established policy in favor of European methods is specially noteworthy.
The labor of Asia is undeniably less well paid even than that of Europe;
but it is now proposed, by a single act, to introduce into our
industrial system ten millions of Asiatics, either directly, or through
their products sold in open competition with our own; or, if we do not
do that, to hold them, ascribed to the soil in a sort of old Saxon
serfdom, with the function assigned them of consuming our surplus
products, but without in return sending us theirs. The great
counterbalancing consideration will not, of course, be forgotten that,
like the English in India, we also bestow on them the Blessings of
Liberty and the Bible; provided, always, that liberty does not include
freedom to go to the United States, and the Bible does include the
excellent Old Time and Old World precept (Coloss. 3: 22), "Servants,
obey in all things your masters."
It is the same in other respects. It seems to be admitted by the
President, and by the leading authorities on the imperialistic policy,
that it can only be carried to successful results through the agency of
a distinct governing class. Accordingly administration through the
agency of military or naval officers is strongly urged both by the
President and by Captain Mahan. Other advocates of the policy urge its
adoption on the ground, very distinctly avowed, that it will necessitate
an established, recognized Civil Service, modelled, they add, on that of
Great Britain. If, they then argue, Great Britain can extend--as,
indeed, she unquestionably has extended--her system of dependencies all
over the globe, developing them into the most magnificent empire the
world ever saw, it is absurd, unpatriotic, and pessimistic to doubt that
we can do the same. Are we not of the same blood, and the same speech?
This is all historically true. Historically it is equally true that, to
do it, we must employ means similar to those Great Britain has employed.
In other words, modelling ourselves on Great Britain, we must slowly and
methodically develop and build up a recognized and permanent governing
and official class. The heathen and barbarian need to be studied, and
dealt with intelligently and on a system; they cannot be successfully
managed on any principle of rotation in office, much less one which
ascribes the spoils of office to the victors at the polls. What these
advocates of Imperialism say is unquestionably true: The political
methods now in vogue in American cities are not adapted to the
government of dependencies.
The very word "Imperial" is, indeed, borrowed from the Old World. As
applied to a great system of colonial dominion and foreign dependencies
it is English, and very modern English, also, for it was first brought
into vogue by the late Earl of Beaconsfield in 1879, when, by Act of
Parliament introduced by him, the Queen of England was made Empress of
India. It was then he enunciated that doctrine of _imperium et
libertas_, the adoption of which we are now considering. While it may be
wise and sound, it indisputably is British.
Thus, curiously enough, whichever way we turn and however we regard it,
at the close of more than a century of independent existence we find
ourselves, historically speaking, involved in a mesh of contradictions
with our past. Under a sense of obligation, impelled by circumstances,
perhaps to a degree influenced by ambition and commercial greed, we have
one by one abandoned our distinctive national tenets, and accepted in
their place, though in some modified forms, the old-time European tenets
and policies, which we supposed the world, actuated largely by our
example, was about forever to discard. Our whole record as a people is,
of course, then ransacked and subjected to microscopic investigation,
and every petty disregard of principle, any wrong heretofore silently,
perhaps sadly, ignored, each unobserved or disregarded innovation of
the past, is magnified into a precedent justifying anything and
everything in the future. If we formerly on some occasion swallowed a
gnat, why now, is it asked, strain at a camel? Truths once accepted as
"self-evident," since become awkward of acceptance, were ever thus
pettifogged out of the path, and fundamental principles have in this way
prescriptively been tampered with. It is now nearly a century and a
quarter ago, when Great Britain was contemplating the subjection of her
American dependencies, that Edmund Burke denounced "tampering" with the
"ingenuous and noble roughness of truly constitutional materials," as
"the odious vice of restless and unstable minds." Historically speaking
it is not unfair to ask if this is less so in the United States in 1898
than it was in Great Britain in 1775.
What is now proposed, therefore, examined in connection with our
principles and traditional policy as a nation, does apparently indicate
a break in continuity,--historically, it will probably constitute what
is known in geology as a "fault." Indeed, it is almost safe to say that
history hardly records any change of base and system on the part of a
great people at once so sudden, so radical, and so pregnant with
consequences. To the optimist,--he who has no dislike to "Old Jewry," as
the proper receptacle for worn-out garments, personal or political,--the
outlook is inspiring. He insensibly recalls and repeats those fine lines
of Tennyson:
"To-day I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
"An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
"He dried his wings: like gauze they grew:
Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew."
To others, older perhaps, but at any rate more deeply impressed with the
difference apt to develop between dreams and actualities, the situation
calls to mind a comparison, more historical it is true, but less
inspiriting so far as a commitment to the new policy is concerned. At
the risk, possibly, of offending some of those present, I will venture
to institute it. In the fourth chapter of the Gospel according to St.
