The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1938-08-11

Washington These are the '"dog-
days" in which the steaming
breathless Capital City spends its
energy in trying to keep cool and
doing little else. Everybody who
can do so leaves town, and those
who have to remain here amuse
themselves with speculative gossip
about what is going to happen when
the vacationists get back-and after
wards.
AS an example, the. largest ex-
planation> for President -Roosevelt's
sea-voyage down the Pacific Coast
to the Galapagos Islands,, as if the
desire to 60 fishing were not ex-
PLANTATION enough, is that he went
to make a personal inspection OF
that group of islands off the coast
of Columbia, with an eye to their
acquisition by the United States as
site for naval base to protect the
Pacific end of the Panama Canal.
Those who circulate that yarn
point out that the President has
shown signs of trying to emulate
his distinguished relative and pre-
decessor, Teddy" Roosevelt, whose
greatest exploit was the acquisi-
ton of the Canal Zone and the ini-
tiating of the Panama Canal.
The Galapagos Islands
The United States has taken in
no new territory under the Presi-
dency of Franklin Roosevelt except
to hoist the American flag over a
few little islands in the South Pa
cific which were, in effect, nobody's
property but which might be useful
as refueling stations for airplanes
flying the route to Australia.
Z If he could acquire the Galapagos
Islands, where the big sea turtles
come from, it would be a feather. in
President Roosevelt's cap, the Cos
sips say. How valuable an acqui-
sition they would be is another mat
ter. Doubtless the islands would
make an excellent outer defense for
the Canal but it is pointed out that
the approaches to the Atlantic end
of the Canal are stewed with is
lands under foreign flags.
If the policy guarding all ap-
proaches to the inter-oceanic water
way were to be pursued, we would
have to find ways to hoist the
American flag over such Britich
islands as the Bahamas, Barbados
and Jamaica, the French island of
Martinique, the independent re-
public of Haiti and San Domingo,
the Netherlands islands of the Cura-
Gao group to say nothing of Cuba.
The Stiffness of the notion that
this nation will try to get more ter
ritory in or adjacent to the Central
and South American countries is
obvious when the efforts to bring
about closer understanding be-
tween the United States and our
Latin-American neighbors are con-
sidered.
No Need to Expand
There is more likelihood, say
those who claim to have inside in
formation of what the State Depart
ment thinks, that this country may
give up a silver of territory, than
that it will try to acquire more.
Up in the northwest corner of
Maine there is a tract of a few hun
dred square miles which, though a
part of the United States, is inhab-
tied by citizens of French-Canadian
extraction, who speak French, think
in French, and have to do all their
trading in the French Province of
Quebec, because their region is cut
off from access to the rest of Maine.
They are good farmers, intelligent
and industrious, but all of their ra-
cial and economic ties are with
Quebec, not with Maine. And when
they buy tractor, a purebred bull
or a sewing machine in the only
trading centers they have access to
they have to pay duty on such mer-
chandise as they need on their
farms or in their homes.
These Maine farmers have sent a
petition to Washington asking that
their section of Maine be coded to
Canada. They have also petitioned
the Canadian government to the
same effect. The State Department
is looking into the situation, and
Washington gossips are gawering
even money that eventually Cana
da will get that little chunck of
Maine.
Whether it has any bearing on
the present Maine-Canada border or.
not, it is a coincidence, at least,
that the National Archives office
has just sent to the international
Geographical Congress at Amster-