Under President Wilson the United States in peace outstripped the great military powers of the world in militarism, and the 64th Congress passed bills appropriating a larger sum of money for army and navy purposes than Germany did in anticipation of being attacked by a coalition of France, England, Russia and Japan, as will appear from the following table of comparative appropriations:
| United States, 1917 | $294,565,623 |
| Germany, 1914 | 294,390,000 |
| $175,623 |
Minuit, or Minnewit, Peter.
Minuit, or Minnewit, Peter.—Director General of the New Netherlands, purchased the island of Manhattan, the present site of New York City, from the Indians for 60 guldens. Born in Wesel on the lower Rhine. According to a report of Pastor Michaelis, who opened the first divine service in the Dutch language in New Amsterdam in 1623, Peter Minuit acted as deacon of the Reformed Church in Wesel and accepted a similar assignment in the newly founded church of Manhattan. Later entered the service of Sweden, and in 1637 commanded an expedition which founded New Sweden in the Delaware River region near Cape Henlopen and Christian Creek. (See “[Dutch and German].”)
Morgan, J. Pierpont.
Morgan, J. Pierpont.—American banker and financier, appointed by the British Government to look after British interests in America and known as “Great Britain’s ammunition agent.” In a speech in Parliament, Lloyd George stated that D. A. Thomas would “co-operate with Messrs. Morgan & Co., the accredited agents of the British Government.”Morgan floated the famous Russian ruble and $500,000,000 English-French loans and was the chief promoter of the armsand ammunition industry to supply the Allies. The trade in munitions before we entered the war was upward of two billion dollars, of which the Morgan interests received 2 per cent., or $40,000,000 in commissions, exclusive of large additional profits from the companies engaged in the manufacture of munitions in which he and his friends were interested. Under a just construction of neutrality, for Morgan to act against a friendly power under a commission from a foreign government would subject him to arrest under a specific statute of the United States. His niece, nee Burns, is the wife of First Viscount Lewis Harcourt of Nuneham Park, Oxford.
Missouri, How Kept in the Union.
Missouri, How Kept in the Union.—Everyone, even only slightly acquainted with the history of the Civil War, knows that the question of first and greatest importance which arose and demanded solution was that of the position in the struggle of the border slave states, namely, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, writes Prof. John W. Burgess. Mr. Lincoln’s administration gave its attention most seriously and anxiously to the work of holding these slave states back from passing secession ordinances, and preventing them from being occupied by the armies of the Southern Confederacy.
The most important among these states was Missouri. It was the largest; it reached away up into the very heart of the North; it commanded the left bank of the Mississippi for some 500 miles, and the great United States arsenal of the west, containing the arms and munitions for that whole section of our country, was located in St. Louis. It had been stocked to its utmost capacity by the Secretary of War of the preceding administration, Mr. Floyd of Virginia, in the expectation that it would certainly fall into the hands of the South. The Governor of the State, C. F. Jackson, manifested the stand he would take in his reply to President Lincoln’s requisition for Missouri’s quota of the first call for troops. He defied the President in the words: “Your requisition, in my judgment, is illegal, unconstitutional and revolutionary in its object; inhuman and diabolical and cannot be complied with.”