Verdun on inadequate maps. Interest could not be more intense, but it was the interest of the moving-picture devotee. Even the romantic voyage of the Kronprinzessin Cecilie with her cargo of gold, seeking to elude the roving British cruisers, seemed merely theatrical. It was a tremendous show and we were the spectators. Only the closing of the Stock Exchange lent an air of reality to the crisis.

It was true that the Spanish War had made of the United States a world power, but so firmly rooted in American minds was the principle of complete political isolation from European affairs that the typical citizen could not imagine any cataclysm on the other side of the Atlantic so engrossing as to engage the active participation of his country. The whole course of American history had deepened the general feeling of aloofness from Europe and heightened the effect of the advice given by the first President when he warned the country to avoid entangling alliances. In the early nineteenth century the United States was a country apart, for in the days when there was neither steamship nor telegraph the Atlantic in truth separated the New World from the Old. After the close of the "second war of independence," in 1815, the possibility of

foreign complications seemed remote. The attention of the young nation was directed to domestic concerns, to the building up of manufactures, to the extension of the frontiers westward. The American nation turned its back to the Atlantic. There was a steady and welcome stream of immigrants from Europe, but there was little speculation or interest as to its headwaters.

Governmental relations with European states were disturbed at times by crises of greater or less importance. The proximity of the United States to and interest in Cuba compelled the Government to recognize the political existence of Spain; a French army was ordered out of Mexico when it was felt to be a menace; the presence of immigrant Irish in large numbers always gave a note of uncertainty to the national attitude towards Great Britain. The export of cotton from the Southern States created industrial relations of such importance with Great Britain that, during the Civil War, after the establishment of the blockade on the Confederate coast, wisdom and forbearance were needed on both sides to prevent the breaking out of armed conflict. But during the last third of the century, which was marked in this country by an extraordinary industrial evolution and an increased

interest in domestic administrative issues, the attitude of the United States towards Europe, except during the brief Venezuelan crisis and the war with Spain, was generally characterized by the indifference which is the natural outcome of geographical separation.

In diplomatic language American foreign policy, so far as Europe was concerned, was based upon the principle of "non-intervention." The right to manage their affairs in their own way without interference was conceded to European Governments and a reciprocal attitude was expected of them. The American Government followed strictly the purpose of not participating in any political arrangements made between European states regarding European issues. Early in the life of the nation Jefferson had correlated the double aspect of this policy: "Our first and fundamental maxim,” he said, "should be never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe; our second, never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs." The influence of John Quincy Adams crystallized this double policy in the Monroe Doctrine, which, as compensation for denying to European states the right to intervene in American politics, sacrificed the generous sympathies of many Americans, among them

President Monroe himself, with the republican movements across the Atlantic. With the continued and increasing importance of the Monroe Doctrine as a principle of national policy, the natural and reciprocal aspect of that doctrine, implying political isolation from Europe, became more deeply imbedded in the national consciousness.

There was, it is true, another aspect to American foreign policy besides the European, namely, that concerning the Pacific and the Far East, which, as diplomatic historians have pointed out, does not seem to have been affected by the tradition of isolation. Since the day when the western frontier was pushed to the Golden Gate, the United States has taken an active interest in problems of the Pacific. Alaska was purchased from Russia. An American seaman was the first to open the trade of Japan to the outside world and thus precipitated the great revolution which has touched every aspect of Far Eastern questions. American traders watched carefully the commercial development of Oriental ports, in which Americans have played an active rôle. In China and in the maintenance of the open door especially, has America taken the keenest interest. It is a matter of pride that American policy, always of a purely commercial and

peaceful nature, showed itself less aggressive than that of some European states. But the Government insisted upon the recognition of American interest in every Far Eastern issue that might be raised, and was ready to intervene with those of Europe in moments of crisis or danger.

A fairly clear-cut distinction might thus be made between American pretensions in the different parts of the world. In the Americas the nation claimed that sort of preeminence which was implied by the Monroe Doctrine, a preeminence which as regards the Latin-American states north of the Orinoco many felt must be actively enforced, in view of special interests in the Caribbean. In the Far East the United States claimed an equality of status with the European powers. In the rest of the world, Europe, Africa, the Levant, the traditional American policy of abstention held good absolutely, at least until the close of the century.

The war with Spain affected American foreign policy vitally. The holding of the Philippines, even if it were to prove merely temporary, created new relations with all the great powers, of Europe as of Asia; American Caribbean interests were strengthened; and the victory over a European power, even one of a second class in material