which have no foothold on this continent, to establish such foothold;
nor should they permit any aggrandizement of those who already have
possessions on the continent. We do not wish to bring ourselves to a
position where we shall have to emulate the European system of enormous
armies. Every true patriot, every man of statesman-like habit, should
look forward to the day when not a single European power will hold
a foot of American soil. At present it is not necessary to take the
position that no European power shall hold American territory; but it
certainly will become necessary, if the timid and selfish “peace at any
price” men have their way, and if the United States fails to check at
the outset European aggrandizement on this continent.
Primarily, therefore, it is to the interest of the citizens of the
United States to prevent the further colonial growth of European powers
in the Western Hemisphere. But this is also to the interest of all the
people of the Western Hemisphere. At best, the inhabitants of a colony
are in a cramped and unnatural state. At the worst, the establishment
of a colony prevents any healthy popular growth. Some time in the dim
future it may be that all the English-speaking peoples will be able
to unite in some kind of confederacy. However desirable this would
be, it is, under existing conditions, only a dream. At present the
only hope for a colony that wishes to attain full moral and mental
growth, is to become an independent State, or part of an independent
State. No English colony now stands on a footing of genuine equality
with the parent State. As long as the Canadian remains a colonist,
he remains in a position which is distinctly inferior to that of his
cousins, both in England and in the United States. The Englishman at
bottom looks down on the Canadian, as he does on any one who admits
his inferiority, and quite properly, too. The American, on the other
hand, with equal propriety, regards the Canadian with the good-natured
condescension always felt by the freeman for the man who is not free.
A funny instance of the English attitude toward Canada was shown
after Lord Dunraven’s inglorious _fiasco_ last September, when the
Canadian yachtsman, Rose, challenged for the America cup. The English
journals repudiated him on the express ground that a Canadian was not
an Englishman and not entitled to the privileges of an Englishman.
In their comments, many of them showed a dislike for Americans which
almost rose to hatred. The feeling they displayed for the Canadians was
not one of dislike. It was one of contempt.
Under the best of circumstances, therefore, a colony is in a false
position. But if the colony is in a region where the colonizing race
has to do its work by means of other inferior races the condition is
much worse. From the standpoint of the race little or nothing has been
gained by the English conquest and colonization of Jamaica. Jamaica has
merely been turned into a negro island, with a future, seemingly, much
like that of San Domingo. British Guiana, however well administered, is
nothing but a colony where a few hundred or few thousand white men hold
the superior positions, while the bulk of the population is composed
of Indians, Negroes, and Asiatics. Looked at through the vista of the
centuries, such a colony contains less promise of true growth than
does a State like Venezuela or Ecuador. The history of most of the
South American republics has been both mean and bloody; but there is
at least a chance that they may develop, after infinite tribulations
and suffering, into a civilization quite as high and stable as that of
such a European power as Portugal. But there is no such chance for
any tropical American colony owned by a Northern European race. It is
distinctly in the interest of civilization that the present States in
the two Americas should develop along their own lines, and however
desirable it is that many of them should receive European immigration,
it is highly undesirable that any of them should be under European
control.
So much for the general principles, and the justification, historically
and morally, of the Monroe Doctrine. Now take the specific case at
issue. Great Britain has a boundary dispute with Venezuela. She claims
as her own a territory which Venezuela asserts to be hers, a territory
which in point of size very nearly equals the Kingdom of Italy. Our
government, of course, cannot, if it wishes to remain true to the
traditions of the Monroe Doctrine submit to the acquisition by England
of such an enormous tract of territory, and it must therefore find out
whether the English claims are or are not well founded. It would, of
course, be preposterous to lay down the rule that no European power
should seize American territory which was not its own, and yet to
permit the power itself to decide the question of the ownership of
such territory. Great Britain refused to settle the question either by
amicable agreement with Venezuela or by arbitration. All that remained
for the United States, was to do what it actually did; that is, to try
to find out the facts for itself, by its own commission. If the facts
show England to be in the right, well and good. If they show England
to be in the wrong, we most certainly ought not to permit her to
profit, at Venezuela’s expense, by her own wrong-doing.
We are doing exactly what England would very properly do in a like
case. Recently, when the German Emperor started to interfere in the
Transvaal, England promptly declared her own “Monroe Doctrine” for
South Africa. We do not propose to see English filibusters try at
the expense of Venezuela the same policy which recently came to such
an ignominious end in the Transvaal, in a piece of weak, would-be
buccaneering, which, it is perhaps not unfair to say was fittingly
commemorated in the verse of the new poet-laureate.
It would be difficult to overestimate the good done in this country
by the vigorous course already taken by the national executive and
legislature in this matter. The lesson taught Lord Salisbury is one
which will not soon be forgotten by English statesmen. His position
is false, and is recognized as false by the best English statesmen
and publicists. If he does not consent to arrange the matter with
Venezuela, it will have to be arranged in some way by arbitration.
