The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-04-30
A WONDER OF THE WORLD.

Is the Rapid March of Events in the Great Northwest.
 In the Northwest everything seems to have happened within the last ten years: events which would be of
 epoch-making importance In any coun- try at any time have here crowded one
 upon another with wanton predigality,
 so that the Northwesterner down in the
 whirl of great things can himself hard
 ly grasp their full significance, content ing himself with confused superlatives. Think Of this march of events! It was barely eight years ago that the gold fields of the Klondike were brought to the knowledge of the world, causing
 a rush of Americans to the Northwest, building up suddenly new and import
 ant business of the Puget Sound ports. where the miners outfitted and took ship Following the Klondike excite rnent, came the various Alaska dis coveries, and Seattle and Tacoma were and are the natural headauarters for most of the supplies shipped northward as well as the entry point for the return ing miners with their treasure, not lit- tie of which is left to enrich the people of the ports.
 Hardly had the gold excitement calmed to the paces of steady business
 enterprise when the Spanish war broke
 out and these Pacific cities were thrown
 into the turmoil of visiting battleship
 and of provisioning and transporting
 the army of the Philippines. Then came the opening trade with our new
 insular possessions in the Pacific and
 the Chinese war and its call for equip
 ment and it's stir of soldiery and trans
 ports followed by the recent commercial
 expansion of Japan, with it's trade de- | mands. And now an element has just entered into the calculations of the coast-the construction of the Panama canal-which will reyolutionize whole departments of the worlds trade and exercise profound influence for good or evil on the cities of this Northwest ern coast
 Many of the events it is true, notably the opening of the door to the far East, are mostly promissory assests; and yet their prophecy of a golden future has not been without its profound effect on the growth of the Pacific cities and the attraction of energetic men with money. To the Pacific ports will ultima tely' come most of the trade of the Philip pines, worth $60,o0000o annually, and a growing share of the billion dollars or more of the annual business of China, Japan, Siberia, and the Dutch East In- dies, to say nothing of the large foreign trade of Australia and New Zealand. Alaska, once regarded as a hopelessly distant and irreelaimable waste of mountains and snow is also progressing with wonderful rapidly, not only in it's mines but in the utilization of its forests and it's agricultural resources, so that to-day the Alaskan trade is of much importance. *
 While these world events were crowd ing upon one another, the development of the country tributary to the coast, upon which the solid progress of the cities must ultimately rest, was going forward with unprecedented rapidity Western Canada was opening to settle- ment. is opening now in marvel ous manner;n railroads we've building; schemes for ifriss ting the arid lands were in course of development crop production was increasing timber was being cut from an almost inexhaustible supply, to supplement the waning for ests of Maine and Michigan; coal mines were being opened, and salmon caught all the forces of industry working to- gether with a rapidity which must al- ways remain a worlds wonder.-Ray Stannard Baker in the Century.