Chapter One.

Probabilities Considered.


The United States--what are they? Two hundred years ago, this question
could not have been answered; it could not even have been asked. Now it
can be answered by the dwellers in every quarter of the globe. Then a
few small settlements of earnest men, flying from the religious
intolerance of the Old World, dotted a narrow strip of coast line on our
New England border. Now a mighty nation, with a vast expanse of
territory stretching from ocean to ocean, and from regions almost arctic
on the north to regions equally torrid on the south, embracing more
square leagues of habitable land than Rome ruled over in its palmiest
days, here holds a position of independence and glory among the nations
of the earth.

And the sound of this new nation has gone into all the world. It has
reached the toiling millions of Europe; and they are swarming to our
shores to share its blessings. It has gone to the islands of the sea;
and they have sent their contributions. It has reached the Orient, and
opened as with a password the gates of nations long barred against
intercourse with other powers; and China and Japan, turning from their
beaten track of forty centuries, are looking with wonder at the prodigy
arising across the Pacific to the east of them, and catching some of the
impulse which this growing power is imparting to the nations of the
earth.

Less than one hundred years ago, with three millions of people, the