"But you're right about the danger," he said. "It
won't come from Japan to California. It will pour like a flood through
Siberia and jump to Alaska in a night. It isn't the danger of the yellow
man alone, Olaf. You've got to combine that with Bolshevism, the menace
of blackest Russia. A disease which, if it crosses the little neck of
water and gets hold of Alaska, will shake the American continent to
bed-rock. It may be a generation from now, maybe a century, but it's
coming sure as God makes light--if we let Alaska go down and out. And my
way of preventing it is different from yours."
He stared into the fire, watching the embers flare up and die. "I'm not
proud of the States," he went on, as if speaking to something which he
saw in the flames. "I can't be, after the ruin their unintelligent
propaganda and legislation have brought upon Alaska. But they're our
salvation and conditions are improving. I concede we have factions in
Alaska and we are not at all unanimous in what we want. It's going to be
largely a matter of education. We can't take Alaska down to the
States--we've got to bring them up to us. We must make a large part of a
hundred and ten million Americans understand. We must bring a million
of them up here before that danger-flood we speak of comes beyond the
Gulf of Anadyr.
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