the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other." Such was America's entrance, with a gesture worthy of her, and in which none more than Britain might take a greater pride; and it would be quite impossible to overestimate the immediate moral value of her action. Though it was, of course, clear that, not for many months, could her full weight be felt in Europe, there had been placed at the disposal of the Entente's anxious statesmen not only the unplumbed resources of another continent, but a new spring of unjaded enthusiasm at a peculiarly troubled stage of the war. Of the subsequent growth of the American armies, of their historic rush over the Atlantic in the following spring, and of the self-abnegation with which, at a critical moment, they allowed themselves to be brigaded with the British and French forces, we may not write here, save in so far as their navy and ours made this possible. Here we must confine ourselves to a brief survey of the American effort at sea, prefacing all that follows with the reminder that, no less than ourselves, the United States' navy shared in the great traditions bequeathed by the Elizabethan admirals. To such as were familiar with its inner life, that had indeed long been manifest; and we have already referred to a couple of incidents in which it had become apparent to the world at large. In the fight of the _Chesapeake_ against the _Shannon_, wherein both {255} victor and vanquished shared an equal glory, and, in the action of Lieutenant Hobson at Santiago, its true lineage had shone out; while no English-speaking sailor of modern times had gloried in it more eloquently than Admiral Mahan. At the same time, separated by thousands of miles, on either side, from any potential foe; self-dependent, owing to its vast inner resources, for almost every material of industry; and with but few colonies, scattered over the world, whose interests required protection, America's attitude toward naval expansion had necessarily been somewhat different from our own. It had seemed rather an adjunct to her great natural defences than the vital condition of her existence; and the reflection of this had been clearly visible in her recent programmes of construction. Thus in 1909, 1910, and 1911 only two new battleships had been authorized each year. In 1912 and 1913 this number had been reduced to one; while, in 1914, though three had been authorized, two second-class battleships had been sold to Greece.