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Page 30
For national security, the correlative of a national principle firmly
held and distinctly avowed is, not only the will, but the power to
enforce it. The clear expression of national purpose, accompanied by
evident and adequate means to carry it into effect, is the surest
safeguard against war, provided always that the national contention is
maintained with a candid and courteous consideration of the rights and
susceptibilities of other states. On the other hand, no condition is
more hazardous than that of a dormant popular feeling, liable to be
roused into action by a moment of passion, such as that which swept
over the North when the flag was fired upon at Sumter, but behind
which lies no organized power for action. It is on the score of due
preparation for such an ultimate contingency that nations, and
especially free nations, are most often deficient. Yet, if wanting in
definiteness of foresight and persistency of action, owing to the
inevitable frequency of change in the governments that represent them,
democracies seem in compensation to be gifted with an instinct, the
result perhaps of the free and rapid interchange of thought by which
they are characterized, that intuitively and unconsciously assimilates
political truths, and prepares in part for political action before the
time for action has come. That the mass of United States citizens do
not realize understandingly that the nation has vital political
interests beyond the sea is probably true; still more likely is it
that they are not tracing any connection between them and the
reconstruction of the navy. Yet the interests exist, and the navy is
growing; and in the latter fact is the best surety that no breach of
peace will ensue from the maintenance of the former.
It is, not, then the indication of a formal political purpose, far
less of anything like a threat, that is, from my point of view, to be
recognized in the recent development of the navy. Nations, as a rule,
do not move with the foresight and the fixed plan which distinguish a
very few individuals of the human race. They do not practise on the
pistol-range before sending a challenge; if they did, wars would be
fewer, as is proved by the present long-continued armed peace in
Europe. Gradually and imperceptibly the popular feeling, which
underlies most lasting national movements, is aroused and swayed by
incidents, often trivial, but of the same general type, whose
recurrence gradually moulds public opinion and evokes national action,
until at last there issues that settled public conviction which alone,
in a free state, deserves the name of national policy. What the origin
of those particular events whose interaction establishes a strong
political current in a particular direction, it is perhaps
unprofitable to inquire. Some will see in the chain of cause and
effect only a chapter of accidents, presenting an interesting
philosophical study, and nothing more; others, equally persuaded that
nations do not effectively shape their mission in the world, will find
in them the ordering of a Divine ruler, who does not permit the
individual or the nation to escape its due share of the world's
burdens. But, however explained, it is a common experience of history
that in the gradual ripening of events there comes often suddenly and
unexpectedly the emergency, the call for action, to maintain the
nation's contention. That there is an increased disposition on the
part of civilized countries to deal with such cases by ordinary
diplomatic discussion and mutual concession can be gratefully
acknowledged; but that such dispositions are not always sufficient to
reach a peaceable solution is equally an indisputable teaching of the
recent past. Popular emotion, once fairly roused, sweeps away the
barriers of calm deliberation, and is deaf to the voice of reason.
That the consideration of relative power enters for much in the
diplomatic settlement of international difficulties is also certain,
just as that it goes for much in the ordering of individual careers.
"Can," as well as "will," plays a large share in the decisions of
life.
Like each man and woman, no state lives to itself alone, in a
political seclusion resembling the physical isolation which so long
was the ideal of China and Japan. All, whether they will or no, are
members of a community, larger or, smaller; and more and more those of
the European family to which we racially belong are touching each
other throughout the world, with consequent friction of varying
degree. That the greater rapidity of communication afforded by steam
has wrought, in the influence of sea power over the face of the globe,
an extension that is multiplying the points of contact and emphasizing
the importance of navies, is a fact, the intelligent appreciation of
which is daily more and more manifest in the periodical literature of
Europe, and is further shown by the growing stress laid upon that arm
of military strength by foreign governments; while the mutual
preparation of the armies on the European continent, and the fairly
settled territorial conditions, make each state yearly more wary of
initiating a contest, and thus entail a political quiescence there,
except in the internal affairs of each country. The field of external
action for the great European states is now the world, and it is
hardly doubtful that their struggles, unaccompanied as yet by actual
clash of arms, are even under that condition drawing nearer to
ourselves. Coincidently with our own extension to the Pacific Ocean,
which for so long had a good international claim to its name, that sea
has become more and more the scene of political development, of
commercial activities and rivalries, in which all the great powers,
ourselves included, have a share. Through these causes Central and
Caribbean America, now intrinsically unimportant, are brought in turn
into great prominence, as constituting the gateway between the
Atlantic and Pacific when the Isthmian canal shall have been made, and
as guarding the approaches to it. The appearance of Japan as a strong
ambitious state, resting on solid political and military foundations,
but which scarcely has reached yet a condition of equilibrium in
international standing, has fairly startled the world; and it is a
striking illustration of the somewhat sudden nearness and unforeseen
relations into which modern states are brought, that the Hawaiian
Islands, so interesting from the international point of view to the
countries of European civilization, are occupied largely by Japanese
and Chinese.
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