to any one special trait of mind. If one were to seek a simple formula,
one would have to recognize in it a certain antithesis of mood; an
opposition which one encounters in the American people under the most
varied circumstances, and which perhaps depends on the fact that it is a
people which has developed an entirely new culture, although on the
basis of the high culture of the Old World. When we come to speak of
American intellectual life we shall have again to consider this
extraordinary combination of traits. The people are youthful and yet
mature; they are fresher and more spontaneous than those of other mature
nations, and wiser and more mature than those of other youthful nations;
and thus it is that in the attitude of the Americans toward foreign
affairs the love of peace and the delight in war combine to make a
contrast which has rarely been seen. Doubtless there is an apparent
contradiction here, but this contradiction is the historical mark of the
national American temperament; and it is not to be supposed that the
contradiction is solved by ascribing these diverse opinions to diverse
elements in the population, by saying, for instance, that one group of
citizens is more warlike, another more peaceable; that perhaps the love
of hostile interference springs from the easily excited masses, while
the love of peace is to be sought in their more thoughtful leaders, or
that perhaps, on the other hand, the masses are peaceably industrious
while their leaders draw them into war.
Such is not at all the case. There is not any such contrast between the
masses and the classes; personal differences of opinion there are and
some individuals are more volatile than others, but the craze for
expansion in its newest form finds strong supporters and violent
opponents in all parties and occupations. The most characteristic
feature is, that just those who show the love for war most energetically
are none the less concerned, and most earnestly so, for the advance of
peace. President Roosevelt is the most striking example of the profound
combination of these opposing tendencies in one human breast.
Every movement toward peace, in fact every international attempt toward
doing away with the horrors of war, has found in the New World the most
jealous and enthusiastic supporters; whenever two nations have come to
blows the sympathies of the Americans have always been on the side of
the weaker nation, no matter which seemed to be the side of justice. And
the mere circumstance that two nations have gone to war puts the
stronger power in a bad light in the eyes of America.
The nation has grown strong by peaceful industry; its greatest strength
has lain in trade and the arts, its best population has come across the
ocean in order to escape the military burdens of Europe; and the policy
of the founders of the Republic, now become a tradition, was always to
hold aloof from any dealings with the quarrelsome continent of Europe.
During the short time of its existence, the United States has settled
forty-nine international disputes in a peaceable court of arbitration,
and oftentimes these have been in extremely important matters; and
America has been a party in over half of the disputes which have been
settled before a court of arbitration in recent times. America was an
important participant in the founding of the Peace Tribunal at The
Hague. When negotiations for that tribunal threatened to be frustrated
by the opposing nations of Europe, the American government sent its
representatives to the very centre of the opposition, and won a victory
for the side of peace.
It is almost a matter of course that it is the munificent gift of an
American which has erected a palace at The Hague for this international
Peace Tribunal. While the European nations are groaning under the burden
of their standing armies, and are weakened by wars over religious
matters or the succession of dynasties, happy America knows nothing of
this; her pride is the freedom of her citizens, her battles are fought
out at the ballot-box. The disputes between sects and royal houses are
unknown in the New World; its only neighbours are two oceans on the east
and west, and on the north and south good friends. No end of progress
remains to be made, but everything works together under the protection
of the American Constitution to produce a splendid home in the New World
for peace. America is the one world power which makes for peace; and it
will only depend on the future growth of this nation, which has been
ordained to become such an example, whether the idea of peace will
finally prevail throughout the world over the immoral settlement of
disputes by mere force of arms.
All this is not merely the programme of a party or of a group of people,
but the confession of faith of every American. The American finds no
problem here, since none would dispute the contention. It has all
impressed itself so fully on the consciousness of the American people
that it gives to the whole nation a feeling of moral superiority. Nor is
this merely the pathos uttered in moral orations; it is the conviction
with which every child grows up and with which every farmer goes to his
plough, every artisan and merchant to his machine and desk, and the
President to his executive chamber. And this conviction is so admirable
that it has always been contagious, and all Europe has become quite
accustomed to considering the Republic across the water as the firmest
partisan of peace. The Republic has in fact been this, is now, and
always will be so; while the riddle is—how it can be such a friend of
peace when it was conceived in war, has settled its most serious
problems by war, has gone to war again and again, has almost played with
declarations of war, is at war to-day, and presumably will be at war
many times again.
