726

THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

All around Sitka the scenery is most picturesque, and if I could paint from still life, I should first want to try the view along the half-mile walk to the Indian River. The ferns grow to immense size. The great fir branches are laden to the ground with rare mosses and lichens, and looking back over the bay, studded with innumerable fir- bound islands, snow-capped mountains in the distance, the effect is enchanting and most conducive to romantic and legendary lore. The schools were under the manage­ment of the Presbyterians, and they have seven important mission stations in Alaska. The study halls and manual training schools were large and commodious, almost obscured by evergreen foliage, and flow r ers w^ere blooming everywhere. The teachers told me the girls were very intelligent, quick to learn, and the only trouble they had was from the United States marines stationed there, who occasionally coaxed one away. There was only one public school in Sitka, and they told me the United States had done comparatively nothing for education in Alaska. The Russians complained bitterly of the faithlessness of our pledges given to Russia regarding educational facilities. With a yearly revenue of a million dollars on seal furs alone, and enough gold in the Treadwell Mines at Douglass Island to pay our national debt, the United States only supports six public schools in Alaska, for a population of fourteen thousand eight hundred and fifty civilized and semi-civilized natives, and then wonders why there are cannibals within one hundred miles of Sitka. At Chilcat, one hundred and sixty miles north of Sitka, and the highest navigable point in the inland channel, we found the women the most peculiar of any yet seen. Their homes were wretched huts made of small poles, and the odors arising from the fish-oil on their bodies and cooking w r as stifling. The only articles the women offered for sale were the Chilcat blanket, the prices ranging from fifty-five dollars to seventy-five dollars each.

Juneau was our next important stop, and is the largest city in Alaska. Notwith­standing the cold, drizzling rain, the women and children were along the sidewalk, with their curios and salmon berries for sale. These latter are a most delicious berry, in size and shape like the raspberry, in color salmon. The women make them into a thick paste and dry for winter use. They have a good school and mission in Juneau. A lady of culture told me it was almost useless to try to do anything in the w r ay of missionary work, for the miners were so immoral in their habits they greatly hindered the influence for good. Many of the Indians were dissolute gamblers, and it is a common affair for them to sell their wives and daughters to the miners for three, six months, or more, as the inclination or gold of the miner might warrant. For crimes these men are amenable to United States law. Is there any law that gives them the right to barter their wives and daughters? Are you surprised that the Russian women sent a letter to President Harrison containing the following items: “ It is wdth amaze­ment and profound regret that w r e learn of the despotic rule of men over women in the one country to which of all others the world turns with hope, expecting progress toward equal rights and privileges.” After twenty years of neglect and w r rong, Alaska presents to us the only instance in the history of the United States where the right of representation and local legislation has been denied. If this is the state of affairs under a government of men alone, could they be worse, and might they not try the experiment of allowing the women to take a hand in straightening the tangles?

“ Whatever do you women want? we hear the scornful cry.

To you, O Christian commonwealth, we women make reply:

We w’ant a Christian commonwealth where just and equal laws

Shall make a needless mission ours who plead the woman’s cause.

. There are wrongs that must be righted, bitter wars that seek redress;

We can hear our sisters calling in their weakness and distress.

We need the power to lift them from their sad and evil pi ight;

’Tis for this we want the franchise, and we claim it as our right.”