664 Presidential Addresses 



tion we can not escape our share of responsibility 

 for the guilt. The first requisite of successful self- 

 government is unflinching enforcement of the law 

 and the cutting out of corruption. 



For several years past the rapid development of 

 Alaska and the establishment of growing American 

 interests in regions theretofore unsurveyed and im- 

 perfectly known brought into prominence the urgent 

 necessity of a practical demarcation of the bounda- 

 ries between the jurisdictions of the United States 

 and Great Britain. Although the treaty of 1825 be- 

 tween Great Britain and Russia, the provisions of 

 which were copied in the treaty of 1867, whereby 

 Russia conveyed Alaska to the United States, was 

 positive as to the control, first by Russia and later 

 by the United States, of a strip of territory along 

 the continental mainland from the western shore of 

 Portland Canal to Mount St. Elias, following and 

 surrounding the indentations of the coast and in- 

 cluding the islands to the westward, its description 

 of the landward margin of the strip was indefinite, 

 resting on the supposed existence of a continuous 

 ridge or range of mountains skirting the coast, as 

 figured in the charts of the early navigators. It had 

 at no time been possible for either party in interest 

 to lay down, under the authority of the treaty, a line 

 so obviously exact according to its provisions as to 

 command the assent of the other. For nearly three- 

 fourths of a century the absence of tangible local 

 interests demanding the exercise of positive jurisdic- 



