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Title: The Outlook: Uncle Sam's Place and Prospects in International Politics

Author: Newton Macmillan

Release date: December 28, 2010 [eBook #34768]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OUTLOOK: UNCLE SAM'S PLACE AND PROSPECTS IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ***

The Outlook:

Uncle Sam's Place and

Prospects in International

Politics

Newton Macmillan.

THE OUTLOOK:

UNCLE SAM'S PLACE AND PROSPECTS IN

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS.

A Paper

READ BEFORE THE FORTNIGHTLY CLUB, OSWEGO, N. Y.,

MAY 2, 1899,

BY

NEWTON MACMILLAN.

ORDERED PUBLISHED BY THE FORTNIGHTLY CLUB.

1899.

PRESS OF R. J. OLIPHANT,

OSWEGO, N. Y.

THE OUTLOOK:

UNCLE SAM'S PLACE AND PROSPECTS IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS.

I T is exactly a year and a day since Oswego, responding to the President's call, sent away her modest quota of citizen-soldiery to the war with Spain. A novel and inspiring scene, whose meaning, perhaps, we did not wholly take in at the time: the flag of the Republic borne away from the precincts of the city at the head of a body of men of peaceful pursuits, destined, as we supposed, to invade the soil of an alien foe.

The event proved otherwise. Our neighbors were not to pass the boundaries of their native land, but with equal gallantry they were to perform the part of those who "also serve," although they "only stand and wait." Their part was not to scale the awful hill at San Juan, to give their bodies to the noisome vermin of the Cuban chaparral, or to lie down in death upon the fever-stricken rice-fields of Luzon. Nevertheless they partook in the glory of those victories won by their more fortunate comrades, to the honor and credit of the entire army of the United States. Theirs also is an equal part in the renown which all the world now accords to that new and formidable factor in warfare—the American Volunteer.

Truly a May day long to be remembered. Even as we followed the flag to the confines of the town news came from a distant land where that same beloved standard had been carried to victory and undying glory. In the far-away harbor of Manila a gallant officer had awaked that morning unknown to fame, but before he slept he had written the name of George Dewey upon the imperishable scroll with that of Drake, and Nelson, and Perry, and Farragut; destroyed the power and prestige of Spain in the East—a fabric four centuries in building, but toppled over in as many hours; annexed a new and splendid territory to our domain, and—most important of all—launched the Republic upon a new and greater career.

A wonderful day indeed, and the first of many that were to make the twelvemonth just concluded one of the most, if not the most important in our history. He is a dull citizen of the Republic, indeed, who does not see in this swift succession of events a significance wide and deep. An ancient regime has been swept from our hemisphere and relegated to the rubbish heap of nations. Our flag flies not only in the Antilles but in mid-Pacific, by token that that illimitable ocean is now to us an inland lake. Our army and navy, posted at China's doorway to uphold our place in the perennial struggle for mastery in the East, is a notification to the great powers that henceforth they have to reckon with another as formidable—perhaps, also, as rapacious—as themselves. "You must understand," said Mr. Speaker Reed the other day to a distinguished British visitor, "that we have burst our swaddling-clothes." And in that jocular epigram lies a meaning almost beyond words to express.

If we ourselves fail to take in the full significance of these recent events—and it would appear that some of us do—our neighbors in Europe and Asia are not so dull. Five and twenty years ago Von Moltke turned away from our civil war as unworthy the study of a soldier. It was, he said contemptuously, "a conflict of armed mobs."

But mark the instructive power of our recent victories. A surviving countryman and colleague of Von Moltke, discussing the progress of our arms in Manila, the courage, intelligence and perfect discipline of our "raw militia," uttered recently this truly significant warning: "Here is a new power with which we all must reckon—a new giant, as yet ignorant of his strength. He can, if need be, muster ten millions of men, who in three months will be veteran soldiers, the equals if not the superiors of the best troops in Europe. It is a menace to the world's peace."

And, "It would be absurd," writes an English military officer who looked on as a critic and student of war at the charge up San Juan hill, "to compare with those men the finest soldiers in Germany, France, Russia or England. Their equals do not exist."

Are we indeed a "menace to the world's peace," or only to those who would disturb that peace? The Europeans speak from their own point of view as jealous rivals, set to watch each other and match force with force, controlment with controlment. It is a saying of diplomacy that in the division of labor between the powers of Europe, Russia is to watch Northern Asia, England to guard India, and Germany to preserve the balance of power on the continent of Europe.

Are we to have part or lot in this complex assignment of duties? That is but one of many questions that rise before us as we contemplate the events of the past year. No other year in our history, perhaps, has been so rich in performance, so crowded with great and significant events. What of the year to come? What of the years that stretch out before us as we approach the threshold of the new century? Are we entered in the international handicap for the grand prize of empire and world-wide ascendancy? Or have we but made a dash out of our safe retreat, only to return to our historic isolation as a second-class power—one of the little, not of the great of earth?

Behind a wall of our own building we have in recent years waxed fat and rich, not to say sordid and corrupt. As we have been, shall we so continue?

It is a trite saying that no war leaves a nation where it finds it. A little more than a year ago our Uncle Samuel shouldered his musket and set forth to rid his southern doorway of a certain yellow, yelping cur which for years had been a nuisance if not a menace to his peace. The dog is dead and its carcass kicked out of sight. But is that all? We learn—some of us with surprise or even consternation—that certain responsibilities attach to the use of firearms on the high seas and in the international preserves. Can we dodge those responsibilities? Ought we to do so if we can? Will it even pay?

We have discovered—once more with something like surprise—that war, even if undertaken in the "sacred cause of humanity," is something more than mere burning of powder. Whatever our original purpose, we have new territory on our hands. We cannot kick Spain out of Cuba, even in the cause of philanthropy, and leave the island to Cuban savagery, for that is no better than the savagery of Spain.

Similarly in the Philippines. If Admiral Dewey, after sinking Montojo's fleet a year and a day ago, had sailed away, as some Americans seem to think he ought to have done, he would have merited court-martial for himself and the world's scorn, contempt and execration for his country. He had no license to burn American powder and pour out American blood to further the ambitions of Aguinaldo, or win colonies in the far East for Germany. Dewey's real victory was won, not on that spectacular first of May, but in the weary, dreary months following, when, with infinite patience, unsleeping watchfulness and the tact of true genius, he kept the peace in the waters that rolled above the sunken Spanish fleet; whispered words of friendly warning in the ear of the amiable German, Von Diederichs, and—greatest of all—captured Manila without bloodshed. Let us never cease to thank the God of Battles that in the Admiral of our Asiatic fleet we have had a man as well as a fighter—a modest, earnest, fearless man, who could not only conquer an enemy but, greater still, conquer himself, control his natural resentments and bring his passions in subjection to his conscience. What might have befallen us before now without such a guardian of our interests on the scene, it is neither pleasant nor profitable to speculate.

