Now that the world has once more had to fight out the old battle of free institutions, it is worth while to remember that the oldest independent nation of the modern world is Panama; and that the first of the Spanish colonies to achieve freedom from the misgovernment of the old country was this same little nation on the Isthmus. Tired of the kind of supervision which she had been undergoing from Europe, in 1826 Panama revolted, set up political housekeeping for herself, until she was later merged with the free New Granada--the modern Colombia. If political independence has anything to do with advancement, then Panama should be very advanced indeed, for she led all her neighbors in achieving national separateness. The independence movement that swept over the western world a century ago affected Panama profoundly, and the microbe of political freedom soon produced a well-developed case of revolution--and the revolution was a success. Four score years afterward Panama again established her independence without the shedding of a drop of blood. If a spirit of independence can make a people prosperous, then Panama and prosperity should mean the same thing. Panama has some peculiar political advantages to-day. Where other nations maintain their political sovereignty and internal peace at the cost of huge sums of money and by means of armies and battleships, Panama is spared this enormous drain upon her resources and men and money, and finds her political independence guaranteed against all the nations of the earth. Likewise she is sure of internal peace and is the only really war-tight, revolution-proof country in Latin-America. By the treaty entered into between Panama and the United States, in return for the Canal Zone and other concessions, the United States guarantees the independence of Panama and agrees to step in at any time when it may be necessary and maintain order throughout the Isthmus. The Panamanians are not enthusiastic over this situation, and some of the politicos inwardly resent very bitterly an arrangement which makes impossible their chosen profession of agitators and revolutionary leaders. There are people who tell us that the basis of national progress is economic and commercial. Given a land with all large resources, we shall perforce have a progressive people. Measured by this standard, Panama should lead all the rest. Her thirteen hundred miles of coast bound a narrow empire, but an empire of wonderful possibilities. Her inexhaustible soil, her frequent rivers, her rich jungles, her broad savanas, her high mountains and dense forests, her mines and climate and rainfall, and a world market right at her doors--all that nature could do to lay the foundations of material wealth seems to have been done here.