publican revolution which was speedily successful. The new
Government, as yet unrecognized, needed money, and the United States
secured a share in a six-power syndicate which was organized to float
a national loan. The conditions upon which this syndicate insisted,
however, were as much political as they were pecuniary, and the new
Government refused to accept them.

On the accession of President Wilson, the United States promptly led
the way in recognizing the new republic in China. On March 18, 1913,
the President announced: "The conditions of the loan seem to us to
touch nearly the administrative independence of China itself; and this
administration does not feel that it ought, even by implication, to be
a party to those conditions." The former American policy of
non-interference was therefore renewed, but it still remained uncertain
whether the entrance of the United States into Far Eastern politics
would do more than serve to delay the European dominance which seemed to
be impending in 1898.

CHAPTER XV. The Panama Canal

While American troops were threading the mountain passes and the
morasses of the Philippines, scaling the walls of Pekin, and sunning
themselves in the delectable pleasances of the Forbidden City, and while
American Secretaries of State were penning dispatches which determined
the fate of countries on the opposite side of the globe, the old
diplomatic problems nearer home still persisted. The Spanish War,
however, had so thoroughly changed the relationship of the United States
to the rest of the world that the conditions under which even these old
problems were to be adjusted or solved gave them entirely new aspects.
The American people gradually but effectually began to take foreign
affairs more seriously. As time went on, the Government made
improvements in the consular and diplomatic services. Politicians found
that their irresponsible threatenings of other countries had ceased
to be politically profitable when public opinion realized what was at
stake. Other countries, moreover, began to take the United States more
seriously. The open hostility which they had shown on the first entrance
of this nation into world politics changed, on second thought, to a
desire on their part to placate and perhaps to win the support of this
new and formidable power.

The attitude of Germany in particular was conspicuous. The Kaiser sent
his brother, Prince Henry, to visit the United States. He presented