THE GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES 385 



A glance from the history of the nation to the century's his- 

 tory of the world indicates the force and beneficence of the 

 American example ; the relations are too many for even sum- 

 mary statement ; it may only be noted tbat the absorption of 

 American ideas and the imitation of American methods by other 

 peoples and nations proves that the progress of this nation is 

 meeting a need of the world. 



Cautious students presage . the future, from the history of the 

 past ; and the American of today must look to the lessons of 

 1803, 1821, 1845, and 1848 for indications of results to follow from 

 expansion in 1898. The trend of these lessons is clear. After 

 a generation of concentration, American energy is more tense 

 than ever before ; American enterprise and capital are overflow- 

 ing in ever} 7 direction— in Canadian mines, in Mexican railways, 

 in South American plantations, and in scores of other ways ; 

 American progress has outstripped that of the rest of the world 

 in every line save that of oceanic shipping ; American genius 

 will not be pent and is bound to diffuse itself by individual 

 effort if not by national action. Such is the present condition 

 of the United States, as demonstrated by any fair arrangement of 

 figures or growth-curves — the young giant is rending his chains. 

 The prospect is definite : Just as the Louisiana purchase in 1803 

 made America a steamboat nation, and just as the acquisition 

 of California in 1848 made America a railway and telegraph na- 

 tion, so the acquisition of Hawaii and Porto Rico and above all 

 of the Philippines in 1898 must make America the naval nation 

 of the earth ; for the problem born of the accession would be 

 that problem of navigation ' which needs American genius for 

 its final solution, while America needs the incentive to strengthen 

 that element in which alone she is weak. The Philippines are 

 remote — only a fraction so remote in time as was California a 

 half-century ago, yet remote enough to compel the invention of 

 devices for shortening time and annihilating space ; and the 

 problem of bringing Manila within a fortnight of San Francisco 

 is one worthy the genius of the inventors of the innumerable 

 devices involved in steamboating, railroading, and telegraphing. 

 Given swift vessels, the other problems presented by the Garden 

 of the East are of little consequence save as forecasting direc- 

 tions for the profitable expenditure of long-pent energy ; the 

 7,000,000 pastoral natives and tax-gathering Spaniards are a far 

 less menace to our quadrupled population and multiplied power 