But the conflict is not yet over—perhaps it has not yet even fairly begun. Assuming, as I suppose we may, that Aguinaldo is ready to treat for peace, there still remain the allies of that patriot—in Asia and Europe, even here in America. The Philippine chieftain has fought hard and with splendid prodigality of patriot blood—not, however, his own. But three months' experience with the "white devils" who fight without resting, and especially with "devils" like Funston and his wild westerners, who "eat bullets" and swim turgid rivers under fire—three months of such experience has caused the Filipinos to revise the estimate of white man's warfare formed upon their acquaintance with Spain.

Still remain, however, the watchful Europeans in the East, who, despite the diplomatic protestations of their respective governments, would be only too ready to take advantage of our first misstep or sign of weakness.

Remain also those peculiar patriots here at home who have found interest or duty in affording aid and comfort at long range to their country's foes. Of these American Filipinos there are several breeds. First, there is the political breed, who, under the leadership of a distinguished westerner, are gallantly fighting the administration with a view to the possibilities of 1900. Of these patriots it is to be observed that their political instincts have already taught them much. Not for the first time, they realize that they have misjudged the public temper. Treachery, in whatever guise, has never been lovely to the American eye, and I think we may assume that the Bryan Filipinos will presently discover that they are on the wrong tack. They will not figure largely in the events of the future.

A more troublesome, insistent factor is the Atkinson breed of Filipinos. This will do as a generic name for a species of patriots that has never been entirely wanting at any stage of our national progress. They were called Tories when they first appeared, to oppose the patriot revolt from Great Britain. During the War of the Rebellion they earned the name of Copperheads, from the similarity of their tactics to those of the snake in the grass which strikes without warning. These tactics the Atkinsons are renewing now, without apparent hope of reward or success, but merely from that perversity of nature, that inborn contrariness whose existence is to be explained only on the theory that "it takes all kinds of people to make a world."

Of these gentry and their kind, I have only to say that they may thank their lucky stars that they live and practice their treacherous devices in a country where the jealousy for free speech and a free press sometimes permits liberty to fall into license. The wanton Copperhead may for the present shelter himself behind the good nature of the people. I say for the present, for I do not believe that such treasonable conduct as inciting troops under arms to resist lawful authority can forever go unpunished; but in the end it will be treated as it deserves.[1]

[1] This was written before Mr. Atkinson's treasonable pamphlets had been stopped in the mails by the Post Office Department.

I do not deny to any American citizen the right to entertain his own opinion as to the wisdom of any public policy, including that of the administration toward the Philippines. Nor do I deny that there may be Americans of undoubted patriotism who conscientiously oppose that policy. But there are times and occasions for all things; and there are occasions when open criticism of the Government amounts to treason. So there are times when it is the duty of every patriot to support the Government, without regard to private difference of opinion. As for the present, it is one of those occasions when the patriot should say, with Winthrop: "Our country, however bounded or described—still our country—to be cherished in all our hearts; to be defended by all our hands!"

There is an hour for debate and there is time for argument, wherein the Government may easily be shown to be in the wrong. But in the hour of battle, so long as any armed foe of the flag is above the sod, the patriot can only exclaim: "My country—may she never be in the wrong; but right or wrong, my country!"

While we may safely leave to the Government the subjugation of its enemies at home or abroad, there can be no harm in discussing here some of the arguments that have been advanced in all honesty against the policy now generally known as "imperialism," or "territorial expansion." The anti-expansionists honestly opposed the annexation of Hawaii; but Hawaii is already annexed, and as truly a part of the national domain as Massachusetts or New York. In like manner Porto Rico is ours, for better, for worse, till death or dissolution shall us part. As for Cuba, we hold it in trust for the Cubans, against the time when those enigmatical patriots shall prove their ability and worthiness to rule themselves or their country. When is that time to come? We ourselves are to be the judges. I am not a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I hold it to be vastly significant that the majority of intelligent Cuban civilians seem to look forward, not with pleasure but with dread to that much-talked-of millennium, "Cuba for the Cubans."

The tendency of the times, in government as in commerce, is clearly centripetal, not centrifugal. There is not an island in the West Indies whose condition would not be improved by annexation to this Republic; and, after all, self-interest is the main-spring of all national policies. I would rather predict that Canada and British America, Mexico and the Central American states are destined for ultimate (and peaceful) admission to this Union, than that we are to take a single backward step along the lines so clearly laid down by the war with Spain.

But the Philippines present to the eye another and a broader question. Here is an archipelago removed from our center of population by one-half the circumference of the globe; peopled by a race—or, rather, races—wholly alien to any hitherto admitted to our citizenship, and—most important of all—plunged into the very vortex of that boiling cauldron known as the Eastern question.

What is to be our policy toward those remote islands?—to retain them or to let them go?

The objections that have thus far been raised to our retention of the Philippines come chiefly under these heads: 1, Constitutional; 2, Our "historic policy;" 3, Utility or self-interest.

And first as to the constitutional questions involved. For so young a nation the United States has already passed through numerous crises, chiefly arising over the acquisition of new territory, and it is noteworthy that in each of these the policy of the Government has been opposed by a conscientious minority on the plea of alleged unconstitutionality. Once more we are warned, in the present crisis, that the acquisition and proposed retention of the Philippines are without warrant in the constitution of the United States.

Far be it from me to breathe disrespect for a document so respectable, but there can be no treason in pointing out the perfectly obvious fact that no constitution, and especially no written constitution, can be stronger than the men who made it; it cannot be—it is not—so strong as the men for whom it is made, because in them is vested the power to amend or even to annul it.

The fathers of the Republic were wise in their generation; rarely, if ever, has a country been so blessed in the character of its founders as ours. But they were human, and hence fallible; mere men, and therefore not endowed with the gift of prophecy. They themselves would have been the first to disclaim such an attribute. They drafted a constitution admirably suited for the needs of thirteen colonies stretched along the Atlantic coast, recently liberated by the bravery of their own citizens from the tyranny of a stupid and stiff-necked English monarch and ministry. And then, proud, serene and happy in the consciousness of duty well done, they were gathered to the bosom of their fathers.

The fathers and founders died, but the Republic lived on. Year by year it grew and waxed greater. No student of our history need be told that every instance of expansion of our territory presented unsolved problems beyond the apparent scope of the parchment constitution; or that as each of these occasions arose, arose also a party to declare that the constitution could not be stretched to meet the demand. Yet the growth continued and the constitution survived.

I do not presume to read the constitution of the United States for this or any other audience—that is a work beyond my powers, and, I apprehend, beyond those of many who consider themselves of the "constitutional party." But there may be instruction in recalling a few of the instances in our history in which the constitutionally impossible has been nevertheless accomplished, and that, too, without harm to the Republic.

