Harvey Whitefield Scott

“ One of the objects of Russian statesmanship has been to keep the two great English-speaking nations apart, allied as they are for free and open commerce. Any approach to cordiality between the United States and England, on a common or similar policy, makes Russia therefore the rival if not the enemy of both. ”

“ From this point of view Japan is figliting not only hov own battle for her national preservation, but the battle of other nations, including our own, for the free development of Pacific commerce.
Again, the products and exports of Russia are mostly of a nature of which we ourselves have abundance, namely, cereals and other agricultural products, petroleum, timber and other heavy staples. Russia, therefore, in all or nearly all her exports, is one of our chief rivals. ”

“ Our own interests are deeply involved in the war between Russia and Japan; for this is but the initial stage of an international strug- gle to be vastly extended, if not with arms, certainlv through rivalries and with the weapons of industry and commerce. On that vast highway which the irony of his- tory has named the "Pacific" Ocean, there is now to be a struggle for commercial and political supremacy as important as any the world has ever seen. We our- selves are literally "in it," and could not retreat if we would. Such a nation as ours cannot play the part of a weakling ”

“ Forces are now in motion which it is clear are to make the Pacific Ocean dur- ing the present century a sphere of ac- tivity similar to what the Atlantic was during the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- turies, and to what the Mediterranean was twenty or thirty centuries ago. ”

“ It has been deemed peculiarly fitting to begin the series at this time and to illustrate it in this number with Exposition views, inasmuch as the centennial we celebrate means not so much a retrospect as a forecast of greater things to come. ”

“ J^ngland, Germany, France, and Japan, and even Holland. It may not mean war. but it will mean, certainly, a strife for couimcrcial and even for political power. The most dangerous thing this country could do would be to allow itself to "drift" on its course of world politics. Under the present administration there is no danger of that. But our situation is such that we must at all times be alert and ready. Pacific Ocean commerce undoubtedly has an iimuense development before it. When ”