Page:Pacific Historical Review, volume 1, number 1.djvu/5

 [Vol. 1, no. 1]

The launching by this association of a new quarterly, devoted in its scope to the history of the entire basin of the Pacific, indicates an appreciation of the importance of the Pacific Coast of the United States and of its close relationship to the other lands in and bordering on this great ocean. Consideration of the significance of the forthcoming publication suggested to the writer that it would not be inappropriate on this occasion to review briefly some of the many predictions made in the past regarding the destiny of America, both on this coast and across the Pacific Ocean.

The term Manifest Destiny is here used in a broad sense. It includes, in the first place, the emotion which prompted Elkanah Watson, prophesying in 1778 for the year 1900, to speak of "the decrees of the Almighty, who has evidently raised up this nation to become a lamp to guide degraded and oppressed humanity"; or Albert J. Beveridge in 1900 to call America "trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world." This is the chosen-people, beacon-to-mankind interpretation of—America's mission and duty. This is the view of which Carl Schurz wrote, although without adding his approval, when he referred to the "youthful optimism . . . inspiring the minds of many Americans with the idea that this republic, being charged with the mission of bearing the banner of freedom over the whole civilized world, could transform any country, inhabited by any kind of population, into something like itself