INTEODUCTION 



THE TWENTIETH -CENTUEY OPPORTUNITY 



THE true opportunity of the American people lies 

 not in the tropical islands of the Pacific and Carib- 

 bean, but in the vast unsettled regions of their own 

 country. Their true mission is not to impose their 

 dominion upon distant lands and alien peoples, but to 

 work out the highest forms of civilization for their 

 own race and nationality. 



The advocates of colonial expansion abroad argue 

 that hitherto we have been engaged in the conquest 

 of this continent, and declare that this work is now 

 done. But it is not done. There is room for one 

 hundred million people in the States and Territories 

 between the Missouri river and the Pacific Ocean. In 

 that vast region there is a population of but three to 

 the square mile, while in the Philippine Islands there 

 are sixty, a density of settlement twenty times as 

 great. 



But the material opportunity is neither the single 

 nor the most urgent claim of Arid America to the 



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