THE PRIZE OF THE PACIFIC
Aside from our interests which are now bound up in the great war there
is no problem confronting the United States which is so vital as that
of Alaska and the Pacific Coast. Separated as she is from the
motherland by a foreign country, the shipping to and from Alaska is the
most important thing to be considered. True, two of her river systems
furnish five thousand miles of navigable water, but in winter they are
choked with ice and the country is as yet painfully short on railroads!
The Pacific Ocean is the great problem of the American people to-day
and Alaska is the prize beyond compute of the Pacific Coast.
It is high time that the American people and the United States
Government as well rubbed their eyes and awakened to a fact long known
to the few of us who have been on guard. The cards were shuffled some
time ago and are just lying, waiting to be dealt in the greatest game
that has ever been played! Before the war we used to hear much talk
about the "control of the seas." How many of us realized what that
expression meant? The war has opened our eyes. Who is it that has the
shuffled cards lying ready? Who is it that _wants_ the Pacific? The
answer is ready and instant. _Japan!_
Every school boy knows that the United States owns the Aleutian
Islands. He knows also that they stretch all the way across to Asia and
separate Bering Sea from the Pacific. In this group of Islands is one
which has an ice-free front. It is called Dutch Harbor. It would prove
an excellent base, if properly fortified, in the control of the Pacific
Ocean. Out of our hands Dutch Harbor would be just as effective a
barrier _against_ us as Gibraltar now is against Spain! In time of war
a naval enemy would have a good chance of beating us to Dutch Harbor
and accomplishing what we, with a lack of foresight have failed to
do,--bar the way to Alaska to us forever after.
Why the seriousness of this has not been realized by the government is
inexplainable. Alaska is our most valuable possession. It is not mere
womanish fear which forces us to recognize that we are in danger of
losing her. There can be no question that in the event of a struggle
for the possession of the Pacific the fate of Alaska will be exactly
that which befell Korea in the Manchurian war of a decade or two ago.
Nor is this all. Who can sit still at this very moment and see the Japs
pushing eastward through Siberia without apprehension?
A hostile fleet in Dutch Harbor and Alaska will fall of her own weight!
The distance to Dutch Harbor is just the same from Yokohama as it is
from San Francisco! Dutch Harbor is to us what Gibraltar was to Spain
in the days of the Armada. Shall we, like Spain, fail to realize her
value until too late? If so, our experience can not be other than that
which befell her. The tremendous significance of our failure to make
Dutch Harbor impregnable and impassable will one day stun us. But the
great war has forced us into doing what long ago we should have done
without being forced. We are feverishly building ships. If we get our
great fleet in order, and if we do it _first_, then it may be that the
shuffled cards may never be dealt. There may be no game. There are
those who never play unless they see the way open to win!
We have another strategic point also. This is Rugged Island, lying in
Resurrection Bay. This Bay was so named by the Russians who discovered
it on the anniversary of Our Lord's Resurrection. Rugged Island is an
easy point of attack and the government has recently appropriated
seven hundred thousand dollars to fortify it.
No comedy of Æschylus ever equaled a proposition put forth in Congress
not long ago by the Hon. Frank O. Smith of Maryland. Under the
astounding and absurd title of _Eugenic Peace_ he proposed that in the
interest of world peace the United States should cede to Canada the
southern part of Alaska, known as the Panhandle! This section shuts off
a large region of Canada from the sea.
Strangely enough, the proposition secured the support of a number of
eminent men (not one of whom, however, had ever been to Alaska) but to
one who lives here it is the limit and pinnacle of absurdity. First of
all, the business affairs of the people living here are conducted
almost wholly with Seattle and San Francisco. Would they consent to
such a change? Never! Their business would be paralyzed if turned over
to Canada, thereby necessitating the payment of a tariff on their
exports. Just think what such a proposition would entail. Fully
one-third of the salmon fisheries of the world are in the Panhandle!
One of the largest gold mines in the world (the Treadwell, on Douglas
Island) is located here. Great forests of timber (to cut which has
been forbidden by the government) cover a large part of the area in
question. Here, also, are Juneau, the capital of Alaska; Sitka, the
ancient Russian capital; Ketchikan, Wrangell, and many other fishing
and trading towns containing more than half the permanent population of
the whole of Alaska! Why not present Canada with the northern peninsula
of Michigan, or the tip of the State of Washington?
There is no doubt that Canada would be glad to arrange things so that
her traffic with the Yukon might be carried on without the payment of
tariff duties. Well, there is a remedy, but it does not lie in the
transfer of territory. It lies in reciprocity of trade,--if not
reciprocity, then _free_ trade to and from the Yukon and Skagway, its
natural seaport. But the idea of ceding the whole country in order to
accommodate the residents in the much less important part of the Yukon
is a proposition about which it is difficult to be serious! What a joke
the United States would be playing upon herself!
For a long time after the historic days of "Fifty-four forty or fight"
there was much argument over the boundary of Alaska. It culminated in
1898, however, in the decision of the Lord Chief Justice of England,
Lord Alverstane, that the contention of the American members of the
Commission (Elihu Root, Henry Cabot Lodge and Ex-Senator Turner) was
correct and should be sustained. This decision gave to the United
States complete control of the seacoast and all the bays and channels
opening into it. And it is a control it behooves us to keep! But the
greatest need of Alaska to-day is a railroad running _into_ the country
by means of which troops could be sent from the United States. This
road would have to run through Canada, and here again is a problem for
the statesmen of our country to ponder over _and solve_!