The daily Alaska citizen., 1919-09-10
AS VISITORS SEE US

impressions of this new country One WOn- ders just how they do look upon Alaska and its scenes and climate, its resources and its handiCaps.
 In recent issue of the ketchikan Chron- icle there appeared from the pen ot Frederick K Coudert, a prominent member of the American Bar Association and d lawyer of international standing, article winch Is worthwhile W hile 1t does not refer partlC ularly to this section of Alaska, II contains views which will interest many. It follows i'll full:
 That master diplomat and amabe cynic of Napoleonc days, the Prince of IaIIeyrand, was wont to say "BeWare of first impress sionS they are nearly always right Whether in principle this be so or not, the first inn pressiOnS that the casual Way1arer gets Ot Alaska are so potent to promise to be en during. We are apt to smile at the traNehng foreigner who, after a six weeks sOjoun i'll the United States, writes book on the dis covery of America, and yet how few of Us ourselves discovered America, and how much even that passing foreigner can tell Us of our own land Surely the United States has grown so greatly not only physically but i'll its reIa- tive position in the world i'll 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 Ot tlnanCe the United States has assumed, by reason of recent events, SO extraordinary a situation that few of us can realize it's consequences and can rid ourselves of the concepts of older gen eratons as to our supposed 1SoIat1on
 If the ordinary man in the street were questioned as to whether Alaska were an island or whether 1t was contiguous to the United States, l opine that the large majority would show complete ignorance on the sub ject. We are said to be a travelling people ; yet, upon the eastern seaboard, great num- bers of those belonging to the SOCalled in- telleCtual classes, know little or nothing of the Pacific coast and have confined their travels to occasional excursions over the Atlantic in search of the scenery of Switzerland and the antiquities and monuments of France, Eng land or Germany.
 But what of Alaska, its land and it's 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 glor ous land of sea and mountains, of snoWCad surnmits, rising straight out from long, sun lit arms of the Pacific ocean, touching live glaciers and running along precipitous cliffs Alaska, i'll default of good press agents, is surely the land of the unknown and one can not resist feeling that one has delayed too long seeing this gorgeous country of sea and mountain. Surely nowhere such effects of in finite grandeur of combination of sea and Crag and mountain can be found.
 And then again, what of the people of this land, this last American frontier? We can, indeed, never forget the impression of hospitality, amiability and energetic self confidence everywhere to be found The old CT world of Europe is undergoing revolu tion in which the serviity of those who be- longed to the so-called lower classes translates traying the neWness of their democracy; but among the people on this American frontier democracy is real because completely uncon- scious. Manners are good because they flow from natural kindliness and 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 new land attracts all that IS best as well as much that is worst. Alaska is young enough to have eliminated, in great measure, the worst Its population, gathered from all parts of the United States, made up of those whose