Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street




Foreword


These are days of destiny for the people of the Republic. Democracy,
like a beautiful civilization, is sweeping over all the earth. From
Portugal comes the news of a monarchy that is taking on democratic
forms. Turkey has announced the liberty of the printing press, Russia is
planning a new system of popular education, China is in process of
adopting a constitutional government, with a cabinet responsible to the
people. Unless one reads the newspapers in many languages, the observer
will miss daily some new victory for democracy. Great changes are on
also for the Republic. Now that the Civil War is fifty years away, the
new North and the new South represent a solid nation. Indeed, if every
Northern soldier were to die to-day, not one interest or liberty of this
Republic would be permitted to suffer by the sons of the Confederate
soldiers, who would defend the nation unto blood as bravely as men born
north of Mason and Dixon's line--indeed, who fought gallantly for it in
the Cuban war. The North has entered upon a new industrial epoch, but
the South also is in the midst of its greatest industrial movement, and
in sight of its enlargement, by reason of the Panama Canal.

The Western Continent is not large, but it holds more than half the farm
land of the planet, and it is already evident that the United States and
Canada, with their free institutions, will indirectly and directly
control the thousand millions of people that will soon live between the