Policing the plains

by R. G. MacBeth

But speaking of railways it is interesting to find statements from that observant officer, Superintendent Constantine, who despite the fact that his health had been undermined by the hardships of the Yukon was still on duty in the Peace and Athabasca regions. In 1907 he discusses the development of the Peace River country from an agricultural standpoint. He covers very carefully the great areas that include the Grande Prairie, Spirit River, Fort Vermilion and the rest and makes careful analysis of their agricultural capabilities. He sees great possibilities, but places forcibly in his report the absolute need of railway communication with the eastern centres before much can be expected. His forecast has proven correct in every particular. These regions now have railway and river transportation and are prospering accordingly. One wonders now why extracts from the reports of these men on the ground were not put before the people in general instead of being allowed to suffer from being buried alive in the departments of Government. All through these official reports from the Mounted Police officers and men, we find statements and suggestions that might have influenced the progress of the country greatly had they been given wider publicity throughout the years.

The Yukon country was undergoing a good many changes. The mad rush of miners into the Mining areas had dwindled away and big companies with new hydraulic processes were crowding out the individual miners and causing them to seek new fields for exploitation. But the vultures and vampires of human society were slow in letting go their victims, and the Mounted Police had to be constantly on the watch to prevent the unwary and the foolish from being caught in their dens. That reliable officer, Inspector Wroughton, who was in command at Dawson City in 1907, says, "Dance-halls and their accompanying evils have been more or less accountable for a good deal of the existing crime. But for these institutions the wanton and the sneak-thief and the confidence man and woman would find their opportunities seriously curtailed. During the last session of the Yukon Council, I am glad to state, the ordinance licensing these places was repealed after a hard and bitter struggle. This does not mean that the evils are entirely eradicated. Our great difficulty is to get evidence. It is, however, more difficult now to carry on evil businesses." The law in the Yukon as elsewhere was fulfilling the function assigned to it in the famous words of Gladstone, "A good law is intended to make it easier for people to do right and harder for them to do wrong."

That great mining frontier, with its money-mad and heterogeneous population (albeit there were many splendid people there), was at the same time the problem and the glory of the men in scarlet and gold. It was their problem because the criminal class which always makes a dead set on a frontier was determined from the outset to make the Klondike country a sort of hell on earth, and it was their glory because they prevented the thug and the outlaw from getting a foothold where the old flag flew. There also the lawless individual sought to get away to some other clime, for he said there as he said in the mountains, "These blamed Mounted Police won't give a man a chance." That was one of the biggest testimonials ever given to guardians of the law in any country.

It is not at all generally known that a real "red" revolution that aimed at seizing the banks and mines with the hope of dividing the spoil amongst the "revolutionists" was planned in the Yukon a decade or more before the Bolshevistic terror was let loose in Europe. "Soapy Smith" the unsavoury but reckless gunman of Skagway, had developed a school of imitators. There were probably a couple of thousand or so of these tough characters scattered all through the north country camps, and the idea was to rally them to a centre, overpower the few policemen, establish a sort of "liberty" government, seize the money and anything else that could be carried, divide it up and then scatter to the outside before any reinforcements could come to the aid of the Mounted Police from the East. It was an ambitious programme and the "revolutionists" had gone some distance in their preparations. They had arms stored in certain localities, they had a seal for the temporary government (which seal I have personally seen), they had maps prepared indicating the centres to be attacked as well as a record of the Mounted Police posts with the number of men in each.

But these same Mounted Police were not asleep. They never hunted after publicity for themselves. They never thought of the grandstand. It would have been often more spectacular to have allowed things to come out into the open and then fight them in a dramatic way. But the preventive power was what they preferred to exercise. It brought them less advertisement and public notice, but it was best for the country and that was the main thing with the scarlet and gold men.

So Superintendent A. E. Snyder, who was in command at White Horse, where the principal leaders of the plot had, unfortunately for themselves, located, discovered the half-hatched conspiracy. A knock-about kind of fellow who had a wholesome fear of the police gave Snyder a hint about some meetings in a stable loft. Snyder got his men to search the stables and they discovered some incriminating literature as well as the White Horse seal of the "republic," which latter Snyder still has in his possession. Then he wired to Superintendent Primrose at Dawson and to Comptroller Fred Whyte in Ottawa, at the same time dispatching Inspector Horrigan to Skagway to put the matter before the American officials. This energetic type of action frightened the conspirators. They scattered to the four winds and most of them rushed out of the country. It was "good riddance of bad rubbish" and the Canadian authorities decided to let it drop at that point. But the incident, which hardly anyone outside the police officers above mentioned knew anything about till some years had passed, is another proof of the statement that the Mounted Police have headed off more crime without killing than any other body of men in the world.

In his report for 1908 Commissioner Perry quotes with justifiable pride from a judgment given in an extradition case by Mr. Justice Hunt of the United States Federal Court. Counsel for one Johnson who was fighting extradition put up the plea that Johnson would not get a fair trial in Canada and the Judge answers that plea very squarely in his pronouncement. He felt that a strong case had been made out against Johnson, and he practically ridiculed the suggestion that Johnson would not get fair play north of the line. The Judge said in part, "The fact that the officer (Mounted Police) who made the arrest of this defendant promptly notified him that whatever he said would be used against him, is a powerful bit of testimony, tending to show the care with which officers of the law proceed under British systems of government. Extraditing a prisoner for trial in Canada is not like returning him to a country where the institutions and laws are so at variance with our own that the courts might be apprehensive that he might not be protected, but in ordering that he be returned to Canada, certainly the courts in the United States will proceed on the well-founded belief, justified by the light of experience, that he will be afforded ample protection and that no injustice will be done him. The testimony of the defendant regarding a conspiracy against him, and his statement that he cannot get a fair trial, do not appeal a particle to a Judge sitting in a proceeding of this kind. He will get a fair trial up there."

HERSCHELL ISLAND. YUKON TERRITORY.