reached Nome he picked out as the site of his office a location on the landward siGe of the beach. But the military governor had given orders that all buildings should@ be erected on the seaward side.” Yet small things like gov- ornor’s orders did not daunt the young attorney. 0 Thereupon he construcied his shack on the seaward side and, walting his chance bedily moved the whole one dark night, building, to the coveted landwaml side, where the military sengry, glad of the| concluded that his orders prohibited anybody from build- ing there, but did not command him to shelter it afforded bim, tear down anything which was built, and -so the shack remained. = * x He s00n became well known as a legal light, and he was frequently called upon 10 defend prisoners whose innocense was Such an one a matter of great doubt. was Red Ben, nanger-on of one of the big gambling emporium: The story is told that one day a man who is now a famous author rushed into Pittman’s littie offic ““They’ve got Ben!' he announced. “What's he charged with?" “Stealing ten sacks of coal,” Attorney Pittman, who was apout that time almost down to. “hard pan” financially, was told. “Can you prove he's not guilty?” Pitt man asked diplomatically. “Sure; plenty of witnesses,” was the instant reply. “Well, T'll take the case, only some- body’s got to come_across with money this time,” the attorney decided. ““Well,” returned the author. “We've t no money; but’ we'll give vou half he coal.” Not long after that Key Pirtman start- ed the movement for a 'government by consent and, In the role of the young dis- trict attorney, he appears in that novel of early Nome days, “The Spoilers.' It was not long after the establishment of territorial government that Key Pitt- man réturned to the United States, fol- lowed the gold rush into Nevada and from that state was sent to the Senate. “Gold fever” is theslaconic justification JAEs WAeER SHAM Now DELEGATE From Anacwa | Just Orr Tic Trae which Representative White gives for his peregfinations in the land where ‘“the livid tundras keep their tryst with the tranquil snows,” and after two years and a half among the rigors of Dawson Clty's early days, he came back to the states With & good sized poks of gold, as well as a parali=i to Senator Pittman’s shooting of the White Horse Rapids, or the youns Ohbfoan also established a precedent, He ! and his pactner, £. E. Andrews, of Del- {avan, N. Y., wers the first to take a barn- vard animal over dread Chilcoot Pass. in at the death of ¢nat ignobility of Sakgway's early history “Soavy George,” Mr. Whiis, tnen put twenty-siz vears ole, Scon afte. stacted over the Chi'coot. “Not sven a sheep could go unassisted over the Chilcoot 1n those days,” Mr. White said. “But that didn't deter An- drews from conceiving the wild notion that the only way we could hope for heaven or reward was through the pur- chase of a decpepit ox, one of the only | two in Skagway. “The little intimats getalls of chamber- maiding that old bovine reprobate over the trall makes me weep even vei. When he'd break his moorings and upset sev- eral of the Mushars-and cheir packs, An- Qrews and { would be-just apout as pOPU- lar as measle microbes in an .orphan asylum. 5 : “But we finally got old ‘Pay Dirt’ over the divide, and just in time, at that, to aterward 1ok half_a hundred bodies. “Once o nthé: other side, though, Pay Dirt became a bonanza all in himself. | By loading nim down—and he could haul as much as he could start—we sometimes made $50 or $60 = day out of him. | “On ths shore of Lake Bennet, Where | we made our barge, I revolted at my ‘duties of chambermaid to the old fellow, But Andiews wouldn’t hear of butchering him. ‘He's mad: us a lot of money. and he's mora than “‘velvei” to us He'll be still more valuable du Dawson City." " - a— “By that time the hsif ton of moldy fellow 134 been exhausted. And, to keep him /wom starving, we began o di- vide our bakeda beans witn him. B2iors we had reached Dawson City he'd | munch baked navies g rice just the same as we dld. 4 “I @idn’t much like the prospect of set- ting out across the lakes with a. full grown ancient member of the Auroch escape the snowslide from “which ~we| hay which we had acquirsd xith the cldy Piryrman AS Tar | family a: | to his