.

The Panama Canal.
While American troops were threading the mountain passes and the morasses of the Philippines, scaling the walls of Pekin, and sunning themselves in the delectable pleasances of the Forbidden City, and while American Secretaries of State were penning dispatches which determined the fate of countries on the opposite side of the globe, the old diplomatic problems nearer home still persisted.

The Spanish War, however, had so thoroughly changed the relationship of the United States to the rest of the world that the conditions under which even these old problems were to be adjusted or solved gave them entirely new aspects.
The American people gradually but effectually began to take foreign affairs more seriously.

As time went on, the Government made improvements in the consular and diplomatic services.

Politicians found that their irresponsible threatenings of other countries had ceased to be politically profitable when public opinion realized what was at stake.