The weekly Alaska citizen., 1919-09-15
AS VISITORS SEE US

AS VISITORS SEE US
 Every year visitors come to Alaska and depart without leaving us much idea of their 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 of Frederick | R. Coudert, prominent member of the American Bar Association and lawyer of
 international standing, an article which is worthwhile. While it does not refer partic- ularly to this section of Alaska, it contains views which will interest many. It follows in | full:
 That master diplomat and aniable cynic of Napoleonic days, the Prince of Talleyrand, was wont to say, Beware of first impress sions; they are nearly always right" Whether in principle this be so or not the first im- pressions 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 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 in its rela- tive position 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 extraordinary situation can rid ourselves of the concepts of older gen erations as to our supposed isolation
 If the ordinary man in the street were questioned as to whether Alaska were an island or whether it was contiguous to the United States, I opine that the large ma jority would show complete ignorance on the sub ject. We are said to be 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 ot 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 glori- ous land of sea and mountains, of snowclad summits rising straight out from long, sun- | lit 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 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 lcrag 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 ton in which the servility of those who be- longed to the so-called lower classes translates itself into mere rudeness and incivility, be- |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