Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-03-31 | Page 1 | Seward's Foresight Praised by Lane

SEWARD'S FORESIGHT PRAISED BY LANE Purchase of Alaska Act of Wisdom, Secretary of Interior Says on Anniversary. WASHINGTON, March 30. Alaska's Alas-ka's fiftieth anniversary as a part of the United States today was signalized by Secretary Lane of the interior department de-partment with a statement in which he said : Alaska's period of trial is over. She has been weighed in the balance bal-ance and found magnificently worthy. Mr. Lane said the wisdom of William IT. Seward, the seeretarv of state who negotiated Alaska's purchase in 1867 against virulent opposition, had been justified, and," after fifty years, annual an-nual financial statements show and prove conclusively that, to have neglected neg-lected that opportunity would have beeu a colossal blunder future generations genera-tions could never forgive. The 600,000 square miles of territorv, bought for about 2 cents an acre at $7,200,000, have brought more than $750,000,000 into the channels of American Amer-ican trade, Mr. Lane said, and the profits are just beginning to come in. ' A scant 65,000 people are living in that vast countrv, one-fifth as large as the United States," he Baid. "One hundred millions dollars formed their contribution for 1916. What it will be in 2016 no man can predict."