In the Colonial period, and for at least a century after its close, the conquest of the continent, the expansion of our people westward to the Alleghenies, then to the Mississippi, then to the Pacific, was always one of the most important tasks, and sometimes the most important, in our national life. Behind the first settlers the conditions grew easier, and in the older-settled regions of all the colonies life speedily assumed much of comfort and something of luxury; and though generally it was on a much more democratic basis than life in the Old World, it was by no means democratic when judged by our modern standards; and here and there, as in the tidewater regions of Virginia, a genuine aristocracy grew and flourished. But the men who first broke ground in the virgin wilderness, whether on the Atlantic coast or in the interior, fought hard for mere life. In the early stages the frontiersman had to battle with the savage, and when the savage was vanquished there remained the harder strain of war with the hostile forces of soil and climate, with flood, fever, and famine. There was sickness and bitter weather; there were no roads; there was a complete lack of all but the very roughest and most absolute necessaries. Under such circumstances the men and women who made ready the continent for civilization were able themselves to spend but little time in doing aught but the rough work which was to make smooth the ways of their successors. In consequence, observers whose insight was spoiled by lack of sympathy always found both the settlers and their lives unattractive and repellant. In Martin Chuzzlewit the description of America, culminating in the description of the frontier town of Eden, was true and life-like from the standpoint of one content to look merely at the outer shell; and yet it was a community like Eden that gave birth to Abraham Lincoln; it was men such as were therein described from whose loins Andrew Jackson sprang.

Hitherto each generation among us has had its allotted task, now heavier, now lighter. In the Revolutionary War the business was to achieve independence. Immediately afterwards there was an even more momentous task; that to achieve the national unity and the capacity for orderly development, without which our liberty, our independence, would have been a curse and not a blessing. In each of these two contests,

while there were many great leaders from many different States, it is but fair to say that the foremost place was taken by the soldiers and the statesmen of Virginia; and to Virginia was reserved the honor of producing the hero of both movements, the hero of the war and of the peace that made good the results of the war-George Washington; while the two great political tendencies of the time can be symbolized by the names of two other great Virginians-Jefferson and Marshall -from one of whom we inherit the abiding trust in the people which is the foundation stone of democracy, and from the other the power to develop on behalf of the people a coherent and powerful government, a genuine and representative nationality..

The corner stone of the Republic lies in our treating each man on his worth as a man, paying no heed to his creed, his birthplace, or his occupation; asking not whether he is rich or poor; whether he labors with head or hand; asking only whether he acts decently and honorably in the various relations of his life, whether he behaves well to his family, to his neighbors, to the State. We base our regard for each man on the essentials and not the accidents. We judge him not by his profession, but by his deeds; by his conduct, not by what he has acquired of this world's goods. Other republics have fallen because the citizens gradually grew to consider the interests of a class before the interests of the whole; for when such was the case it mattered little whether it was the poor who plundered the rich or the rich who exploited the poor; in either event the end of the republic was at hand. We are resolute in our purpose not to fall into such a pit. This great Republic of ours shall never become the Government of plutocracy, and it shall never become the Government of a mob. God willing, it shall remain what our fathers who founded it meant it to be -a Government in which each man stands on his worth as a man, where each is given the largest personal liberty consistent with securing the well-being of the whole, and where, so far as in us lies, we strive continually to secure for each man such equality of opportunity that in the strife of life he may have a fair chance to show the stuff that is in him. We are proud of our schools and of the trained intelligence they give our children the opportunity to acquire. But what we

care for most is the character of the average man; for we believe that if the average of character in the individual citizen is sufficiently high, if he possesses those qualities which make him worthy of respect in his family life and in his work outside, as well as the qualities which fit him for success in the hard struggle of actual existence-that if such is the character of our individual citizenship, there is literally no height of triumph unattainable in this vast experiment of government by, of, and for a free people.-From President Roosevelt's speech at the opening of the Jamestown Exposition.

CHAPTER XVII.

ALASKA-YUKON-PACIFIC EXPOSITION.

THE exposition held in Seattle in 1909 commemorated no historical event. It was planned and undertaken wholly for commercial reasons, to emphasize the value of the Pacific trade and help to direct it into American channels, and to exploit the resources of Alaska and the Northwest.

When Secretary Seward bought Alaska for the sum of $7,200,000-which Russia asked to cede it to the United States-there was a general outcry against the expenditure of so much money for a region of glaciers and icefields. One member of Congress was aggressive in attempting to force an investigation as to what portion of the money Seward himself received from Russia for negotiating such a transaction, considering the whole affair insupportable. Since 1880 Alaskan commerce has amounted to $292,000,000. Not more than one person in a thousand in the United States comprehends the tremendous resources in this northern territory. Even those most familiar with the region cannot estimate them, for they lie for the most part untouched. The discovery of gold in the Klondike in 1896 and in Nome in 1899 started the tide of venturesome humanity northward, and while more returned spent and broken than realized their hopes, yet this constant journeying back and forth led to a more general understanding of the facts concerning Alaska. Since those astonishing years, several towns have sprung up along the southern coast and every year the number of people who choose to spend vacation weeks skirting along the inland passage or journeying up the Yukon, increases. Magnificent scenery, comparable only with that of Switzerland in point of mountains, and Scandinavia in point of fjords, repays the traveler. Primitive Indian villages, salmon fisheries, whaling stations and totem poles offer sufficiently novel features. Sitka, once the capital, rich in history and beautiful in setting, is worth going far to see. Juneau, nestling at the foot of a lofty mountain, is astir with