FOOTNOTES1The sixth of the month is a date of rather special interest to the writer. To begin with, it is his birthday. Then it is the day on which theRooseveltsteamed north on the successful quest for the pole; the day on which the pole was reached, and the day on which the wireless message of success was flashed over the world from the bleak Labrador station. Later it was the day on which the writer was madegrand officierof the Legion of Honor by the President of France, the day on which he began his efforts for air preparedness for this country, and the day (ninth anniversary of discovery of the pole) on which this country, by the President’s signature, formally entered the greatest of all wars.2Greenland is the largest island in the world. Its total length from Cape Farewell, its southern extremity in 60° N. latitude, to Cape Morris K. Jesup, its northern extremity in 83½° N. latitude is in round numbers 1500 miles, almost exactly the same as the length of the United States on the 97th meridian, from the mouth of the Rio Grande to where our northern boundary crosses the Red River of the North. The greatest width of Greenland is about the name as the distance from New York to St. Louis.In regard to its area, the figures of various authorities vary widely. It may be sufficient to say that as regards area it can be grouped in size with the United States east of the Mississippi; Alaska; Mexico; Columbia; Persia; Portuguese West Africa; Turkey in Asia. Its interior is covered with a great sheet of ice rising to elevations of probably 10,000 feet in places and several thousand feet in thickness. The available ice-free land is a strip of varying width along the coast, intersected by numerous deep fiords.Geographically, Greenland belongs to North America and the Western Hemisphere, over which we have formally claimed a sphere of influence by our Monroe Doctrine. Its possession by us will be in line with the Monroe Doctrine, and will eliminate one more possible source of future complications for us from European possession of territory in the Western Hemisphere. Will turning Greenland over to Denmark now mean our repurchase of it later, or will obtaining it now mean closing the incident and placing Greenland where it must ultimately belong?Greenland is comparatively near to us. For years American ships have conveyed cryolite from the Ivigtut Mines to Philadelphia. There is coal and cryolite, probably graphite and mica, possibly gold, in its rocks. Danish capital has apparently not been sufficient to exploit the country’s resources. With our unlimited means, it may, like Alaska, prove a sound and most valuable business investment.The abundance of native coal and the numerous glacial streams which come tumbling into the southern fiords from the great interior ice sheet represent enormous potential energy, which might be translated into nitrate and electrical energy, to make Greenland a power-house for the United States.Greenland represents ice, coal, and power in inexhaustible quantities. And stranger things have happened than that Greenland, in our hands, might furnish an important North Atlantic naval and aeronautical base.A North Pacific naval base for the United States in the Aleutian Archipelago is a recognized possibility. Why not a similar base in the North Atlantic? Cape Farewell in Greenland is but little north of Sitka. It is in the same latitude as St. Petersburg; Christiania, Great Britain’s naval base in the Orkneys, and the northern entrance to the North Sea, which Great Britain has incessantly patrolled with her war-ships summer and winter for two years.There are fiords in southern Greenland which would hold our entire navy, with narrow, deep water, impregnable entrances.Thirty-hours steaming due south from Cape Farewell by thirty-five-knot war-craft would put them in the transatlantic routes midway between New York and the English Channel.With the rapid shrinking of distance in this age of speed and invention, Greenland may be of crucial importance to us in the future.——From Peary letter, September, 1917, suggesting Denmark give the United States Greenland with the Danish West Indies.
