driven into imperialistic courses. A policy not
dictated by national needs may be forced upon the nation by the
necessities and ambitions of its dominating class.

[1] "There was," he (President Jefferson) said, "one spot on the face
of the earth so important to the United States that whoever held it
was, for that very reason, naturally and forever our enemy; and that
spot was New Orleans. He could not, therefore, see it transferred to
France but with deep regret. The day she took possession of the city
the ancient friendship between her and the United States ended;
alliance with Great Britain became necessary, and the sentence that was
to keep France below low-water mark became fixed."--John Bach McMaster,
"History of the People of the United States," Vol. II, p. 620.

[2] Agriculture is not essentially pacific; in various stages of
historical development agricultural nations war upon each other in
order to secure more land or to levy tribute of grain. The pacific
tendency of our present agricultural development arises out of the
needs of industrial Europe. Our agricultural progress, however, is
peaceful only in so far as it increases the product of our fields; it
would not be peaceful, and might be the exact reverse, if we sought to
increase our acreage by, let us say, a conquest of Canada.

[3] By this is not meant that the nation should be preponderatingly
agricultural, but only that where agriculture is sufficiently developed
to maintain a large industrial population working for the home market
the competition for foreign markets and foreign investment fields
becomes less intense.

[4] "Agricultural pursuits" includes agriculture, forestry and animal
husbandry. These figures from the United States Census, 1910, Vol. IV,
p. 41, are only approximately exact, owing to almost insuperable
difficulties in classifying occupations. See Vol. IV, p. 19.

[5] Thirteenth Census of the United States, Vol. V, Agriculture, p. 51.

[6] The improved farm acreage increased 15.4 per cent., and the acreage
devoted to the principal crops 9.9 per cent.

[7] The new lands, moreover, are not so good as the old. From 1850 to
1885 the lands brought into cultivation (Illinois, Iowa, etc.) were
better than the earlier area, but since 1885 the farmers have driven
forward into more arid lands further removed from transportation.
"Across the Great Plains, the farmer has pushed closer and closer to
the base of the Rockies and,