In 1913, three Nome legislators departed by dog sled in the second week of January to reach the inaugural session, which started nearly two months later in Juneau.
on Alaska history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage or Alaska history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story. On Jan. 8, 1913, Conrad Freeding, Thomas Gaffney and Frank Aldrich exited Nome by dog sled, intent on arriving at Juneau before the onset of March.
It was an arduous journey, directly into the sharp teeth of a blizzard, in the heart of the deep winter. Not another day could they delay their departure and be sure of a timely arrival. Duty compelled, for Freeding was a Territorial senator while Gaffney and Aldrich were Territorial representatives, and the first session of the Territorial Legislature beckoned. This Territorial Legislature is historic in and of itself, not just the expansion of self-governance here but the arrival of a favorite Alaska pastime, the annual and ongoing opportunity to alternately cheer and curse at legislators. And it was a serious game. Just one year later, seven senators were hung in effigy across the road in the center of Cordova, faux bodies that were later publicly burned. Decades before Facebook, Alaska pioneers hiked miles up and down snowy hills and sewed Moreover, the first Territorial Legislature is historic for the manner of bills passed, most notably women’s suffrage seven years before it was granted nationally. In session from March 3 to May 1, 1913, the Legislature passed 84 bills. Of these legislations, some were merely the necessary business of the day, building the infrastructure of a government. But many of these bills were progressive in spirit, fueled in part by the reform atmosphere sweeping the nation, a response to rapacious corporations and corrupt political machines. Besides women’s suffrage, there were acts for workers’ rights, for environmental protections and to provide for elderly residents. From Nome, Freeding, Gaffney and Aldrich soon reached and followed the Yukon River, turning right at the Tanana, then joined the Valdez Trail south toward Prince William Sound. After a short ride on the Copper River and Northwestern Railway, they boarded a steamship at Cordova for the last leg. The trip was, in itself, an education. Said Gaffney upon his late February arrival in Juneau, “I never realized, before mushing over the trail to Valdez, the magnitude of Alaska and the greatness of its resources. I am very favorably impressed with all the coast cities we have visited. All of them show signs of prosperity and future greatness.” A table showing the mileage schedule and reimbursements for the first session of the Territorial Legislature, published in the March 14, 1913 editition of the Juneau Empire. For as difficult and lengthy as the Nome contingent’s journey was, it was not the longest. Rep. James C. Kennedy of Candle — on the northern side of the Seward Peninsula — traveled farther. Legislators were compensated for the distance traveled, and Kennedy received the most: $1,001.25, or roughly $33,000 in 2026 dollars. For the fun comparison, Sen. Herman Tripp of Juneau received 30 cents in recognition of his lesser trek. As the legislators arrived, they more or less took turns giving speeches, long quotes that played well back home. In general, they praised Alaska and promised to work hard. In his turn, Rep. Charles Ingersoll did likewise, albeit with additional rage toward the federal government and their disinterested management of Alaska over the previous decades. His speech is decidedly purple.Said Ingersoll, “For one reason and another Congress has always shown towards this territory a lack of confidence in the intelligence, stability and capacity of her people. After years of tearful appeal and hopeless denial of its rights, public announcement has at last been made that America has brought out in the full glare and splendor of an admiring world, decked out in the full and regal habiliments of American citizenship, this — Alaska — its youngest, its largest, its fairest and its most abused offspring.” From 1867 to 1912, Alaska was an American possession but not an organized territory. With the Second Organic Act of 1912, the former District of Alaska became the Territory of Alaska. The Act also established the Territorial Legislature. The first legislators quite literally needed to create and shape the very apparatus and procedures of the territorial government. In this way, many of the acts are structural. They instituted a board of medical examiners, licensing for dentists and pharmacists, a Territorial treasurer, juvenile courts, vital statistics recordkeeping, livestock inspectors, and health commissioners. They established standards for notaries public, contract language, wills, for-profit and nonprofit incorporation, and court summons. They also fixed interest rates. The 17th bill passed declares, “The rate of interest in the district shall be eight per centum per annum, and no more.” However, “But on contracts, interest at the rate of twelve per centum may be charged by express agreement of the parties, and no more.” Some of the legislation is now quaintly archaic, directly reflecting the technology and culture of the era. Of the 84 bills passed, two related to telegraph operation. The 24th and 25th bills made it illegal for unauthorized individuals to access and share telegraph messages. The maximum punishment for a telegraph operator who divulged message information to someone other than the intended recipient was a $1,000 fine and a year in prison.As World War I raged across the European continent, nationalism boomed in America. The fourth bill passed made it illegal to alter, deface or otherwise desecrate an American flag. When the United States entered the war in 1917, such patriotism further boomed, and the law was occasionally invoked. In early 1917, John Schmidt of Haines learned that a cousin had died in the war. Grieving, he hung an American flag outside his home, at half-mast and upside down. Some passing soldiers asked him to