Page 284 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

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A Twentieth- Century Outlook, 265

people of any supposed fresh encroachment by
another state of the European family has been
manifested too plainly and too recently to
admit of dispute. Such an attitude of itself
demands of us to be ready to support it by
organized force, exactly as the mutual jealousy
of states within the European Continent im-
poses upon them the maintenance of their great
armies — destined, we believe, in the future, to
fulfil a nobler mission. Where we thus ex-
elude others, we accept for ourselves the
responsibility for that which is due to the gen-
eral family of our civilization ; and the Carib-
bean Sea, with its isthmus, is the nexus where
will meet the chords binding the East to the
West, the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The Isthmus, with all that depends upon it,
its canal and its approaches on either hand,
will link the eastern side of the American conti-
nent to the western as no network of land com-
munications ever can. In it the United States
has asserted a special interest. In the present
she can maintain her claim, and in the future
perform her duty, only by the creation of that
sea power upon which predominance in the
Caribbean must ever depend. In short, as the