In either case, the United States gains its point. The only possible
danger of war comes from the action of the selfish and timid men
on this side of the water, who clamorously strive to misrepresent
American, and to mislead English, public opinion. If they succeed in
persuading Lord Salisbury that the American people will back down if
he presses them, they will do the greatest damage possible to both
countries, for they will render war, at some time in the future,
almost inevitable.
Such a war we would deplore; but it must be distinctly understood that
we would deplore it very much more for England’s sake than for our
own; for whatever might be the initial fortunes of the struggle, or
the temporary damage and loss to the United States, the mere fact that
Canada would inevitably be rent from England in the end would make the
outcome an English disaster.
We do not in any way seek to become the sponsor of the South American
States. England has the same right to protect her own subjects, or even
in exceptional cases to interfere to stop outrages in South America,
that we have to interfere in Armenia--and it is to be regretted that
our representatives do not see their way clear to interfere for
Armenia. But England should not acquire territory at the expense of
Venezuela any more than we should acquire it at the expense of Turkey.
The mention of Armenia brings up a peculiarly hypocritical plea which
has been advanced against us in this controversy. It has been solemnly
alleged that our action in Venezuela has hampered England in the East
and has prevented her interfering on behalf of Armenia. We do not
wish to indulge in recriminations, but when such a plea is advanced,
the truth, however unpleasant, must be told. The great crime of this
century against civilization has been the upholding of the Turk by
certain Christian powers. To England’s attitude in the Crimean War,
and after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, the present Armenian horror is
primarily due. Moreover, for six months before the Venezuelan question
arose England had looked on motionless while the Turks perpetrated on
their wretched subjects wrongs that would blast the memory of Attila.
We do not wish to be misunderstood. We have no feeling against England.
On the contrary, we regard her as being well in advance of the great
powers of Continental Europe, and we have more sympathy with her. In
general, her success tells for the success of civilization, and we wish
her well. But where her interests enlist her against the progress of
civilization and in favor of the oppression of other nationalities who
are struggling upward, our sympathies are immediately forfeited.
It is a matter of serious concern to every college man, and, indeed,
to every man who believes in the good effects of a liberal education,
to see the false views which seem to obtain among so many of the
leaders of educated thought, not only upon the Monroe Doctrine,
but upon every question which involves the existence of a feeling
of robust Americanism. Every educated man who puts himself out of
touch with the current of American thought, and who on conspicuous
occasions assumes an attitude hostile to the interest of America, is
doing what he can to weaken the influence of educated men in American
life. The crude, ill-conditioned jealousy of education, which is so
often and so lamentably shown by large bodies of our people, is
immensely stimulated by the action of those prominent educated men in
whom education seems to have destroyed the strong, virile virtues and
especially the spirit of Americanism.
No nation can achieve real greatness if its people are not both
essentially moral and essentially manly; both sets of qualities
are necessary. It is an admirable thing to possess refinement and
cultivation, but the price is too dear if they must be paid for at
the cost of the rugged fighting qualities which make a man able to do
a man’s work in the world, and which make his heart beat with that
kind of love of country which is shown not only in readiness to try
to make her civic life better, but also to stand up manfully for her
when her honor and influence are at stake in a dispute with a foreign
power. A heavy responsibility rests on the educated man. It is a double
discredit to him to go wrong, whether his shortcomings take the form of
shirking his every-day civic duties, or of abandonment of the nation’s
rights in a foreign quarrel. He must no more be misled by the sneers of
those who always write “patriotism” between inverted commas than by the
coarser, but equally dangerous, ridicule of the politicians who jeer
at “reform.” It is as unmanly to be taunted by one set of critics into
cowardice as it is to be taunted by the other set into dishonesty.
There are many upright and honorable men who take the wrong side,
that is, the anti-American side, of the Monroe Doctrine because they
are too short-sighted or too unimaginative to realize the hurt to
the nation that would be caused by the adoption of their views. There
are other men who take the wrong view simply because they have not
thought much of the matter, or are in unfortunate surroundings, by
which they have been influenced to their own moral hurt. There are yet
other men in whom the mainspring of the opposition to that branch of
American policy known as the Monroe Doctrine is sheer timidity. This is
sometimes the ordinary timidity of wealth. Sometimes, however, it is
peculiarly developed among educated men whose education has tended to
make them over-cultivated and over-sensitive to foreign opinion. They
are generally men who undervalue the great fighting qualities, without
which no nation can ever rise to the first rank.
