Page 239 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

2 20 A Twentieth-Century Outlook.

maintained ever since by the great body of the
people of the United States, and the develop-
ments his doctrine afterwards received, have re-
moved the Spanish-American countries equally
from all probable chance of further European
colonization, in the political sense of the
word.
Thus the century opened. Men's energies
still sought scope beyond the sea, doubtless;
not, however, in the main, for the founding of
new colonies, but for utilizing ground already
in political occupation. Even this, however,
was subsidiary. The great work of the nine-
teenth century, from nearly its beginning to
nearly its close, has been in the recognition
and study of the forces of nature, and the
application of them to the purposes of mechani-
cal and economical advance. The means thus
placed in men's hands, so startling when first
invented, so familiar for the most part to us
now, were devoted necessarily, first, to the
development of the resources of each country.
Everywhere there was a fresh field ; for hitherto
it had been nowhere possible to man fully to
utilize the gifts of nature. Energies every-
where turned inward, for there, in every region,