e stage of militarism into the stage of
industrialism. Throughout the greater part of that vast continent,
revolutions have ceased to be looked upon with favor or submitted to
with indifference; the revolutionary general and the dictator are no
longer the objects of admiration and imitation; civic virtues command
the highest respect; the people point with satisfaction and pride to the
stability of their governments, to the safety of property and the
certainty of justice; nearly everywhere the people are eager for foreign
capital to develop their natural resources and for foreign immigration
to occupy their vacant lands.

Immediately before us, at exactly the right time, just as we are ready
for it, great opportunities for peaceful commercial and industrial
expansion to the south are presented. Other investing nations are
already in the field--England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain; but the
field is so vast, the new demands are so great, the progress so rapid,
that what other nations have done up to this time is but a slight
advance in the race for the grand total.

The opportunities are so large that figures fail to convey them. The
area of this newly awakened continent is 7,502,848 square miles--more
than two and one half times as large as the United States without
Alaska, and more than double the United States including Alaska. A large
part of this area lies within the temperate zone, with an equable and
invigorating climate, free from extremes of either heat or cold. Farther
north in the tropics are enormous expanses of high table-lands,
stretching from the Atlantic to the foothills of the Andes, and lifted
far above the tropical heats; the fertile valleys of the western
cordilleras are cooled by perpetual snows even under the equator; vast
forests grow untouched from a soil of incredible richness. The plains of
Argentina, the great uplands of Brazil, the mountain valleys of Chile,
Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Colombia are suited to the habitation of any
race, however far to the north its origin may have been; hundreds of
millions of men can find healthful homes and abundant sustenance in this
great territory.

The population in 1900 was only 42,461,381, less than six to the square
mile. The density of population was less than one-eighth of that in the
state of Missouri, less than one-sixtieth of that in the state of
Massachusetts, less than one-seventieth of that in England, less than
one per cent of that in Belgi