The Wrangell sentinel., 1919-09-11

nat master dlplomat ana aml- able cvnic of Napoleonic days, the Prince of Talleyrand, was won't to say, Beware of first impressions they are nearly always right. " Whether in principle this be so or not, the first impressions that the casual wayfarer gets of Alaska are so potent as to promise to be en- during. We are apt to smile at the travelling foreigner who, after six weeks sojourn in the United States, writes a book on the dis. covery of America, and yet how few of us ourselves discovered Am erica, and how much even that pass ing foreigner can tell us of our own landl Surely the United States has grown so greatly, not only physically but in its relative posi- tion in the world in these later years, that we Americans really find it difficult to adapt ourselves to the greatness of our own land. In the world of politics and of finance, the United States has assumed, by reason of recent events, so eXtraor- dinarv situation that few of us can realize its consequences and can rid ourselves of the concepts ot older generations as to our SUD- posed isolation.
 Ii the ordinary man in the street were questioned as to whether Alas ka were an island or whether 1t was contiguous to the United States, l opine that the large majority would show complete ignorance on the subject. We are said to be a trav- cling people; yet upon the eastern seaboard, great numbers of those belonging to the so-called intellec- tual classes, know little or nothing of the Pacific Coast and have con- fined their travels to occasional ex- clrsions over the Atlantic in search of the scenery of Switzerland and the antiquities and monuments of France, England or Germany.
 But what of Alaska, its land and its people? To one who arrives without having conned the books of statistics regarding gold and fisheries and fur-bearing animals, yet whose ignorance has left his mind open to original impressions Alaska appears a glorious land ot sea and mountains, of clad summits, rising straight out from long. sunlit arms of the Pacific ocean, touching live glaciers and running along precipitous cliffs. Alaska, in default of good press agents, is surely the land of the unknown and one cannot resist feeling that one has delayed too long seeing this gorgeous country of sea and mountain. Surely mo- where such effects of infinite gran deur, of combination of sea and crag and mountain, can be found.
 And then again, what of the people of this land, this last Am. erican frontier? We can, indeed, never forget the impression of hos pitalitv, amiability and energetic self.confidence everywhere to be found. The older world of Europe is undergoing a revolution in which the servility of those who belonged to the so-called lower classes trans. lates itself into mere rudeness and incivility, betraying the newness of their democracy; but among the people ou this American frontier, democracy is real because com- pletely unconscious. Manners are good because they flow from natural kindliness and a sense that men are dependent for position upon their real worth as men rather than upon accidental circumstances. It has been we'll said that a new land at. tracts all that is best as well as