FIGHT TO THE DEATH

Shannon News, 24 July 1928, Page 1

FIGHT TO THE DEATH

THE ROBIN HOOD OF ALASKA.

HOW “SOAPY' SMITH DIED.

Tourists to Alaska and Yukon shudder as they pass the narrow channel to Skagway, for, perched on a grey limestone cliff, 250 ft. above the water, is a. mammoth skull, whose teeth they can easily count---memorialising .‘ Soapy” Smith and his career of lawlessness, says the Vancouver correspondent of the Herald. Most notorious of Alaska’s bad men, Smith might have step-, ped out of fH dime novel or a penny dreadful. In the days of 1898, when Skagway v thronged with men seeking gold, and tragedy occurred dailyin the Chileoot Pass and on the Heartbreak Trail, Smith commanded the road to the Tvlondykc. Like’Robin Hood, he had a charitable streak. He frequently gave generously to women and children and to men who came back on the trail broken and defeated. Smith appeared in Skagway in the “fall” of 1897. There were 15,000 in. the port of The Yukon; now there are 500. He scon established,leadership over a gang of desperadoes, directing them from his ornate saloon and gambling house. Smaller gambling -operators were taxed by Smith on a 50-50 basis. When business was dull Smith would order his, gunmen out, to bring in customers by force. Me carried three guns—two on the hip and one under his left armpit. But ho never shot a man —except Frank Reid. How the Cronies Quarrelled. Frank Reid was 54, Smith was 36. Reid had laid out Skagway, and he believed that citizens should enforce the law when the authorities failed to do so. Oddly, Smith and Reid were cronies, although they disagreed on this subject of law and order. Smith said there was only one man in Alaska could “get” him; that was Reid. In July, 1898, Alexander Stewart, a prospector, came over the trail from. Dawson, en route to the “outside.” He deposited £6OO in gold dust with Smith according to the usual practice, in the absence of banks. When Stewart called for his gold, - Smith and his bartenders pretended they did not know him and- ordered Him out'.', “ Stewart appealed to Reid. This was the third similar theft that Reid had learned of and he decided that the prevailing form of banking must end. He called a mass meeting next night but Smith entered the liall, rapped for order, and declared the meeting adjourned. His gunmen prodded the audience’s ribs with/their revolvers, and told them to go home. Not desiring bloodshed, Reid acquiefeced, and the meeting broke up. Another meeting was called with the same result. Reid then summoned a meeting to be held on one of the. wharves, which could be approached only by causeways, forming aT. The location was strategic. Reid, relieved three men on guard at the wharf all day and at sunset made a deadline with a surveyor’s chain. Smith, hearing that Reid was holding the approach to the wharf, gulped down several tumblers of brandy seized a cavalry carbine and set out, followed by twenty armed henchmen, the populace bringing up the rear. Fatal Fight on the Wharf. Reid saw them coming. Sixty feet from the deadline, Smith halted. Reid told him he must not cross -the chain. Smith went on. A second warning had no effect and Read fired. Smith sank to his knees, with a bullet in his breast. Drawing his carbine, he fired, and Reid fell mortally wounded in the stomach. Smith, as he lay groaning, was forsaken by his henchmen. He died without comfort, beating the ground with his hands. Reid was taken t.< hospital and lingered for thr6e weeks. The world was moved by his gallant defence of law and order, and President McKinley sent a personal message, praying he would get well. His room at the hospital was filled with flowers, put there at the order of admirers on the “outside.” Reid’s funeral was the largest in Alaska’s history. On his tomb is the epitaph: “He gave his life for the honour of SkagAvay. ” Smith’s body, Avrapped in a mackinaw blanket, was buried in a rough spruce box. A AA r ooden slab marks his grave Avhicli is not 20ft. from Reid’s, on a hill overlooking the toAvn they both loved—in different .vays. Federal prisons accommodated the majority of Smith’s gang.