delayed justice to them, and cannot but feel that it is a very gratifying thing to play any part in doing this act of justice.

"I look forward to the benefits of the bill, not with extravagant expectations, but with confident expectation that it will be a very wide-reaching benefit, and incidentally it will be of advantage to the investing community, for I can imagine no more satisfactory and solid investment than this system will afford those who have money to use.

"I sign the bill, therefore, with real emotion, and am very glad to be honored by your presence, and supported by your feeling. I have no doubt in what I have said regarding it."

The bill to create a United States Tariff Commission was also before Congress. It provided for a Commission of six members, but not more than three should be members of the same party. Therefore, it was to be non-partisan, and the members, if the bill became a law, were to be appointed for a period of two, four, six, eight, ten and twelve years. The old tariff board was simply created by executive order and was authorized by executive order to expend a certain sum of money each year. This new bill proposed to create a distinct, independent commission with its duties well defined by law, and with its permanency

absolutely assured. In outlining its duties, the committee followed in the main the President's suggestions made to Mr. Kitchin.

Thus, after nearly a generation, business and Government were cooperating on the basis of developing our own resources and encouraging a foreign trade that will give America industrial preparedness when the war closes. In this long generation of resistance, avoidance, and prosecutions, both Government and business have learned something, and each has taught the other much.

CHAPTER XXI

FORMING A PAN-AMERICAN UNION.

President Wilson announced, eight days after his inauguration, that "one of the chief objects of my administration will be to cultivate the friendship and deserve the confidence of our sister republics of Central and South America." The American people accepted that pronouncement as the expression of an idealist whose patriotism was exceedingly buoyant after an unusual election. However, few, if any, had the gift of prophecy to foretell the result of such a policy. But, nearly three years afterward, a great Pan-American Congress was sitting in Washington, and representatives of all the Republics of the two continents, bound together by ties of friendship and bearing gifts of great confidence to the chief executive of this nation, were working earnestly together for the domestic peace of the two Americas, and the international peace of the world based "upon the solid, eternal foundations of justice and humanity."

The President's Pan-American policy before the outbreak of the European war has been told in a previous chapter. But its effects were hardly definable on that fateful day when Austria declared war on Servia. How

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ever, the new impact of military forces in Europe shook the Western Hemisphere so violently that the twenty-one Republics looked immediately to one another for sympathy and assistance, and for a new bond of union.

A Pan-American Union was a corollary to other issues such as military preparedness, commercial preparedness, and industrial preparedness. It was so related to every measure looking to better shipping facilities and to every scheme for strengthening our defense that even Congress was compelled to consider our relations to the Latin-American states while discussing these other great issues, although no direct legislation was necessary.

But what were the real ties that bound these twentyone Republics together at the outbreak of the war? The Monroe Doctrine was the strongest bond, but it was being assailed both in this country and in Europe. Citizens of the United States referred to it as "an anachronism of folly;" some said that it has "become only a disadvantage to the United States" and we should "modify it." In Europe, it was declared that the efficiency of the Doctrine "will be proved by the distance that the guns of the United States can cover." Thus, in both Europe and America, this bond of union was being vigorously attacked.

The second tie that bound these twenty-one Republics together was trade and commerce. Since the United States was more powerful than all the other republics

combined, it would be natural to suppose that the lines of trade and commerce between this country and each of the other states would be direct and very strong. However, such was not the case. A large business was carried on between the two Americas, but strange as it may seem, the greater part of it was conducted through European ports. Therefore, the commercial ties that bound the two Americas together passed through European hands, and the strength of those ties was measured by the willingness of European bankers and traders to facilitate intercourse between the two Americas. We have already seen that European vessels carried over 90 per cent of American commerce, and the shortest route from New York to Rio or Buenos Aires was by way of Hamburg or Liverpool. Moreover, the financial transactions between the two Americas was conducted not in American money or through American banks, but in European banks. The exchange was made in Europe, and the balance of trade was settled in European coin.

Furthermore, this long-distance union of the two Americas, made in the interest of European business and silently permitted through the negligence of American business, was encouraged by educational theorists; they advised teachers of geography to follow trade lines in instructing the youth, and to lead the students from North America to Europe and from thence to South America.

These were the very doubtful ties that bound the two