The timidity of wealth is proverbial, and it was well illustrated by
the attitude taken by too many people of means at the time of the
Venezuela trouble. Many of them, including bankers, merchants, and
railway magnates, criticised the action of the President and the
Senate, on the ground that it had caused business disturbance. Such
a position is essentially ignoble. When a question of national honor
or of national right or wrong, is at stake, no question of financial
interest should be considered for a moment. Those wealthy men who wish
the abandonment of the Monroe Doctrine because its assertion may damage
their business, bring discredit to themselves, and, so far as they are
able, discredit to the nation of which they are a part.
It is an evil thing for any man of education to forget that education
should intensify patriotism, and that patriotism must not only be shown
by striving to do good to the country from within, but by readiness to
uphold its interests and honor, at any cost, when menaced from without.
Educated men owe to the community the serious performance of this duty.
We need not concern ourselves with the _emigré_ educated man, the
American who deliberately takes up his permanent abode abroad, whether
in London or Paris; he is usually a man of weak character, unfitted to
do good work either abroad or at home, who does what he can for his
country by relieving it of his presence. But the case is otherwise
with the American who stays at home, and tries to teach the youth of
his country to disbelieve in the country’s rights, as against other
countries, and to regard it as the sign of an enlightened spirit to
decry the assertion of those rights by force of arms. This man may be
inefficient for good; but he is capable at times of doing harm, because
he tends to make other people inefficient likewise. In our municipal
politics there has long been evident a tendency to gather in one group
the people who have no scruples, but who are very efficient, and in
another group the amiable people who are not efficient at all. This
is but one manifestation of the general and very unwholesome tendency
among certain educated people to lose the power of doing efficient
work as they acquire refinement. Of course in the long run a really
good education will give not only refinement, but also an increase of
power, and of capacity for efficient work. But the man who forgets that
a real education must include the cultivation of the fighting virtues
is sure to manifest this tendency to inefficiency. It is exhibited on
a national scale by the educated men who take the anti-American side
of international questions. There are exceptions to the rule; but as a
rule the healthy man, resolute to do the rough work of the world, and
capable of feeling his veins tingle with pride over the great deeds
of the men of his own nation, will naturally take the American side
of such a question as the Monroe Doctrine. Similarly, the anæmic man
of refinement and cultivation, whose intellect has been educated at
the expense of his character, and who shrinks from all these struggles
through which alone the world moves on to greatness, is inclined to
consider any expression of the Monroe Doctrine as truculent and ill
advised.
Of course, many strong men who are good citizens on ordinary occasions
take the latter view simply because they have been misled. The colonial
habit of thought dies hard. It is to be wished that those who are
cursed with it would, in endeavoring to emulate the ways of the old
world, endeavor to emulate one characteristic which has been shared
by every old-world nation, and which is possessed to a marked degree
by England. Every decent Englishman is devoted to his country, first,
last, and all the time. An Englishman may or may not dislike America,
but he is invariably for England and against America when any question
arises between them; and I heartily respect him for so being. Let our
own people of the partially colonial type copy this peculiarity and it
will be much to their credit.
The finest speech that for many years has been delivered by a college
man to other college men was that made last spring by Judge Holmes,
himself a gallant soldier of the Civil War, in that hall which Harvard
has erected to commemorate those of her sons who perished when the
North strove with the South. It should be graven on the heart of every
college man, for it has in it that lift of the soul toward things
heroic that makes the eyes burn and the veins thrill. It must be read
in its entirety, for no quotation could do justice to its fine scorn
of the mere money-maker, its lofty fealty to a noble ideal, and, above
all, its splendid love of country and splendid praise of the valor of
those who strive on stricken fields that the honor of their nation may
be upheld.
It is strange, indeed, that in a country where words like those of
Judge Holmes can be spoken, there should exist men who actually oppose
the building of a navy by the United States, nay, even more, actually
oppose so much as the strengthening of the coast defences, on the
ground that they prefer to have this country too feeble to resent
any insult, in order that it may owe its safety to the contemptuous
forbearance which it is hoped this feebleness will inspire in foreign
powers. No Tammany alderman, no venal legislator, no demagogue or
corrupt politician, ever strove more effectively than these men are
striving to degrade the nation and to make one ashamed of the name of
America. When we remember that among them there are college graduates,
it is a relief to remember that the leaders on the side of manliness
and of love of country are also college graduates. Every believer
in scholarship and in a liberal education, every believer in the
robust qualities of heart, mind, and body without which cultivation
and refinement are of no avail, must rejoice to think that, in the
present crisis, college men have been prominent among the leaders whose
far-sighted statesmanship and resolute love of country have made those
of us who are really Americans proud of the nation. Secretary Olney is
a graduate of Brown; Senator Lodge, who took the lead in the Senate on
this matter, is a graduate of Harvard; and no less than three members
of the Boundary Commission are graduates of Yale.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[19] The Bachelor of Arts, March, 1896.
