ivalries of
nations, in the accentuation of differences, in the conflict of
ambitions, lies the preservation of the martial spirit, which alone is
capable of coping finally with the destructive forces that from
outside and from within threaten to submerge all the centuries have
gained.

It is not then merely, nor even chiefly, a pledge of universal peace
that may be seen in the United States becoming a naval power of
serious import, with clearly defined external ambitions dictated by
the necessities of her interoceanic position; nor yet in the cordial
co-operation, as of kindred peoples, that the future may have in store
for her and Great Britain. Not in universal harmony, nor in fond
dreams of unbroken peace, rest now the best hopes of the world, as
involved in the fate of European civilization. Rather in the
competition of interests, in that reviving sense of nationality, which
is the true antidote to what is bad in socialism, in the jealous
determination of each people to provide first for its own, of which
the tide of protection rising throughout the world, whether
economically an error or not, is so marked a symptom--in these jarring
sounds which betoken that there is no immediate danger of the leading
peoples turning their swords into ploughshares--are to be heard the
assurance that decay has not touched yet the majestic fabric erected
by so many centuries of courageous battling. In this same pregnant
strife the United States doubtless will be led, by undeniable
interests and aroused national sympathies, to play a part, to cast
aside the policy of isolation which befitted her infancy, and to
recognize that, whereas once to avoid European entanglement was
essential to the development of her individuality, now to take her
share of the travail of Europe is but to assume an inevitable task, an
appointed lot, in the work of upholding the common interests of
civilization. Our Pacific slope, and the Pacific colonies of Great
Britain, with an instinctive shudder have felt the threat, which able
Europeans have seen in the teeming multitudes of central and northern
Asia; while their overflow into the Pacific Islands shows that not
only westward by land, but also eastward by sea, the flood may sweep.
I am not careful, however, to search into the details of a great
movement, which indeed may never come, but whose possibility, in
existing conditions, looms large upon the horizon of the future, and
against which the only barr