FOOTNOTES1The sixth of the month is a date of rather special interest to the writer. To begin with, it is his birthday. Then it is the day on which theRooseveltsteamed north on the successful quest for the pole; the day on which the pole was reached, and the day on which the wireless message of success was flashed over the world from the bleak Labrador station. Later it was the day on which the writer was madegrand officierof the Legion of Honor by the President of France, the day on which he began his efforts for air preparedness for this country, and the day (ninth anniversary of discovery of the pole) on which this country, by the President’s signature, formally entered the greatest of all wars.2Greenland is the largest island in the world. Its total length from Cape Farewell, its southern extremity in 60° N. latitude, to Cape Morris K. Jesup, its northern extremity in 83½° N. latitude is in round numbers 1500 miles, almost exactly the same as the length of the United States on the 97th meridian, from the mouth of the Rio Grande to where our northern boundary crosses the Red River of the North. The greatest width of Greenland is about the name as the distance from New York to St. Louis.In regard to its area, the figures of various authorities vary widely. It may be sufficient to say that as regards area it can be grouped in size with the United States east of the Mississippi; Alaska; Mexico; Columbia; Persia; Portuguese West Africa; Turkey in Asia. Its interior is covered with a great sheet of ice rising to elevations of probably 10,000 feet in places and several thousand feet in thickness. The available ice-free land is a strip of varying width along the coast, intersected by numerous deep fiords.Geographically, Greenland belongs to North America and the Western Hemisphere, over which we have formally claimed a sphere of influence by our Monroe Doctrine. Its possession by us will be in line with the Monroe Doctrine, and will eliminate one more possible source of future complications for us from European possession of territory in the Western Hemisphere. Will turning Greenland over to Denmark now mean our repurchase of it later, or will obtaining it now mean closing the incident and placing Greenland where it must ultimately belong?Greenland is comparatively near to us. For years American ships have conveyed cryolite from the Ivigtut Mines to Philadelphia. There is coal and cryolite, probably graphite and mica, possibly gold, in its rocks. Danish capital has apparently not been sufficient to exploit the country’s resources. With our unlimited means, it may, like Alaska, prove a sound and most valuable business investment.The abundance of native coal and the numerous glacial streams which come tumbling into the southern fiords from the great interior ice sheet represent enormous potential energy, which might be translated into nitrate and electrical energy, to make Greenland a power-house for the United States.Greenland represents ice, coal, and power in inexhaustible quantities. And stranger things have happened than that Greenland, in our hands, might furnish an important North Atlantic naval and aeronautical base.A North Pacific naval base for the United States in the Aleutian Archipelago is a recognized possibility. Why not a similar base in the North Atlantic? Cape Farewell in Greenland is but little north of Sitka. It is in the same latitude as St. Petersburg; Christiania, Great Britain’s naval base in the Orkneys, and the northern entrance to the North Sea, which Great Britain has incessantly patrolled with her war-ships summer and winter for two years.There are fiords in southern Greenland which would hold our entire navy, with narrow, deep water, impregnable entrances.Thirty-hours steaming due south from Cape Farewell by thirty-five-knot war-craft would put them in the transatlantic routes midway between New York and the English Channel.With the rapid shrinking of distance in this age of speed and invention, Greenland may be of crucial importance to us in the future.——From Peary letter, September, 1917, suggesting Denmark give the United States Greenland with the Danish West Indies.
1The sixth of the month is a date of rather special interest to the writer. To begin with, it is his birthday. Then it is the day on which theRooseveltsteamed north on the successful quest for the pole; the day on which the pole was reached, and the day on which the wireless message of success was flashed over the world from the bleak Labrador station. Later it was the day on which the writer was madegrand officierof the Legion of Honor by the President of France, the day on which he began his efforts for air preparedness for this country, and the day (ninth anniversary of discovery of the pole) on which this country, by the President’s signature, formally entered the greatest of all wars.
1The sixth of the month is a date of rather special interest to the writer. To begin with, it is his birthday. Then it is the day on which theRooseveltsteamed north on the successful quest for the pole; the day on which the pole was reached, and the day on which the wireless message of success was flashed over the world from the bleak Labrador station. Later it was the day on which the writer was madegrand officierof the Legion of Honor by the President of France, the day on which he began his efforts for air preparedness for this country, and the day (ninth anniversary of discovery of the pole) on which this country, by the President’s signature, formally entered the greatest of all wars.
