arrogance in this matter, while England comes out of it having again
shown in the end both forbearance and good manners. Before another
Venezuelan incident in 1902,I take up a burning dispute of 1903.

As Oregon had formerly been, so Alaska had later become, a grave source
of friction between England and ourselves. Canada claimed boundaries in
Alaska which we disputed. This had smouldered along through a number of
years until the discovery of gold in the Klondike region fanned it to a
somewhat menacing flame. In this instance, history is as unlikely to
approve the conduct of the Canadians as to approve our bad manners
towards them upon many other occasions. The matter came to a head in
Roosevelt's first administration. You will find it all in the Life of
John Hay by William R. Thayer, Volume II. A commission to settle the
matter had dawdled and failed. Roosevelt was tired of delays.
Commissioners again were appointed, three Americans, two Canadians, and
Alverstone, Lord Chief Justice, to represent England. To his friend
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, about to sail for an English holiday,
Roosevelt wrote a private letter privately to be shown to Mr. Balfour,
Mr. Chamberlain, and certain other Englishmen of mark. He said: "The
claim of the Canadians for access to deep water along any part of the
Alaskan coast is just exactly as indefensible as if they should now
suddenly claim the Island of Nantucket." Canada had objected to our
Commissioners as being not "impartial jurists of repute." As to this,
Roosevelt's letter to Holmes ran on: "I believe that no three men in the
United States could be found who would be more anxious than our own
delegates to do justice to the British claim on all points where there is
even a color of right on the British side. But the objection raised by
certain British authorities to Lodge, Root, and Turner, especially to
Lodge and Root, was that they had committed themselves on the general
proposition. No man in public life in any position of prominence could