e defeat of Napoleon, was paid for at
such a huge price. The British Empire has been established in savage
competition with Holland, Spain, France, Russia, the United States,
Germany and a host of lesser powers. The empires of old--Assyria, Egypt,
Rome--were built at an intolerable sacrifice. So terrible has been the
cost of empire building to some of these nations that by the time they
had succeeded in creating an empire the life blood of the people and the
resources of the country were devoured and the empire emerged, only to
fall an easy prey to the first strong-handed enemy that it encountered.

No such fate has overtaken the United States. On the contrary her path
has been smoothed before her feet. Inhabiting a garden spot, her immense
territory gains in the past hundred and fifty years have been made with
less effort than it has cost Japan to gain and hold Korea or England to
maintain her dominion over Ireland.

Once established, the old-world empire was not secure. If the territory
that it possessed was worth having, it was surrounded by hungry-eyed
nations that took the first occasion to band together and despoil the
spoiler. The holding of an empire was as great a task as the building of
empire--often greater because of the larger outlay in men and money that
was involved in an incessant warfare. Little by little the glory faded;
step by step militarism made its inroads upon the normal life of the
people, until the time came for the stronger rival to overthrow the
mighty one, or until the inrushing hordes of barbarians should blot out
the features of civilization, and enthrone chaos once more.

How different has been the fate of the people of the United States!
Possessed of what is probably the richest, for the purposes of the
present civilization, of any territory of equal size in the world, their
isolation has allowed them more than a century of practical freedom from
outside interference--a century that they have been able to devote to
internal development. The absence of greedy neighbors has reduced the
expense of military preparation to a minimum; the old world has failed
to realize, until within the last few years, what were the possibilities
of the new country; vitality has remained unimpaired, wealth has piled
up, industry has been promoted, and on each occasion when a greater
extent of territory was required, it has been obtained at a cost that,
compared with the experience of other nations, must be d