The Peril of the Republic of the United States of America - Percy T. Magan

armies of our enemies were pouring over the Rhine
and the Alps. When a colonial acquisition has been
in prospect, we have thought no expenditure
extravagant, no interference perilous. Gold has
been to us as dust, and blood as water. Shall we
never learn wisdom? Shall we never cease to
prosecute a pursuit wilder than the wildest dreams
of alchemy, with all the credulity and all the
profusion of Sir Epicure Mammon?
“Those who maintain that settlements so
remote conduce to the military or maritime power
of nations, fly in the face of history.”[20]
Yet to-day the United States is flying in the
face of history, and her course is not only that of
bad principle, but also of bad policy. But to return
to the matter of the principle involved. The war of
the Revolution-- the war which effected the
separation between these United States and Great
Britain--was fundamentally, and was fought for
four long years exclusively, against the colonial
system of Europe. This is a most important fact. In
a war against that system, this nation originated;
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