Page 141 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

122 Possibilities of an

within, against which the only security is in
constant readiness to contend. In the rivalries
of nations, in the accentuation of differences,
in the conflict of ambitions, lies the preserva-
tion of the martial spirit which alone is capable
of coping finally with the destructive forces
that from outside and from within threaten to
submerge all the centuries have gained.
It is not then merely, nor even chiefly, a
pledge of universal peace that may be seen in
the United States becoming a naval power of
serious import, with clearly defined external
ambitions dictated by the necessities of her
interoceanic position; nor yet in the cordial
co-operation, as of kindred peoples, that the
future may have in store for her and Great
Britain. Not in universal harmony, nor in
fond dreams of unbroken peace, rest now the
best hopes of the world, as involved in the fate
of European civilization. Rather in the com-
petition of interests, in that reviving sense of
nationality, which is the true antidote to what

is bad in socialism, in the jealous determina-
tion of each people to provide first for its own,
of which the tide of protection rising through-
out the world, whether economically an error