ed Mr. Washburn's position in a characteristic
speech, especially answering General Banks's argument that we should
pay this amount from a spirit of friendship for Russia. "If," said
General Butler, "we are to pay this price as usury on the friendship
of Russia, we are paying for it very dear indeed. If we are to pay
for her friendship, I desire to give her the seven million two hundred
thousand dollars in cash, and let her keep Alaska, because I think it
may be a small sum to give for the friendship if we could only get
rid of the land, or rather the ice, which we are to get by paying for
it." He maintained that it was in evidence before the House
officially, "that for ten years the entire product of the whole country
of Alaska did not exceed three million dollars."

--Mr. Peters of Maine pronounced the territory "intrinsically
valueless; the conclusive proof of which is found in the fact that
Russia is willing to sell it." He criticised the action of the Senate
in negotiating the treaty. "If the treaty-making power can buy, they
can sell. If they can buy land with money, they can buy money with
land. If they can buy a part of a country, they can buy the whole of
a country. If they can sell a part of our country, they can sell the
whole of it!"

--Mr. Spalding of Ohio, on the other hand, maintained that
"notwithstanding all the sneers that have been cast on Alaska, if it
could be sold again, individuals would take it off our hand and pay us
two or three millions for the bargain."

--General Schenck thought the purchase in itself highly objectionable,
but was "willing to vote the money because the treaty has been made
with a friendly power; one of those that stood by us,--almost the only
one that stood by us when all the rest of the powers of the world
seemed to be turning away from us in our recent troubles."

--Mr. Stevens supported the measure on the ground that it was a
valuable acquisition to the wealth and power of the country. He
argued also in favor of the right of the Senate to make the treaty.

--Mr. Leonard Myers was sure that if we did not acquire Alaska it
would be transferred to Great Britain. "The nation," said he, "which
struggled so hard for Vancouver and her present Pacific boundary,
and which still insists on having the little island of San Juan, will
never let such an opportunity slip. Canada, as matters now stand,
would become ours some day could her people learn to be Americans;
bu