240 MY AMERICAN FRIENDS

affairs. ^She is under no obligation tc keep step
with other nations in their metho4s of attaining
these objects. If the others want a League of
Nations let them have it, but she, for her part,
will mind her own business and leave them
to mind theirs. And this—so runs the popular
legend—she may safely do. Is she not indepen-
dent ? Is she not self-contained ? Has * she
not material resources on a scale and in variety
equal to all her wants both actual and prospective ?
Has she not a people vast in numbers and gifted
with all the faculties a nation needs to turn her
resources to the best account ? If all the others
were to vanish out of existence to-morrow doubt-
less she would pity their fate and shed a tear
over their departure, but would she not still
be able to carry on and to carry up ? Thus,
in her collective spirit, no less than in the practice
of her individuals, America is a walking
Declaration of Independence. No wonder she
walked out when the League of Nations was
proposed to her.

Intellectuals, indeed, may often be met with
who regard this popular legend as a dangerous
fallacy, who know very well that America is not
as self-contained as she aspires to be, and that,
although she has avoided the political alliances
which Jefferson deprecated, she has nevertheless
fallen into economic entanglements with the rest
of the world which count far more as a factor
in the fortunes of her people than any number