Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1877-10-24
Our Alaska Investment.

A decade has elapsed since the doub-
lie crested eagle flew from the dreary
length and chilly breadth of Alaska,
and during that time the intense mater
ialistic eyes Of our fellow-citzens have
been keenly scrutinizing the rugged
land, the timber thickets, the furry
beasts, and tinny visitants that are
purely and essentially Alaskan, with
the undisguised determination to strike
in at once where it would pay They
have struck thus far once, and only
once.
Few understand, or understood, the
underlying motives which prompted
the purchase of Russian America; for
the truth is that the idea was a sug-
gestion at first ON the part of Seward to
divert the general feeling Of opposition
arising over envy policy" indorsed and
advocated SO energetically bv his chief,
and the purpose arose within the dis
tinguished Secretary's mind by a sud-
den cognizance of the following facts
The charter of the old Russian Amer
lean Company expired in 1862. The
company was deeply in debt, and the
government was hesitating over the adj
visibility of renewing the lease to the
same company and under the same
terms; and while hesitating in this way
from year to year, company of Amer
lean merchants in San Francisco made,
through the Russian consul there, over
lures for the purchase of the exclusive
right of trade in Alaska for Il stated
term of years. Baron Stocked, Rus
sian minister at Washington. had occa-
sion soon to call Stewards attention to
this matter, and then the idea entered
the Secretary's mind Of purchasing the
country out and out; for, he reasoned,
if a few of our traders find the enter
prise Of practically owning and control
ling that vast area one SO simple and
profitable, why should not the United
States government at once possess its
elf of Russian America, since it evil
IDENTIFY begs for an owner? And, acting
on this logic, Mr.. Seward moved
promptly with negotiation, and found
willing coadjutor in the form Of the
Russian minister; and we all know how,
in a storm of mingled appreciation and
lively opposition, the treaty was finally
ratified
And so we took Alaska ten years ago,
just as a big boy takes q strange toy,
full of great satisfaction, and fired with
an intense desire to investigate its inner
workings, and, like the boy, we have
made the examination, and we have
laid the toy aside. How we pitied the
ignorance of our Russian friends who
declared, in response to our call for in
formation regarding its natural resour-
ces, that they had been SO engrossed in
the one idea of getting furs that they
really did not know Of anything else;;"
and after ten seasons of careful inquiry
we find, too, that we to-day don't
know of anything else"
However, though we have lost the
wild apples at Sitka, and have failed to
see the simmer of golden fields of
corn at Kodiak, yet we have much to
please and far more to interest us in
Alaska 1t is a paradise for the natur-
alist, happy hunting-ground for the
ethnologist, a new and boundless field
for the geologist, and the physical pine
nomena of its climate are something
wonderful to contemplate. 1t is, and
will be for years to come, a perfect
treasure-trove for these gentlemen; but,
alas! it bids fair, from what we now
know, never to be a treasure-trove for
the miner or the agriculturist.-H. W.
ELLIOTT, in Harper's Magazine for Nouena-
Der.