stard and I aad co agree, with | result, that after a vovage that 'Pay Dirt' very successrully kept from being | monotonous, we reached Dawson City and | butchered him. He brought us $1,250 in dust.” Twice Representative. White narrowly missed déath in the wilds: once soon aft- er arriving at Dawson, when he was thrown intc the swollen river from a broken log raft, to be dragged out un- conscious: and again when, the follow- ing winter, he went on 2 stampede to the Dominion Divide, became separated from his companions and was iost. Mr. White's claim wag on the “bench” above famous * Mrs PIPTVMAN . € TIRST WOMANIROM. LEFT) STARTS WITH ADOGTEAMTOR. OURE &;mcmn_-_momw_fikflfl' [N : (CPRIEEOOT PASS OVER ~“WRTET REPRESENTATIVE. WarTe Was THE FIrsT To*Tawe, A - "DARNYARD AN IMAL. OSPECT . GroX m,,mgfi';I’m Eldorads cre nis first. claim. “Scurvy?” asked the representative in reply -to a question. “T never had it. Oh. ‘the boys used to it around of“Sun- days ‘and feel their teeth to see if they were loosening, aid that was a pleasant | pastime, wasn't it? 3ut I "had been warned that lemonade was a §00d preven- tive for the sicknass, 1 followed the beverage all the way rrom §1 a,glass, and he struck it rich oa made with one-half a lemon, to $175. Then I aad ©o quit."” Although he had “inside information' on the strike of 1808, when it was brought outside by Nash, Senator: Lanedid- not go to Alaska until six years later. He “Little Rhody.” Senator Henry F. Lippitt of Rhode Island, though com- ing from the small- est state, has prob- ably the largest purse in the Senate, his rating being $15,000,000, enough to keep the wolf from the door for several weeks. Lip- pitt’s family is one of the oldest in the country. his first ancestor having come to America in 1638, following Roger Wil- liams, and this John Lippitt land in che originzl Providence planta- tions, the senator retaining some of this first grant in his family to this day. The Lippitts fought in all the American war: —Indian revolution, 1812, nd ctvil, being thoroughly with state and national affairs. Lippitt's hobby Is yacht racing. He is a member of the New York clubs whi indulge In this millionaire sport, and ving once But his business captured the Astor cup. used so extens goods. The Lippitt mills at Manville are very vely now in cotton and he finally started for Nome, 2,200 wiles away, over trails that would turn = . after our walk’ obtained | fast | or still in Rhode Island | Saving His Bullet. Senator Ashursts himsetf an ex- cowboy, is filled to, over flowing with _good cow- boy varns, and oag his fiiends s frzquently called upon tell what they call the = “wild wes! stories. ' One of his storles rehearses the ex- periences of a cowboy who had a grudge with a named Jim Smith and had resoived to get him expeditiously and effectively. He rode into cown sne { da. and, anticipation of the exer- alses, ook a little stimulant. Then he man in town in in_life is directing his immense cotton | 1 mills, the largest of which is located at | ook & little more and a little more, [ Woonsooket Eahos T i “aan heland In a iittle while his grudge had studied the subject of dyes, and was the eéxtended from the single individual to Inventor of that color ‘known over the | he whole wide worla. v as “turkey-red,” a shade which = . is not faded by either water or sun and | .6 Went forth o battle or to Jie And the drst person who happened to cross his blazoned path- was Hing Lee, nean theTpiit mills at Manville are very|s Chinese laundryman. In a moment Bibe e b g e ns e wocn s the cowboy had vanked out his soung was _interested In' manufacturing called | cannon and let fly. Hing Lee subsi on Lippitt and was shown through the|io ‘ne -oadway in a h e huge factory by the senator. For a ‘ong Yomrslalmimy in e B Eea D, SR O time they tramped from room lo room |SBrill yapping sounds. gntll the man. aimost sxhausied, dropped | The report of che revolver and the 0 a seat. fall of Hing Tee bro “he cow “I trouldl Ifkce: 4 skl you' aiGuestion: 1o hisamr e e cowboy semator? he remarked in a weak voice | %, 2T PAIl right,” replied Linpitt Gosh!" he said, regretfully, as he “Well, T would like to know if we are|gazed at the smoking pistol he held -in in Massachusett his hand. “That was the