The Nome nugget., 1903-07-01
ROOSEVELT AND ALASKA.

The Springfield Republican takes issue wih the Fpresident on his prediction that Alaska will Ultimate fly support as large population as does 'e oc'nu'- 'navian peninsula. The fact is that hewrter on the Springfield Republican knows absolreiy nothing oi the subject which he pretends to -1scuss while the lpresident has had to full attenuation and has made the subject of conserabie attentive study The trouble with the writer on the pesslmstc organ of anti-imperiasm tb. in the discussion Of Alas 'ka matters as wei in the discussion of matters in the PhiI facts are dsregarded and the data upon wSaeh tbe conclusions are based are manufac tured for the purpose says the Seattle Post-Intell- ;gencer of June4
 Here are some of the statements of the Springfield writer After referring to the fact that there large areas of cultivabe land in Sweden he says: Alas ka contains such That part of it affected by the Japanese current consists largely of strip of land, rocky and glacial closely against which rise precipitousiy the range of mountains culminatng in Mount St. Elias. There is no room for agriculture there and there alone the climatic conditions favorable More than third of the terri tory is tseeless waste draining into the Arctic ocean and subjected to Arctic climate. The vast areas south of that region and north of the strip whose eli mate is moderated by the Japanese current for the most part forever closed to agriculture by the severity of the climate if not by the broken nature of the land. The summers brief, and the summers sun is too low to nature into greater life than is needed to produce forests of slow growth"
 This.reads very much like article written a couple of generations ago. about the time when fair quarter of the United States represented in the school geographies "The Great American Desert !" It certainly written by man who has read who ignores everything which has been discovered about the climate and resources of Alaska within the past five or six years.
 There are, of course portions of the great northern territory in which agricultural operations i'm possible. But leaving these out of consideration there can be carved out of Alaska half dozen separate distinct little areas, each of the size o Massachusetts, with climate not whit more un' favorable to agricultural operations and with other industrial superior to those of Massachusetts or indeed to those of any New England State.
 That the Alaska summer sun lies too low to warm nature into greater life than is needed to produce trees of slow growth will be news to the thousands who have swetersd under the almost tropical heat o m Alaska summer in the interior; and who have seen vegetation grow there with more than tropical luxuriance under the twenty hours of summer sun light Does not the Springfield Republican know that grain is rpened far in the interior of Northern Alaska every summer; that vegetables of all kinds save the most tender grown freely there every year? Has he ever read the reports of the govern ment surveys to the beautiful meadows of natural grasses, growing to Q mans height in the summer Does he believe that the experts of the agriculture department manufacture the facts which they have
 o" the splendid agricultural possibilities
 ~"la alone, extending
 of latitude from