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 lasting shock made to public opinion in America by her temporary entanglement with Europe during the latter years of the Great War brought on a strong wave of political isolation which found expression not merely in a refusal to join the League of Nations but in her withdrawal from active control over her colonies, and, still more important, the placing of her relations with the Monroe States upon a formal basis of equal co-operation. How far this political isolation will be found compatible with the trading and credit relations with the outside world which her rapid industrial development makes inevitable, is one of the great speculative problems of the near future.