It will help us to form an intelligent estimate of the possibilities before us and the probable future of our nation if we will briefly consider its early difficulties and the progess it has made. For generations the United States has held steadfastly to the policy outlined by Washington in his farewell address:

"If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance....Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand on foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice? It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world, so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements."

We can better understand what called forth these wise utterances if we know something of the condition of the country at that time. The United States were practically but a small fringe of settlements on the Atlantic seaboard; to be driven from the coast was to endure all the privations of the forest, and that coast was at the mercy of any of the naval powers of the day. Its northwestern and southern boundaries were vague and indefinite; of them they knew little and cared less. Its western boundary was the Mississippi river, and this was supposed to rise somewhere in British America. Its census had shown that there were 3,929,241 inhabitants, rather more than half as many as are now found within the single State of New York, and of these one-fifth were in Virginia, one-ninth in Pennsylvania, and almost one-half south of the southern boundary of that State. The six largest cities of the country together numbered fewer inhabitants than Kansas City, Mo., can now boast. The total area of the United States was then 865,000 square miles and three-fourths of it was inhabited only by savages.

England held fortified posts in our territory on the plea that the United States, in violation of treaty, had not repealed laws forbidding the recovery of debts due from their citizens to her subjects. Spain would make no treaty allowing free navigation of the Mississippi; domestic affairs were unhappy; the United States were allied by treaty to France; France declared war against Great Britian; Washington issued a proclamation of neutrality and his opponents at once cried "coward;" claimed that he had violated the Constitution; had usurped the power of Congress, because to proclaim neutrality was to forbid war; to forbid war implied the right to declare war, and Congress alone could do that.

The Constitution was not working smoothly. A "Whiskey Insurrection" occurred in Pennsylvania; demavozues demanded that all property should be divided and held in common since all had been engaged in defending it from English confiscation all were equally entitled to share in it. This motive was at the bottom of Shays' rebellion. If successful it would have annihilated all property and canceled all debts.

The most bitter partisan feeling prevailed. The Secretary of State privately employed a scurrilous writer to attack the President in whose cabinet he served.

This was the situation when Washington warned his fellow- countrymen to "beware of entangling alliances." There was, therefore, a real danger that a defeated faction might seek to avenge itself by calling in a stronger power. The recent magnificent exhibition of the united nation, of its unselfishness, its enormous resources and great area, make it difficult for us to look back and appreciate our former feebleness and comparative insignificance.

Territory Acquired

Napoleon had obtained Louisana from Spain, but could not hold it against attack from Great Britain, and in 1803 Jefferson bought for 60,000,000 francs the territory from which we have since carved sixteen States, the United States agreeing to pay its own citizens spoliation claims due them from France. The control of the Mississippi and the development of the West were now assured, yet that magnificent domain was not secured without violent partisan opposition, and only Hamilton of all the Federal leaders could show the "high mind" and play the statesman.

Jefferson, in the immortal Declaration of Independence, had said, "Governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," yet he purchased a foreign colony without reference to its inhabitants, and not only without their consent but against their will. In 1818 Spain ceded Florida to us, the United States agreeing to pay its own citizens' claims for outrages sustained at the hands of Spain and to accept the Colorado river in Texas as a boundary in place of the Rio Grande.

In 1845 Texas was annexed, which involved us in war with Mexico. This action was so far from meeting with unanimous approval, that an Ohio senator said he hoped the Mexicans would welcome our troops "with bloody hands to unhospitable graves."

Nevertheless a half a million square miles were added to the public domain, and in 1853 the $10 million Gadsen purchase secured additional territory in the southern part of New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The northwestern boundaries of the Louisiana purchase were never accurately defined, and but for Marcus Whitman's heroic ride of 4,000 miles in the dead of winter across trackless prairies and pathless forests the territory that comprises Idaho, Oregon, and Washington would have been a part of British Columbia. In this case, as usual, the acquirement of territory met with great opposition from the conservative, the shortsighted, and the hysterical, who averred that it was worthless, remote, and indefensible. We think no one will venture to say that time has not justified the wisdom of the acquisition.

