Page 68 - The Interest of America in Sea Power Present and Future

Hawaii and our Future Sea Power. 49

imperative upon us to secure it, if we right-
eously can.
It is to be hoped, also, that the opportunity
thus thrust upon us may not be viewed nar-
rowly, as though it concerned but one section
of our country or one portion of its external
trade or influence. This is no mere question
of a particular act, for which, possibly, just
occasion may not have offered yet; but of a
principle, a policy, fruitful of many future acts,
to enter upon which, in the fulness of our
national progress, the time now has arrived.
The principle being accepted, to be conditioned
only by a just and candid regard for the rights
and reasonable susceptibilities of other nations,
— none of which is contravened by the step
here immediately under discussion, — the an-
nexation, even, of Hawaii would be no mere
sporadic effort, irrational because disconnected
from an adequate motive, but a first-fruit and
a token that the nation in its evolution has
aroused itself to the necessity of carrying its
life — that has been the happiness of those
under its influence— beyond the borders which
heretofore have sufficed for its activities. That
the vaunted blessings of our economy are not
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