hang it correctly, and Schmidt refused. He was charged with defiling the flag, though the judge dismissed the charges on the condition that Schmidt salute and kiss the flag, which he did. Across the country, there were several incidents where anti-war protesters, Germans, labor activists and radicals of various breeds were forced to kiss the flag as a form of public humiliation, sometimes in lieu of worse punishment. In 1919, 186 members of the Industrial Workers of the World in West Virginia were marched into a town square and forced to kiss the flag.There were some bills that, if not exclusively Alaskan in origin, were yet more applicable here than in most other locations. Though disappearances were less frequent than during the heyday of the gold rushes, Alaska in 1913 remained a place where people often were seen one day and never again. The 60th bill provided for the disposition of estates for people who “disappear and cannot on reasonable inquiry be found.” As mining dominated the territory’s economy, explosives of every type were present in all sorts of generally public locations. The 63rd bill passed prohibited the transportation of explosives on passenger vessels, including dynamite, gunpowder, nitroglycerin, naphtha, benzene, gasoline, crude oil and refined petroleum but, of course, excepting fuel for said vessel. Packages of explosives also had to be clearly marked. That initial batch of legislators seemed to hate a pimp more than most criminal violators. They passed two acts targeting pimps, Senate Bills No. 71 and 23, the 57th and 75th bills passed, respectively. They are rife with slang, including “houses of ill fame” to mean brothels and “macques,” then a synonym for pimp. “Macque” derives from the French “maquereau,” an early modern term for a pimp.The word “macque” evolved into the more modern “mack,” a stylish, smooth man, more a romantic player than actual pimp. For those familiar with 1990s rap, this is the “mack” they were all talking about, from Mack 10 to Chris “Mac Daddy” Kelly and Chris “Daddy Mac” Smith of Kriss Kross. I believe it was Sir Mix-a-Lot who said in 1992, “Ain’t you tired of that gameless mark smackin’ you in your face, baby? Mack Daddy. You better roll with the big mack, the man with the game. Mack Daddy.” Etymology is a serious discipline crossing into all sorts of interesting directions. As written, the two pimping bills, for want of a better term, overlap and in parts contradict. Upon review by a district attorney, Senate Bill No. 23 was deemed unenforceable, and a substitute bill was drafted, yet both eventually passed. The actual sex work was already illegal, but as the contemporary coverage put it, these bills were “designed to make felons of the parasites that live off the white slave traffic.” Bureaucracy, explosives and pimps aside, many of the bills possessed a reform spirit, in keeping with the age. The women’s suffrage bill is the most obvious. Again, this was 1913. Alaska was not the first territory or state to allow women to vote, but it was well before women were guaranteed the right to vote on a national level. Congress passed the 19th Amendment in 1919. It was ratified in 1920, becoming the law of the land that Aug. 26. In other countries, it took even longer. For example, women in the United Kingdom did not gain voting rights equal to men until 1928. A cartoon in the March 18, 1913 edition of Tacoma Daily Ledger comparing the suffrage movements in Alaska and the United Kingdom. While the suffrage bill was the first act passed, that position does not necessarily mean it was at the forefront of legislative business. It was not the first proposed legislation; it was House Bill No. 2. In fact, there is some evidence that legislators saw suffrage as a burden to clear before conducting real business. Before the sessions, Sen. Henry Roden of Iditarod stated, “We talk glibly about suffrage, Australian ballot, referendum, and other theoretical propositions, and I am in favor of all of them. But first I want to see some material good accomplished.” To be clear, there were limits to the legislators’ progressivism. The Alaska bill did not grant all Alaska women the right to vote. From the act, “the elective franchise is hereby extended to such women as have the qualifications of citizenship required of male electors.” By “qualifications of citizenship,” they excluded Alaska Native women, who were not guaranteed citizenship until the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act. As Alaska Native political power subsequently swelled, the Legislature passed a bill in 1925 requiring voters to be able to read and write in English. The Alaska Constitution, implemented with statehood, likewise included English fluency as a voting requirement, a restriction officially removed in 1970. But there were other reform-minded bills, including several meant to protect workers. Workdays for Territorial or municipal labor were set at eight hours, with contractor violations subject to possible $500 fines and 90 days in jail. Caps on workdays and workweeks were among the preeminent goals of labor leaders in that era. In a separate bill, the Legislature also limited workers in the most dangerous mine and factory positions to eight-hour workdays. Employers were also prohibited from restricting where employers could lodge or shop, meaning laborers could avoid the excess charges of mandated company stores or boarding houses. Employers were also barred from falsely advertising jobs, a common practice at the time that took advantage of workers who had already traveled great distances to reach job sites. Lastly, companies that utilized heavy machinery were made liable for employee deaths on the job. As the gold rushes faded, those with the requisite youth, energy, bankroll and opportunities abandoned Alaska in droves. From 1910 to 1920, the Territory’s population declined from 64,000 to 55,000, which left a visibly grayer populace, particularly in the former boomtowns. In two bills, the Legislature authorized the establishment of “a home for aged prospectors in Interior Alaska” and