The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Outlook: Uncle Sam's Place and
Prospects in International Politics, by Newton Macmillan
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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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The Outlook:
Uncle Sam's Place and
Prospects in International
Politics
[Illustration]
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.
IT 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!"
Transcriber's Notes
Passages in italics are indicated by _underscores_.
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