Imperial Valley press., 1914-02-21
GOVERNMENT R. r.
IMPORTANT MEASURE

| (From Congressman c. II. Tavenner)
Washington, Feb. 21.-One of the
important progressive measures advo-
Gated by President Wilson is the con-
struction and operation or lease by
the government of railroad line in
Alaska. Fifteen of the II members OF
! the house committee on territories re-
ported in favor of the bill, only two
opposing it.
The government owns the resources
of Alaska, and it is urged that the
government should itself develop
Alaska in the interests of all the peo-
pie instead Of permitting the Gug-
genheims and Morgans to exploit the
country merely for their own enrich
ment.
Those who oppose the construction
of the government railroad in Alaska
denounce the proposition as Social
istic," and describe Alaska as land
which will always be wild and glacier
bound most of the year. 1t is interest
ing in this connection to recall, that
in the early days of this nation equally
dire prophecies were made concerning
what are now some of the garden
spots of the American continent. In
the debate in 1903 on the Louisiana
purchase, for instance, Josiah Quincy,
one of the great statesmen of his
day, uttered the following:
"You have no authority to throw
the rights and properties of this peo-
pie into hotchpot with the wild men
on the Missouri nor with the mixed,
though more respectable, race of the
Anglo Hispano- Gallo-Americans who
bask on the sands in the south of the
Mississippi"
1t seems hard in this day and gen
Grafton to realize that such words
were spoken by man of distinction
concerning such states as Louisiana
Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa.
In another debate Senator McDuffie
of South Carolina aired the following
definition of Oregon and Washington:
"a vast and treeless waste where
agricultural development is impossi-
ble." What would the ancient senator
say today if he could see train load
shipment of Oregon apples?
In his opposition to the great north
western purchase, McDuffie waxed ell
oquent in describing the desolute fu-
ture to which Oregon was condemned
for all time.
"Of what use will this be for agri-
cultural purposes he demanded of
the senate. 81 would not give pinch
of snuff for the whole territory. Who
are we to send there? Do you think
your honest farmers in Pennsylvania,
New York, or even Ohio and Missouri
will abandon their farms to go upon
any such enterprise? God forbid"
Senator Dickerson of New Jersey
was just as insistent that Oregon
would never amount to anything.
"Oregon can never be one of the
United States he said. "If we ex-
tend our laws to it we must consider
it as a colony. Is the territory Of
Oregon ever to become a state, n
member of the union? The union is
already too extensive"
These men and their predictions
have fallen into dust. But even the
great Daniel Webster was ONE cf
those who believed that because the
country was new ,;and unsettled vt
could have no future development In
opposing the acquisition of Texas,
New Mexico, Arizona and California,
to the suggestion that this territory
might be capable of development, he
replied:
81 have never heard OF anything, I
cannot conceive Of anything, in itself
more absurd and more affrontive to
all sober judgment. Mexico and Cali
fornia are not worth dollar"
Similar things are now being said
of Alaska. 1t is probable that the
predictions today are just as wide Of
the mark rs were those of Webster,
McDuffie and Dickerson.
/ Z