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One argument against the construction of a lock canal was that the great locks at Panama might be destroyed by earthquakes. This flat arch, which any serious earthquake shock would destroy, has stood for nearly three centuries in the now ruined church of Santo Domingo at Panama, proving that fear of earthquakes is groundless (see page 169).

consequently overwhelmed and the commission was forced to withdraw its literature and make no promises. An attempt was made after that to provide a certain percentage of the employees with family quarters.

The greater part of the laborers on the canal were jamaican negroes. They were British subjects, but were ordinarily called "British objects." They make good servants if thoroughly trained and the routine is not varied.

To illustrate the effect of varying the routine: Visitors often came rather unexpectedly for lunch at Gatun, and in order that things might go right if my wife happened to be away when company came, she had prepared menus for lunches-number 1, number 2, number 3, etc. All I had to do was to telephone the cook that so many people were coming and to prepare lunch number so and so.

One day Mrs. Roosevelt and her daughter came with Mr. Bishop to see the work at Gatun, and after asking them to lunch, my wife being away, I telephoned the cook that there would be three extra people and to prepare luncheon number 1. I, unfortunately, said that Mrs. Roosevelt would be there.

The Jamaican has great respect for royalty. Before reaching home I heard that our servants had passed the word around among the other servants at Gatun that the Queen of America would take lunch at our house today. On entering the house it was evident that every piece of cut glass, silver, or pretty China in the place was out where it could be most easily seen.

On reaching the table it was soon seen that we had lunches 1, 2, and 3 combined. But finally, when four tiny cups of coffee were passed on a large salver resurrected

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The following article gives such a constructive and national presentation and discussion of our country's undeveloped resources that it should be read by every American. It forms the annual report to the President of the United States by Mr. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, and is here published in full. For a map of Alaska, see the Supplement to this number of the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE.

T

HERE exists a feeling in the West that its affairs and needs have not been given that consideration at the hands of the national government which they merit. This feeling is not confined to speculators or exploiters. It is the sentiment of many who are without selfish motive and regard the matter wholly from the standpoint of national growth. They point to the conditions which obtain in Alaska as unparalleled among people of our aggressive and nation-building stock.

So, too, they are unable to understand why ways have not been found by which the great bodies of coal and oil lands, of phosphate and potash lands, may be developed, and the waters of the mountains made available for the generation of power and the redemption of the desert. There is one very simple explanation for the existence of this feeling. We have adventured upon a new policy of administering developed adequate machinery. We have called a halt on methods of spoliation which existed, to the great benefit of many, but we have failed to substitute methods, sane, healthful, and progressive, by which the normal enterprise of an ambitious people can make full use of their We abruptly closed op

own resources.

our affairs and have not

portunities to the monopolist, but did not open them to the developer.

FORMERLY WE TRIED TO GET RID OF OUR LAND AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE

I have said that we had put into force a new land policy, which caused dismay and discontent. Let me explain what I mean by this. It was, in fact, but a new application of an old policy. Congress has always been most generous as to the disposition cf the national lands. One cannot read our land laws without being struck with the fixed determination which they show that it was wisest to be quit of our lands as quickly as possible. It might almost be said that the government regarded its lands as a burden rather than an asset. We gave generously to our railroads and to the States. There was

land for all, and it was the government's glad function to distribute it and let those profit who could.

There was no thought then of creating timber barons or cattle kings, or of coal monopoly. The sooner the land got into hands other than those of the govern

ment the better.

And this generous donor was not so petty as to discriminate between kinds of lands, the uses to which they could be put, or the purposes which those might

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"The purchase of Alaska was made as a means of protection against the possible aggression of a foreign nation and without the hope that it In the intervening 46 years we have given it little more than the most casual concern, yet its mines, fisheries, and would be even self-supporting. furs alone have added to our wealth the grand sum of $500,000,000' (see text, page 185).

THE NATION'S UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES

have who got them. Land is land, save when it contains minerals; this was roughly the broad principle adopted. To classify was a task too difficult or not worth while. The lands would classify themselves when they arrived in individual ownership. And so the door was opened for monopoly and for fraud.

If the government did not appreciate the invaluable nature of its assets, there were men who did. Great fortunes were laid in the vast holdings of what had but a short time since been the property of the people. There was danger that the many still to pour into the West would by necessity become the servitors of a fortunate and early few. On this discovery our indifference at once took flight. And so out of the abuse of the nation's generosity there came a reaction against a policy that was so liberal as to be dangerous.

The nation wanted home-makers, but found its lands drifting into the hands of corporations which were withdrawing them from the market, awaiting a time when lands would be more scarce; it gave opportunity for many competing coal operators and iron manufacturers, but found the sources of raw material centering into a few large holdings; it wished its lands to be cleared of forests to make way for farms, but it found hundreds of consecutive miles reserved from use by the fiat of those who appreciated their worth, and many more miles of watershed despoiled of its needed covering in places where homes were not possible.

