When this country was an infant, still in its cradle, George Washington gave the child some very good advice; told him to beware of entangling alliances, to stay at home and attend to his own business. Under the circumstances this was all very good. But the infant has been growing, and the Republic is now one of the most powerful nations in the world, and yet, from its infant days until now, good, conservative people have been repeating the advice of Washington. It was repeated again and again when we were talking about purchasing Louisiana, and many Senators and Congressmen became hysterical and predicted the fall of the Republic if that was done. The same thing took place when we purchased Florida, and again when we got one million square miles from Mexico, and still again when we bought Alaska. These ideas about violating the Constitution and wrecking the Republic were promulgated by our great and wise statesmen on all these previous occasions, but, after all, the Constitution seems to have borne the strain. There seems to be as much liberty now as there was then, and, in fact, a great deal more. Our Territories have given us no trouble, while they have greatly added to our population and vastly increased our wealth. Beside this, the statesmen of the olden time, the wise men with whom wisdom was supposed to have perished, could not and did not imagine the improvements that would take place after they were gone. In their time, practically speaking, it was farther from New York to Buffalo than it is now from New York to San Francisco, and so far as the transportation of intelligence is concerned, San Francisco is as near New York as it would have been in their day had it been just across the Harlem River. Taking into consideration the railways, the telegraphs and the telephones, this country now, with its area of three million five hundred thousand square miles, is not so large as the thirteen original colonies were; that is to say, the distances are more easily traveled and more easily overcome. In those days it required months and months to cross the continent. Now it is the work of four or five days.