The wholesale immigration of Mongolians to our Pacific States and to the western shores of South America was clearly understood across the sea. But we looked quietly on while the Japanese overran Chili, Peru and Bolivia, all the harbors on the western coast of South America; and while the yellow man penetrated there unhindered and the decisive events of the future were in process of preparation, we continued to look anxiously eastward from the platform of the Monroe Doctrine and to keep a sharp lookout on the modest remnants of the European colonial dominion in the Caribbean Sea, as if danger could threaten us from that corner. We seemed to think that the Monroe Doctrine had an eastern exposure only, and when we were occasionally reminded that it embraced the entire continent, we allowed our thoughts to be distracted by the London press with its talk of the "German danger" in South America, just as though any European state would think for a moment of seizing three Brazilian provinces overnight, as it were. We have always tumbled through history as though we were deaf and dumb, regarding those who warned us in time against the Japanese danger as backward people whose intellects were too weak to grasp the victorious march of Japanese culture. Any one who would not acknowledge the undeniable advance of Japan to be the greatest event of the present generation was stamped by us an enemy of civilization. We recognized only two categories of people--Japanophobes and Japanophiles. It never entered our heads that we might recognize the weighty significance of Japan's sudden development into a great political power, but at the same time warn our people most urgently against regarding this development merely as a phase of feuilletonistic culture. Right here lies the basis for all our political mistakes of the last few years. The revenge for Portsmouth came as such a terrible surprise, because, misled by common opinion, we believed the enemy to be breaking down under the weight of his armor and therefore incapable of conducting a new war and, in this way undervaluing our adversary, we neglected all necessary preparations. No diplomatic conflict, not the slightest disturbance of our relations with Japan prepared the way for the great surprise. The world was the richer by one experience--that a war need have no prelude on the diplomatic stage provided enough circumstances have led up to it. _Chapter XIV_ ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WHIRLPOOL