The Spanish war has shown clearly to European onlookers the other side
of the shield, and many have at once concluded that the boasted American
love of peace has been from the first a grand hypocrisy, that at least
under McKinley’s administration an entirely new spirit had suddenly
seized the New World. But McKinley’s predecessor, Cleveland, in the
disputes arising between England and Venezuela, had waved the sabre
until it hissed so loudly that it was not at all due to the American
love of peace but rather to England’s preoccupation in the Transvaal
which prevented the President’s message and the national love of
interference from stirring up a war. And it is now several years since
the successor of McKinley moved into the White House, yet McKinley’s war
is still going on; for although a war has never been officially declared
in the Philippines, war seems the only correct name for the condition
which there prevails.
This Philippine question is a real political problem. That America is to
serve the interests of peace is certain; every one is agreed on that;
and the great majority of the people was also enthusiastically in favour
of ending the Spanish misrule in Cuba. But the same is not true of the
war in the Philippines, and becomes less true every day. The enthusiasts
have subsided, the masses have become indifferent, while the politicians
carry on the discussion; and since it is a question of motives which
cannot be put aside for the present, and which at any time may so excite
the nation as to become the centre of political discussion, it is well
worth while to look more fully into these points.
The imperialists say that the events in the Pacific Ocean have followed
exactly the traditions of the land; that expansion has always been a
fundamental instinct of the nation; that its whole development shows
that from the day when the Union was founded it commenced to increase
its territory. The tremendous expansion gained by the purchase of
Louisiana was followed by the annexation of Florida, and still later by
that of the great tract called Texas. In the war with Mexico the region
between Texas and California was acquired. Alaska was next gathered in.
The narrow strip originally occupied by the Thirteen States became a
huge country within a century, and thus the nation simply remains true
to its traditions in stretching out over the ocean and carrying the
Stars and Stripes toward Asia.
To this the anti-imperialists reply, on the contrary, that the United
States is repudiating an honourable history and trampling down that
which has been sacred for centuries. For if there has been any
underlying principle at all to guide the United States in moments of
perplexity, it has been a firm faith in the rights of people to govern
themselves. The United States has never exchanged or acquired a foot of
land without the consent of those who dwelt thereon. Where such lands
have held nothing but the scattered dwellings of isolated colonists
there existed no national consent to be consulted, and where there were
no people no national self-government could come in question; neither
Louisiana, California, nor Alaska was settled by a real nation, and
Texas had of itself decided to become independent of Mexico. But the
Philippines are inhabited by ten million people, with striking national
traits and an organized will; and the United States, for the first time
in history, now misuses its strength by oppressing another nation and
forcing its own will on a prostrate people.
Now the imperialists reply they do not mean at all to dispute the right
of self-government, a principle on which the greatness of our nation is
founded. But it is a narrow and absurd conception of self-government
which regards every people, however backward and unruly, capable
thereof, and divinely privileged to misrule itself. The right of
self-government must be deserved; it is the highest possession of
civilized nations, and they have earned it by labour and
self-discipline. The Americans derive their right to govern themselves
from the toil of thirty generations. The Filipinos have still to be
educated up to such a plane. To this the anti-imperialists enquire, Is
that to be called education which subdues, like rebels, a people
desirous of freedom? Are you helping those people by sending soldiers to
assert your sovereignty?
And the imperialists reply again that we have sufficiently shown, in the
case of Cuba, how seriously we take our moral obligations toward weaker
peoples. When we had done away by force of arms with all Spanish
domination in America, and had Cuba quite in our power, all Europe was
convinced that we should never relax our hold, and that the war would
result simply in a mere annexation of the rich island; in short, that we
should pursue a typical European policy. But we have shown the world
that America does not send her sons to battle merely for aggrandizement,
but only in a moral cause; just as we demanded of the conquered
Spaniards no indemnity, so we have made a general sacrifice for Cuba. We
have laboured tirelessly for the hygiene and the education of the
island, have strengthened its trade and awakened to new life the country
which had been desolated by Spanish misrule, and, having finished the
work, we have restored to Cuba her freedom and her right of
self-government; and we recognize that we owe a similar duty to the
Philippines. We have not sought to obtain those islands. At the outset
of the war no American foresaw that the island kingdom in the tropics,
ten thousand miles away, would fall into our hands; but when the chain
of events brought it about, we could not escape the call of duty. Were
we to leave the discontented Philippine population once more to the
cruelty of their Spanish masters, or were we to displace the Spaniards
and then leave the wild race of the islands to their own anarchy, and
thus invoke such internal hostilities as would again wipe out all the
beginnings which had been made toward culture? Was it not rather our
duty to protect those who turned to us, against the vengeance of their
enemies, and before all else to establish order and quietude? The
anti-imperialists retort—the quietude of a grave-yard. If America’s
policy had been truly unselfish, it should have made every preparation
for dealing with the Philippines as it had dealt with Cuba; instead of
fighting with the Filipinos we should at once have co-operated with
Aguinaldo and sent over a civil instead of a military regiment. Nor is
the world deceived into supposing that our boasted civil rule in the
Philippines is anything more than a name, used in order somewhat to
pacify the sentimentalists of the New England States; while in reality
our rule is a military one, and the small success of a few well-meaning
civil officials merely distracts the world’s attention from the constant
outbreaks of war. We have not worked from the point of view of the
Philippines, but from that of the United States.
