The daily progressive-miner., 1917-04-12
WHAT SECRETARY
 LANE SAID OF ALASKA ON 9th ANNIVERSARY

WASHINGTON, March 30.-"Fifty years ago today" said Secretary aLne last night Alaska became a part of
 the United States.
 We are only beginning to realize how tremendous the serviee was that William II. Seward performed when . he secured for us that great source of wealth. When Seward was Secretary of State, few men realized the great ]. value of Alaska. Popular impression held it as a snow-bound wilderness, a land of ice and polar bears. Seward felt that the time would come when the wealth of Alaska would astound the
 world His Judgment today is vim dicated.
 Opposition to the taking of Alaska was as blind as it was virulent. But alter fifty years, actual financial state
 aents show us, and prove conclusive
 Y, that to have neglected that oppor-
 tunity would have been a colossal
 blunder, blunder future generations could never forgive.
 A moral obligation was one of the primary reasons that led to the pur- chase of Alaska. Russia had given us the passive support of two fleets of
 ~arships during our civil war and saved us from serious indignities that threatened from abroad. Russia need d money. We of course, could not give it to her outright, but we would let hor have it and take in exchange her barren North American provinces. h the face of a storm of protest the treaty was signed and fully ratified; the Russian ambassador collected $7,- 100000 from Uncle Sam; and Alaska edged her way into a protesting and inhospitable democracy.
 Six hundred thousand square miles of territory, three hundred and eighty. four million acres of land, were bought by our Government in 1875 for little over seven million dollars. That lit- tie flier in real estate, at two cents an acre, has brought something more than three-quarters of a billion dol lars into the channels of American trade during the past half century. And the profits are just beginning to come in A scant 65,0O0 people are living ill that vast country. one-fifth as large as the United States. One hundred million dollars out of that three-quarters of billion formed their contribution for 1916. What it will be in 2016 nc man can predict.
 The people who are going to Alas ka in these days are men with families people who are going to stay and put their children in Alaskan schools, warm them with Alaskan coal, feed them with Alaskan meat and vegeta- bles, pay their bills with Alaskan gold. Normal industry is forcing the from tier. Alaskans have confidence in the i legitimate resources of their great en- pire. They are convinced that Alas ka's future will be an imposing one.
 "Inaccuracy and distortion of facts caused the faulty impressions that ex- isted in the past; but the handful of far sighted patriots who have poured their millions into American banks and business, the men who have lived the life and who know, are fast in- forming the world. Few in number, as were the frontiersmen who opened up the forests of New York and Ohio, but as determined in spirit and resolute in purpose as were those early explor- CTS, the sturdy pioneers of Alaska have opened up new fields of enterprise. and are today compelling attention.
 Complaints are heard throughout the States that meat in Alaska is ] scarce and high in price. Let those who so complain take comfort in the i thought that soon Alaskan reindeer meat will find it's way to metropolitan tables, and when it does our staple ! beefs and muttons will find a compet- 1 itor quite worthy of their steel.
 Tt is estimated that one hundred and fifty billion tons of coal lie in the