The Irish standard., 1903-02-21
THE ALASKAN TREATY RATIFIED,

vail.
| THE ALASKAN TREATY RATIFIED,
10 the astonishment of all patriotic
Americans. irrespective of party, the
| treaty entered into between Mr.. John
Hay and Sir Michael Herbert on the
| Alaskan boundary dispute was ratified
by the United States senate, although
it appears by the record that it had
not received the required two-thirds
vote for ratification This fact was
made manifest when Senator Pettus'
motion in executive session on Feb. 70
to reconsider the vote by which the
treaty was ratified" was defeated by
only 3S to %. The Democrats did not
expect the treaty to come UP III execu-
tive session on the previous day and
many of them We're absent. When
Senator Lodge saw tnat few Demo-
Gratis were present he called up the
Alaskan boundary treaty and rushed it
through. The president of the Senate
put the motion for it's ratification and
by a viva voce vote it was declared
carried. The Republicans knew they
could not 'ratify the treaty by fair
vote, and so they played a despicable
trick against which Senators Mason
and Teller protested in vain. There
are SIS members of the Senate if all
are present, but Lodges motion 10 lay
that Of Senator Pettus' on the table
showed that only So voted against Il
reconsideration. So by snap game
the treaty between Secretary Hay and
Ambassador Herbert was ''ratified'' by
the Rebublicans and the famous modus
vivendi of the author of Little
Breeches' has been pelpetuated indefi-
nitely.
President Roosevelt has appointed
three boundary commissioners, name
ly, Elihu Root, Secretary of War;
George Turner, senator from Washing
ton, and his Fidus Achates, Senator
Lodge of Massachusetts. We do not
like any of them. Root should attend
to army affairs; Turner voted for the
treaty against the protests of the
chambers of commerce of his state,
and Henry Cabot Lodge is an Anglo
maniac of the first water.
There is no necessity whatever for
the HayHerbert deal. Great Britain
and Canada have no valid claim on the
American territory they covet, and
none but British lickspittle like Hay
would admit the possibility Of a dis
pute on the boundary question. In Il
recent letter to the New York Tribune,
Frederick w. Seward, son of Lincoln's
great secretary Of state, who purchased
Alaska from Russia, says, among
other things:
"On the table before me, as 1 write,
are some copies of the maps-the map
prepared at St Petersburg in 1929 by
the Russian typographical bureau; the
map compiled by the deputy surveyor
! general of Lower Canada in 1881: the
map offered in evidence by Sir George
Simpson in London in 1917; the map
prepared by the United States coast
survey. and, finally. the British ad-
miralty chart published in 1877 and
corrected to 1898 by the photographer
of the royal navy. In all these the
boundary line between Russia and
British America runs thirty miles in
land, coming nowhere near that grand
old arm of the sea known as the Lynn
Canal or any of it's harhors-the line
just as it was laid down at the time
of the treaties. and just as the United
States says it should be nOw."
There is nothing in the boundary
question to settle ut this late day.
Three Brtislers and three Americans
without an umpire, cannot come to
any agreement if there is no change
on either side. In our opinion Lodge
will join the British commissioners
The man who played snap game in
getting the treaty ratified" by the
Senate and then defeating the motion
for reconsideration by a vote of IS to
25-four less than a two-thirds ma
jority-is capable Of siding with Great
Britain against his own country when
there is tie. OF course. the Republi-
can organs are pleased with the
treaty. They are pleased with any
thing done by the party they repre-
sent. The only excuse some of them
have for the ratification Of the treaty