Then came the fruition of that historic propaganda which is
best described by its own slogan: "The East for the East--
the West for the West," and all further intercourse was
stopped by statute.

Even prior to this, transoceanic commerce had practically
ceased, owing to the perils and hazards of the mine-strewn
waters of both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Just when
submarine activities ended we do not know but the last
vessel of this type sighted by a Pan-American merchantman
was the huge Q 138, which discharged twenty-nine torpedoes
at a Brazilian tank steamer off the Bermudas in the fall of
1972. A heavy sea and the excellent seamanship of the
master of the Brazilian permitted the Pan-American to escape
and report this last of a long series of outrages upon our
commerce. God alone knows how many hundreds of our ancient
ships fell prey to the roving steel sharks of blood-frenzied
Europe. Countless were the vessels and men that passed over
our eastern and western horizons never to return; but
whether they met their fates before the belching tubes of
submarines or among the aimlessly drifting mine fields, no
man lived to tell.

And then came the great Pan-American Federation which linked
the Western Hemisphere from pole to pole under a single
flag, which joined the navies of the New World into the
mightiest fighting force that ever sailed the seven seas--
the greatest argument for peace the world had ever known.

Since that day peace had reigned from the western shores of