American and Briton are alike co-heirs to the common Anglo-Saxon
heritage, but they are brothers who differ as materially in
temperament as in ambition and in creed. The Briton is daily becoming
more cosmopolitan, his outlook more world-wide. The shadow of the
village pump has departed from his statecraft, and his political
horizon girdles the earth. But the American remains intensely
introspective, suspicious of foreign influence, interested solely in
his world of the Western Hemisphere.
In Britain are Little Englanders who dread every step the nation makes
in outward expansion, but there are here no Little Americanders. The
Little Englanders doubt the nation's power to hold the nation's
possessions. Here, in the United States, are men who question the
advisability of penetrating into world politics, but no man among them
has doubt of the nation's power to keep whatever territory the Star
Spangled Banner once has floated over. They are merely jealous,
jealous of the absolute isolation of their commonwealth, quick to
resent any remotest possibility of interference with it.
In every American's ears rings the music of assured success, the
certainty of a rich inheritance laid up for him and his children's
children in the internal resources of his country.
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