30 deaths among the passengers on the last trip of the steamer Victoria. At Kodiak and on Cook Inlet the mortality was extremely high. Nealy 500 native children who would otherwise have starved, were cared for under my authorization.

Shortly after the outbreak of influenza, calls for relief commenced to arrive from all parts of Alaska. The Territorial appropriations providing for the enforcement of the health and sanitation act and for the relief of destitution fell far short of being sufficient for the needs. I was faced by the alternatives of allowing the disease to run rampant throughout the Territory or of assuming authority to give relief and establish quarantine measures.

Particularly in Nome and on the Seward Peninsula was the epidemic most severe. Whole villages of Eskimos lost their entire adult population. Many infants were frozen in their dead mothers' arms. To make matters more gruesome, the half-starved dogs mangled and mutilated the dead and dying. The Bureau of Education, in charge of the natives of Alaska, was powerless to render much assistance on account of lack of funds. I was asked to take charge of the situation. Bearing in mind that law which reads―

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employ

Nor shall any department or any officer of the Government personal service in excess of that authorized by law, except in cases of sudden emergency involving the loss of human life or the destruction of property, and the many deficiency appropriations made by Congress in the past for the relief of other wards of the Government, particularly in the States, I assumed all authority and instituted such measures as seemed best. Medical relief was given where possible, destitution was relieved, and the orphan children gathered up and placed in institutions until appropriations should become available for their permanent care. The Public Health Service rendered aid to a limited extent in the matter of employing physicians and nurses. After the worst of the epidemic was over the American Red Cross lent some financial assistance and sent nurses and physicians north on the naval collier Brutus. The bulk of the authorizations, however, were unprovided for. The burial of dead natives alone cost approximately $20,000.

A bill was introduced in the Senate appropriating $100,000 for Alaskan relief, and passed that body, but failed in the House. Items attached to the sundry civil and deficiency bills also failed of passage in the House. As a last resort, I appealed to the legislature and received an appropriation from our scanty treasury of $70,000 for the relief of the native wards of the Federal Government and $23,000 for whites-this in addition to some $18,000 or $20,000 already expended from various other Territorial funds. At approximately the same time Congress considered appropriations of $100,000,000 for the relief of the destitute of Europe and $1,000,000 for fighting influenza in the States.

It will be impossible to ever receive a full account of all the distress caused by the epidemic of October, November, and December. Even yet reports are arriving of several villages having been entirely wiped out and the bodies eaten by dogs. One little half-breed girl, picked up in an igloo and hurried to the hospital, suffered amputation of both legs. The superintendent of education, Mr. Walter Shields, was one of the first to die. Nome's only physician, Dr.

Neuman, was himself early smitten with pneumonia and had two relapses, leaving the post surgeon, Dr. Burson, the only medical officer in the vicinity. The acting superintendent of education, Mr. Evans, worked long and unceasingly, rendering relief and authorizing care for the many orphans.

I doubt if similar conditions existed anywhere in the world-the intense cold of the arctic days, the long distances to be traveled by dog team, the living children huddled against their dead parents already being gnawed by the wolfish dogs. Dr. Lamb, of Marshall, at my request, hurried to Old Hamilton, where all the natives were dying, but he himself caught the disease and died. And no assistance at that time could be procured from any helpful agency. They were all too much engrossed with the woes of Europe to be able to note our own wards, seemingly protected by solemn treaty with Russia, dying by swarms in the dark of the northern nights.

At Kodiak the last steamer for the early winter planted influenza among the natives and half-breeds. There is no doctor at Kodiak, and storms prevented the attempted sending of relief until the naval collier Brutus arrived after the epidemic had subsided. Had it not been for the splendid efforts of the deputy United States marshal at Kodiak, Mr. Karl Armstrong, the mortality would have been farreaching and very fatal. He early stopped travel among the Aleuts and personally cared for the sufferers.