Thomas Jefferson, being a democrat and "strict constructionist," demanded an amendment to the constitution to confirm the Louisiana purchase; but not, it will be remembered, until after the purchase had been made, constitution or no constitution.

Andrew Jackson, another democrat, has never been rebuked by posterity for marching into Florida, arresting and hanging Ambuster and his fellow spies on what was then Spanish territory; yet in so doing President Jackson thrust his hob-nailed Tennessee boots clean through the sacred parchment. It has been well said that success is an unwritten law seldom reversed by the courts. Certainly neither the courts nor Jackson's fellow strict-constructionists have ever rebuked him for the "unconstitutional act."

Passing over the Mexican war and the acquisition of Texas, California and New Mexico, a series of acts very damaging to the dignity of the constitution, let us come at one step to the most conspicuous breach of the constitution in all our history—the War of the Rebellion.

There is not a line in the constitution expressly permitting the secession of a state, though so eminent an authority as the late Judge Thomas M. Cooley, himself a Northerner and a Union man of undoubted loyalty, plainly intimates in his "Constitutional Limitations" that at least historical precedent was on the side of secession. But neither is there authority in the constitution for the invasion of a state by the federal army, unless at the request of the state authorities; yet the Southern states seceded, and President Lincoln marched the Northern armies whithersoever secession and rebellion showed their heads. Still more recently, President Cleveland sent federal troops into Illinois to quell riotous strikers, against the protest of the Governor; yet posterity sustains both presidents in their acts—perhaps even thanks them for the precedent—whatever the cost to the constitution.

As for the repression of the rebellion, posterity, including many of the seceding "strict constructionists," now concede that equity, common sense and the instinct of self-preservation amply justified any possible breach of the constitution committed for the preservation of the Union. A federation of states holding together only at the will of all its component parts would hardly have been worth saving; so that if the constitution was on the side of the seceders, why—so much the worse for the constitution.

It was during the War of the Rebellion, too, that a legislature of Virginia met in Alexandria and passed a law cutting the state in two, to erect the new state of West Virginia. Now, article 4, section 3, of the United States constitution expressly declares that "no state shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state, nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned and of the Congress." Yet the state of West Virginia is a historical, political and geographical fact, notwithstanding that the precedent thus established is a dangerous one, and the division wrought great injustice to the Old Dominion in throwing upon her shoulders the entire debt of the original state. Here was not only a violation of the constitution, but a "historical crime;" yet both constitution and the crime remain to vex the souls of the strict constructionists and to remind us all how weak a thing is any constitution when it blocks the way of a popular demand.

There is no need to multiply instances, though there are many others—notably during the period of "reconstructing" the conquered states after the war. The constitution offers no more substantial obstacle to the acquisition of territory in the Philippines than it did in the other cases cited, provided only that public expediency and the demand of the people are on the other side.

Scarcely less importance is attributed by the anti-expansionists to our alleged "historical policy of isolation," which, we are told, would be violated by thrusting our hands as a nation into the larger affairs of international politics. For some reason the idea seems to prevail that George Washington and other statesmen of his period designed the Republic for a remote, parochial career, hedged about by a Chinese wall, excluding all foreign influence from our affairs and retaining our own energies within our own boundaries. "America for the Americans," is the shibboleth of this school of political philosophers, and they really seem to believe that the Republic will in some way be happier and richer if we keep aloof entirely and forever from the rest of the world.

As a matter of fact, the only nation on earth that has ever maintained such a policy to its logical end and conclusion is China, and China is now awaiting participation in a grand international banquet, whereat, like Polonius, she is not to eat but to be eaten.

As for the United States, if any nation ever came into existence and has lived under the fierce light of international politics, it has been this Republic of ours. To be sure, our trade policy of recent years has been framed on the Chinese model—"America for the Americans"—and in consequence we are now brought face to face with a retaliatory policy on the part of the powers of continental Europe which may easily shut us out of the world's market at the hour of our greatest need. But of that, more later on.

In point of fact, we have been a "world power" from the very moment of our birth as a nation, or even before it. Our Declaration of Independence, that beautiful synthesis of paradoxes, became from the moment of its publication a powerful factor in the world's progress. "Among all peoples," says Professor Tyler, "it has everywhere been associated with the assertion of the natural rights of man. To every struggling nation it has been a model and an inspiration." And Buckle, the English historian, declares that its effect in hastening the French Revolution "was most remarkable." No state paper of modern times has exercised so wide an authority.

Geographically, we are a nation lying athwart a continent, from ocean to ocean, and in the immediate highway of the world's traffic from west to east and from east to west. Between 1821 and 1898 no less than eighteen millions of Europeans landed upon our shores to become a part of our citizenship and complete its truly cosmopolitan character.

As for the policy of our Government, it has been that of a world power from the start. Almost our first important act as a government was to cast in our lot with France, for the express purpose of disturbing the balance of power in Europe. And that purpose was realized. In December, 1776, Congress sent out a fleet of privateers which became a scourge to our enemies on the high seas. As early as 1777, we had commissioners, who soon became ministers, at Paris, taking active and important part in a conference of the powers. Five years later, Franklin, John Adams and Jay sat in the congress at Paris, "almost as arbiters," a contemporary record says, so powerful was their voice in the conference.

Washington's much-talked-of proclamation of neutrality, says Professor Bushnell Hart, was never intended to keep the United States from contact or entanglement with European powers, but only so wisely to shape our course (at that time) that we should be free to fight or keep the peace as our interest should dictate.

It was the United States which first ventured to send a fleet to the Mediterranean to suppress the Barbary pirates—an act from which all the civilized world benefited. Indeed, it is within the limits of truth to say that the period of our liveliest intercourse with foreign powers was the identical period of "the fathers" who are so often and so falsely quoted as urging the policy of isolation that would sooner or later reduce us to the condition of the Chinese Empire.

Our interests in the far East began as early as 1785, when the ship Empress of New York came home from her first Chinese voyage to enrich her owners with the traffic in furs and ginseng. It is a fact too soon forgotten that our title to Oregon was founded upon the early establishment on that remote coast of a trading-post for our Chinese trade.

As long ago as 1851, the native rulers of Hawaii begged—nay, even insisted—that our government annex those islands, whose people had already been familiar with our flag for years. Annexation did not take place until nearly half a century later, but the episode suffices to prove that even at that early day we were a world power in all that the term implies.

Three years later—in 1854—Oliver Hazard Perry, Commodore of the United States navy, battered down the gates of Nagasaki, and by the method which England so successfully employed toward China, established "treaty relations" between the Yankees of the East and of the West.

