these several thousand years is beginning to break, and that the vivifying influence of progress is now rapidly invading the land. First along the seaboard, and gradually toward the interior, outside intelligence is creeping in. The old fanatical cry of "foreign devil" is less frequently heard, and in place thereof are friendly talks of mills and machinery; of steamboats and railroads; of cotton, kerosene, and beer.

There are a hundred mills now in Shanghai alone using foreign machinery-cotton mills, paper mills, iron manufactories, and as many more in other places; in 1890 there was but one such establishment in all China. Many as there are of steamers and steam launches on the rivers, there are scores of navigable streams that have none. There are now telegraph lines to distant provinces; in 1890 there was not one; thousands of miles more of them are to be put up. Here is America's opportunity; American steamboats for the rivers, American machinery for the mills and mines, and a network of American railways to overspread the land. "It is not merely China, Russian Siberia, Japan, Korea, Siam, Formosa, the Philippines, Java, Borneo, great and small," a government official remarked, "that constitute a vast field which has been termed the Pacific opportunity. All eastern Asia to-day is trembling with the oncoming tread of progress, and when once these uncounted hosts realize that old conditions of sloth and inaction must yield to the invasion of new ideas, then the movement all along the line will astonish the world."

Japan is forging ahead under her new garb of western civilization. Siberia is being reclaimed from the frozen ocean to become a thoroughfare of industry and commerce, with the powerful influence of the tsar extending from the Baltic to the Pacific. Australia is a marvel of commercial development. The interests of Asia and Europe as well as those of America are destined hereafter to centre more largely in the Pacific. Says Colquhoun in his China in Transformation, “ It is evident that the Pacific slope, though at present playing but a small part, is more closely concerned in the ultimate development of China than any other section of the states. The Pacific states are possessed of enormous natural resources; their manufactures, while still of minor importance, have quadrupled in twenty years, and will in the course of time

find the most advantageous market in the Far East."

And of Asiatic commerce, Martin, in his Cycle of Cathay, remarks: "With the growing wealth of our Pacific coast, its future expansion challenges fancy to assign a limit."

Thus we may see, and shall see clearer as we proceed, that the light of discovery and progress now shines upon vast areas hitherto involved in the mysterious unknown; that the refined and sensitive of the earth are no longer tolerant of the presence of savages occupying lands suitable for cultivation, for on every side we see gardens of industry, cultivated lands, beautiful cities, and broad commonwealths filling the places so lately occupied by the unwashed and the unlearned; we see the whilom too exclusive Asiatics now swarming abroad to the annoyance of higher wage-workers everywhere; we see that China no longer sanctions open piracy and that Japan does not now kill shipwrecked mariners; that independent republican governments now occupy the soil formerly ruled by Spanish despotism; that the islanders no longer eat missionaries; that the sailing of ships across the ocean is not now restricted to one, or-by the grace of some Philip or Ferdinand-two a year; all around this vast amphitheatre European despotism has been banished, the people for the most part. are sovereign, all perhaps save in China, where this same European despotism now proposes, by robbing them of their birthright, to make them free; that even humanity-not human nature itself has changed, the more highly cultivated of the human race having somewhat improved, superstitions having to some extent diminished, slavery being abolished, commerce liberated, colonial rule lightened; that christianity has discarded the use of the sword in proselyting, but not in punishing; that wealth, culture, mind, and manners have become predominant; and that underlying our development we are pleased to find a true altruistic spirit pervading not only private life but public affairs, until even our wars become characterized by kindness to the foe.

It is not so much a question of the will of the people as of the destiny of the people whether or not the United States, in the westward march of progress, will step forth into the sea, and, placing foot upon islands at convenient distances apart, cross to the shore of Asia. Surely it was a mistake on the part of the United States to permit expansion to present

dimensions if we are not prepared to go forward in the path of progress and perform our duty as one of the dominating influences of the world.

Almost all the choice places of the earth were long since appropriated by civilization, all the temperate climes are occupied, all the good lands of the continents and wide areas of bad lands, extending to the remotest north and the remotest south. And there are no more unclaimed islands to speak of, tropical or others; all are taken up. It is nothing less than a windfall then, miraculous some might call it, these three or four superb islands and archipelagos dropping unexpectedly into the lap of the United States all at one time.

We have no longer a virgin continent to develop; pioneer work in the United States is done, and now we must.take a plunge into the sea. Here we find an area, an amphitheatre of water, upon and around which American enterprise and industry, great as it is and greatly to be increased, will find occupation for the full term of the twentieth century, and for many centuries thereafter. The Pacific, its shores and islands, must now take the place of the great west, its plains and mountains, as an outlet for pent-up industry. Here on this ocean all the world will meet, and on equal footing, Americans and Europeans, Asiatics and Africans, white, yellow, and black, looters and looted, the strongest and cunningest to carry off the spoils.

Nowhere is history so rapidly being made as in and around the Pacific ocean; nowhere is the evolution of events which stand for progress of more increasing interest and importance. It is now one of the world's highways of commerce, not a hazy dream or half-mythical tale, with its ancient mariner, and amazonian queen, and Crusoe island, and terrestrial paradise. The long since departed albatross has returned, to stir the winds of fresh benedictions, and now appears in the southern seas, where also are found in material form the fanciful creations of Defoe and Dante.

The year 1898 was one of bewildering changes for the United States. In that year the last of mediæval tyranny was driven from America. Our domain was extended east into the Atlantic and west into the Pacific, and across to Asia. The Pacific ocean, its waters, its islands, and its shores, as the world's theatre of commerce and industrial progression, at

tracted the attention of every nation, and a readjustment of affairs was demanded to meet new emergencies. Almost since yesterday, from the modest attitude of quiet industry the United States assumes the position of a world power, and enters, armed and alert, the arena of international rivalry as a colonizing force, with a willingness to accept the labor and responsibilities thence arising. Thus the old America passes away; behold a new America appears, and her face is toward the Pacific!

CHAPTER II

THE YEAR OF NINETY-EIGHT

THE significance of an event is not always apparent at the moment of its happening. So far as we are able at present to judge, the year 1898 will ever remain memorable in the history, not alone of the United States, but of the world.

In that year a new power was added to the nations of the earth; a new America was discovered, a new Pacific explored. Europe more than ever before became alive to the fact that the area of the earth is limited, and that those nations which have not somewhere room for growth must retrograde.

In that year was accomplished one of the most swiftly decisive wars in history, a war for humanity, not in the name of Christ or Mohammed, but in the name of the humane; a war for man in the name of man.

In that year was perpetrated the most diabolical outrage of modern times, in the blowing up of the United States battleship Maine, in the harbor of Havana, while on a friendly visit to a nation with which the American government was at peace. This tragedy of the Maine, resulting in the wanton destruction of more than two hundred and sixty lives, followed by the overwhelming testimony concerning the Cuban reconcentrados and other barbarities, made peace without satisfaction impossible.

In that year, more clearly than before, was made manifest. the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race to rise preeminent among peoples, while the Latin race declines, as it has ever declined since the days of republican Rome. Abreast with the speakers of English are the Russians, distantly related to the Chinese, whose empire they seem inclined slowly to absorb. With a good part of the world already secured for their enlargement, with their own millions added to the millions of China, and all under proper discipline, they will present a formidable