And so the winter epidemic finally wore itself out, but with the opening of the fishing season the first steamers to Unalaska and Bristol Bay brought the deadly germ. For these places the Indian question is solved. Two hundred and thirty-eight orphans, so far reported, are practically all that are left of an Aleut and half-breed population of between 800 and 1,000. In this epidemic the Territory was not placed to as great an expense as in the former one. The Navy Department responded nobly to my cry for help. Capt. Dodge, with the coast guard cutter Unalga, was early on the scene in Unalaska. Officers and crew threw themselves into the work of relief with vim and enthusiasm. Practically the entire population was down. The men of the Unalga nursed the sufferers and cooked for practically the entire village. Lieut. Commander Reardon, on the Vicksburg, left Juneau without delay and cooperated willingly and efficiently with Capt. Dodge. Later still, Capt. Tarrant, on the Marblehead, toward the end of the epidemic, arrived with Red Cross nurses. The jackies, with Navy spirit, cooked, nursed, laundered, and sewed garments for the sick. The work of the Navy was splendid. Nor must I fail to express my appreciation to the many unpaid workers for Territorial welfare; there were many who neither asked nor received pay or recognition for services freely and willingly given.

If there should be another epidemic this year I do not know what I can do. The Territory can not afford to go to such expense again, nor is it right that it should be required to do so.

CONSOLIDATION OF GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY.

As time goes on and new legislation becomes effective the confusion existing as a result of conflicting departmental authority in Alaska becomes more and more evident. Those interested in Alas

kan conditions can do no better than to read the bulletin written by Secretary Lane, entitled "Red Tape in Alaska." More than anything else that has been written this shows the absolute necessity for a consolidation of authority. In forest reserves the Department of Agriculture has full charge until a settler appears, when, after satisfying the officials of the Forest Service, he must comply with the land laws executed by the Department of the Interior. This causes unavoidable delay. The fisheries are under the Department of Commerce, but cannery sites, if in forest reserves, must be procured from the Department of Agriculture, while fish-trap sites are procured from the War Department. Of the wild animals, those noted as game animals, are under the Department of Agriculture, while the fur-bearing animals are under the Department of Commerce. Separate wardens are appointed for each service.

Road building is so mixed up it is almost impossible to make a start in the telling. The War Department builds and maintains roads under direct appropriation by Congress and with money derived from the Alaska fund. Some roads within forest reserves are constructed entirely by the Department of Agriculture, while others are constructed by the Alaska Road Commission of the War Department with funds furnished by the Department of Agriculture. Other roads within forests are constructed by the Department of Agriculture under cooperative agreement with the War Department and the Territory. Still other roads are built by the Territory from funds derived from the forests, and still more roads are built by the Territory from its own resources. The various operations are comparatively small; yet each organization must have its own distinct overhead.

With the permission of the Department of Agriculture, birch wood, so much needed in the manufacture of furniture, can be exported from the forest reserves, but the best stands of birch lie within the public lands and are prohibited from export by law. As there is no local use for birch, except as firewood, much valuable timber is destroyed and good revenue lost. This should undoubtedly be rectified.

There are bird and mammal reserves and islands for lease to fox farmers administered by the Department of Agriculture. There are other islands leased for fox farming by the Department of Commerce. National park and national monument reservations are under the Department of the Interior. There are other reserves under the jurisdiction of the War Department, the Interior Department, the Navy Department, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Justice, and the Treasury Department. Many of the reservations are ill advised and should and would be eliminated if there could be one central authority to take any interest in the matter. Many of the reserves have been forgotten even by the department making them.

That all this interlocking authority, of which the above is only an incomplete statement, leads to inefficiency, delay, and extravagance, is acknowledged by all; yet it seems impossible to overcome the state of existing inertia.

I advocate the centralization of all possible authority in Alaska in the Department of the Interior, which is the logical department

to handle Territorial affairs. The department should then centralize all bureau administration in Alaska itself. This would make an effective government responsible to but one chief. There could be one Territorial budget and one overhead administrative organization. Action at all times could be prompt, and there would not exist the need of corresponding at times with as many as three different departments before desired action can be taken.

POLICE PROTECTION.

If I were asked, What is the crying need of Alaska? I should unhesitatingly answer, Police protection. There are four United States marshals, one for each of the four judicial divisions into which the Territory is divided. There are 55 deputy marshals, including the chief deputies, clerks, stenographers of the various marshals' offices, leaving approximately 40 deputies available for the enforcement of law over 590,000 square miles of territory. These marshals are so hemmed in with departmental restrictions that they can not be considered a police force in any sense of the word. They are technically process servers solely, except when they exceed authority in the interest of law and order. It is really remarkable that with such restricted authority the marshals have been able to accomplish what they have, but the fact remains that as a force for the prevention and detection of crime they are not of the highest value.