This brings us, after a view necessarily imperfect and cursory, very nearly to the War of the Rebellion. That struggle, and the absorbing internal questions which led up to it, kept us very busy at home, though both the North and the South, appreciating the importance of foreign sympathy and moral support, kept their emissaries constantly at the various courts of Europe. The international episodes of the war may be said in one sense to afford the most interesting chapters in its history. Certainly they should suffice to convince us that, even in the heat of that internal struggle, our affairs formed a part of the business of the outside world; so complete is the interdependence of nations. Nor need it be recalled that the war was scarcely at an end before Mr. Seward had occasion to warn Napoleon III. out of Mexico, and thus topple over a scheme of aggression involving at least two of the great powers of Europe.

It has been necessary to pass over with greater haste than I could have wished these arguments of the anti-expansionists, because there are other phases of the question which, to my mind at least, are of vastly greater importance; for I do not deny that there are obstacles in the path of territorial expansion.

Assuming the present war of subjugation to be brought to a successful issue; that the Filipinos acknowledge both the hopelessness of their cause and the justice of ours, as in the end they must, our difficulties are not yet finished. We have still to consider the remoteness of the archipelago, the savagery of many of the native tribes, the tropical climate, and the dregs of four centuries of Spanish misrule.

The average temperature in the Philippines, according to the imperfect statistics collated by the Spanish at Manila, is much too high for the comfort of any man accustomed to the climate of our so-called temperate zone. Professor Dean Worcester, of our Philippine Commission, who spent three and a half years in the islands as a naturalist, says that in all that time he never experienced a day in which a white man could work hard for many hours together in comfort, or even in safety. The coolest months are December and January, but the lowest temperature known at this period of mid-winter is 71 degrees. During the remainder of the year the mercury often mounts above 90 degrees, and not infrequently to 100 degrees. The effects of the heat, moreover, are aggravated by the humidity of the atmosphere, so that it saps the vitality and enfeebles the stoutest constitution.

These conditions are arduous, but by no means intolerable. White men do live in the islands and steadily work without impairing their health. The absence of sudden changes enables one to dress for the climate without fear of catching cold. Herein the climate is preferable to that of some of our larger cities, such as New York or St. Louis, where intense heat with humidity alternate with sudden chills.

Malarial fever is one of the curses of the Philippines; but this disease is found in all countries imperfectly tilled and drained, and there, as elsewhere, it disappears in the face of cleanliness and intelligent sanitation. Some cities and districts which at one time were almost wholly uninhabitable have been freed entirely of malaria by thorough drainage. The Spanish, with characteristic indolence, have as a rule endured the ravages of the disease rather than incur the cost and labor of preventive measures. Weyler—the dreadful, blood-drinking Weyler—who was for a time Captain-General of the Philippines, at one time lost the greater part of his army from a fever which might have been averted with proper care. Cholera is not epidemic in the Philippines; neither is smallpox, though both diseases have at different times swept through cities and districts in the train of filth and carelessness.

As for the natives, Professor Worcester gives them, on the whole, a fairly good character. The aboriginal tribes, Negritoes, or "little niggers," are, like our own Indians, nearly extinct. The pagan Malays are bold, warlike, treacherous, but they are not numerous, being confined largely to the northern islands, and even the Spaniards were able, by keeping firearms out of their reach, to prevent them from becoming seriously dangerous. The Mohammedan Malays are more formidable. To the fierceness and treachery of their pagan congeners, their faith has added a savage fanaticism which takes the form of special hatred for the Christian. They are fatalists, and hence fearless in battle, and their priests teach them that for every Christian slain they will be rewarded with a new peri in paradise.

There are forty thousand Chinese in the islands, including some coolies, but the greater part are engaged in retail trade, which in some districts they entirely monopolize. Scarcely any village is without its Chinese shop.

The most numerous and important portion of the population is the half-caste element—Malay-Chinese and Malay-Caucasian, generally Spanish. The creole Spaniards affect to despise these "half-cousins," especially the friars, though it is said that the friars are responsible for the existence of most of them. As a matter of fact, however, the half-castes constitute the great "middle classes" of the population, and are far and away the most tractable, intelligent, and in every way promising for the purposes of a civilized government. Not a few of them are intelligent and fairly educated. Aguinaldo himself is said to be a Malay-Chinese. The Spaniards, never violently addicted to labor, allowed these people to do the greater part of such work as shop-tending, bookkeeping, etc., so that, in the opinion of Professor Worcester, they would be available for the minor positions of government, under the direction of American chiefs.

Much will depend on how these half-castes are treated. Senor Nicholas Estévanez, at one time Spanish Minister of War, gives friendly warning to the Americans, not to copy the mistakes of his own countrymen in taking for granted the inferiority of the native Filipinos. This was one stumbling-block to the peacefulness of Spanish rule in the islands, though not, of course, the only one. In a very interesting article in the North American Review, Senor Estévanez tells of the trials and injustices endured by these really patient and peaceful people at the hands of "impure priests and merchants without a conscience." Disraeli said, "Race is the key to history." But race distinctions can be overworked, and if our people enter upon the government of the islands too strongly prepossessed with the idea of their own superiority, they will simply be making unnecessary trouble for themselves.

In one respect at least we shall start with a great advantage over the Spanish. It is not easy to picture American rulers oppressing a subject race on the score of religion. The Spanish, on the other hand, made baptism the test of loyalty from the very start. "They wanted," says Senor Estévanez, "no subjects who would not begin by having water poured on their heads." The natives, on the other hand, were willing to submit in all else, but insisted on retaining their religion. "So, for the sake of a few drops of water, we had three centuries of war."

Such a people is not devoid of sterling qualities. Troy itself stood out for only ten years against the Greeks; Mindanao resisted the Spaniards for three hundred years. If we profit by the example of our predecessors we may accomplish in a few months what they failed to do in all that long period.

The game is well worth the candle. All authentic accounts of the islands agree that they are rich beyond computation in natural resources—forest, mine, and soil. The Spaniards have, even in their slothful, unskilled and clumsy fashion, taken out untold wealth; but they only scratched the field; most of what remains is practically virgin soil. True, there is lack of all civilized methods; railroads must be built and labor is hard to find. But such difficulties have never yet daunted a virile race, and they will not for long deter the Americans.

The difficulties of which I have spoken thus far are material; there are others much deeper in their origin and more apt to give pause to this giant enterprise. I refer now to what might be called the subjective obstacles to success; the qualities inherent in ourselves and in our own government which rise up now to impede the pathway to success.

"Providence protects little children and the United States," is a saying in the diplomatic world, referring to the good luck, as some call it, or the special gift for rising to sudden emergencies, as we ourselves prefer to say, which in many difficult crises has kept us safe from harm or helped us to success. But now, as Speaker Reed said the other day, "we have burst our swaddling-clothes." We have, let us hope, put away childish things and put on the garment of national manhood. As one of the great powers we must no longer rely upon child-luck. The great task before us calls for the strength, soberness and consistency of the adult.

