snow. As I showed the other day, it never freezes at Unalaska and it never freezes on the Island of Kiska. I find the following item in the Post of this city:

Acting Secretary Spaulding has been advised that twenty-five steamers and barges are building at Unalaska, making that subport fifth in rank in the number of vessels under construction, though the vessels are all light draft for Yukon River travel.

Here is a harbor, one of the very best in the world, a harbor we own, a harbor on the track of commerce across the Pacific, a harbor 1,700 miles from Seattle in Puget Sound. Its area is sufficient to hold every vessel in the Navy of the United States and nearly our entire merchant marine besides. It has 20 fathoms of water. I read from Findlay's North Pacific Ocean and Japan Directory. This work I secured from the Navy Department, and it is authority with all navigators of the Pacific:

Dutch Bay Harbor of Ulakhta Bay is a fine landlocked harbor with 15 to 20 fathoms of water throughout. It stretches southward from the northeast point of Amongnak 11⁄2 miles. The holding ground in the center is good-14 to 15 fathoms over black mud and shells.

On the eastern side of Unalaska is the small bay of Killiliak (Kiliuluk). Unalaska here presents the appearance of being divided into two parts. The bay is perfectly sheltered from all winds-depth, 10 fathoms.

Unalaska Bay is on the north side of the Island of Unalaska and contains within itself two harbors absolutely landlocked, and it has already become the fifth shipbuilding point in the United States. But, independent of Unalaska, there are several bays and harbors extending along the Aleutian chain that are accessible at all times of the year-that never have any ice and the last one, Kiska, is within 500 miles of the coast of Asia.

I submit that no man of sense or reason in managing his private affairs would neglect this chain of islands, these splendid harbors on the shortest route to where he wants to go, and purchase or annex a country in the Tropics off from the route he wishes to travel. If I were going to build a cable to the

Asiatic coast, I would build it from Puget Sound, and it would be a thousand miles shorter than to build it from San Francisco by way of Honolulu, and I would touch at the points in Alaska where there are forty times more Americans than there are in the Hawaiian Islands. Thus I would assist in developing that great empire in Alaska which we already own, 500,000 square miles of country, in a climate so cold that it can raise men capable of self-government. I would touch at Kiska. I would make that splendid bay, if you want a coaling port, the coaling port upon the route to Asia, instead of going down into the center of the Pacific a thousand miles off from the route and getting possession of a few tremulous islands gathered around active and extinct volcanoes.

Suppose an enemy should attack us from the Pacific, from Asia, and we had acquired the Hawaiian Islands and fortified Pearl Harbor and left the Aleutian chain untouched. Melville says that we can protect the Aleutian chain from Hawaii. The enemy would take possession of Dutch Harbor, 1,700 miles from our coast, and operate from there, sending their barges and coal to that point. They could occupy Kiska, or the Bay of Islands, half way between Kiska and Unalaska, and operate from there nearer our coast than Hawaii; and yet we propose to get Hawaii in order to protect Alaska. If we are going to protect Alaska, we must go there to protect it. Everybody knows that, and yet it is one of the arguments, foolish, flimsy, worthless, that are offered up in order to make an array in favor of annexation, for the Committee on Foreign Relations sends in that argument in their report.

Would we protect the coast of California from Hawaii if we acquired those islands? From what would we protect it? Armed cruisers? Vessels of war? Our cruisers at those islands would be of no assistance whatever in protecting our forts along the Pacific. We have no guns that have a range of 2,000 miles, not an effective range, and scarce a ship can sail that distance under forced draft without getting out of coal. So the enemy, concluding to attack San Francisco, starts around by the Aleutian chain. We expect it will come by Honolulu, so we will have our whole fleet down there. They

attack San Francisco and their base of supplies is perhaps in British America, or they have brought barges along loaded with coal.

They appear before San Francisco and begin to bombard. We cable at once to Hawaii for our fleet, and it hurries and comes under full speed. Of course it comes in great haste, because the enemy are destroying the lives of our people. The Brooklyn, an armored cruiser, coming at its best pace, can travel 1,470 miles, and then it is out of coal. It is 2,100 miles to San Francisco. The New York could travel 1,345 miles, and then it would be out of coal. The Columbia could travel 1,814 miles, and then its coal would run out. The Minneapolis could travel 1,565 miles and the Olympia 1,408 miles; and not one of these could reach San Francisco, and some of them could not get two-thirds of the way up there.

