"
"The United States must protect its Canal, and to that end it is
building 'stone quarries' on Ancon Hill which are really
fortifications. American capital is coming in here, too, and in
order to protect the whole thing we must dominate Panama itself.
Once that is done, all the countries between here and the Texas
border will begin to feel our influence. Why, Costa Rica is
already nothing but a fruit farm owned by a Boston corporation. Of
course, nobody can forecast the final result, but the Mexicans,
the Hondurans, the Guatemalans, and the others have begun to feel
it, and that's why the anti-American sentiment is constantly
growing. You don't read much about it in the papers, but just live
here for a while and you'll find out."
"Oh, I have," Kirk acknowledged, dryly. "But we don't want these
jungle countries."
"That's where you're wrong. By-and-by we'll need room to expand,
and when that time comes we'll move south, not north or west.
Tropical America is richer than all our great Northwest, and we'll
grab it sooner or later. Meanwhile our far-sighted government is
smoothing the way, and there's nobody better fitted for the
preliminary work than Mr. Stephen Cortlandt, of Washington, D. C.,
husband and clerk of the smartest woman in the business of
chaperoning administrations.
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