It will not, for example, be consistent with the character of a world power to apply to the government of new colonies the same methods, or lack of method, that has prevailed in the government of our cities and some of our states. We cannot hope for success if we carry the spoils system into the difficult administration of foreign lands and people. Colonial work calls for special fitness in the civil service, for long and careful training. Shall we turn it over to the politicians, who have thus far, with some honorable exceptions, monopolized our diplomatic service. As a rule, our consuls and ministers, and even our ambassadors, have been patriots with "claims upon the administration"—not based upon special education and fitness, but for political service rendered. As a result, many—perhaps even a majority—of our representatives abroad have distinguished themselves and their country by such antics as were explained or forgiven only because the men were Americans, and therefore protected by that "special providence" of which I have spoken. Is it imagined that we can administer colonies after this method? If so, a great and painful surprise is in store for us.

For the present administration it must be said that the President's choice of men for work in the new colonies inspires the hope of better things. In the Philippine Commission, for example, every man has justified his selection by special ability or experience, or both. If this course be followed to the end the nation is relieved at the start of a grave anxiety. Let us hope that it is so.

But with even the best intentions we have difficulties to face that are not due to any fault of our own, but are rather inherent in our institutions, in our form of government. Ours is a democracy, with all the virtues and all the defects of that form of government. It is obvious that such work as is now to be done in the East calls for a strong central executive force. Russia has been able to fortify her position in the East not only because she is rich and powerful, but because her form of government is an autocracy. Germany is, in name at least, a constitutional monarchy, but it is because her government owns and administers the railroads, and a powerful and perfectly organized militarism permeates the whole fabric, that she has been able to make such advance as a world power since she became an empire at Versailles. There is no time here to elaborate these propositions, but they are obviously true.

Our government, on the other hand, is designedly weak in the executive and strong in the legislative department. When we broke away, at the beginning of our history, from a monarchy and from a monarch who was impatient of legislative interference, the pendulum swang to the other side, carrying us to the opposite extreme. We safeguarded ourselves against the possibility of a central power of overweening strength. And all our history has been the history of a powerful legislative and a comparatively weak executive. To us bureaucracy is hateful. We protest as a people against an office-holding class. Every citizen feels that he too may become an office-holder—is looking forward, possibly, to that consummation. This may explain the indulgence with which we regard the faults of those actually in office. If at the end of its term in office an administration is able to account in some way for all the money it has handled, no further questions are asked. As to the quality of the service rendered for the money, that is a matter not to be dwelt upon with painful emphasis.

Such laxity will hardly suffice for the administration of colonies planted amidst remote peoples of another race, requiring delicate handling and the tactful management which can come only from special knowledge and training. Nor is such special knowledge to be gained in the brief term of one administration's power. Much less can the matter be left to the national luck or even the national cleverness. "There are some difficulties," said one of our public men recently, "that do not yield to mere enthusiasm." We must have a strong administrative arm to the government, and the question is, how such an adjunct is to be fitted upon the existing institutions, theories and traditions of our government. I do not doubt that it will be; simply point out that here is a matter for profound thought and honest endeavor along new lines. "There is no form of government," said Dr. Franklin to his colleagues in the federal convention, "that may not be a blessing if it is well administered." There is no legitimate task or emergency to which our government may not prove adequate if wisely and liberally directed. We cannot throw overboard the wisdom of our fathers, but we are bound to construe the precepts they laid down in the light of new emergencies as they arise. The words of Lincoln, uttered in 1860 at Cooper Union, when the extension or repression of slavery was before the country as an issue, are equally applicable to the issue which confronts us now:

"I do not say that we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do that would be to discard the lights of current experience, to reject all progress, all improvement. What I do say is that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of the fathers in any case, we should do so on evidence so conclusive that even their great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand."

I firmly believe that we shall be able to develop for our new colonies an administrative branch sufficiently strong for the successful conduct of their affairs and yet preserve all the essentials of republican government.

It may be conceded that the viceregal office, with its regal functions and authority, is essential to British rule in India. Yet, properly considered, England is as truly a democracy as the United States.

Indeed, there is both education and inspiration for us in the study of the British rule in India. Not by any means that it is perfect—what human institution is perfect? Man is selfish, thoughtless, cruel. The opium traffic, both in India and China, and the introduction of the whiskey "peg" among a "heathen" race, which, with all its faults, preserved for so many centuries the virtue of temperance—these are blots—big, dark, indelible blots—on the good name of England. Nor is it wholly without reason that the complaint is so often made that legislation for India is too often inspired by the desires of Birmingham and Manchester, rather than by the needs of Hindustan.

But there are spots on the sun of a splendid performance. There are seven thousand miles of "black water" between the British Isles and Hindustan. The population of the former is thirty-five millions; of the latter, two hundred and fifty millions—one-fifth of the human race. Yet this vast peninsular is held in absolute subjection by the people of those "tight little isles" so far away. In the whole civil and military establishment of British India there are but one hundred thousand whites, as against nearly twice that number of natives. How small a numerical force to rule those teeming millions! And yet, year by year the British element grows smaller and the native element larger and more potent in the government of India. "The English," says Mr. G. W. Steevens in a recent letter to the London Mail, "are still the dominant race, but the real ruler of India is the Babu."

If the natives were a peaceful, intelligent, or even a homogeneous race, the story would still read like a fairy tale. Far from it. Three-fourths of the number are Hindus of many races, sects and schools, but there are sixty million Mohammedans (more than the total population of the Sultan's domain), besides Sikhs, Janis, Parsees, etc.,—a score or more races of more or less turbulent savages, many of them ready at a moment's notice to cut the throat of any white man, if they only dared.

The climate, at least during the hot season, is almost death to white men, and certain death to white children. The English accordingly send their children "home" to be educated and spend their tender years. This means not only the anguish of separation but also a heavy expense, which, in the present depreciated state of the rupee, is hardly borne.

The native princes, great and small, ignorant for the most part, idle, bigoted, superstitious, and naturally jealous of white rule, do what they can to block the wheels of progress and embarrass the government. Herein they have the eager co-operation of the priests, who are jealous of foreign influence and often able to inflame the people into open resistance to the most wholesome orders and regulations. Popular ignorance and superstition lend themselves readily to such mischievous designs. A mutiny may be started by a government order to build a sewer or to vaccinate the inhabitants of a village. It is easy for the priests to persuade their docile charges that vaccination is witchcraft and an instrument of the devil. The policy of the government is tender of native sensibilities, and humors religious and caste distinctions; but the smallest accident or mistake may precipitate a riot or undo the good work of years.

