Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-09-18
Americas Forgotten Possessions
By Frederic ]. Haskin

This leads to the inner harbor which
spreads out into a. body as placid as a
millpond and of sufficient area to pro-
vide anchorage for the fleets of the
world. 1t is an ideal refuge from the
typhoons that make shipping unsafe
in any other port in this part of the
world. With a few guns on the bluffs
at its entrance, it would be impreg-
nable.
Harbors are Strong
Guam has a similar harbor which
lacks but the blasting out of the peaks
of some of its submerged coral reefs
to give admittance to its inner reaches.
There are no other such havens in the
Pacific.
At Pago Pago there is an American
group of some 500 people made up
almost entirely of marines and blue
Jackets, naval officers and their wives.
There is similar colony in Guam.
In Samoa there are 5000 natives in
the American portion of the islands,
and Guam has about 1000 natives.
In each place there is the naval gov
ernor who is the caar of the islands,
exercising absolute authority, respon-
sible only to Washington.
These islands are ideal gems of
tropic productiveness. Guam Is in the
same latitude as Porto Rico, but is
better watered and therefore more
fertile. Samoa is south of the equator.
It is the only land under the Stars and
Stripes in the southern hemisphere
1t is but twelve degrees below the
equator, however, and in its midsum-
mer which arrives about Christmas
time, the thermometer sometimes gets
| as high as 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Al
the reverse season, midWinter In
| August, temperatures go as low as rs
1t was here that Robert Louis Steven.
70 ca1f a or
the island of Mount Vaea and here he
| is buried.
Good Naval Bases
Since the United States has taken
the good road, the American school
sanitation, industrial and commercial
encouragement, to every nook and cor
ner of the Philippines and Porte
Rico; since it has Insisted on nonex-
ploitation of those peoples and their
government In such way that they
might have every opportunity for de.
velopment; since 1t has set world
example in uplift of the residents o1
it's acquired lands; it is held that il
would be but consistent that Guam
and Samoa should come in for theii
share.
The men who know these island:
best urge that the first need is the
| establishment and maintenance OF
regular steamer communication which
will make possible the development
of industry. After that they hold that
Congress should take some notice ot
these possessions and should apply tc
them the same sort of colonial govern
ment it has been giving to the larger
islands that it has been governing
They claim that the conditions are
here such that an immediate response
could be expected, that these peoples
are such that they would yield more
readily to the benign influences of the
American school than do the Filipino'
or the Porto Ricans. Even were thi:
not the case, it is considered by the
authorities as a. duty on the part of the
United States to give them a chance
The governors of these islands have
one after another, urged the need o.
action on the part of Congress tina
would recognize the existence of these
possessions.
Then there is the urgent cry of the
military branches of the governm ent
pointing to the strategical necessity o
developing Guam and Samoa as base
for naval operations. They are urget
as the points of strategic command II
the Pacific. imperatively demanding
Notifications.