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Gertrude Atherton, "Denmark and the Treaty," Accession #6780-g , Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
This collection was purchased by the Library from David G. Holmes, Autographs, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 17, 1995.
This collection consists of an original holograph working manuscript entitled "Denmark and the Treaty" written by Gertrude Atherton at Copenhagen, with substantial pen and ink revisions, criticizing the principals involved in the "negotiations between the United States and Denmark regarding the projected sale of the Virgin Islands." She defends the necessity of the purchase, "But a harbor in the West Indies we must have, and Denmark possesses two at the very gateway of those waters which divide the Americas and bristle with fort of foreign powers. Some day the great canal will be built, and we must be able to strike quickly when it is menaced. Some day the Monroe Doctrine will be ignored, and the blow will be dealt in the Carribean Sea. Germany's amibitions are almost ingeneous. The menace of Russia is known to every student of the times: she has never retraced a step, and she has never ceased to advance; her movements are as firm as deliberate as they are stealthy."