bullet T was savin' particular for Jim Smith.” The Salmon Party. R e p resentative i Falconer of Washitgton is about to enter the race for senator from his state, though he is now just serving his | first term ia the House. He is a Canadian.by birth his parénts com ing from Ontario to this,- country when he was but four vears of age. Falconer is from | the great salmon country, where. thou- sands gain a living by catching the fish, canning them and shipping all over the world. Tt is the habit of.the salmon to come in'big “runs’ every four years, and these are Aush times at the canneries. One day Falconer was standing on the dock at Seattle when a friend. who {lived in Alaska. happened by and ask- ed him about ‘hings 'n general and politics in varticular. “I hear sou have the bull moose |party down here” remarked ‘the | friend, “but we cap beat sou up n| Alaska—we Have ‘he salmon varty up | there.” The salmon ty? How's that?" asked Falconer with interest. | Oh,” replied the Alaskan, “it's what ou folks down here call the demo- cratic. Up there we have named it the salmon >ecause »very four years :hey | make a big run and then we can them.” | the roadside, he spoke: admiration ran through the ranked | tine ““Now, just listen to this’ said the guide, proud of his little show, and again raising his hands to his mouth A Wonderful Echo. = Senator Charles S. Thomas of Col- orado delighis to tell this joke on his own beloved Rocky mountains: ‘We have -the most wonderful scenery in the world out.in, Colo- rado,” - enthuses the senator, “and our canyons and gorges are 'mar- vels- of nature's handiwork. As for - our ‘ echoes— listén te this: “A gulde was taking a party of tour- sts by coach through the mountains west of Denver. As they descended the side of a steep canyon he halted the coach- and ordered his party to alight. Then, ranging them up along “Tn men, this canyon, ladies and gentle- is the most remarkable echo in the state; ihdeed, probably the most wonderful in the United States, and. possibly, in the world. Now, listen!" “Forming his hands lke a mega- phone, he shouted across the empty void of the canyo! ‘ ‘Hell0-0-0-0-0 “In a few seconds there came.from the opposite side of the canyon in tones like a human voice the reply: ** ‘Hello-0-0-0:0!" ‘Wonderful! Marvelous!” exclaimed the members of the party, as a buzz of he shouted: ““What are y’ doing over there? “And from the tangled thickéet that clothed - the opposite wall the echo an- swered: *‘None o' your businessl' ™ . OENATOR PITTMAN WAS TIRSTTE: R went Jrst to . where, taken with Inflammatory ¢ he spent sey- eral 1nonths knocking. about botanizing and_recovering befcye he struck out for St. Michaels, and from there on a steam- er to Fairbanks, wnere he prospected for many moaths beto.s starting for Valdes, in"a temperature of 46 bslow, by way of the Tanana river, acrods to the Big D ta; over another divide along the Big Delta river.and down, the Gccona (Rab- bit river) headwaters until he finally came to the goverament trail. * x ¥ One of lhe besi wtories in Senator Lane’s collection 15 tuat of how' Fair- banks, Alaskaa, came into being. “It was )l a fluke,” sald the senator, ‘‘and the wildest chance that I have ever ‘known. It was this way: Capt. Bennett, in the early nineties, set out from Portland to Alaska, to establish a trading - post, ‘and once in-the new coun- try fell in with Charlie Smith, then gov- ernment customs agent at Clrcle City. They made a partnership of it, sunk all their capital in ‘grub and supplies, guns and ammunition, and laid their course for Tanana Crossing, -which lies some 500 miles above the mouth of thé Tanana river. “In their hired boat they went up the Tanana. where no gold whatever had been discovered, until they came to the Chena rapids, and there turning in Chena Slue,- made a detour, going about forty miles further before their boat- man. on account of rapidly falling water, refused to go farther. Turning pack, he dumped them. bag and baggage, in_ the heart of the wilderness at thesmouth of Chena Slue. There were no Indians, even in that part of the world, so that Bennett and Smith, who soon discovered they had been exiled upon a delta, were hard put to it to find a market for their stock. “But, striking into the