In addition to the marshals there are some 30 or 35 wardens of various sorts-fish wardens, fur wardens, forest rangers, game wardens, and special agents for the suppression of the liquor traffic among the natives. I have endeavored to have reciprocal duties placed on all these wardens, and while this has nominally been done by the greater number of the bureaus, still there has been little interest evoked among the individual employees, excepting among those directly responsible to the governor's office. Our wardens have rendered undoubted service to the Bureau of Fisheries in the matter of detecting and seizing illegally taken furs and in the enforcement of fish regulations. Some employees of other bureaus have refused to cooperate at all.

In my report for 1918 I advocated the establishment of a uniformed constabulary. I again earnestly make this recommendation. A force so established could exercise the entire police power of the Territory, including that of the various bureaus with the exception of the necessary technical employees. The force could be patterned after the State constabulary of Pennsylvania or the royal northwest mounted police of Canada, and should be absolutely divorced from politics. The officers and men should be carefully picked and trained. The officers should be given the powers of justices of the peace when far removed from offices of United States commissioners. Now is the time of all others, while the Army is being demobilized, when it would be possible to pick up a splendid body of men, trained as soldiers and accustomed to hardship. We need a constabulary not only for police duty but we need it for all manner of relief work, rescue of lost persons, enforcement of quarantine and sanitary measures, and for special duty of every kind. Two hundred men of a constabulary scattered throughout the Territory, with travel equipment suited to their particular locality, would have a wonderful effect upon Territorial development and could perform all the work

now done by the wardens of the various bureaus. A battalion of troops divided among several Alaskan Army posts could be withdrawn and the posts turned over to the constabulary. Troops are absolutely lost in Alaska; they have no duties outside of barracks routine. In winter there is little opportunity for outdoor life; in consequence the men are discontented and unhappy. Aside from a moral influence and from the benefit derived from money spent in the towns near by, they are of little use to the Territory except in marked emergencies. Let a constabulary be substituted for the soldiery. The cost to the Government will be little more and a constructive service will be established.

NAVAL PATROL.

During 1918 a naval patrol, consisting of two submarine chasers, the 309 and 310 and the converted Coast and Geodetic Survey ships Explorer and Patterson, were established in Alaskan waters. The two sub chasers were stationed in southeastern Alaska, while the two larger ships were sent to Prince William Sound and Bristol Bay. Their presence had an undoubted effect on the seditious element within the Territory, which showed evidences several times of causing serious disturbances. The principal duty of the patrol lay in the protection of the fishing and canning industries, which at that time were furnishing greatly needed supplies of sea-food products. On account of the beneficial results of the former patrol, I requested that it be continued throughout the year 1919. The gunboat Vicksburg and the submarine chasers were returned to Alaskan waters in May and have been most energetic in their activities. The Vicksburg rendered splendid service in the Aleutian Islands and in the vicinity of Bristol Bay during the outbreak of influenza in May and June of this year. The 310, stationed in Prince William Sound, quieted what bid fair to be a serious disturbance between the white and native fishermen at Yakutat, and the 309 has rendered similar service at Klawock. At present the patrol is taking active steps to suppress fish piracy, which has been engaged in more than ever before.

There should constantly be stationed at Juneau a naval or Coast Guard vessel, available for rescue work in case of shipwreck and for cooperation at all times with the Federal and Territorial authorities. During the summer season there should be at least four of the smaller craft on constant duty. So far the results have been invaluable, particularly in the absence of other police power.

The patrol is ordered to Alaska "until the close of navigation," but as there is no close of navigation in southern and southeastern waters, I take this to mean until the close of the fishing season.

Besides the naval patrol during the summer months, the Coast Guard cutters Bear and Unalga, although under temporary naval control, have been at their usual summer stations, the Unalga having rendered distinguished service in the Aleutian Islands and Bristol Bay during the epidemic of influenza among the natives.

POPULATION.

During 1918 the population of Alaska reached its lowest ebb. Vessels reporting to the customs showed an excess of departures over arrivals of 9,909 persons. Small vessels carried a great number to