Volume V Part 17 (1/2)
John Sherman.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Working at desk.]
Lyman J. Gage, Secretary of the Treasury.
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John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Working at desk.]
Cornelius N. Bliss, Secretary of the Interior.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Working at desk.]
Russell A. Alger, Secretary of War.
Fortunately for the new Chief Magistrate, who had been announced as the ”advance agent of prosperity,” the year 1897 brought a revival of business. This was due in part to the end, at least for the time, of political suspense and agitation, in part to the confidence which capitalists felt in the new Administration.
The money stringency, too, now began to abate. The annual output of the world's gold mines, which had for some years been increasing, appeared to have terminated the fall of general prices, prevalent almost incessantly since 1873. Moreover, continued increase seemed a.s.sured, not only by the invention of new processes, which made it lucrative to work tailings and worn-out mines, but also by the discovery of several rich auriferous tracts. .h.i.therto unknown.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Working at desk.]
James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture.
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Postmaster-General Gary.
From a copyrighted photo by Clinedinst.
The valley of the Yukon, in Alaska and the adjacent British territory, had long been known to contain gold, but none suspected there a bonanza like the South African Rand. In the six months' night of 1896-1897 an old squaw-man made an unprecedented strike upon the Klondike (Thron-Duick or Tondak) River, 2,000 miles up the Yukon. By spring all his neighbors had staked rich claims. Next July $2,000,000 worth of gold came south by one s.h.i.+pment, precipitating a rush to the inhospitable mining regions hardly second to the California migration of 1849.
Latter-day Argonauts, not dismayed by the untold dangers and hards.h.i.+ps in store, toiled up the Yukon, or, swarming over the precipitous Chilcoot Pa.s.s, braved, too often at cost of life, the boiling rapids to be pa.s.sed in descending the Upper Yukon to the gold fields. Later the easier and well-wooded White Pa.s.s was found, traversed, at length, by a railroad. In October, 1898, the Cape Nome coast, north of the Yukon mouth, uncovered its riches, whereupon treasure-seekers turned thither their attention, even from the Yukon.
Little lawlessness pestered the gold settlements. The Dominion promptly despatched to Dawson a body of her famous mounted police. Our Government, more tardily, made its authority felt from St. Michaels, near the Yukon mouth, all the way to the Canadian border. On June 6, 1900, Alaska was const.i.tuted a civil and judicial district, with a governor, whose functions were those of a territorial governor. When necessary the miners themselves formed tribunals and meted out a rough-and-ready justice.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Men with huge piles of supplies.]
Rush of Miners to the Yukon.
The City of Caches at the Summit of Chilcoot Pa.s.s.
The rush of miners to the middle Yukon gold region, which, together with certain ports and waters on the way thither, were claimed by both the United States and Great Britain, made acute the question of the true boundary between Alaskan and British territory.
In 1825 Great Britain and Russia, the latter then owning Alaska, agreed by treaty to separate their respective possessions by a line commencing at the southernmost point of Prince of Wales Island and running along Portland Channel to the continental coast at 56 degrees north lat.i.tude.
North of that degree the boundary was to run along mountain summits parallel to the coast until it intersected the 141st meridian west longitude, which was then to be followed to the frozen ocean. In case any of the summits mentioned should be more than ten marine leagues from the ocean, the line was to parallel the coast, and be never more than ten marine leagues therefrom.
When it became important to determine and mark the boundary in a more exact manner, Great Britain advanced two new claims; first, that the ”Portland Channel” mentioned in the Rus...o...b..itish treaty was not the channel now known by that name, but rather Behm Channel, next west, or Clarence Straits; and, secondly, that the ten-league limit should be measured from the outer rim of the archipelago skirting Alaska, and not from the mainland coast. If conceded, these claims would add to the Canadian Dominion about 29,000 square miles, including 100 miles of sea-coast, with harbors like Lynn Channel and Tahko Inlet, several islands, vast mining, fishery, and timber resources, as well as Juneau City, Revilla, and Fort Tonga.s.s, theretofore undisputably American.
In September, 1898, a joint high commission sat at Quebec and canva.s.sed all moot matters between the two countries, among them that of the Alaska boundary. It adjourned, however, without settling the question, though a temporary and provisional understanding was reached and signed October 20, 1899.
The commissioners gave earnest attention to the sealing question, which had been plaguing the United States ever since the Paris arbitration tribunal upset Secretary Blaine's contention that Bering Sea was mare clausum. Upon that tribunal's decision the modus vivendi touching seals lapsed, and Canadians, with renewed and ruthless zeal, plied seal-killing upon the high seas. Dr. David S. Jordan, American delegate to the 1896-1897 Conference of Fur-Seal Experts, estimated that the American seal herd had shrunken 15 per cent. in 1896, and that a full third of that year's pups, orphaned by pelagic sealing, had starved.