wilderness discoyered, about twenty-fivé miles the delta, a_creek which they named stream. = Wen miles farther away they found another, and they called this Cleary creek. And., mingfyou, not a nug- get or grain had been washed from either of them. = “Nevertheless, they supplied Indian runners with a few stray nuggets they had. and started them tc the settlements to fell of 2 marvelous new bonanza, so that when the stampeeders came, they might purchase the goods. = * * rush they from Gold “On came the And among the minérs was one Frank Manly. He had just £320._- Bennett and Smith got this for Srub and supplies. Then they sold him claims Three and Five below their ‘Dis- covery® =laim, upon a contract calling for the payment of $10,000 before the follow- ing 1st of August. A penalty of $300 a day thereafter was attached until the claim should again revert to Bennett. “Frank Manly started to work. By August 1 he had taken out more than $100,000. Cleary creek was richer than Eldorado creek. But when Manly came to pay his $40,000-his attention was called to the fact that the payment was to be made in United States gold ““There were then some 7,500 people in | Fairbanks, but there was‘hardly one gold coin, and Bennett wouldn’t accept dust So down to Nome went Manly. and by dint of bard going managed to dig up the American gentleman. NDERFOOT,TO JHOOT Taewve! = = specie;. I went bask up the river witn him; when he arrived he found he bad¢ forfsited $5,000 more, but as th> min= was tnen paying $400 day, that didn’t cause him much Worcy Just about the. time: that Xey Pittman, required amount ernmert of Ncme, had rout of the grafters who Were jumping claims and robbing the prospectors with a high-handed lawlessness, jvdge James Wickersham, now delegate irom Alaska, was appointed federal judge for the Nome district. _ Strictly = speaking, _the judge is not a (‘sourdopgh,” having done little prospecting on his own hook. But he exercised his.judicial functions io the. order had not quite become the Fi nized authority, and Fis first case, at Unalaska, was that of a_ murderer Who had claimed three Victims. il Judge Wicke-sham has been vitally actively interested in all movems toward the betterment of “Seward's ice- box,” and one of his pet hobbies maweis | the collection of every scrap of informg- tion which has ever been printed ahau§ the land of his adoption Fm:.\'f'l-i agricultural experts have de- cided that the potato, that standard rejuvenation. The common practice in raising new potatoes Is to cut up old cnes and piant them. After a series of exwh/‘ ments the scientists have come to_ conclusion that the- continual Feprodld tion of the potato without the uss of seed has resulted in its deterioration, on the same theory that the interbreedii@ ' of animals will result in their deteriora- tion. cercain fungus, begun the planting oL crop which has so far shown-itself pris. tically immune Trom potato. diseases.,, was at first thought that the paiaig ercw could bDe improved if raised from seéec. This process, however, proved 0o IGg& and weary. be adopted by other countries. Hats Off, Boys!‘ RS. CHARLES H. ANTHONT: §€ Muncie woman who, with Xiti*)_b trunk loads of gowns of her own desiggs has gone to Hurope to teach the Eurp® pean dressmakers a lesson, said -in S restaurant of the steamer: b “The American woman is the beS® dressed woman in the world. And the American man is the best dressed man in the world—a fact so well recognized in Europe that he doesn't have 1o /8% over there with fifteen trunks.te” e: o« any >33 = lish his.claim. ::; “Yes, in dress as in morals, the Amgr. 54 ican man leads. A girl sculptor from the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts was lraveh:\g;:r--“: the wilds of the west alone. e Byt aren't you afraid to travel @h: t | protected? an English rancher asked d her. : a2 ““No: oh, mo, she answered. . ‘Je-, sides. 1 don’t travel unpratected. L never - venture beyond the call of 3 2. territory during the' days ‘when lawsy - as district attorpey of tre consent gov- Ia completed _the of P = f00d of the western hemisphere, . needd (4 Improving the Potato. R (s ! Hence they bave, with the 2id: (i wmm “And how splendid his morais aretss.: g = 3 "The mew fungus process will probaBf (% _ 26 -