2Greenland is the largest island in the world. Its total length from Cape Farewell, its southern extremity in 60° N. latitude, to Cape Morris K. Jesup, its northern extremity in 83½° N. latitude is in round numbers 1500 miles, almost exactly the same as the length of the United States on the 97th meridian, from the mouth of the Rio Grande to where our northern boundary crosses the Red River of the North. The greatest width of Greenland is about the name as the distance from New York to St. Louis.In regard to its area, the figures of various authorities vary widely. It may be sufficient to say that as regards area it can be grouped in size with the United States east of the Mississippi; Alaska; Mexico; Columbia; Persia; Portuguese West Africa; Turkey in Asia. Its interior is covered with a great sheet of ice rising to elevations of probably 10,000 feet in places and several thousand feet in thickness. The available ice-free land is a strip of varying width along the coast, intersected by numerous deep fiords.Geographically, Greenland belongs to North America and the Western Hemisphere, over which we have formally claimed a sphere of influence by our Monroe Doctrine. Its possession by us will be in line with the Monroe Doctrine, and will eliminate one more possible source of future complications for us from European possession of territory in the Western Hemisphere. Will turning Greenland over to Denmark now mean our repurchase of it later, or will obtaining it now mean closing the incident and placing Greenland where it must ultimately belong?Greenland is comparatively near to us. For years American ships have conveyed cryolite from the Ivigtut Mines to Philadelphia. There is coal and cryolite, probably graphite and mica, possibly gold, in its rocks. Danish capital has apparently not been sufficient to exploit the country’s resources. With our unlimited means, it may, like Alaska, prove a sound and most valuable business investment.The abundance of native coal and the numerous glacial streams which come tumbling into the southern fiords from the great interior ice sheet represent enormous potential energy, which might be translated into nitrate and electrical energy, to make Greenland a power-house for the United States.Greenland represents ice, coal, and power in inexhaustible quantities. And stranger things have happened than that Greenland, in our hands, might furnish an important North Atlantic naval and aeronautical base.A North Pacific naval base for the United States in the Aleutian Archipelago is a recognized possibility. Why not a similar base in the North Atlantic? Cape Farewell in Greenland is but little north of Sitka. It is in the same latitude as St. Petersburg; Christiania, Great Britain’s naval base in the Orkneys, and the northern entrance to the North Sea, which Great Britain has incessantly patrolled with her war-ships summer and winter for two years.There are fiords in southern Greenland which would hold our entire navy, with narrow, deep water, impregnable entrances.Thirty-hours steaming due south from Cape Farewell by thirty-five-knot war-craft would put them in the transatlantic routes midway between New York and the English Channel.With the rapid shrinking of distance in this age of speed and invention, Greenland may be of crucial importance to us in the future.——From Peary letter, September, 1917, suggesting Denmark give the United States Greenland with the Danish West Indies.
2Greenland is the largest island in the world. Its total length from Cape Farewell, its southern extremity in 60° N. latitude, to Cape Morris K. Jesup, its northern extremity in 83½° N. latitude is in round numbers 1500 miles, almost exactly the same as the length of the United States on the 97th meridian, from the mouth of the Rio Grande to where our northern boundary crosses the Red River of the North. The greatest width of Greenland is about the name as the distance from New York to St. Louis.
In regard to its area, the figures of various authorities vary widely. It may be sufficient to say that as regards area it can be grouped in size with the United States east of the Mississippi; Alaska; Mexico; Columbia; Persia; Portuguese West Africa; Turkey in Asia. Its interior is covered with a great sheet of ice rising to elevations of probably 10,000 feet in places and several thousand feet in thickness. The available ice-free land is a strip of varying width along the coast, intersected by numerous deep fiords.
Geographically, Greenland belongs to North America and the Western Hemisphere, over which we have formally claimed a sphere of influence by our Monroe Doctrine. Its possession by us will be in line with the Monroe Doctrine, and will eliminate one more possible source of future complications for us from European possession of territory in the Western Hemisphere. Will turning Greenland over to Denmark now mean our repurchase of it later, or will obtaining it now mean closing the incident and placing Greenland where it must ultimately belong?
Greenland is comparatively near to us. For years American ships have conveyed cryolite from the Ivigtut Mines to Philadelphia. There is coal and cryolite, probably graphite and mica, possibly gold, in its rocks. Danish capital has apparently not been sufficient to exploit the country’s resources. With our unlimited means, it may, like Alaska, prove a sound and most valuable business investment.
The abundance of native coal and the numerous glacial streams which come tumbling into the southern fiords from the great interior ice sheet represent enormous potential energy, which might be translated into nitrate and electrical energy, to make Greenland a power-house for the United States.
Greenland represents ice, coal, and power in inexhaustible quantities. And stranger things have happened than that Greenland, in our hands, might furnish an important North Atlantic naval and aeronautical base.
A North Pacific naval base for the United States in the Aleutian Archipelago is a recognized possibility. Why not a similar base in the North Atlantic? Cape Farewell in Greenland is but little north of Sitka. It is in the same latitude as St. Petersburg; Christiania, Great Britain’s naval base in the Orkneys, and the northern entrance to the North Sea, which Great Britain has incessantly patrolled with her war-ships summer and winter for two years.
There are fiords in southern Greenland which would hold our entire navy, with narrow, deep water, impregnable entrances.
Thirty-hours steaming due south from Cape Farewell by thirty-five-knot war-craft would put them in the transatlantic routes midway between New York and the English Channel.
With the rapid shrinking of distance in this age of speed and invention, Greenland may be of crucial importance to us in the future.
——From Peary letter, September, 1917, suggesting Denmark give the United States Greenland with the Danish West Indies.
——From Peary letter, September, 1917, suggesting Denmark give the United States Greenland with the Danish West Indies.