The six great naval powers of the world in the order of their strength are Great Britain, Germany, the United States, France, Japan, and Russia. The coast-line of the United States is very extensive on both the Atlantic and the Pacific. It is surely significant that God has given America control of so much coast-line on both oceans and so many harbors for commerce and as distributing centers for the gospel. The most significant thing about our past is that we grew out of the best life of Europe and inherit the intellectual and moral fiber of the Anglo-Saxon. One of the most significant facts about our future is that with three thousand miles of coast-line we face toward the Orient where the coming world conflicts are to be waged.
2. The United States is the nearest commanding power to the undeveloped parts of the world. The great undeveloped regions are the Canadian Northwest, Alaska, Siberia, Australia, South America, Africa. All these face on the Pacific Ocean except Africa, and in the aggregate America is nearer to them all than any other great Protestant Christian power. The Panama Canal will make the nearness all the more significant since its completion will bring Shanghai much nearer New York by boat than it is now.
3. The United States has many great harbors. Not one of the nations of Europe has more than two or three great harbors, several of them have none. Russia is too far north. Germany is at a disadvantage because she has no direct access to the Atlantic. Great Britain commands that ocean. The United States has several harbors on the east coast, and the Gulf of Mexico on the south, while on the west coast there are two of the most important harbors in the Western Hemisphere opening into the Pacific Ocean—San Francisco Bay, where come and go the navies of the world, and Puget Sound, the Mediterranean of America, with its 1,500 miles of coast-line.
4. Navigable rivers. The Encyclopedia Britannica says that the Mississippi River with its branches affords 35,000 miles of navigable waterway. All Europe has 17,000 miles, or less than one half the length of the great central waterway of the United States. It is no wonder that Napoleon said, "The nation which controls the Mississippi Valley will be the most powerful nation on earth." There are only two navigable rivers flowing into the Pacific Ocean in the Western Hemisphere, the Yukon River, navigable for thirteen hundred miles, and the Columbia, opening into a great inland empire. Almost the entire navigable extent of both is within the territory of the United States, although they drain great sections of Canada.
5. Isolation from other commanding powers. The favorable location of the United States for internal development is equaled by no other nation in the world, because of the fact that it is separated by many thousands of miles of sea from the other world powers of our time. Great Britain, Germany, France, and Russia must continually guard their frontiers and are never for a moment free from the tremendous pressure of mighty and aggressive peoples. Our nation has been favored with the one great block of territory in the North Temperate Zone, capable of vast development and with almost infinite variety of soil and climate, remote from other powers. Otherwise it might have been necessary for America to devote her strength to defense rather than the development of her vast resources.
America Has Qualities of Character Needed for a
World Task
As Emerson has well said, "The true test of civilization is not the census, not the size of its cities, nor the crops, but in the kind of men the country turns out." Leroy Beaulieu has this to say about Americans:
"The history of nations like the history of individuals proves beyond peradventure that no economic strength, no material prosperity, is lasting unless it be sustained by real moral worth.
"Moral worth, which includes the recognition of duties as well as of rights, self-respect and respect for one's fellows, has contributed fully as much as the magnificent resources of their country to the brilliant success of the American people.