Now with the dawn of the twentieth century it was a power of imperial dimensions, occupying three million square miles between the Atlantic and the Pacific, controlling the Caribbean, and stretching its possessions across the Pacific and up into the Arctic.

Its influence was a potent factor in the development of Asia, and it was bound by the bonds of treaties, which it has ever regarded sacred, to assist in the regulation of many matters of world interest.
Nor had the only change during the century been that visible in the United States.

The world which seemed so vast and mysterious in 1812 had opened up most of its dark places to the valor of adventurous explorers, of whom the United States had contributed its fair share.

The facilities of intercourse had conquered space, and along with its conquest had gone a penetration of the countries of the world by the tourist and the immigrant, the missionary and the trader, so that Terence's statement that nothing human was alien to him had become perforce true of the world.
Nor had the development of governmental organization stood still.

In 1812 the United States was practically the only democratic republic in the world; in 1912 the belief in a government founded on the consent of the governed, and republican in form, had spread over all the Americas, except such portions as were still colonies, and was practically true of even most of them.