the first Alaska Pioneers Home in Sitka. The legislation that session even included some early environmental laws. Individuals and companies were made liable for any animal carcass or other “offensive substance” that impaired the quality of any body of water or threatened to spread disease. Perhaps more interestingly, sawmills were barred from dumping sawdust, shavings or other waste byproducts into the water. However, what is seen as progressive in one generation is sometimes revealed as regressive by subsequent generations. Consider poll taxes, to pay for your right to vote. The first Territorial Legislature also passed a law requiring all men older than 21 and younger than 50 to pay $4 annually in order to be able to vote. Women, soldiers, Navy or Revenue Cutter Service sailors, volunteer firefighters, “paupers, insane persons, or Territorial charges” were exempt. Notably, police officers and Marshals were not exempt. Four dollars in 1913 is roughly $130 in 2026 dollars. There is no denying that poll taxes are financially discriminatory. Certainly, a $130 poll tax today would significantly decrease election turnout. No one should have to decide between groceries and voting. But again, attitudes change. In 1913, some people believed poll taxes furthered democracy, in that they made people care more about politics since they had paid for the privilege. There were racist and elitist tinges to this belief, as many advocates spoke in terms of increasing the quality of voters, of discouraging the undesirable from participation. Besides that, many politicians, including explicitly in Alaska, thought of poll taxes as a revenue source. This pro-poll tax logic was by no means universal, or possibly widespread. As the Valdez Daily Prospector editorialized in response to the poll tax bill, “From the standpoint of common justice a poll tax of any amount is wrong in principle, inasmuch as it bears with oppressive weight upon the day laborer, while the operator and business man does not feel its incidence at all.” And finally, some debates are inescapable, no matter the timeframe or other political stances of the individuals involved. In Alaska, that means discussions about moving the capital. The Legislature met in the Elks Lodge, as there was no Alaska capital building in 1913. The governor’s mansion had been completed just the year prior. Perhaps not coincidentally, the 71st bill passed made it a misdemeanor to pose as a member of a fraternal organization, the Elks explicitly included as an example. A $200 fine and 90 days in jail were the maximum punishment. As finely adorned as the Elks Lodge was, there was understandably some interest in a dedicated legislative structure. Thus erupted arguments over what they termed a “federal building.” Again, its existence was deemed more need than not, less a point of dissension than a conversation starter. Instead, there was disagreement over where to place this capital building. Discussion and proposals to move the capital were more common before statehood than after, an indication of their territorial-era frequency. People from Ketchikan, like Rep. Ingersoll, thought Ketchikan would make for a fine capital. People from Valdez, like Sen. B. F. Millard, thought Valdez would make a fine capital, so on and so forth. Meanwhile, rumors spread in Juneau that the capital would move all the way to Seattle.Representative Dan Driscoll of Fairbanks summarized the opposition to Juneau when he declared, “But if we are to have a federal building, let us build it in Alaska, build it in Knik, Valdez or some other point in the Territory. Why you fellows down here seem to think you are the territory and entitled to everything. I ask you what are we to get. Fairbanks has never got anything. You want to centralize everything down around this little wart of a place that isn’t even in the territory.”By “isn’t even in the territory,” Driscoll meant that Juneau was far removed, by leagues of distance and culture from the bulk of Alaska. In other words, the best thing about Juneau was that it was only a short boat ride from Alaska. His opinion was common then, shared by many Alaskans who lived beyond the Southeast. A reminder: Anchorage did not yet exist. Rep. Arthur Shoup of Sitka responded, claiming, “Juneau is the most centrally located spot in all Alaska.” He continued, “It doesn’t make any difference in what part of the Territory one lives in, he must pass through the city of Juneau to reach it. It doesn’t matter whether he travels in winter or summer.” At best, it was an argument as unique as a snowflake, based on the assumption that all travel in Alaska was either to or from the smaller states. On the other hand, Ketchikan was as centrally located as Juneau by this thinking. By the end, nearly all involved were exhausted and delighted by the session’s conclusion. The passing of winter meant the return of regular shipping, much to the delight of Freeding, Gaffney and Aldrich. No dog sleds in a blizzard this time. Gaffney took his time, into the Interior and on riverboats. Freeding and Aldrich were passengers on a Pacific Coast Steamship Company liner, the serendipitously named Senator. After a 10-day trip, they were comfortably resituated in Nome. Freeding was perhaps the most honest or grounded of the legislators. Most returned home and gave grand speeches again, ate and drank off the adulation. Freeding was too exhausted, given the journey that began five months earlier. He politely declined to speak.David Reamer is a historian who writes about Anchorage. His peer-reviewed articles include topics as diverse as baseball, housing discrimination, Alaska Jewish history and the English gin craze. He’s a UAA graduate and nerd for research who loves helping people with history questions. He also posts daily Alaska history on Twitter @ANC_Historian. Alaska’s stream of refugee arrivals has dropped to just a handful amid Trump administration dismantlingDuke, Arizona, Mich, Florida get top seeding for March Madness, Miami squeaks in as 11 seed
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