A REACTION WAS INEVITABLE

A reaction was inevitable. If lands were to be withdrawn from public service, why might not the government do the withdrawing itself? The old philosophy that "land is land" was evidently unfitted to a country where land is sometimes timber and sometimes coal; indeed, where land may mean water-water for tens of thousands of needy neighboring acres; for the lands of the West differ as men do, in character and condition and degree of usefulness. We had not recognized. this fact when we said "land is land." Lands fitted for dry farming and lands that must forever lie unused without irri

185

gation; lands that are worthless save for their timber; lands that are rich in grasses and lands that are poor in grasses; lands underlain with the non-precious minerals essential to industry or agriculture; lands that are invaluable for reservoir or dam sites these varieties may be multiplied, and each new variety emphasizes the fact that each kind of land has its own future and affords its own opportunity for contributing to the nation's wealth.

So there has slowly evolved in the public mind the conception of a new policythat land should be used for that purpose to which it is best fitted, and it should be disposed of by the government with respect to that use. To this policy I believe the West is now reconciled. The West no longer urges a return to the hazards of the "land is land" policy, but it does ask action. It is reconciled to the government making all proper safeguards against monopoly and against the subversion of the spirit of all our land laws, which is in essence that all suitable lands shall go into homes, and all other lands shall be developed for that purpose which shall make them of greatest service; but it asks that the machinery be promptly established in the law by which the lands may be used; and this demand is reasonable.

ALASKA HAS ENORMOUS UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES

The largest body of unused and neglected land in the United States is Alaska. It is now nearly half a century since we purchased this territory, and it contains. today less than 40,000 white inhabitants, less than 1,000 for each year it has been in our possession. The purchase was made as a means of protection against the possible aggression of a foreign nation and without the hope that it would be even self-supporting. In the intervening 46 years we have given it little more than the most casual concern: yet its mines, fisheries, and furs alone have added to our wealth the grand sum of $500.000.000.

Indi

For almost a generation it was the rich harvest field of a single company. vidual fortunes have been made in that country larger than the price paid to

186

THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE

How

Russia for the whole territory. How rich its waters are we know, because they have been proved; but how rich its lands are in gold and copper, coal and oil, iron and zinc, no one knows. The prospector has gone far enough, however, to tell us that no other section of our land today makes so rich a mineral promise.

And in agriculture the government itself has demonstrated that it will produce in abundance all that can be raised in the Scandinavian countries, the hardy cereals and vegetables, the meats and the berries off which nine million people live in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. It has been estimated that there are 50 million acres of this land that will make homes for a people as sturdy as those of New England. Whether this is so or not, it would appear that Alaska can be made selfsustaining agriculturally.

This vast and unsurpassed asset lies almost undeveloped. A territory onefifth the size of the United States contains less than a thousand miles of anything that can be called a wagon road. It has a few inconsiderable stretches of railroad which terminate, with one exception, either in the wilderness or at a private industry. Only the richest of its mines can be worked, and one of its resources of greatest immediate value to the people, its coal lands, lies unworked.

The one constructive thing done by this government on behalf of Alaska in nearly half a century was the importation of reindeer for the benefit of the Eskimo on the border of the Arctic Ocean. For the white man we have done nothing—so little, in fact, that to mention what we have done is matter for chagrin and humiliation. I have thought that perhaps the scandals that have developed in Alaska have been in some part the result of a feeling that it was a No Man's Land, where the primal instincts and powers were the only law.

SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA HAS A MORE
EQUABLE CLIMATE THAN
WASHINGTON, D. C.

This unfortunate condition cannot be explained on the ground of the inhospitality of the Alaskan climate. A careful study of isothermal lines shows that some

of southeastern Alaska has a climate more temperate and more equable than that of Washington, D. C., while much of the greater portion to the north has a kindlier climate than Stockholm or St. Petersburg. Moreover, our people are not stayed in their quest for homes or wealth by the rigors of a long winter. The spirit and purpose which brought them from Europe to Virginia and to Massachusetts take them today to Montana and Saskatchewan. The United States lately opened to entry a tract of land in Montana for which there were 46,000 applicants for registration, and only 7,000 of these could be given an opportunity to homestead. There is more railroad building 500 miles north of the Canadian border than there is for the same distance south of it.

Why has not this land been developed? The frank answer is that we did not realize until within a few years that it was worth developing. As soon as we discovered its value as a national asset we became alarmed and drew back, affrighted at the thought that we might lose it, or at least that it would become the property of those who would exploit it without respect to the public interest. Since then we have been waiting to make up our minds as to what wisely could be done. We have hesitated and halted out of the very keenness of our appreciation of what Alaska might become.

It has rather been in compliment to Alaska than in derogation of her value that we have done so little for her in late years. It was a new land, to be opened under new conditions. The mistakes made there and here we did not wish to

repeat. But now, after a long pause, it would seem to be the sense of the people that we shall proceed at once and in a large way to deal with the problem of Alaskan development.

PROPOSED ADMINISTRATIVE BOARD

We have withdrawn Alaska from the too aggressive and self-serving exploiter. What have we to substitute as a safer servant of public interest? To this question I have given much thought, and my conclusion is that if we are to bring Alaska into the early and full realization

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