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peramentally and by tradition the American people was essentially pacific. Its first President had warned it against foreign entanglements, and the Monroe Doctrine had served as permanent proclamation of benevolent isolation. Apart from the tearless war with Spain in 1898, America had not for over a century fought an external campaign, and she had virtually no dependencies to draw her into controversy with any European Power. And while she had a serviceable Navy, her Army was organized on a scale which forbade all thought of early participation in a serious land campaign.

But there were more cogent reasons than these why America should in 1914 cling instinctively to her traditional policy of isolation. Though Washington had fought to make America independent and Lincoln had fought to keep her united, Mr. Wilson, fifty years after Lincoln's battles and a hundred and thirty after Washington's, found himself President of what was not yet a cohesive nation. The census of 1910 showed that the United States contained over four million Germans and Austro-Hungarians who were actually foreign-born, while there were close on nine millions of Germans alone returned as of foreign parentage. The danger that war against Germany would mean civil war needed no demonstration.

Of war with the Entente Powers there was

no serious prospect. There was not, it is true,

in America that enthusiasm for Great Britain that some exponents of the unity of the Anglo-Saxon

"I shall not know how to deal with other matters of even greater greater delicacy and nearer

consequence."

It is a striking tribute to the force of the President's personality that his appeal for action running counter to the judgment of a substantial section, and to the sentiment of a much more substantial section, of the American people should have proved immediately effective. The divisions in the two Houses produced a good deal of crossvoting, Mr. Underwood and a number of Democrats opposing the measure, while Senator Lodge and several other Republicans supported it. The Bill was passed by the House by 247 votes to 162, and by the Senate by 50 to 35. It was signed by the President in June 1914.

Two other minor measures concerning Panama revealed in the President the same desire for straight dealing that he had evinced in the matter of the tolls. The original owner of the Panama Canal zone was Colombia, and it was while President Roosevelt was actually negotiating with Colombia for its acquisition that an opportune revolution in the Panama area enabled him to abandon the deal with the larger republic and purchase the Canal rights from the insurgent population then organizing itself as the State of Panama. The revolution proved of the highest benefit to the United States, but Mr. Roosevelt's attitude towards Colombia was emphatically condemned by a section of his own countrymenand as emphatically defended by the President himself and his partisans. Colombia presented

various demands to the United States, the most tangible a claim for the payment of $10,000,000, which had not been met when Mr. Wilson came into office. Consistently with his views on PanAmerican union, he held that the United States could and should afford to be generous rather than rigidly just in its relations with a small Latin republic, and he proposed the payment to Colombia of $25,000,000 in settlement of all claims. A treaty on that basis was approved by the Senate in 1916, but is not yet ratified.

A somewhat similar arrangement was effected with Nicaragua, which possessed a rival canal route. By an incomprehensible departure from the President's consistent principles a Bill was presented by Mr. Bryan in 1913 which would have practically established a United States protectorate over Nicaragua. It failed to pass the

Senate, and in 1916 a treaty on much more reasonable lines, securing to the United States a naval base on the Nicaraguan coast and an option on the canal route in consideration of a payment of $3,000,000 to Nicaragua, was signed and ratified. The initial object of both these transactions was to provide against the acquisition of rival canal routes by any extra-American Power; but the spirit in which they were negotiated made effectively for the restoration of goodwill between the United States and two weak but suspicious Latin republics. A similar anxiety for the prosperity of the Panama Canal led in 1916 to the acquisition on purely strategic 1 January 1917.

I

"I shall not know how to deal with other matters of even greater delicacy and nearer consequence."

It is a striking tribute to the force of the President's personality that his appeal for action running counter to the judgment of a substantial section, and to the sentiment of a much more substantial section, of the American people should have proved immediately effective. The divisions in the two Houses produced a good deal of crossvoting, Mr. Underwood and a number of Democrats opposing the measure, while Senator Lodge and several other Republicans supported it. The Bill was passed by the House by 247 votes to 162, and by the Senate by 50 to 35. It was signed by the President in June 1914.

Two other minor measures concerning Panama revealed in the President the same desire for straight dealing that he had evinced in the matter of the tolls. The original owner of the Panama Canal zone was Colombia, and it was while President Roosevelt was was actually negotiating with Colombia for its acquisition that an opportune revolution in the Panama area enabled him to abandon the deal with the larger republic and purchase the Canal rights from the insurgent population then organizing itself as the State of Panama. The revolution proved of the highest benefit to the United States, but Mr. Roosevelt's attitude towards Colombia was emphatically condemned by a section of his own countrymen— and as emphatically defended by the President himself and his partisans. Colombia presented

various demands to the United States, the most tangible a claim for the payment of $10,000,000, which had not been met when Mr. Wilson came into office. Consistently with his views on PanAmerican union, he held that the United States could and should afford to be generous rather than rigidly just in its relations with a small Latin republic, and he proposed the payment to Colombia of $25,000,000 in settlement of all claims. A treaty on that basis was approved by the Senate in 1916, but is not yet ratified.

A somewhat similar arrangement was effected with Nicaragua, which possessed a rival canal route. By an incomprehensible departure from the President's consistent principles a Bill was presented by Mr. Bryan in 1913 which would have practically established a United States protectorate over Nicaragua. It failed to pass the

Senate, and in 1916 a treaty on much more reasonable lines, securing to the United States a naval base on the Nicaraguan coast and an option on the canal route in consideration of a payment of $3,000,000 to Nicaragua, was signed and ratified. The initial object of both these transactions was to provide against the acquisition of rival canal routes by any extra-American Power; but the spirit in which they were negotiated made effectively for the restoration of goodwill between the United States and two weak but suspicious Latin republics. A similar anxiety for the prosperity of the Panama Canal led in 1916 to the acquisition on purely strategic 1 January 1917.

I