Page 258 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

A Twentieth-Century Outlook. 239

been prolonged by well-known natural condi-
tions. A territory much larger, far less re-

deemed from its original wildness, and with
perhaps even ampler proportionate resources
than the continent of Europe, contained a
much smaller number of inhabitants. Hence,
despite an immense immigration, we have
lagged far behind in the work of completing
our internal development, and for that reason
have not yet felt the outward impulse that
now markedly characterizes the European
peoples. That we stand far apart from the
general movement of our race calls of itself for
consideration.
For the reasons mentioned it has been an
easy but a short-sighted policy, wherever it has
been found among statesmen or among jour-
nalists, to fasten attention purely on internal
and economical questions, and to reject, if not
to resent, propositions looking towards the
organization and maintenance of military force,
or contemplating the extension of our national
influence beyond our own borders, on the plea
that we have enough to do at home,— forgetful
that no nation, as no man, can live to itself or
die to itself. It is a policy in which we are