Those who have read Kipling's stories of native Indian life have a picture more than photographically accurate of "paternal government" under difficulties. Nor is it inconsistent with perverse human nature that much of the government's trouble comes from the well-meant but pernicious interference of globe-trotting M. P.'s and parochial statesmen who have solved the problem from afar and come out to India to fan the discontent of pampered natives or aggravate the perplexities of overworked civil servants, held up to execration as the "overpaid and aristocratic favorites of a wasteful government." England, as well as America, has her anti-imperialists.

Yet, in spite of these and a thousand other difficulties and discouragements, a great and really good work goes on, making steadily for the moral and material uplift of the unthankful blacks. Popular education struggles forward against the bigotry and deep-rooted folly of ages. Public roads and other improvements lessen the tremendous distances between field and market, and so lessen the chances of famine. Rivers are deflected and canals built to irrigate waste places and make the desert blossom and bear fruit. Folly and extravagance are restrained in high places; system is established in place of chaos, and the hereditary pauper is taught the blessings of self-support. In something like a century much has been done to reform abuses which, like the pedigree of a rajah, run back through many centuries. True, much still remains to be done; but take it by and with, good and bad together, I know of no other chapter in history so creditable to the race as this.

As I have said, here is a lesson to us, teaching some of the difficulties we must encounter in the Philippines; but is it not also an inspiration, showing what may be done by patient persistence and a high ambition to do our part, in order that we may leave the world better—if only a little better—than we found it? Such an aim is no less praiseworthy in a nation than in an individual; is it not especially worthy of a nation which already, in its short career, has furnished a model of good government and a plea for human rights the world over?

But nations, once more like individuals, do not stand alone in the world, apart from their fellows—independent, isolated, self-sufficient. Each is part of a group, scheme or family, and all are interdependent for help, growth, for their very existence. The Philippines, rich and desirable as they are in themselves and for what they contain, strike the eye of intelligence with much greater force as a part of that complex and highly important system generally known as "the East." At this immediate juncture they are to all the great powers an object of desire and ambition, by reason of their nearness and close relation to the great Empire of China. In the hands of Spain this phase of the islands' importance was nearly or quite eclipsed, for Spain has no part in the great game of empire which engrosses the virile and progressive powers.

The accident of war has done that which international laws and comity forbade. Much as the European powers desired the Philippines, none of them dared to lay hand upon the islands, fearing not the resistance of Spain, but the jealousy of their rivals. The explosion of the Maine thus became a swift and powerful factor in that game of world politics from which we had up to now kept aloof. In the language of the philosopher Dooley, few of our people could have answered, eighteen months ago, whether the Philippines were "islands or canned goods." They played no part in the scheme of our national life. Chance has given them into our hands, and it remains with ourselves to determine whether we are to turn them to account, not only for themselves, but for what they may be made, in their relation to other and larger prizes.

All Europe has listened with mingled incredulity and exasperation to the protests of our anti-expansionists against the annexation of the Philippines. To those who are familiar with the situation in the East and realize the importance of China to the West, it seems incredible that a sane and civilized people should even dream of throwing away so rich a prize, now that chance had thrown it into their hands. Is it hypocrisy or ignorance? Europe can see no other explanation.

But still the opponents of expansion continue to ask, What have we to do with China? Why should the United States concern itself to guard the "open door" in that empire, or to prevent the establishment of "spheres of influence?"—the latter being the polite phrase of diplomacy for chopping up China and dividing the pieces among the great powers.

The plain answer of commerce to these questions is afforded by the statistics of China's foreign trade. Yonder is a vast domain with a population estimated at four hundred and thirty millions—about one-third of the human race—largely dependent for even the simple necessities upon the outside world.

England was the first to batter down the ancient gates of the empire, and she has her reward in that she holds about sixty-four per cent of China's import trade. England's nearest competitor is the United States, with eight per cent, the remaining twenty-eight per cent being divided among the other powers, with Japan at the head of the list. Our own share does not at first glance appear very large, but it should be explained that as a great proportion of our commodities are carried to China in English bottoms and consigned to English houses, it is classified as English business—a part of the sixty-four per cent. The actual discrepancy, therefore, is not so great as the apparent. Moreover, though the beginnings of our trade with China date from the last century, we have not been an appreciable factor in the market until about three years ago, since which time our trade has increased at a rate of speed which has both surprised and alarmed our competitors.[2]

[2] The following account of our exports to China was prepared recently by an intelligent and reliable newspaper correspondent. It is of interest in this connection:

Exports of merchandise to China in the fiscal year about to end will be larger than those of any preceding year in our history. Ten years ago our exports to China were less than $3,000,000, and to China and Hong Kong combined little more than $6,000,000. In the fiscal year ending 1899, our exports to China will be more than $13,000,000, and to Hong Kong more than $6,000,000, making a total of more than $20,000,000, or three times that of a decade earlier. That the bulk of exports to Hong Kong may properly be considered as ultimately destined for consumption in China, is shown by the fact that the official reports of the imports into China show that more than forty-four per cent of these imports are from the port of Hong Kong. The 1899 exports to China and Hong Kong combined will show a gain of nearly or quite twenty-five per cent over those of last year, while the total exports from the United States for the fiscal year 1899 will be little if any in excess of those of last year. This shows a more rapid growth in our exports to this part of the world than elsewhere.

The following table, prepared by the Treasury Bureau of Statistics, shows the value of our exports to China and Hong Kong during the past decade:

Year ending

June 30.

China.

Hong Kong.

Total.

1889

$2,791,128

$3,686,384

$6,477,512

1890

2,946,206

4,439,153

7,385,362

1891

8,701,008

4,768,697

13,469,705

1892

5,663,497

4,894,049

10,557,546

1893

3,900,457

4,216,602

8,117,059

1894

5,862,429

4,209,847

10,072,273

1895

3,693,840

4,253,040

7,856,880

1896

6,921,933

4,691,201

11,613,134

1897

11,924,433

6,060,039

17,984,472

1898

9,992,894

6,265,200

16,258,094

1899 (estimated)

13,500,000

6,500,000

20,000,000

Significant as these figures are, a full understanding of our trade conditions in the far East, and the importance of that market to our prospects, can hardly be gained without a backward glance over the events of the past three decades.

Up to the collapse of the French at Sedan, or perhaps until 1873, Great Britain stood without a rival in trade and manufactures. That year will long be remembered, in England as in America, as the beginning of the era of low prices. In England agricultural products were the first to suffer, on account of the importation of food products from Australia and the Americas. This movement continued to increase and British farms proportionately to suffer until, by 1879, that property, the backbone of English hereditary wealth, ceased entirely to pay. The sending away of money to buy food, together with the fall in the prices of home products, so affected the home supply of gold that, in order to preserve the equilibrium, the English began to realize on their foreign investments.

