ved her
integrity. Autocracy and divine right, however, were by no means dead.
On the contrary, girt and prepared, they were arming themselves for a
final stand. But no longer, as in 1823, was America pitted alone against
Europe. It was the world including America which was now divided against
itself.

It was chiefly the Spanish War which caused the American people slowly
and reluctantly to realize this new state of things--that the ocean was
no longer a barrier in a political or military sense, and that the fate
of each nation was irrevocably bound up with the fate of all. As
the years went by, however, Americans came to see that the isolation
proclaimed by President Monroe was no longer real, and that isolation
even as a tradition could not, either for good or for ill, long endure.
All thoughtful men saw that a new era needed a new policy; the wiser,
however, were not willing to give up all that they had acquired in
the experience of the past. They remembered that the separation of the
continents was not proclaimed as an end in itself but as a means of
securing American purposes. Those national purposes had been: first,
the securing of the right of self-government on the part of the United
States; second, the securing of the right of other nations to govern
themselves. Both of these aims rested on the belief that one nation
should not interfere with the domestic affairs of another. These
fundamental American purposes remained, but it was plain that the
situation would force the nation to find some different method of
realizing them. The action of the United States indicated that the hopes
of the people ran to the reorganization of the world in such a way as
would substitute the arbitrament of courts for that of war. Year by year
the nation committed itself more strongly to cooperation foreshadowing
such an organization. While this feeling was growing among the people,
the number of those who doubted whether such a system could ward off
war altogether and forever also increased. Looking forward to the
probability of war, they could not fail to fear that the next would
prove a world war, and that in the even of such a conflict, the
noninterference of the United States would not suffice to preserve it
immune in any real independence.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE:

Each President's "Annual Message" always gives a brief survey of the
international relations of the year and often makes suggestions of
future policy. Of these