, 1868-09-11
Trouble in Alaska.

The lately>purchased Territory of Alaska
seems to have already experienced the early
fate of nearly all other Territories of the
United States-yiz: Wranglines and disputes
among the civilized inhabitants, in regard to
business and other matters, and disputes be-
tween the aborigines and the new settlers.
Not many weeks since, the first appearance
at Sitka of that genuine American institu-
tion-an Indian disturbance-was ehronicled
Subsequently came the regular old-style stors
les Of disputes between rival land claimants /;
of usurpation and misuse of power and posi-
ton on the part of the military; of mineral
discoveries-all running along in pretty much
the same order that they did in Idaho, Mes
vada, Nebraska, Montana, etc. The last
Alaska sensation was story of fraud and
speculation, put forth in connection with the
old Russian Fur Company and its American
successors, the scenes of which are laid on
the Aleutian Islands Such stories, and
the foundation for them, seem to be the ma
tural accompaniments of the territorial pro,
gress of the United States on the American
Continent, and noting events as they have
happened 10 the past and the present, we do
not know but they are the foreshadowings Of
what is sure to follow our national footsteps.
If coming events do really cast their shad-
ows before, they have certainly done so in
the history of our country; and the strifes,
broils, and disputes which have ever enliv-
ened the early history of our Territories, were
the premonitory shadows of the exeitements,
uncertainties, squabbes and tumults which
have ever been the events to follow. Every.
where we enter upon our course of territor-
ial expansion in storm and strife, and every
where we storm along in our progress in
the most violent and noisy manner. These
facts are to be attributed to the indomitable
will of the people-theif restless energy,
their impatience of control, and the wild
spirit OF speculation, which, from the first
period of their existence, take possession Of
their being. 1t is not surprising, then, that
We see enaeting in Alaska scenes which have
been enacted on larger scale all the way
across the continent, from the shores of
Massachusetts, Bay to the waters of the
Pacific, and from the st. Lawrence to the Rio
Grande. Our very nature. as people, is
noisy and turbulent, and at every step Of our
onward national march the air resounds
with the echoes of our restless, wrangling
and pushing dispositions. The sultry airs
of the South do not melt them into silence,
nor are they frozen into stiffness by the Bit
ing winds Of the Arctic Ocean. We need,
then, feel no surprise at the stories which
are occasionally waited to us from Alaska S
frozen shores. There would, indeed, be oc.
cason for surprise did we not hear such re-
ports and were they not, in great measure,
well founded. There would, perhaps, be
cause for sadness did we not hear them; for
the absence of all the usual attendants upon
our spread of empire might be hailed as omi.
nous of evil-as forewarning that the Na>
ton had attained the limit of its expansion,
its greatness and its power; that it had
reached its perihelion, and that hereafter its
course would be downward. A learned ass
trouomer once contended that SO long as
comets appeared in the heavens, the earth
aud its entire planetary system might be
considered safe that they are messengers of
good. bearing from planet to planet the It'd
ings that all is well % So of the stories
Of turmoils aud strifes-bad business faith
and worse management, which comes to us
from our new territories-they are sure
harbingers of future national progress and
greatness, true indicators that the national
spirit is still alive aud moving; and, there
fore, are to be received with certain degree
ofthankfulness and peasure-S. F. Call.