The greatest panic in history followed. Previous to 1876 England had always been able to maintain her expanding currency and supply the arts with the gold brought in to pay for her exports. In 1877 the tide turned, and the whole ensuing decade actually showed a net export of gold amounting to $11,000,000, besides what went into the melting-pot. Contraction and the fall of prices continued, and in proportion the sale of foreign securities. By 1890 England had brought back enough gold to restore her balance, but at what a cost to the debtor nations! Argentina and Australia collapsed in turn, the former pulling down the great Baring concern. In 1893 disaster overtook the United States, and it is scarcely exaggeration to say that the Republic was shaken to the center. Then came the demonetization of silver in India and the falling rupee, followed by distress amounting almost to the dissolution of society.

Such, in brief, is the history of the movement which has resulted in the titanic struggle for the few remaining open markets of the world. Falling prices and reduced profits mean increase of production, which in turn require new markets. We in the United States had been careful to secure the home market to ourselves, but in this crisis the home market proved sadly inadequate. Our manufacturers must needs go forth and compete with European wages and standards of living for the markets of the world.

The story of their success is one of the romances of industry and trade. In the face of a natural hostility aroused by our own tariffs, and compelled to pay for a higher standard of living, our manufacturers have gone into the markets of the world and undersold their European competitors at every point. Carrying coals to Newcastle were child's play in comparison with what these modern captains of industry have accomplished. The story is told in the statistics of our export trade: In 1898 the balance of trade in our favor was $2,000,000 for every working day, or more than $600,000,000. For the first time since the War of the Rebellion, the interest on our securities held in England is not enough to pay for our exports, and the extinction of our floating debt abroad is clearly foreshadowed.

But how long is this to continue? With our experience of tariffs we need not be reminded that low prices do not command markets. Continental Europe does not like us. We saw that during the Spanish war, and we have heard it since in various impatient declarations of hostility, at Berlin or Vienna, far more significant than official assurances of distinguished consideration. Indeed, if Germany, or France, or Russia does not openly break with us, it is because fear or prudence is stronger than inclination. The moment any one or all of them combined feels able to slam the door in our face without fear of reprisals, the door will be slammed.

Germany and more especially Russia are straining every nerve to establish in China "spheres of influence," which is the polite phrase of diplomacy for cutting up the Celestial Empire and dividing the pieces among the powers. England, on the other hand, favors maintaining the integrity of China and the "open door" of commerce to all comers. It may be that England's preference is due to the reasonable fear that at the "spheres-of-influence" game she may be (if she be not already) beaten by her continental neighbors; whereas with an "open door" her chances would be as good, if not better than the others. If so, England is as disinterested as her neighbors—and no more so. Each and all are after China. "China for trade!" is the slogan. Even the pretense of missionary design has been dropped, so desperate is the struggle; for China, with her four hundred and thirty millions of people, is the sole remaining market of the world. If Germany and Russia get it, they will shut out England, and the United States as well. Can they do it?

In his recent tour across our continent, Lord Charles Beresford openly advocated the co-operation of the United States and England to secure an undivided China and the "open door." His argument was simple. England alone might not, and the United States alone certainly would not, be able to secure this end. Together they could hardly fail. Not that Lord Charles advocated open war. On the contrary, he pointed out that not a cent need be spent nor a gun fired. It only needs that the two great English-speaking nations should declare their joint policy, saying to all the rest of the world: "China must not be cut to bits. The empire which has stood for four thousand years must remain." Then to China herself: "We have saved you from destruction. In return you must keep your market open to all the world, letting us build railroads, telegraphs, canals, what not, throughout your territory. If you don't, we—England and the United States—will do it for you."

It is an attractive programme. Lord Charles Beresford may be too confident—he may even be not entirely candid—when he professes that there is no possibility of war in the joint policy he advocates. But all the chances favor his side of the argument. At any rate, I believe it is worth trying. Such a policy means much for the United States. It means a share, and an honorable share, in the great game which is to engross the powers at the outset of the twentieth century. It means a chance, and a good chance, for a market for our surplus products. That market we must have. How else are we to get it? Suppose we hold aloof and see their gates and the gates of China shut in our faces by the powers of Continental Europe, even as we have closed our gates against them and their products—what are we to do with our surplus? What are we to do if that surplus be thrown back on our hands? We should have our choice of (1) going flat and hopelessly bankrupt, as no nation was ever bankrupt before; or (2) reducing our scale of living to the German, perhaps even the Russian standard. It would be a hard choice.

So, in great measure, the Philippines mean for us a foothold in the East and a strong leverage on China. Would our co-operation be sought at this time, as it has been, not only by England but by Germany, if George Dewey had not sailed his ships into the harbor of Manila on the night of the 30th of April, 1898, dodging the sunken mines and torpedoes, that he might on the morrow fire "the shot heard round the world?" On that day and since then the world learned that we are a nation not only of shopkeepers and money-grabbers, but also of fighters; that in a prolonged war we stand unconquerable, irresistable. A year and a day ago we were a nation; to-day we are a power, and have only to assert ourselves as such.

Doubtless it was in perfect good faith that Professor Bryce wrote, a few weeks ago:

"The United States has already a great and splendid mission in building up between the oceans a free, happy and prosperous nation of two hundred millions of people.... The policy of creating great armaments and of annexing territories beyond the sea would be an un-American policy and a complete departure from the maxims—approved by long experience—of the illustrious founders of the Republic."

But I fancy the illustrious founders of the Republic would see the wisdom, were they living to-day, of securing that advantage which the fortunes of war has thrown into our lap. I doubt if even their wisdom could have pointed a way whereby we could relinquish the Philippines without also letting go our prestige, if not also our honor. How can we abandon them, either to internecine strife and anarchy, or, more probably, to the cupidity of the powers whose statesmen recognize the value of the islands, and have no compunctions of conscience as to how they may be secured?

But I appeal to the founders of the Republic for another and yet a stronger argument for holding fast to all our new possessions, whether in the Pacific or in the Carribean Sea. In the society of the illustrious dead let us go back for a little space over the years that have elapsed since the civil war. I am no pessimist; on the contrary, I see in every man and every thing, however evil—so that the Lord gives them a place in His own great scheme—an agency for good. But I do not find it easy to look back with pride or even patience upon the last five and thirty years of this century. To me they appear the most inglorious in our history. They have been years of unequalled material growth, but, I think, they have been years of unequalled moral deterioration also. We have waxed fat, arrogant and ungodly. We have lost respect for the law. We have learned to wink at corruption in high places. The tongue of scandal wags unrebuked at the great, the exalted. Greater fortunes than were ever known before have been piled up; but if wealth and extravagance have attained to new forms of luxury, so want has learned a keener edge of suffering. We have seen labor in armed revolt and anarchy showing its ugly head. Our federal Senate reeks with disrepute. The golden calf has been set up in the market place, the forum, even in the sanctuary.