The imperialists answer that it is no disgrace to have been patriotic to
our Fatherland; the national honour requires us, indeed, to remain for
the present in the Philippines, and not to take down the flag which we
have hoisted so triumphantly. We should not flee before a few
disaffected races living in those islands. Then the other side replies,
you have not protected the honour of your nation, but you have worked
its disgrace. The honour of America has been the moral status of its
army; it was America’s boast that its army had never lost the respect of
an enemy, and that it had held strictly aloof from every unnecessary
cruelty. But America has learned a different lesson in the Philippines,
and such a one as all thoughtful persons have foreseen; for when a
nation accustomed to a temperate climate goes to the tropics to war with
wild races which have grown up in cruelty and the love of revenge, it
necessarily forgets its moral standards, and gives free rein to the
lowest and worst that is in it. The American forces have learned there,
to their disgrace, to conquer by deception and trickery; to be cruel and
revengeful, and so return torture for torture.
Then the imperialists say that this is not a question of the army which
was landed in the tropical islands, but of the whole American people,
which undertook new duties and responsibilities for the islands, and
wished to try, not only its military, but also its political, economic,
and social powers along new lines. A people also must grow and have its
higher aspirations. The youthful period of the American nation is over;
manhood has arrived, when new and dangerous responsibilities have to be
assumed. To this the anti-imperialists reply, that a nation is surely
not growing morally when it gives up the principles which have always
been its sole moral strength. If it gives up believing in the freedom of
every nation and carries on a war of subjugation, it has renounced all
moral development, and instead of growing it begins internally to decay.
But this, the imperialists say, is absurd—since, outwardly, at least, we
are steadily growing; our reputation before other nations is increasing
with our military development; we have become a powerful factor in the
powers of the world, and our Philippine policy shows that our navy can
conquer even in remote parts of the earth, and that in the future
America will be a power to reckon with everywhere. But, on the contrary,
say the others, our nation held a strong position so long as, in
accordance with the Monroe Doctrine, it was able to keep any European
power from getting a foothold on the American continents, and so long as
we made the right of self-government a fundamental principle of our
international politics. But the instant we adopted a policy of conquest
and assumed the right to subjugate inferior peoples because our armies
were the stronger, the Monroe Doctrine became at once and for the first
time an empty phrase, if not a piece of arrogance. We are no better than
the next nation; we have no right to prevent others from acting like
ourselves, and we have sacrificed our strong position, and shall be led
from war to war, and the fortunes of war are always uncertain.
The imperialists reply somewhat more temperately:—Ah, but the new
islands will contribute very much to our trade. Their possession means
the beginning of a commercial policy which will put the whole Pacific
Ocean at the disposal of the American merchant. Who can foresee what
tremendous developments may come from availing ourselves of regions
lying so advantageously? When Congress in 1803 started to buy the great
Province of Louisiana from France, there were also narrow-minded
protests. At that time, too, anti-imperialists and fanatics became
excited, and said that it was money thrown away; the land would never be
populated. While to-day, a hundred years later, the world prepares to
celebrate the anniversary of the purchase of Louisiana by a magnificent
exposition at St. Louis—a transaction which has meant for the country a
tremendous gain in wealth and culture. America is destined to be the
mistress of the Pacific Ocean, and as soon as the canal is built across
the isthmus the economic importance of the Philippines will appear more
clearly every day. The anti-imperialists deny this. The financial
statement of the entire war with Spain to the present moment shows that
$600,000,000 have been wasted and ten thousand young men sacrificed
without any advantage being so much as in sight. Whereto the
imperialists reply:—There are other advantages. War is a training. The
best thing which the nation can win is not riches, but strength; and in
the very prosperity of America the weakening effect of luxury is greatly
to be feared. The nerves of the nation are steeled in the school of war,
and its muscles hardened. But the other side says that our civilization
requires thousands of heroic deeds of the most diverse kinds, more than
it needs those of the field of battle; and that the American doctrine of
peace is much better adapted to strengthen the moral courage of the
nation and to stimulate it than the modern training of war, which, in
the end, is only a question of expenditure and science. What we chiefly
need is serious and moral republican virtue. The incitements toward
acquisition and the spirit of war, on the other hand, destroy the spirit
of our democracy, and breed un-American, autocratic ambitions. War
strengthens the blind faith of the leaders in their own dictatorial
superiority, and so annihilates the feeling of independence and
responsibility in the individual; and this is just the way for the
nation to lose its moral and political integrity. The true patriotism
which our youth ought to learn is not found in noisy jingoism, but in
the silent fidelity to the Declaration of Independence of our fathers.