But we will suppose they have not hurried, but instead have come at the slowest pace, because a ship would consume less coal and go more miles if it goes exceedingly slow than if it goes exceedingly fast. So the Indiana, steaming at the most economical rate in knots, could steam 4,805 miles and get to San Francisco, 2, 100 miles, and engage in a fight for a day or two, and then, of course, it consumes coal the same as at the greatest possible speed. She finds she can not enter the harbor, because the enemy's fleet is all around the entrance, and therefore she starts back to Honolulu for coal. She is obliged to sail in the most economical fashion in order to get back. If she should fight one day, she could barely get back. and if she would fight two days she could not get back to this base of supply to renew her coal.

The Brooklyn can sail 4,342 miles by the most economic use of her coal. She could get up to San Francisco and have just coal enough to get back to Honolulu, but would not have time to fight at all. The New York would sail 4,486 miles. She could get up there and get back, and she could fight part of a day, if pretty careful; then she would have to return to Honolulu for more coal to go back and fight another part of a day. The enemy operating against San Francisco from Honolulu would be in the same bad fix.

So we can not defend our coast from Honolulu and the enemy can not attack us from Honolulu. They would be in the same situation if they owned the islands that we would be in if we owned them. The type of modern fighting ships is the same the world over. If they undertook to attack us from Honolulu, their vessels could not carry coal enough to more than get to our coast and go back by the most economic steaming. Suppose we engaged them and prevented them from getting back, and should fight them around-a circle for three or four days, then what will we have to do? Follow them back? They would not get near to Honolulu when they would be out of coal and absolutely helpless and forced to surrender. So we are not afraid of naval attack.

By the way, Mr. President, if we were afraid, suppose we had no navy, and the enemy did attack our coasts, they could not land a great force of men. Sampson bombarded the coasts of Cuba for six weeks, and the only authentic report we have of the damage was that he killed a mule at Matanzas. We have shown how useless fleets are to bombard a coast unless you have men to back up the work of the fleet and land with them. We have been dodging around the shores of the West Indies for the last two months, and have accomplished absolutely nothing in the world. It is useless.

Modern warfare does not permit the destruction of an unfortified city. You can fire away at earthworks all you choose, and when night comes the enemy can repair them. Without a landing party you can do nothing. It is idle, it is foolish, to attack the coast of an enemy unless you occupy it with an armed force. Therefore, we do not fear their ships along the coast of the Pacific.

What is it, then, we fear? "Oh, we need these islands for safety," some Senator says. To cross the Pacific to these islands, spanning the 7,000 miles of water, with an army that could, even land and stay a day upon our shores, would tax all the ships in the world to carry it and all their resources, and such vast quantities of food and ammunition that it is an impossibility, for that army must first cross the 5,000 miles of

water to Honolulu and then 2,000 miles to our coast. Therefore there is nothing to fear, and we know it.

Mr. President, England, with a strip of water 20 miles wide, has resisted the assaults of Europe during all time. What would have hindered Napoleon from marching across that island with his victorious forces if it had not been for that strip of water? What did hinder him? Transportation by sea. No great army in modern times has been or can be transported long distances by sea. The greatest preparation ever made was made by Spain in 1588, when she sent her great fleet into the English Channel to transport the army in Flanders to the soil of England, but that 20 miles of water proved an impassable barrier. The history of the Armada is well known to the world.

In 1281, Kubla Khan, the conqueror of China, the mighty Mongolian, overran all southern Asia, conquering it from Burmah to Siberia. He thought he would also add the islands of Japan to his crown, and he gathered an army to cross that 100 miles of water-an army of 150,000 men and a thousand ships. Japan at that time had a population of about one-tenth, or less, of the population of China and Mongolia, and yet no one of that great armament ever returned to China to tell the tale. The wind and the sea destroyed more of them than were destroyed by the armies of Japan. They never made a landing. The hundred miles of water between Japan and Asia have always proved a sufficient protection to preserve the independence of Japan.

And yet, Mr. President, we are told that we fear something if we do not acquire this worthless spot in the Pacific, the nearest land being 2,000 miles away. We fear what? Not ships of war, but the vast armies that will cross this intervening space and conquer our coast! What nonsense! Yet that is the only argument that is presented, except the argument that we need a coaling station in Hawaii to reach the coast of Asia. That argument we have completely exploded by showing that Hawaii is a thousand miles off the shortest route of travel.