Thus on both sides the world, so far as government and the danger of war are concerned, there hasn't been very much real progress in five hundred years.
This is a little disappointing.

And it means, of course, that we are likely to have periodical earthquakes like this present one till some radical change come.

Republics have their faults, no doubt.

But they have at least this virtue: that no country where the people really have the control of their government is likely to start out deliberately on any war of conquest--is not likely to run amuck--and will not regard its population as mere food for shell and powder.
Nor do I believe that our example of our government has, relatively to our strength and wealth and population, as much influence in the world as we had one hundred years ago.

Our people have no foreign consciousness and I know that our government knows almost nothing about European affairs; nor do our people know.