Elusive Isabel

Book Excerpt: ...rican countries, taken separately, are inconsequential, and that is true, too, of the Latin countries of Europe, except France, but taken in combination, under one directing mind, the allied navies would be--would be formidable, at least. Backed by the moral support of Germany, and perhaps Japan--! Don't you see? Don't you see?"He lapsed into silence. Mr. Grimm opened his lips to ask a question: Mr. Campbell anticipated it unerringly: "The purpose of such an alliance? It is not too much to construe it into the first step toward a world-war--a war of reprisal and conquest beside which the other great wars of the world would seem trivial. For the fact has at last come home to the nations of the world that ultimately the English-speaking peoples will dominate it--dominate it, because they are the practical peoples. They have given to the world all its great practical inventions--the railroad, the steamship, electricity, the telegraph and cable--all of them; they are the great civilizing forces, ro..