Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-12-17
The Storv of Yah

Pacific became a bone of controversy
between the United States and Japan. OF
what consequence could be seventy-nine
square miles of misty earth, speck on the
seas windy vastness, peopled by a few
thousand half-clad natives, and sending
scarce an echo into a world of booming
events? 1t was in the early twenties of the
Sixteenth century, shortly after sMagellan's
romantic and fateful voyage, that Portu-
guese navigator. Diego da Rocha, discovered
that widely-strewn archipelago, Of which zap
is the western pillar. By him they were
named the Sequira Islands, but in 1857 were
rechristened by Admiral Lazeano the Caro-
lines,'' in honor of Charles the Second of
Spain.
Two centuries passed and drew scant news
from zap, except dark tales of cruelty to
travellers and missionaries. Title to the en-
tire group was vague and for the most part
ignored until Spain, in 1875, asserted her
claims. These were challenged by Ger
manys who, in the flush of late victories in
Europe, sent her flag speeding forth to the
Pacific, to be hoisted above the cocoanut
boughs of zap. In the course of the decade,
however, the dispute was peaceably settled
through the arbitration of Pope Leo the
Thirteenth, whose decision was for Spain
but at the same time vouchsafed Germany
free rights of trade. Then came the Span
ish-American war, as result of which the
Philippines PISSED to the control of the Unit
ed States. Thereupon Spain concluded that
her remaining possessions in the Pacific
would profit her little, and accordingly she
sold the Carolines to Germany for about five
million dollars.
If that price appear beggarly now, it was
not so in the light of those days, save to the
most far-seeing. zap, at that time, was in
teresting chiefly to anthropologists, who
speculated upon the origin and ethnic back
ground of its inhabitants, wondered over the
remnants of colossal stone-building, and par
ticularly over the stone coinage of zap.
Never was there currency to compare with
this. The coins, If so they may be called, are
great discs of limestone or calcite, from six
inches to twelve feet in diameter, and in
weight from few pounds to five tons. Shells
serve the natives a lesser medium of eX-
change, but the huge stones, for the most
part piled about the treasury of the chief,
are the royal riches-and' they are one form
of riches that do not take unto themselves
wings and fly. But these and divers other
curiosities, arresting though, they were to
traveller and scientist, gave no such impor-
lance to zap as the island suddenly acquired
in the aftermath of the World War.
Had not man contrived ocean cables and
steamships, wireless telegraphy and sky
winging pIanes, zap might have remained a
geographic dot instead of bristling forth into
a question mark of history. But in world
of such genii and giants, what is distance,
what is size? A sterile promontory may
we'll prove more precious than fertile val
leys If it command the means to radio and
cable communication, or serve for an aero
nautic base. So it was that when in the
fortunes of war little zap fell from Ger
many's grasp, all nations pondered with
keen int est the question of it's future con-
troll. In the early stages of the great strug-
gle, before America entered the field, there
was an understanding that Germany's Pacific
islands south of the equator should come
under British administration, while those to
the north should be in the charge of japan.
When the question required for considera-
ton at the Paris peace council President
Wilson insisted in behalf of the Jnited States
that in so far as zap was concerned the dis
position or control of that island should be
reserved for determination by future gen
9ral conference on the ownership and opera
ton OF cables. Accordingly, the matter was
deferred for a season. Later, however, it
came up for discussion in the League of Ma
t.o'.s, from which the Senates rejection of
the Geace treaty had excluded the United
States. Then and thus it was that the island
Of zap, with it's strategic bearing upon cable
al wireless communication, was assigned by
the League to the trusteeship of Japan.