El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1897-09-11
The Coming Peril.

| Captain Mahan, the naval historian,
has remarkable article in the Sep
TENDER issue of Harper's, entitled GA
| Twentieth Century Outlook 1t is a
| comprehensive survey of the attitude
of the white race to the older civiliza-
tions of Asia, as it will be during the
coming century, for Captain Mahan
! ly as the German emperor and M.
Leroy Beaulieu. Men of the white
races are pressing nowadays close to
the frontiers of the older peoples of
the world; they are occupying what
were once "buffer states'' separating
the dark races from the white peoples,
AID in the coming century there will
be many more points of contact and
therefore more opportunities of armed
collision than now. In view of this
peril of the future, Captain Mahan
rejoices that Europe has become
a great military camp, and that the
modern institution of universal mill
tary service is trslning young men to
habits Of obedience and of respect
for constituted authority. Europe
must not only be armed today but re-
main under arms if he is to preserve
her civilization, for the Asiatics are
beginning TO be filed with the new
ambition to accumulate wealth and
achieve material prosperity. In an
age when anarchy is taught as a reli
gion the training of millions of young
men in the great military school of dis
cipline and respect for the law is of the
first Importance.
The historian of sea power condemns
the too domestic policy of the United
States which he believes must take its
part with other great white nations in
helping to guard modern civilization.
To him, the present domestic policy of
the United Sta es. its eyes turned in
ward, is survival of the purely home
policy of the last century when inter-
nal affairs were naturally of predOmi-
nant Interest.
The great task now before the
world of civilized Christianity, its great
mission, which it must fulfil or per-
ish, is" writes Captain Mahan, "to re-
ceive into its own bosom and raise to
its own ideals these anc ent and differ
ent civilizations by which it is sur
rounded and Outnum bered the civiliz-
ations at the head of which stand
China, India, and Japan. This, to cite
the most striking of the many forms in
which it is presented to US, is surely
the mission which Great Britain,
sword, ever at hand, has been discharg
ing towards India; but that stands not
alone. The history OF the present cent
ury has been that of constant increas-
ing pressure of our own civilization up
on these older ones, till now, as
we cast our eyes in any direction
there is a everywhere stirring, a
rousing from sleep, drowsy for the
most part, but real, uuOrganized as
yet, but conscious that that which rud-
ely Interrupts their dream of centuries
pos sc sses over them at least two adj
vantages-pOwer aud material prospe
rity-the things which unspiritual hui
manity the world over most
Graves"
Like Mr. Seward and General
Grant, the historian sees that the Pa
cific ocean is the future battle ground,
and he urges that one of the first
duties of European civilization is to
bind more closely to itself, and ever to
protect, Its scattered Eoutposts on the
coasts of that vast sea. To sum up, if
the oriental races, now Weakening to
new gam billions, cannot be brought
into fraternal relations with the West
ern world they must be kept in their
place by force.