[Illustration]
XII
WASHINGTON’S FORGOTTEN MAXIM[20]
A century has passed since Washington wrote “To be prepared for war is
the most effectual means to promote peace.” We pay to this maxim the
lip loyalty we so often pay to Washington’s words; but it has never
sunk deep into our hearts. Indeed of late years many persons have
refused it even the poor tribute of lip loyalty, and prate about the
iniquity of war as if somehow that was a justification for refusing to
take the steps which can alone in the long run prevent war or avert the
dreadful disasters it brings in its train. The truth of the maxim is
so obvious to every man of really far-sighted patriotism that its mere
statement seems trite and useless; and it is not over-creditable to
either our intelligence or our love of country that there should be,
as there is, need to dwell upon and amplify such a truism.
In this country there is not the slightest danger of an
over-development of warlike spirit, and there never has been any
such danger. In all our history there has never been a time when
preparedness for war was any menace to peace. On the contrary, again
and again we have owed peace to the fact that we were prepared for war;
and in the only contest which we have had with a European power since
the Revolution, the war of 1812, the struggle and all its attendant
disasters, were due solely to the fact that we were not prepared to
face, and were not ready instantly to resent, an attack upon our honor
and interest; while the glorious triumphs at sea which redeemed that
war were due to the few preparations which we had actually made. We are
a great peaceful nation; a nation of merchants and manufacturers, of
farmers and mechanics; a nation of workingmen, who labor incessantly
with head or hand. It is idle to talk of such a nation ever being led
into a course of wanton aggression or conflict with military powers by
the possession of a sufficient navy.
The danger is of precisely the opposite character. If we forget that
in the last resort we can only secure peace by being ready and willing
to fight for it, we may some day have bitter cause to realize that a
rich nation which is slothful, timid, or unwieldy is an easy prey for
any people which still retains those most valuable of all qualities,
the soldierly virtues. We but keep to the traditions of Washington,
to the traditions of all the great Americans who struggled for the
real greatness of America, when we strive to build up those fighting
qualities for the lack of which in a nation, as in an individual, no
refinement, no culture, no wealth, no material prosperity, can atone.
Preparation for war is the surest guaranty for peace. Arbitration is
an excellent thing, but ultimately those who wish to see this country
at peace with foreign nations will be wise if they place reliance upon
a first-class fleet of first-class battle-ships rather than on any
arbitration treaty which the wit of man can devise. Nelson said that
the British fleet was the best negotiator in Europe, and there was much
truth in the saying. Moreover, while we are sincere and earnest in our
advocacy of peace, we must not forget that an ignoble peace is worse
than any war. We should engrave in our legislative halls those splendid
lines of Lowell:
“Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed
For honor lost and dear ones wasted,
But proud, to meet a people proud,
With eyes that tell of triumph tasted!”
Peace is a goddess only when she comes with sword girt on thigh. The
ship of state can be steered safely only when it is always possible to
bring her against any foe with “her leashed thunders gathering for the
leap.” A really great people, proud and high-spirited, would face all
the disasters of war rather than purchase that base prosperity which
is bought at the price of national honor. All the great masterful races
have been fighting races, and the minute that a race loses the hard
fighting virtues, then, no matter what else it may retain, no matter
how skilled in commerce and finance, in science or art, it has lost its
proud right to stand as the equal of the best. Cowardice in a race,
as in an individual, is the unpardonable sin, and a wilful failure to
prepare for danger may in its effects be as bad as cowardice. The timid
man who cannot fight, and the selfish, short-sighted, or foolish man
who will not take the steps that will enable him to fight, stand on
almost the same plane.
It is not only true that a peace may be so ignoble and degrading as
to be worse than any war; it is also true that it may be fraught with
more bloodshed than most wars. Of this there has been melancholy
proof during the last two years. Thanks largely to the very unhealthy
influence of the men whose business it is to speculate in the money
market, and who approach every subject from the financial standpoint,
purely; and thanks quite as much to the cold-blooded brutality and
calculating timidity of many European rulers and statesmen, the
peace of Europe has been preserved, while the Turk has been allowed
to butcher the Armenians with hideous and unmentionable barbarity,
and has actually been helped to keep Crete in slavery. War has been
averted at the cost of more bloodshed and infinitely more suffering and
degradation to wretched women and children than have occurred in any
European struggle since the days of Waterloo. No war of recent years,
no matter how wanton, has been so productive of horrible misery as the
peace which the powers have maintained during the continuance of the
Armenian butcheries. The men who would preach this peace, and indeed
the men who have preached universal peace in terms that have prepared
the way for such a peace as this, have inflicted a wrong on humanity
greater than could be inflicted by the most reckless and war-loving
despot. Better a thousand times err on the side of over-readiness
to fight, than to err on the side of tame submission to injury, or
cold-blooded indifference to the misery of the oppressed.