The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1918-03-19
WorId' CONFEDERATION Broke :
! Upon Us So Unexpectedly We
r., ~ Are Still Rubbing Our Eyes
.(Continued From Page One.)


We need readjustment Of our men
tai attitude. We are standing at the
parting of the ways and musts decide
rather quickly which course we are
10 pursue. AS we glance back over
the history 81. the last on hundred and
twenty-five years, and view it in the
light Of present connitions, we will be
convinced, think, that one at least,
or our national policies must be dis
carded l refer to our historic policy
of national isolation.
Our Political Isolation. So.
'For more than a century after the
beginning of our existence as a ma
ton we gloried in our geographical
and political isolation We thanked
our lucky stars for the 5000 miles OF
ocean which separated us from the
Old World and gave US the, opportunat
ity Of developing our national life in
free and untrammelled manner.
Washington warned us against the
broils and wars and entangling ALI
ances Of Europe and we accepted that
advice without serious question IS
Gradually and most insensibly,
however, there came marked change
in world conditions: The globe grew
smaller-not absolutely, of course, but
relatively. Distances were lessened.
Places once remote are not adjacent.
1t took the Pilgrim Fathers. GO days
to reach the shores Of North America.
1t does not take that long now. The
globe has shrunk. The world has be-
come a unit, means of communication
have bound it together. News speeds
over. the bottom Of the ocean with the
rapidity of lightning. The atmos-
phere which envelopes the globe is a
wireless whispering gallery, and the
clouds which rest upon it are. the
habitat Of the birdnen. .. ....,.
= Atlantic Now a Subway. ~
1.-THE Atlantic is no longer "a bar
rier; it is highway-ande even a
subway. A noted military genius once
exclaimed in exultation, There are no
Alps 1t Is certainly true that there
is no Atlantic ocean in the old sense
"All this, Of course, did not come
about in single day. The Clayton
Bulwer treaty, the. war with Spain
and the acquisition of the Philippine
islands, the annexation of the Hawai-
ian islands, the Boxer insurrectiOn
and the intervention of China, the
Portsmouth treaty ad the Panama ca
nal are steps in an evolutionary pro
cess which has transformed an iso-
lated nation into world power.
Although it is now easy to see
4lnn{ L1,h1 In n ~
ing from our traditional policy of iso-
lation, that fact was not definitely
impressed upon our minds until the
Great War came. on 4
..,.,s<. The Wars Outbreak.
Eat the outbreak of the European
war in 1914 we we're not very greatly
concerned. We said that the fight
was not ours and that we had no, di-
rect interest in it. We were thankful
for the Atlantic ocean; and, feeling
very snug and self-complacent, we
settled back in our easy chair and
assumed the role of more or less
disinterested spectator. We were
still living in the center of our fairy
ring of historic isolation. For some
months we looked on aghast but with
.ort' any. definite attitude toward the
great problems involved in the war
Then gradually it. began to dawn upon
us that the war really was some CON
Germ to us, that it did involve our vital
interests, that it affected our COM
merce and our industries, that it
touched our finance and influenced
the cost of living, that it interfered
with our shipping andsinterrupted our
mails, that it abridged our rights as a
neutral nation and rendered Ameri-
can lives and property unsafe uyon
the seas, as Secretary Lansing put it.,
we were, "upon, the verge of war;
The mighty suction of the European
tornado had dragged us from our easy
chair and swept us so close to the
European melee that we could almost
feel the hot breath of the combatants
upon our faces.
~ A New Code Of. Ethics. e1
Even then it did not seem to mo
of us that the United States would
really enter7the, war. With our char.
acteristit optimism we hoped to re-
main at. peace and we thought in our
simplicity that we could adjust our
difficulties with the imperial, German
government upon the basis of honest