12. Americans have gone into the Outside World to Trade. America has gone into all the world to buy and sell. In the province of Hunan, China, which the American railway engineers

The spirit of American skippers in the early days was as daring and fine as that of the pioneers who pushed over frontiers westward. (From a painting by William Steeple Davis)

were the first foreigners to penetrate, they found American cigarettes and American face powder. Today there are American sewing machines in the interior of India, China, and Africa. As early as 1821 Salem (Massachusetts) had a hundred and twenty-six ships in the China trade. By 1840 over two hundred thousand Americans were connected with foreign shipping and

trade. These were the days when a "British or Dutch bark with upper yards bare, making slow headway across the Pacific or Indian Oceans" could see astern "a pyramid of snow-white canvas appear over the horizon and in the course of a few hours sweep proudly by-a Yankee clipper from New York to Hongkong or Batavia, flying unreefed royals, and with topgallant studding sails out to catch every bit of breeze." It was of these days also that De Tocqueville wrote:

The European sailor navigates with prudence; he only sets sail when the weather is favorable. ... But the American .. weighs anchor in the midst of tempestuous gales; by night and by day he spreads his sheets to the winds; he repairs as he goes along such damage as his vessel may have sustained from the storm; and when at last he approaches the end of his voyage, he darts onward to the shore as if he already descried a port.

For many years all the great ports of foreign countries knew this adventurous, aggressive America. But today American goods are carried largely in foreign vessels manned by foreign crews. So it is a slightly different America that the modern world meets at its ports and at its places of trade. It is an enterprising, pushing, sometimes selfish, and often thoughtless America that trades in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia.

The United States sells wheat, rails, steam engines, harvesters, cigarettes, face powder, boots and shoes, hot-water bottles, and hundreds of other articles to different parts of the world. When President Loubet of France was one day showing an American over his estate, he pointed to a group of workers harvesting grain, and said, "I am stating no more than simple truth when I tell you that without American harvesters France would starve." A single consignment of harvesters to Russia, valued at five million dollars, filled three thousand freight cars when they were shipped from Chicago to New York, there to be transferred to a chartered fleet of nine steamships. So energetic have the American agents been in demonstrating the value of

these machines to farmers in far-away places that today an American harvesting machine is noisily at work in some part of the world every month in the year-January, in Argentina; February, in Upper Egypt; March, in East India; April, in Mexico; May, in China; June, in Spain; July, in Iowa; August, in Canada; September, in Sweden; October, in Norway; November, in South Africa; December, in Burma.

More interesting than figures of our foreign trade are such facts as those contained in the government's publications which print requests for information from business men in foreign countries. One issue contained such requests as the following:

770. A firm in Algeria wishes to buy nails of all kinds, machine bolts, and garden tools, such as spades, rakes, and hoes. Correspondence should be in French.

773. A man in Switzerland desires to purchase complete machinery and equipment for the treatment of medicinal herbs. Correspondence should be in French or Russian.

781. A correspondent in Brazil is in the market for two or even three all-steel cotton compresses worked with oil engines and pumps complete.

786. A man in Venezuela who intends to establish a sole-leather tannery desires to be placed in communication with consulting-engineer firms for designing and equipping tanneries and tanners' machinery.

790. A city in Chile desires to purchase a crematory for refuse for a city of about twenty-five thousand population.

13. Americans have gone into the Outside World with their Savings. In the past the American people have sent their money abroad to buy luxuries and necessities, but in the last twentyfive years the savings of the people have increased so rapidly that many millions of dollars have also been sent to foreign countries to work there. Some idea of the extent to which the United States has gone abroad with money to invest is given by these figures for the years 1919-1921:

Money invested in foreign countries by private individuals in a single

Between 1918 and the fall of 1922 the American people had lent $4,000,000,000 to European countries to help build factories, repair mines and railroads, and for other aids to industry. Mr. Hoover said that without these four billion dollars thus lent and without the one billion that the people gave to Europe during these four years, "Europe would have fallen to pieces economically."

In 1922 the American money at work in Chile, South America, amounted to over $64,000,000, and was invested, some of it in the republic of Chile itself, some in a water company of Valparaiso, a small amount in an electric-power company, and many millions in copper mines. Most of the money sent to Mexico has been working in the national railroads, but many millions have also found their way to light and power companies, the Mexican telegraph and telephone company, and at least $20,000,000 to the Institution for the Encouragement of Work and Development of Agriculture.

In 1913 Congress passed what is called the Federal Reserve Act, one of whose provisions was granting to national banks with a capital and surplus of $1,000,000 or more the privilege of establishing foreign branches. Before this no national bank had been permitted to have branches either in the United States or in foreign countries. By a later act-the Export Finance Act of 1919-banks can be organized in the United States with power to buy foreign stocks and bonds of foreign railways and other foreign enterprises and resell these to Americans.

It would be impossible for American money to go abroad without the thought and concern of the people following it. So this is another of the bonds between the United States and the outside world.

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES

1. Consult the latest issue of the World Almanac, or the Statesman's Yearbook, or some other reference work in which you can find a list of the different nations of the world. Copy this list into your loose-leaf notebook and search the newspapers for references to these nations. Set down whatever seems to you important from the point of view of (1) our state department, (2) our business men, (3) our philanthropists. Probably the class will be divided into groups for this search, each group taking certain countries, but all students should set down the facts gleaned.

2. In the list referred to in 1, there will be certain countries that may not be mentioned at all in the newspapers. A special study should be made of these to find out what diplomatic and trade relations the United States has with them.

3. Take some large city daily newspaper which gives world news and cut out all the items (similar to those given on page 492) referring to Americans or American activities in foreign countries. Arrange these in two groups: (1) those dealing with what the people do unofficially and (2) those about the government's activities. Subdivide these according to countries. Discuss these in class, then file them away to use in later exercises.

4. The American Red Cross is referred to as a semiofficial organization. What do you understand this to mean? (Do you know of any other semiofficial organizations?) Explain the "Geneva convention." Is any member of your family a member of the Red Cross? What are the annual dues? Since the Red Cross must be ready to respond instantly to emergency calls, show why it is necessary for it to have a large membership.

5. When the American Red Cross goes into foreign countries it is usually only for short periods. In what ways do some Americans go into the outside world to stay? Can you think of any not mentioned in the text? The careful reading of the newspaper may suggest some of the things which keep Americans in other countries.

6. If you belong to or attend any church, find out to what countries it has sent missionaries. Probably these have been sent under the auspices of some church society. Find out how this society gets its money and how many missionaries it has sent out. If you have heard some missionary or have read of the accomplishments of medical workers, teachers, and other workers in the mission field, tell about them.