Note 258 — Chapter V · —Geographical Location

Even in Europe, however, where the Atlantic leaning of all the states is so marked as to suggest a certain dependence, the strength of this one-sided attraction is weakened by the complexity and closeness of the vicinal grouping of the several nations. Germany's reliance upon the neighboring grain fields of Russia and Hungary and the leather of the southern steppes counteracts somewhat the far-off magnet of America's wheat and cattle. England experienced a radical change of geographic front with the sailing of the Cabots; but the enormous tonnage entering and passing from the North Sea and Channel ports for her European trade258 show the attraction of the nearby Continent. Oftentimes we find two sides of a country each playing simultaneously a different, yet an equally important historical part, and thus distributing the historical activities, while diversifying the historical development of the people. The young United States were profoundly influenced as to national ideals and their eventual territorial career by the free, eager life and the untrammeled enterprise of its wilderness frontier beyond the Alleghenies, while through the Atlantic seaboard it was kept in steadying contact with England and the inherited ideals of the race. Russia is subjected to different influences on its various fronts; it is progressive, industrial, socialistic on its European side in Poland; expansive and radical in a different way in colonial Siberia; aggressive in the south, bending its energies toward political expansion along the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf seaboards. In all such countries there is a constant shifting and readjustment of extra-territorial influences.