Francisco, and the other with Oliver La Duke and associates. There are
many thousands of acres in this field which are open for lease and which
will be leased to any responsible parties who will undertake their
development. Government experts who have examined this field do not
promise without further exploring a larger output of coal from this
field than 150,000 tons a year.

The population of Alaska has fallen off during the war. She sent, I am
told, 5,000 men into the Army, the largest proportion to population sent
by any part of the United States. The high cost of labor and materials
closed some of the gold mines, and the attractive wages offered by war
industries drew labor from Alaska to the mainland. All prospecting
practically closed. But with the return of peace there is evidence of a
new movement toward that Territory which should be given added
confidence in its future by the completion of the Alaskan Railroad.
There is enough arable land in Alaska to maintain a population the equal
of all those now living in Norway, Sweden, and Finland, and all that can
be produced in those countries can be produced in Alaska. The great need
is a market, and this will be found only as the mining and fishing
industries of the country develop.

SAVE AND DEVELOP AMERICANS.

When the whole story is told of American achievement and the picture is
painted of our material resources, we come back to the plain but
all-significant fact that far beyond all our possessions in land and
coal and waters and oil and industries is the American man. To him, to
his spirit and to his character, to his skill and to his intelligence is
due all the credit for the land in which we live. And that resource we
are neglecting. He may be the best nurtured and the best clothed and the
best housed of all men on this great globe. He may have more chances to
become independent and even rich. He may have opportunities for
schooling nowhere else afforded. He may have a freedom to speak and to
worship and to exercise his judgment over the affairs of the Nation. And
yet he is the most neglected of our resources because he does not know
how rich he is, how rich beyond all other men he is. Not rich in
money--I do not speak of that--but rich in the endowment of powers and
possibilities no other man ever was given.

Twenty-five per cent of the 1,600,000 men between 21 and 31 years of age
who were first drafted into our Army could not read nor write our
langua