The Alaska boundary question (see in Volume VI. of this work, under ALASKA BOUNDARY QUESTION) was brought to a settlement in 1903 by an arrangement which submitted it to a Commission of six, three representing the United States and three acting for Great Britain and Canada. The American Commissioners were the Honorable Elihu Root, Secretary of War, and senators Henry C. Lodge and George Turner, of Massachusetts and the State of Washington respectively. The British and Canadian members were the Lord Chief Justice of England, Lord Alverstone, Sir Louis Jette, of Quebec, and A. B. Aylesworth, of Toronto, Ontario. The Commission, meeting in London, arrived at its decision in October, signing, on the 20th, an agreement on all the questions submitted. "By this award," said President Roosevelt, in his subsequent Message to Congress, "the right of the United States to the control of a continuous strip or border of the mainland shore, skirting all the tide-water inlets and sinuosities of the coast, is confirmed; the entrance to Portland Canal (concerning which legitimate doubt appeared) is defined as passing by Tongass Inlet and to the northwestward of Wales and Pearse islands: a line is drawn from the head of Portland Canal to the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude: and the interior border line of the strip is fixed by lines connecting certain mountain summits lying between Portland Canal and Mount St. Elias and running along the crest of the divide separating the coast slope from the inland watershed, at the only part of the frontier where the drainage ridge approaches the coast within the distance of ten marine leagues stipulated by the treaty as the extreme width of the strip around the heads of Lynn Canal and its branches. While the line so traced follows the provisional demarcation of 1878 at the crossing of the Stikine River, and that of 1899 at the summits of the White and Chilkoot passes, it runs much farther inland from the Klehine than the temporary line of the later _modus vivendi_, and leaves the entire mining district of the Porcupine River and Glacier Creek within the jurisdiction of the United States. The result is satisfactory in every way. It is of great material advantage to our people in the Far Northwest. It has removed from the field of discussion and possible danger a question liable to become more acutely accentuated with each passing year. Finally it has furnished a signal proof of the fairness and good will with which two friendly nations can approach and determine issues involving national sovereignty, and by their nature incapable of submission to a third power for adjudication." _Message of President Roosevelt, December 7, 1903._