But the world is smaller than in Washington's day. Steam and electricity have bound the world together. The interests of one nation are those of all nations. The interests of Armenia, Cape Colony and Ceylon are closer to us to-day than those of France and Germany were to our fathers. Traditions are worthy of respect only when they serve the real needs of the present. So it may be that with changed conditions the wise counsel of the past may be open to revision. Are times not already ripe for a change in national policy?

Let us look for a moment at the policy of England. The United States is great through minding her own business; England through minding the business of the world. In Norse mythology the Mitgard Serpent appears in the guise of a cat,—a feeble creature to all appearance, but its body passes around the world, its tail growing down into its own throat and by its mighty strength it holds the world together. Such is England-the Mitgard Serpent of the nations, the assignee of bankrupt lands, the police force of disorderly ones. By the power of her will and brain she has made this an Anglo-Saxon planet.

No other agency of civilization has been so potent as England's enlightened selfishness. Her colonies are of three orders-friendly nations, subject nations and military posts. The larger colonies are little united states. They are republics and rule their own affairs. The subject nations and the military posts England rules by a rod of iron because no other rule is possible. Every year England seizes new posts, opens new ports and widens the stretch of her empire. But of all this Greater Britain, England herself is but a little part, the ruling head of a world-wide organism. "What does he know of England who only England knows." No doubt as Kipling says, England

'thinks her empire still

Twixt the Strand and Holborn Hill,"

but the Strand would be half empty were it not that it leads outward to Cathay. The huge business interests of Greater Britain are the guaranty of her solidarity. All her parts must hold together.

In similar relation to the Mother Country, America must stand. Greater England holds over us the obligations of blood and thought and language and character. Only the Saxon understands the Saxon. Only the Saxon and the Goth know the meaning of freedom. "A sanction like that of religion," says John Hay, "enforces our partnership in all important affairs." Not that we should enter into formal alliance with Great Britain. We can get along well side by side, but never tied together. When England suggests a union for attack and defense, let us ask what she expects to gain from us. Never yet did England offer us the hand in open friendliness, in pure good faith, not hoping to get the best of the bargain. This is the English government, which never acts without interested motives. But the English people are our friends in every real crisis, and that without caring overmuch whether we be right or not. War with England should be forever impossible. The need of the common race is greater than the need of the nations. The Anglo-Saxon race must be at peace within itself. Nothing is so important to civilization as this. A war between England and America fought to the bitter end might submerge civilization. When the war should be over and the smoke cleared away there would be but one left and that, Russia.

But though one in blood with England our course of political activities has not lain parallel with hers. We were estranged in the beginning, and we have had other affairs on our hands. We have turned our faces westward, and our work has made us strong. We have had our forests to clear, our prairies to break, our rivers to harness, our own problem of slavery to adjust. We have followed the spirit of Washington's address for a hun

dred years, until the movement of history has brought us to the parting of the ways. Federalism or Imperialism— which shall it be?

In the direction of imperialism we have already taken certain steps. The promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine is one of these. Its original impulse was a jealous regard for the liberties of the republics of Latin America. We make no objection to the present occupation of parts of America by European powers, but we shall prevent by force any extension of such dominion. The cause of the Monroe Doctrine was the danger to republicanism through monarchical aggression. With the republics of America our interests were supposed to be in unison. But our real interests lie now in other directions. We have a thousand ties binding us to Europe for one to Latin America. Even Japan and China are more to us than the states of South America. Moreover, the republics we would guard are really only republics in name. They have no more of a republican spirit than has Italy or Spain, and vastly less than England or Germany. The aggressions of England on Venezuela which our strong protest prevented were really in the interest of civilization. These republics hate the United States, her people and her institutions. They resent our protection and repel our patronage, and as for us, we are likely to despise them rather than to love them. The guardian of the two Americas must use a strong hand if it would save all of its wards from barbarism.

So the Monroe Doctrine is not alone a willingness to protect our sister republics from European aggression. It must become a means of holding them in order. So long as the Monroe Doctrine is put forth, so long must we be in some degree surety for the good behavior of South America. This necessity has carried us away from our traditional attention to our own affairs. It will carry us still further unless the policy be reversed.

The purchase of Alaska marks another movement away from self-government. This vast, wild, resourceful

land, unfit for habitation for the most part, unfit for selfcontrol, we have made a province of our republic. We have placed it under our flag, but the flag is all we have given it. On stretches of coast as long as that of California, dotted with fishing villages, the United States has exercised no authority whatever. Over the whole coast of Alaska, from Sitka to Point Barrow, there have been only scattering and sporadic efforts at national rule. With a population so weak and scattered, self-government is impossible, and we have no other form of government to offer. The condition of Alaska to-day is simply a disgrace to us. The host that fare to the Klondike make their own government as they go along. What little government Alaska had in the past has now been mostly withdrawn on account of the war with Spain. We need the patrol vessels for coast defence. This is as though we sent San Francisco police to garrison Manila. In public affairs we can never attend to two things at a time. Considering our possibilities and our intentions, we have treated the Aleutian Islands as shabbily as Spain has treated Cuba, and Russia has almost as good a right to protest against our ways as we have to protest against those of Spain.

This difference obtains. The natives of Alaska are gentle and tractable and away from the eyes of the world. They have no friends, no element of the picturesque, and our cruelty is not violence but neglect. We have wantonly allowed the destruction of the Sea Otter, their chief means of subsistence. We have wasted the sea-lion which furnishes their boats. Starvation and death are everywhere imminent in these coast settlements of Alaska, and the blame for it rests on us. "Reconcentrados " between Arctic snows and San Francisco greed, the Aleuts must starve and freeze. From Prince William's Sound to Attu, nearly fifteen hundred miles, not a village has a sure means of support left to-day.

According to latest reports from Port Etches, all the people of the village live together in the cellar of an abandoned warehouse. Wosnessenski was starving last year. In Belkofski, Morjovi, Atka, Attu, and a half dozen other villages, the Company's store has been closed because the people can no longer pay for supplies. Civilization has made flour, sugar, tea and tobacco necessities of life, and these they can get no longer. From St. Lawrence we hear that the people have traded all their possessions for a cargo of "Florida Water," which is a polite name for raw whiskey, and have all starved to death after a week of debauch.

As our government is constituted men must govern themselves and send their delegates to Congress. For others we have no government at all. The great corporations in Alaska are still squatters on government land, and the disputes among their employees must be settled by blow of fist or they are not settled at all. Open warfare with knife and gun has existed more than once along the salmon rivers. This is not the fault of the companies. They are law-abiding enough when there is any law. "But there runs no law of God nor man to the north of fifty-three." The villages of Aleuts and Esquimaux are ruled by the Company store-keeper and the Russian priest, each with authority unlimited and unsupported by law. The staunch laws of prohibition by which liquor is excluded from Alaska cannot enforce themselves, and no other adequate force is provided. The whole matter is a huge farce, and its necessary result is contempt for law. With a colonial bureau like that of England, the problems of ruling an inferior and dependent people would be simple enough. Such a bureau could take care of Alaska and could give good government to any territory over which our flag may float.

Such a bureau we must have if Alaska is not to remain a matter of public embarrassment. Such a bureau could operate Hawaii as, well. Hawaii cannot govern