Then in 1867 came Seward's purchase of Alaska for $7,200,000. Many estimable people could not see the wisdom of this, but the territory has since more than paid for itself in fisheries, furs and gold. In 1881 the little island of Navassa, in the West Indies, was acquired, and July 7, 1898, Hawaii became a part of the United States, three-fourths of a century after we had announced our intention of adding it to our public domain; and at the next meeting of Congress there will probably be added to our dominions the territory acquired in our war with Spain.

Colonial Extension

The Phoenicians, Greeks, and especially the Romans, brought their colonies to a high state of perfection, and under Rome there were various grades of citizenship in her colonies - from the lowest up to the highest enjoyed by a citizen of the republic. Among the advantages of a colony is that it widens fields of enterprise and provides closed markets, in which the mother country can buy cheap and sell dear. It gives a larger choice of the means of livelihood. It appeals to the agriculturist because it offers him land. It furnishes a safety-valve for the outlet of the discontented population, and every new colony may be looked upon as a new market for home goods; a speculation that may be worth some expense to maintain.

A glance at the map of the world shows how extensive this system has become. The colonies and dependencies of Great Britain cover one-sixth the whole surface of the globe, and embrace about the same proportion of its population. Germany, beginning the policy in 1884, has acquired over one million square miles and ten millions of population. France today has in dependencies a territory greater than the United States with a population of over fifty million souls, and the greater part Of this has been secured since 1880. The Netherlands, with a home population less than that of Pennsylvania and an area slightly greater than that of Maryland, hold dependencies in the East Indies and West Indies aggregating 783,000 square miles, with a population of over 35,000,000. Evidently that little country is not alarmed about its needing a powerful navy to defend the distant domain.

The idea of a colony frightens the average American, and yet under the name of "territory" the United States has practiced an extensive plan of colonization. She has given land outright to actual settlers and has sold it to others on the most favorable terms. She has governed the territories by her own laws until such time as she saw fit to grant them the rights of statehood. If the policy of colonization is a Judicious one, there is little doubt about its constitutionality, for the United States Supreme Court has decided that Congress has absolute power when it comes to law-making for the territory. "It is, perhaps, natural for the mother country to regard the colony as an outlet for her own surplus population, and the tie between them is manifest in the case of commerce. Great Britain has maintained her trade more steadily in her own colonies than she has with all the rest of the world."

Judging the Future by the Past

McMasters, in his "Four Centuries of Progress," says:

"We have reached the Gulf, we have crossed the Mississippi, we have built up two-and-twenty Commonwealths on the plains beyond, we have made our Constitution sure and given Europe such an object lesson in government of the people, by the people, for the people, as will not be in vain. Whatever abridges distance, whatever annihilates time, whatever alleviates human pain, has nowhere been so fostered as in these United States. Could we but stretch forth our hands and take out of the life of the world today every machine, every article of real necessity, every convenience, every comfort due to the ingenuity of our countrymen, we should bring back a condition of affairs which to us would be almost intolerable.

"As we have grown more intelligent, so we have grown more liberal, more tolerant, more humane. When this century opened there was not a blind asylum, nor a deaf-and-dumb asylum, nor a lunatic asylum, nor a house of Tefuge in all our land. We have cut down the number of crimes punished with death from fifteen to two. We have ceased to use the branding iron and the treadmill; we have abolished imprisonment for debt; we have exterminated slavery. We have covered our country with free schools and free libraries, and set up institutions for the protection not only of children but of dumb brutes. In the face of all these facts it is wicked to talk of degeneration and decay."

It is a century since Washington uttered his words of warning. In that time the public domain of the country has been more than quadrupled; the population has increased from less than four millions to more than seventy millions; its wealth and resources can hardly be computed. Instead of a feeble, struggling nation, at the mercy of any power, we are so strong that an Austrian Minister of State has openly threatened a coalition of Europe against us lest our free institutions become too dangerous to their systems of government. Have we become a "world power?" Does our action in the Venezuelan matter and the intervention in Cuban affairs answer the question?

Next: Chapter 14: The Spanish-American War