or a similar price."

In 1893 and 1894, because of the distrust of foreign capital, the United
States was forced to buy back American securities held abroad; but in
1897 and 1898 she bought back American securities held abroad, not
because she had to, but because she chose to. And not only has she
bought back her own securities, but in the last eight years she has
become a buyer of the securities of other countries. In the money
markets of London, Paris, and Berlin she is a lender of money. Carrying
the largest stock of gold in the world, the world, in moments of danger,
when crises of international finance loom large, looks to her vast
lending ability for safety.

Thus, in a few swift years, has the United States drawn up to the van
where the great industrial nations are fighting for commercial and
financial empire. The figures of the race, in which she passed England,
are interesting:

Year United States Exports United Kingdom Exports
1875 $497,263,737 $1,087,497,000
1885 673,593,506 1,037,124,000
1895 807,742,415 1,100,452,000
1896 986,830,080 1,168,671,000
1897 1,079,834,296 1,139,882,000
1898 1,233,564,828 1,135,642,000
1899 1,253,466,000 1,287,971,000
1900 1,453,013,659 1,418,348,000

As Mr. Henry Demarest Lloyd has noted, "When the news reached Germany of
the new steel trust in America, the stocks of the iron and steel mills
listed on the Berlin Bourse fell." While Europe has been talking and
dreaming of the greatness which was, the United States has been thinking
and planning and doing for the greatness to be. Her captains of industry
and kings of finance have toiled and sweated at organizing and
consolidating production and transportation. But this has been merely
the developmental stage, the tuning-up of the orchestra. With the
twentieth century rises the curtain on the play,--a play which shall have
much in it of comedy and a vast deal of tragedy, and which has been well
named The Capitalistic Conquest of Europe by America. Nations do not die
easily, and one of the first moves of Europe will be the erection of
tariff walls. America, however, will fittingly reply, for already her
manufacturers are establishing works in France and Germany