The Two Americas 191 



was imponderable. World politics still meant Euro 

 pean politics. 



All that is now changed, not merely by what has 

 happened here in America, but by what has hap 

 pened elsewhere. It is not necessary for us here to 

 consider the giant changes which have come else 

 where in the globe ; to treat of the rise in the South 

 Seas of the great free commonwealths of Australia 

 and New Zealand; of the way in which Japan has 

 been rejuvenated and has advanced by leaps and 

 bounds to a position among the leading civilized 

 powers; of the problems, affecting the major portion 

 of mankind, which call imperiously for solution in 

 parts of the Old World which, a century ago, were 

 barely known to Europe, even by rumor. Our pres 

 ent concern is not with the Old World, but with our 

 own Western Hemisphere, America. We meet to 

 day, representing the people of this continent, from 

 the Dominion of Canada in the north, to Chile and 

 the Argentine in the south ; representing peoples who 

 have traveled far and fast in the last century, be 

 cause in them has been practically shown that it is 

 the spirit of adventure which is the maker of com 

 monwealths; peoples who are learning and striving 

 to put in practice the vital truth that freedom is the 

 necessary first step, but only the first step, in success 

 ful free government. 



During the last century we have on the whole 



