Are we indeed a "menace to the world's peace," or only to those who would disturb that peace? The Europeans speak from their own point of view as jealous rivals, set to watch each other and match force with force, controlment with controlment. It is a saying of diplomacy that in the division of labor between the powers of Europe, Russia is to watch Northern Asia, England to guard India, and Germany to preserve the balance of power on the continent of Europe. Are we to have part or lot in this complex assignment of duties? That is but one of many questions that rise before us as we contemplate the events of the past year. No other year in our history, perhaps, has been so rich in performance, so crowded with great and significant events. What of the year to come? What of the years that stretch out before us as we approach the threshold of the new century? Are we entered in the international handicap for the grand prize of empire and world-wide ascendancy? Or have we but made a dash out of our safe retreat, only to return to our historic isolation as a second-class power--one of the little, not of the great of earth? Behind a wall of our own building we have in recent years waxed fat and rich, not to say sordid and corrupt. As we have been, shall we so continue? It is a trite saying that no war leaves a nation where it finds it. A little more than a year ago our Uncle Samuel shouldered his musket and set forth to rid his southern doorway of a certain yellow, yelping cur which for years had been a nuisance if not a menace to his peace. The dog is dead and its carcass kicked out of sight. But is that all? We learn--some of us with surprise or even consternation--that certain responsibilities attach to the use of firearms on the high seas and in the international preserves. Can we dodge those responsibilities? Ought we to do so if we can? Will it even pay? We have discovered--once more with something like surprise--that war, even if undertaken in the "sacred cause of humanity," is something more than mere burning of powder. Whatever our original purpose, we have new territory on our hands. We cannot kick Spain out of Cuba, even in the cause of philanthropy, and leave the island to Cuban savagery, for that is no better than the savagery of Spain.