Abstract

America in the World

There seems to be a little irony in the fact that upon Washington's Birthday the topic most apt for discussion is connected with the participation of the U.S. in World War I. Instead of a little strip of territory sparsely populated, able to maintain its own with the great nations of the world chiefly because of the advantage of remoteness, the U.S. is now a continental state, able to confer with the nations of the world on equal terms. The change has been brought about by that same development of industry and commerce which has annihilated distance, drawn all peoples into closer relations, and made the affairs and interests of one nation the concern of all, for weal or for woe. The fact that the interdependence which the new industry and the new methods of transportation and intercommunication have brought about should first reveal itself in strains and alignments for conflict does not alter the essential fact that the world for the first time now finds itself a round world, politically and economically as well as astronomically. That nations from every continent on the globe are engaged in the war is the cuter sign of the new world struggling to be delivered.