new colonies, as entering the twentieth century in the role of "a world
power," for the first time. Perhaps at this late day, it is useless to
protest against the currency of the idea. Nevertheless, the truth is
that from the fateful moment in March, 1775, when Edmund Burke unfolded
to his colleagues in the British Parliament the resources of an
invincible America, down to the settlement at Versailles in 1919 closing
the drama of the World War, this nation has been a world power,
influencing by its example, by its institutions, by its wealth, trade,
and arms the course of international affairs. And it should be said also
that neither in the field of commercial enterprise nor in that of
diplomacy has it been wanting in spirit or ingenuity.

When John Hay, Secretary of State, heard that an American citizen,
Perdicaris, had been seized by Raisuli, a Moroccan bandit, in 1904, he
wired his brusque message: "We want Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead."
This was but an echo of Commodore Decatur's equally characteristic
answer, "Not a minute," given nearly a hundred years before to the
pirates of Algiers begging for time to consider whether they would cease
preying upon American merchantmen. Was it not as early as 1844 that the
American commissioner, Caleb Cushing, taking advantage of the British
Opium War on China, negotiated with the Celestial Empire a successful
commercial treaty? Did he not then exultantly exclaim: "The laws of the
Union follow its citizens and its banner protects them even within the
domain of the Chinese Empire"? Was it not almost half a century before
the battle of Manila Bay in 1898, that Commodore Perry with an adequate
naval force "gently coerced Japan into friendship with us," leading all
the nations of the earth in the opening of that empire to the trade of
the Occident? Nor is it inappropriate in this connection to recall the
fact that the Monroe Doctrine celebrates in 1923 its hundredth
anniversary.

AMERICAN FOREIGN RELATIONS (1865-98)

=French Intrigues in Mexico Blocked.=--Between the war for the union and
the war with Spain, the Department of State had many an occasion to
present the rights of America among the powers of the world. Only a
little while after the civil conflict came to a close, it was called
upon to deal with a dangerous situation created in Mexico by the
ambitions of Napoleon III. During the administration of Buchanan, Mexico
had fallen into disorder through the strife of the