ent stands" also; and woe to the
public servant who rejects brilliant opportunities to promote it--on
the Pacific Ocean no less than the Atlantic, by commerce no less than
by agriculture or manufactures.

It is said the Philippines are worthless--have, in fact, already cost
us more than the value of their entire trade for many years to come. So
much the more, then, are we bound to do our duty by them. But we have
also heard in turn, and from the same quarters, that every one of our
previous acquisitions was worthless.

Again, it is said our continent is more than enough for all our needs,
and our extensions should stop at the Pacific. What is this but
proposing such a policy of self-sufficient isolation as we are
accustomed to reprobate in China--planning now to develop only on the
soil on which we stand, and expecting the rest of the world to protect
our trade if we have any? Can a nation with safety set such limits to
its development? When a tree stops growing, our foresters tell us, it
is ripe for the ax. When a man stops in his physical and intellectual
growth he begins to decay. When a business stops growing it is in
danger of decline. When a nation stops growing it has passed the
meridian of its course, and its shadows fall eastward.

Is China to be our model, or Great Britain? Or, better still, are we to
follow the instincts of our own people? The policy of isolating
ourselves is a policy for the refusal of both duties and
opportunities--duties to foreign nations and to civilization, which
cannot be respectably evaded; opportunities for the development of our
power on the Pacific in the Twentieth Century, which it would be craven
to abandon. There has been a curious "about face," an absolute reversal
of attitude toward England, on the part of our Little Americans,
especially at the East and among the more educated classes. But
yesterday nearly all of them were pointing to England as a model. There
young men of education and position felt it a duty to go into politics.
There they had built up a model civil service. There their cities were
better governed, their streets cleaner, their mails more promptly
delivered. There the responsibilities of their colonial system had
enforced the purification of domestic politics, the relentless
punishment of corrupt practices, and the abolition of bribery in
elections, either by money or by office. There they had foreign trade,
and a commercial marine, and a trained and effi