Conditions in Alaska, so far as medical relief for the natives is concerned, are distressing and inexcusable. Year after year, with persistent regularity, the Sundry Civil Appropriation Committee of the House strikes out the modest sum of seventy-five thousand dollars petitioned for by the Board of Education for medical relief work among the natives of Alaska. In all southeastern Alaska there is but one hospital for natives,--a Presbyterian institution at Haines. Dr. Romig, a former Moravian Medical Missionary in the Bristol Bay district in Bering Sea, gave as an estimate that forty per cent of the Eskimo population of this district, numbering some seventeen hundred people, were afflicted with transmissible diseases--chiefly tuberculosis, syphilis and trachoma. The physical condition of these people is pitiable in the extreme. Yet the government provides _one_ physician and a small inadequate infirmary without proper equipment and maintained in an abandoned schoolhouse! Contrast this with what is being done for the Indians of the United States. For the three hundred thousand there are now employed two hundred doctors, eighty nurses, seven dentists, seventy field matrons, and seventy-seven miscellaneous hospital attendants. Also, the government maintains for the Indians forty-nine hospitals, four tuberculosis sanitaria with a capacity for caring for a thousand four hundred and ninety-nine patients! The reason for the striking contrast between this and the shameful neglect of the Alaskan natives ought to be found and removed. The present condition is a reproach to us as a nation. Not only this, it is a menace to the health and safety of the white people already there and an argument against the coming of others. Much has been said and written of the origin of the Eskimos. There is a difference of opinion as to whence, originally, they came. My own belief is that they are of Mongolian origin. A similarity of language would tend to strengthen this belief. When it comes to a native tongue I confess that the Eskimo has a peculiarity which is unique and baffling, more so than I have ever encountered in any other language. I once got up against this in a manner which took some time to untangle. As United States Commissioner at St. Michael it was part of my duty to try offenders against the law. The first time the offender chanced to be an Eskimo I suddenly discovered that I had troubles of my own. Apparently his _no_ meant _yes_, and vice versa. I could not understand it at first, but at last it dawned upon me that although he spoke brokenly in English he was _thinking_ in his own tongue. For instance, I would say to him: "You did so-and-so, didn't you?" "Yes!" he would reply, when I knew very well that he meant to deny it.