shing and maintaining an
International Institute of Agriculture at Rome. It would surprise
most Americans to know that five hundred pages of their collection of
"Treaties and Conventions" consist of such international undertakings,
which amount in fact to a body of international legislation. It is
obvious that the Government, in interpreting the injunction to avoid
entangling alliances, has not found therein prohibition against
international cooperation.

In 1783 the United States had been a little nation with not sufficient
inhabitants to fill up its million square miles of territory. Even in
1814 it still reached only to the Rockies and still found a troublesome
neighbor lying between it and the Gulf of Mexico. Now with the dawn of
the twentieth century it was a power of imperial dimensions, occupying
three million square miles between the Atlantic and the Pacific,
controlling the Caribbean, and stretching its possessions across the
Pacific and up into the Arctic. Its influence was a potent factor in the
development of Asia, and it was bound by the bonds of treaties, which it
has ever regarded sacred, to assist in the regulation of many matters of
world interest.

Nor had the only change during the century been that visible in the
United States. The world which seemed so vast and mysterious in 1812 had
opened up most of its dark places to the valor of adventurous explorers,
of whom the United States had contributed its fair share. The facilities
of intercourse had conquered space, and along with its conquest had
gone a penetration of the countries of the world by the tourist and the
immigrant, the missionary and the trader, so that Terence's statement
that nothing human was alien to him had become perforce true of the
world.

Nor had the development of governmental organization stood still. In
1812 the United States was practically the only democratic republic in
the world; in 1912 the belief in a government founded on the consent of
the governed, and republican in form, had spread over all the Americas,
except such portions as were still colonies, and was practically true
of even most of them. Republican institutions had been adopted by France
and Portugal, and the spirit of democracy had permeated Great Britain
and Norway and was gaining yearly victories elsewhere. In 1912 the giant
bulk of China adopted the form of government commended to he; by the
experience of the nation which, more than any other, had preser