This, to be sure, is but one side of the picture; there is another and a brighter side. The period I speak of has been athrill with intense activity, for good as well as evil. If vice has been active, so have the agencies of virtue. Churches, colleges, charitable and reform societies have sprung up and grown as never before. When the call to arms came last year it was answered on every hand—by the pampered favorites of wealth and luxury as well as by the sons of toil.

Patriotism has not been dead, but sleeping. In time of peril we have never lacked Deweys, Roosevelts, Funstons, Hobsons, to fulfill the traditions of the race. Our fault has been the absence of that patient, unsleeping vigilance which is the price of honest government—not in war but in the humdrum days of peace.

Perhaps it was only human that when the rebellion had been crushed and the Union restored, we should relax somewhat the strain of those four dreadful years and turn to long-neglected private fortunes. The field lay fallow; a vast public domain was opened; virgin forests awaited the axe. In the flush of general gratitude for the preservers of the Union the floodgates of public expenditure were opened wide, and its outpouring was not always watched with too keen an eye. Too often the Republic was generous before it was just.

Moreover—and this is the point I wish especially to make—we had no jealous or aggressive neighbors to vex our frontier. The powers of Europe tore a leaf from the experience of Napoleon III. when Mr. Seward warned that presumptuous monarch out of Mexico, and left us to enjoy in peace our new prosperity. The men who had been serving their country at the front came home to mind their own private concerns. Seeing the Republic preserved and safe from intrusion, they turned to money-making with the same ardor that had carried them to victory in war. Intent upon this new occupation, they left politics to the politicians. The latter were not slow to see their opportunity. Millions of immigrants, unused to the franchise, untrained in the duties of citizenship, came in at our open doors. Tens and hundreds of thousands settled in the cities, where they became the convenient tool of the "boss."

Under our system government is by parties, and parties imply the existence of the "machine," an institution which, like fire, is a good servant but may become a terrible master. So long as the machine is operated for the good of the party and the party for the state, the best results are possible. But when state or city become subservient to party and party to machine, such corruption is inevitable, as has been brought to light more than once in our metropolis. And New York is no worse than Chicago, or Philadelphia, or Boston, or Cincinnati. All our large cities and some of our states are governed by irresponsible pirates, who marshal their perfectly organized bands of the ignorant and vicious, in defiance alike of law and of the plain will of the intelligent and well-intentioned majority; for these latter, we must assume, are in the majority. It is only because they have been absorbed in their private affairs that they have allowed the sacred prerogative of government, the delicate machinery of the state, to become the special privileges of unscrupulous men whom they would scarcely trust inside their houses. This dreadful price we have paid for thirty years of "peaceful isolation."

It is the theory of democratic government that the majority rules. Sixty-five years ago, de Tocqueville after his memorable tour through our country recorded his "firm belief" that for the Republic to be virtuous and progressive, we had "but to will it." "It depends upon themselves," he wrote, "whether the principle of equality is to lead them to knowledge or barbarism, servitude or freedom, prosperity or wretchedness." The French philosopher spoke truly, and it is true now. If we have sunk into an ignoble servitude to the baser elements of society, it is because those of the better sort have "willed it"—not designedly, but through a no less reprehensible apathy and blindness in respect of their obligations to the state.

I may be sadly in error, but I believe the present low tone of our internal politics to be due to the long and peaceful isolation of the Republic. So I hold the comparative cleanliness of English politics, and especially of the government of their cities, such as London, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Belfast, etc., to be a natural result of England's activity in the high politics of the world. The continual danger, in theory at least, of encroachment or invasion upon the limitless frontier of that vast empire acts as a stimulant to patriotism and invests even the petty politics of city and parish with an interest beyond that of spoils. It is said that England is never wholly at peace. In every continent her standard is raised. Her nerves of sensibility and self-interest run to the uttermost parts of the earth. They are rooted in the hearts of her bravest and best, as well as of the lowliest and most unworthy, and all join in common patriotism reaching from pole to pole, not only of the material world but of the social fabric. Therein is England's strength. Kipling's lines are apropos:

"What should they know of England

Who only England know?"

We have no need to follow abjectly in the footsteps of England; I would not have the Republic walk behind any other nation. We must work out our own salvation. And we can. Latent in the heart of our people is the spirit and the power for greater things than the world has ever seen. Our place is in the vanguard of civilization. We have but to take it. I have tried to show that self-interest in material things pulls us in the same direction as does that higher, spiritual interest, the aim and desire to be great of heart as well as body; to be clean, dignified—a power for good. We have suffered from what may well be called the perils of too great security. In our engrossing pursuit of wealth we have neglected higher things. I venture to quote the words of a South Carolina judge, delivered in a recent lynching case, which seem to me to touch the heart of the matter.

"We have made improvements," said he, "in our manufactures; our railway systems have been improved; we have spent money on our schools. But with what result? Swiftly moving railways, whirling machinery, crowded factory towns and schools—all these are infinitely inadequate to the glory and civilization of the people. Is our moral fibre growing weaker? The law has lost its sanctity during the past forty years, and the essential foundation of all civilization is respect for the law.... We can all do something, but first of all we must recognize and humbly confess our shortcomings—the sooner the better. We can have no real civilization until we turn our faces to the light."

Is this indictment too severe? I believe not. Here in the North we are not greatly vexed with lynchings; our disrespect for the law assumes other forms. But the same weakening of the moral fibre is to be observed everywhere as in North Carolina. We too have need of humility; we must confess our shortcomings. We have but to ask ourselves, What would it avail civilization if we were to give to Santiago de Cuba, or Manila, or Honolulu a government as essentially corrupt as that which we tolerate in New York or Chicago? Shall we offer to the savages of Luzon or Mindanao for a model the spectacle of a government from which the rich, the virtuous and the intelligent almost wholly abstain, shirking their duties and relegating their most sacred prerogative to the ignorant and depraved?

But if, on the other hand, we set up good government in the colonies, how long shall we be content with misrule at home? Not long, I promise you. "It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life," says the wise man, "that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself." No less true is this of nations. The eyes of the world are upon us and the conscience of civilization will hold us strictly accountable. As we deal with those ignorant wards whom the God of Battles has given into our keeping, even so shall we be dealt with. And in uplifting them from barbarism so shall we be uplifted.

What nobler business is there, for man or nation? And who should lead in it if not ourselves? First, though, let us approach the work in true humility, confessing our own faults and shortcomings. Guard us, heaven, against the triple sin of pride, arrogance, and self-conceit. Let us ever keep in mind those noble words of the young Laureate of Empire, written for England at the climax of her greatness, but no less fitting for ourselves:

"If, drunk with power, we loose

Wild words that have not Thee in awe—

Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

Or lesser breeds, without the Law—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget, lest we forget!"

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OUTLOOK: UNCLE SAM'S PLACE AND PROSPECTS IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ***

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