aside the policy of isolation which befitted her infancy, and to
recognize that, whereas once to avoid European entanglement was
essential to the development of her individuality, now to take her
share of the travail of Europe is but to assume an inevitable task, an
appointed lot, in the work of upholding the common interests of
civilization. Our Pacific slope, and the Pacific colonies of Great
Britain, with an instinctive shudder have felt the threat, which able
Europeans have seen in the teeming multitudes of central and northern
Asia; while their overflow into the Pacific Islands shows that not
only westward by land, but also eastward by sea, the flood may sweep.
I am not careful, however, to search into the details of a great
movement, which indeed may never come, but whose possibility, in
existing conditions, looms large upon the horizon of the future, and
against which the only barrier will be the warlike spirit of the
representatives of civilization. Whate'er betide, Sea Power will play
in those days the leading part which it has in all history, and the
United States by her geographical position must be one of the
frontiers from which, as from a base of operations, the Sea Power of
the civilized world will energize.

For this seemingly remote contingency preparation will be made, if men
then shall be found prepared, by a practical recognition now of
existing conditions--such as those mentioned in the opening of this
paper--and acting upon that knowledge. Control of the sea, by maritime
commerce and naval supremacy, means predominant influence in the
world; because, however great the wealth product of the land, nothing
facilitates the necessary exchanges as does the sea. The fundamental
truth concerning the sea--perhaps we should rather say the water--is
that it is Nature's great medium of communication. It is improbable
that control ever again will be exercised, as once it was, by a single