Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 April 1892 — GOING TO WAR FORA MONOPOLY [ARTICLE]

GOING TO WAR FORA MONOPOLY

There are some aspects of the Bering sea qu stion which are calculated to make the public look on this conti oversy as one in which the whole nat’on is interested as against England. The patriotic impulses of the peoplo are inspired to resist British aggression. But there are certain lacts lying at the root of the Bering sea dilficulty which should bo brought squarel to the front. They arc much more significant and importa. i than the alleged danger of seal-life extinction by pelagic sealing. They show how little real concern the people at large have in any phase of the iuternatio. al dispute It, is shown m an article published in another column that for over twenty years a single private company has monopolized not only 1 the fur -seal industry but the entire fur business of Alaska. This comp ny has procural from time to time the passage of laws in congress forbidding American citizens outside the monopoly from killing or taking any fur bearing animals in Alaska or its waters under penalty of a heavy fine and imprisonment The federal courts of California, always swift to uphold tilt power of corporate monopoly, have so severely punished outsiders found engaged in the Alaska fur besinesa that the whole field was long ago abandoned to the Alaska Commercial company. The army has been used as a police force to eject all intruders on the domain set apart for the exclusive use of this corporation, and it is by law made th duty of the president to cause une or morUnited States vessels to constantly patrol Alaskan watei s ip order to preserve and protect the vast game preserves set apart to this single corporation. Homestead and pre-emption settlers have bean kept out of Alaska by a law 1 assed for the benefit of the monopoly which suspended ths operation of the general land laws in the territory. The export of timber was also forbidden by Uw, s<: that rare and costly woods, such as the yellow cedar, are consumed for fuel in Sitka pad other settlements.

The wfioie tendency ot legislation in co gress for twenty years past, as shown in numerous ttatutes, has been to check the growth ard retard the settlement oa Alaska in order that one company might enrich itself out of the vast domain of the farther northwest, to the exclusion of oth?r American “citizens, firms and corporations.” The real controversy, therefore, resolves itself into the a'leged aggression of Canadians and other outsiders earned on against this single private corporation, and the proposed arbitration, nominally

between England and America, is really between the former country and this ruonoudy using the name and power of the United States for its own private ends. It ought to be difficult, tc arouse the American peep 1 to much fighting enthusiasm over thp attempt to enlarge the rights and privileges of the Alaska company so ns to inciude the wide nnd open waters of Iler.ng sea. —Chicago Herald.

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