Note 2 — Chapter I

For the sake of brevity and clear relation to the present topic, this history is not here examined with reference to any theory or doctrine of policy. In order to explain the present position, the salient facts only are given, but not the comments and explanations of statesmen, nor the diplomatic passages leading to these events. One may digress for a moment to point out that a sufficient interpretation of these events is to be found in the natural expansion of a vigorous growing people. In the process of "winning the wilderness and conquering the continent" the United States found that a considerable part of the field was in nominal possession of those who were doing little to use or civilise it. These claims, which obstructed progress, were successively disposed of. Nor has it been found possible to limit that advance to certain indispensable acquisitions of territory. National security has demanded varying degrees of control over neighbouring peoples of inferior development. The process finds many historical parallels: and it is an intensely practical, not a theoretic, matter.