of the natives as long as he got his ivory
and rubber.

As for the United States, they had so much land that they desired no
further territory. But the terrible misrule of Cuba, one of the last of
the Spanish possessions in the western hemisphere, practically forced
the Washington government to take action. After a short and rather
uneventful war, the Spaniards were driven out of Cuba and Puerto Rico
and the Philippines, and the two latter became colonies of the United
States.

This economic development of the world was perfectly natural. The
increasing number of factories in England and France and Germany needed
an ever increasing amount of raw materials and the equally increasing
number of European workers needed an ever increasing amount of food.
Everywhere the cry was for more and for richer markets, for more
easily accessible coal mines and iron mines and rubber plantations and
oil-wells, for greater supplies of wheat and grain.

The purely political events of the European continent dwindled to mere
insignificance in the eyes of men who were making plans for steamboat
lines on Victoria Nyanza or for railroads through the interior of
Shantung. They knew that many European questions still remained to be
settled, but they did not bother, and through sheer indifference and
carelessness they bestowed upon their descendants a terrible inheritance
of hate and misery. For untold centuries the south-eastern corner
of Europe had been the scene of rebellion and bloodshed. During the
seventies of the last century the people of Serbia and Bulgaria and
Montenegro and Roumania were once more trying to gain their freedom and
the Turks (with the support of many of the western powers), were trying
to prevent this.

After a period of particularly atrocious massacres in Bulgaria in the
year 1876, the Russian people lost all patience. The Government was
forced to intervene just as President McKinley was obliged to go to Cuba
and stop the shooting-squads of General Weyler in Havana. In April of
the year 1877 the Russian armies crossed the Danube, stormed the Shipka
pass, and after the capture of Plevna, marched southward until they
reached the gates of Constantinople. Turkey appealed for help to
England. There were many English people who denounced their government
when it took the side of the Sultan. But Disraeli (who had just made
Queen Victoria Empress of India and who loved the picturesque Turks
while he hated the Russians who