Thus the opinions are waged against one another, and so they will
continue to be. We must emphasize merely again and again that that
majority which to-day is on the side of the imperialists believes at the
same time enthusiastically in the international movement for peace, and
quite disinterestedly favours, as far as possible, the idea of the peace
tribunal. Most of all, the treatment of Cuba certifies to the honourable
and peaceful tendencies of the dominant party. That which was done under
Wood’s administration for the hygiene of a country which had always been
stricken with yellow fever, for the school and judicial systems of that
unfortunate people, is remarkable; and the readiness with which the new
republic was afterward recognized, and with which, finally, by special
treaties extensive tariff reductions were made to a people really
dependent on trade with America, makes one of the most honourable pages
in American history. And all this happened through the initiative of
these same men whose Philippine policy has been styled in the Senate
Napoleonic. Thus the fact remains that there is an almost inexplicable
mixture in the American nature of justice and covetiveness, conscience
and indifference, love of peace and love of war.
The latest phase in expansion has been toward the south. America has
assumed control of Panama. Constitutionally, the case is somewhat
different here. Panama belonged to the Republic of Colombia, and when
the government of Colombia, which conducts itself for the most part like
the king and his advisers in a comic opera, tried to extort more money
than was thought just from Washington before it would sign the treaty
giving the United States a right to build a canal through Panama, and at
first pretended to decline the treaty altogether, a revolution broke out
in the part of the country which was chiefly affected. Panama declared
itself an independent state, and the United States recognized its claim
to independence, and concluded the canal treaty, not with Colombia, but
with the upstart government of Panama. This was really part and parcel
of the general imperialistic movement. We need not ask whether the
American government encouraged Panama to secede; it certainly did
nothing of the sort officially, although it is perfectly certain that
the handful of people in Panama would not have had the slightest chance
of escaping unpunished by Colombia if it had not been for American
protection; indeed, it seemed to feel sure beforehand that the United
States would keep Colombia at bay. And in fact, the baby republic was
recognized with all the speed of telegraph and cable, and the treaty was
signed before Panama had become quite aware of its own independence;
while at the same time Colombia’s endeavour to bring the rebellious
district into line was suppressed with all the authority of her mighty
neighbour.
It is not to be denied that this transaction called into play new
principles of international politics; nor can it be excused on the
ground that new governments have been quickly recognized before. Never
before had the United States declared a rebellion successful so long as
the old government still stood, and the new one was able to hold out
only by virtue of the interference of the United States itself. It is to
be admitted that this was an imperialistic innovation, as was the
subjugation of the Filipinos. But we should not be so narrow as to
condemn a principle because it is new. All past history makes the
expansion of American influence necessary; the same forces which make a
state great continue to work through its later history. America must
keep on in its extension, and if the methods by which the present
nations grow are necessarily different from those by which the little
Union was able to stretch out into uninhabited regions a hundred years
ago, then, of course, the expansion of the twentieth century must take
on other forms than it had in the nineteenth. But expansion itself
cannot stop, nor can it be altered by mere citations from the
Declaration of Independence, or pointings to the petty traditions of
provincial days. The fight which the anti-imperialists are waging is
thoroughly justified in so far as it is a fight against certain
outgrowths of such expansion which have appeared in the Philippines, and
most of all when it is against the loss to the Republic, through
expansion, of its moral principles and of its finer and deeper feelings
through the intoxication of power. But the fight is hopeless if it is
waged against expansion itself. The course of the United States is
marked out.
* * * * *
It requires no special gift of prophecy to point out that the next
expansion will be toward the north. Just as the relations in Panama were
fairly obvious a half year before the catastrophe came, the suspicion
cannot be now put by that at a time not far hence the Stars and Stripes
will wave in the northwestern part of Canada, and that there too the
United States will be unwilling to lower its flag.