The Seattle Post Intelligencer

WHISKY IN ALASKA.
Desperate Deeds by the Outlaws and Smugglers.

THE MURDER OF EDWARDS.
It Leads to Tarring and Feathering of Another Missionary, Dr. Connett, of Douglas.

Yesterday morning the Post-Intelligencer published a dispatch from Port Townsend telling how J. E. Connett, a missionary on Douglas island, had been tarred and feathered by the whisky smugglers.

Further advices from Alaska show that affairs in the southeastern part of the territory are in a condition far from satisfactory. Under the present law whisky is a contraband article there, and yet those in a position to know say that 70,000 gallons of the liquor are smuggled in each year. Most of it is sold to the Indians, in spite of the fact that even to give liquor to an Indian is a violation of the law. The whisky sells for $2 a pint, so that the traffic is extremely profitable, and a small fleet of vessels is engaged in the business. In summer the western part of Alaska is watched pretty closely by the revenue cutters, and the presence of naval and army officers at Sitka tends to preserve order there; but in Southern Alaska the smugglers are running riot. There are few officers with authority to arrest a man, still fewer with the inclination to do it, and fewer yet with means of transportation to pursue a smuggler. The result is that the smugglers are growing steadily bolder.

On January 11 they shot one of the missionaries, Charles H. Edwards. He had been instructor for two years on Douglas island, but last fall the government transferred him to Kupreanof island, to a work few had the courage to undertake. The natives of this island, known as the Kake Indians, are the most savage in Alaska, and yet Mr. Edwards had not been among them more than two months, when he had them, when they were sober, under almost perfect control. Those familiar with his work say that he was probably doing more than any one man in Alaska for the elevation of the natives. He found that the chief difficulty lay in the fact that the smugglers kept supplying the Indians with liquor. On January 11 a sloop manned by two men, Malcolm Campbell and Emory Elliott, residents of Douglas, dropped anchor about two miles from the Kake village. Through an Indian interpreter Mr. Edwards learned that the sloop was loaded with whisky, and so he formed a party to capture the men and their cargo, and, taking them to Fort Wrangel, turn them over to the deputy United States marshal there. Edwards and his Indian posse started out carrying no firearms, but simply ropes with which to tie Campbell and Elliott. The latter was easily captured, but Campbell, a powerful man, resisted stoutly, and retreating to the farther end of the cabin, kept his pursuers at bay. Edwards then kicked boards off the roof of the cabin so that the Indians could finally get in and take the smuggler. The vessel was searched for firearms, and then eleven of the Indians went ashore while Edwards with two others prepared to take the boat to Wrangel. As the eleven neared the shore in a small boat, they heard firing on the sloop, and saw her pull out in the direction opposite Wrangel.

On January 14 the sloop arrived at Sitka in charge of Elliott and Campbell, with Edwards unconscious and dying from gun shot wounds. The two Indians had disappeared. Campbell himself confessed that he had gotten his left hand loose, and securing a revolver concealed in a bunk, had opened fire. Edwards died January 15, without recovering consciousness.

When Dr. J. E. Connett, who had succeeded him at the Quaker mission on Douglas island, learned of the tragedy he at once chartered a small steamer and went to Wrangel to start an investigation. Connett was extremely active in procuring what evidence he could against the smugglers, and as he had been fighting them for some time the feeling against him grew very bitter. He wrote a letter about the matter to the National Era, a little weekly paper published at Robinson, Ill. Copies of this paper came back to the territory and fell into the hands of the smugglers. They took their revenge on the night of Sunday, April 24. After dark some one called at the doctor's house to ask him to attend a miner who was very ill. The doctor had gone but a little way, when he was seized, gagged and bound. Then he was stripped and treated to a coat of tar and feathers. Threats were made against his life in case he should further interfere with the smugglers. As he is a man of great personal courage, more trouble is expected.

The truth is, however, that he and the few law-abiding citizens of Southern Alaska are having a hard time in a turbulent community. At least thirty saloons are running openly in Juneau and perhaps fifteen on Douglas island. There is abundant evidence that the whisky is freely sold to the Indians, but no arrests are made. Squaw dance houses, establishments whose sole purpose is the encouragement of drunkenness, prostitution and every other form of vice among the Indian women, are common, and no attempt is made to close them. The Indian women are drunk at these places day and night, and the amount of demoralization, disease and crime caused by them is incalculable.

The whisky that supplies these places comes from Victoria. The smugglers pay one-third of the purchase money in advance, and a cargo is consigned to them at Port Simpson, where they complete the payment. The whisky is then taken into Fort Wrangel and entered into bond for transportation through to the Similkameen river. There is no bond to wage and the articles are piled up in a hogshead belonging to a private man, and really accessible. The general belief is that the whisky is drawn out of the barrels while they are at Wrangel, and the barrels filled with water are taken out and after being carried a mile or two beyond Wrangel, thrown away. Other cargoes of liquor are run in among the many islands of Alaska and thus distributed.

Few attempts are made to enforce the law against smuggling, because the smugglers are aggressive, and they have the support of a majority of the community, which consists of ex-convicts and refugees from justice. They thwart every officer who tries to enforce the law, bully him into submission, win him over by bribes, or drive him to resign and leave the country. When an arrest is made a packed jury brings in a verdict of not guilty, and Alaska justice is a farce.