* * *

Nor had the country at large recognized that the hour was at hand. In
the time that it took the short hand of the clock to complete its round
four times, our country had completely changed its complexion, and the
balance drawn by the press on Tuesday morning after an interval of
forty-eight hours, had a perfectly crushing effect. Of course the
appearance of the enemy in the West at once produced a financial panic
in New York. On Monday morning the Wall Street stock-quotations of the
trans-continental railroads fell to the lowest possible figure,
rendering the shares about as valuable as the paper upon which they were
printed. Apparently enormous numbers of shares had been thrown on the
market in the first wild panic, but an hour after the opening of the
Stock Exchange, after billions had changed hands in mad haste, a slight
rise set in as a result of wholesale purchases by a single individual.
Yet even before this fact had been clearly recognized, the railway
magnates of the West had bought up all the floating stock without
exception. They could afford to wait for the millions they would pocket
until the American army had driven the enemy from the country.

At the same time selling orders came pouring in from the other side by
way of London. The Old World lost no time in trying to get rid of its
American stocks, and the United States were made to realize that in the
hour of a political catastrophe every nation has to stand on its own
feet, and that all the diplomatic notes and the harmless
sentimentalities of foreign states will avail nothing. So it was after
the terrible night of Port Arthur and so it was now.

It was of course as yet impossible to figure out in detail how the
Japanese had managed to take possession of the Pacific States within
twenty-four hours. But from the dispatches received from all parts of
the country during the next few days and weeks the following picture
could be drawn. The number of Japanese on American soil was in round
numbers one hundred thousand. The Japanese had not only established
themselves as small tradesmen and shopkeepers in the towns, but had also
settled everywhere as farmers and fruit-growers; Japanese coolies and
Mongolian workmen were to be found wherever new buildings were going up
as well as on all the railways. The yellow flood was threatening to
destroy the very foundations of our domestic economy by forcing down all
wage-values. The yellow immigran