Matthew, I find this incident recorded: "The devil taketh him [the
Saviour] up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the
kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto him, All
these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan. Then the devil leaveth
him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him." Now,
historically speaking, and as a matter of scriptural exegesis, that this
passage should be accepted literally is not supposable. Satan, on the
occasion referred to, must not be taken to have presented himself to the
Saviour _in propriâ personâ_ with his attributes of horns, tail, and
cloven hoof, and made an outright proposition of extra-territorial
sovereignty. It was a parable. He who had assumed a lofty moral attitude
was tempted by worldly inducements to adopt a lower attitude,--that, in
a word, common among men. It was a whispering to Christ of what among
nations, is known as "Manifest Destiny;" in that case, however, as
possibly in others, it so chanced that the whispering was not from the
Almighty, but from Satan. Now if, instead of recognizing the source
whence the temptation came, and sternly saying, "Get thee hence, Satan,"
Christ had seen the proposition as a new Mission,--thought, in fact,
that he heard a distinct call to Duty,--and so, accepting a
Responsibility thrust upon him, had hurried down from the "exceeding
high mountain," and proceeded at once to lay in a supply of weapons and
to don defensive armor, renouncing his peaceful mission, he would have
done exactly--what Mohammed did six centuries later!
I do not for a moment mean to suggest that, as respects the voice of
"Manifest Destiny," there is any similarity between the case of the
Saviour and that which we, as a people, are now considering. I am not a
prophet, nor do I claim prophetic insight. We are merely historical
investigators, and, as such, not admitted into the councils of the
Almighty. Others doubtless are, or certainly claim to be. They know
every time, and at once, whether it is the inspiration of God or the
devil; and forthwith proclaim it from the house-tops. We must admit--at
any rate no evidence in our possession enables us to deny--the
confidential relations such claim to have with either or both of the
agencies in question,--the Divine or the Infernal. All I now have in
mind is to call attention to the obvious similarity of the positions. As
compared with the ideals and tenets then in vogue,--principles of
manhood, equality before the law, freedom, peace on earth, and good-will
to men,--the United States, heretofore and seen in a large way, has,
among nations, assumed a peculiar, and, from the moral point of view,
unquestionably a lofty attitude. Speaking historically it might, and
with no charge of levity, be compared with a similar moral attitude
assumed among men eighteen centuries before by the Saviour. It
discountenanced armaments and warfare; it advocated arbitrations, and
bowed to their awards; spreading its arms and protection over the New
World, it refused to embroil itself in the complications of the Old;
above all, it set a not unprofitable example to the nations of benefits
incident to minding one's own business, and did not arrogate to itself
the character of a favorite and inspired instrument in the hands of God.
It even went so far as to assume that, in working out the inscrutable
ways of Providence, character, self-restraint, and moral grandeur were
in the long run as potent in effecting results as iron-clads and
gatling-guns.
Those who now advocate a continuance of this policy are, as neatly as
wittily, referred to in discussion, "for want of a better name," as
"Little Americans," just as in history the believers in the long-run
efficacy of the doctrines of Christ might be termed "Little Gospellers,"
to distinguish them from the admirers of the later, but more brilliant
and imperial, dispensation of Mohammed. That the earlier, and less
immediately ambitious, doctrine was, in the case of the United States,
only temporary, and is now outgrown, and must, therefore, be abandoned
in favor of Old World methods, especially those pursued with such
striking success by Great Britain, is possible. As historical
investigators we have long since learned that it is the unexpected which
in the development of human affairs is most apt to occur. Who, for
instance, in our own recent history could ever have foreseen that, in
the inscrutable ways of the Almighty, the great triumph of Slavery in
the annexation of Texas, and the spoliation of that inferior race which
inhabited Mexico, was, within fifteen years only, to result in what
Lincoln called that "terrible war" in which every drop of blood ever
drawn by the lash was paid by another drawn by the sword? Again, in May,
1856, a Representative of South Carolina struck down a Senator from
Massachusetts in the Senate-chamber at Washington; in January, 1865,
Massachusetts battalions bivouacked beside the smoking ruins of South
Carolina's capital. Verily, as none know better than we, the ways of
Providence are mysterious, and past finding out. None the less, though
it cannot be positively asserted that the world would not have been
wiser, more advanced, and better ordered had Christ, when on that
"exceeding high mountain," heard in the words then whispered in his ear
a manifest call of Duty, and felt a Responsibility thrust upon him to
secure the kingdoms of the earth for the Blessings of Liberty and the
Bible by so small a sacrifice as making an apparently meaningless
obeisance to Satan, yet we can certainly say that the world would now
have been very different from what it is had He so done. And so in the
case of the United States, though we cannot for a moment assert that its
fate and the future of the world will not be richer, better, and
brighter from its abandonment of New World traditions and policies in
favor of the traditions and policies of the Old World, we can say
without any hesitation that the course of history will be greatly
changed by the so doing.
In any event the experiment will be one of surpassing interest to the
historical observer. Some years ago James Russell Lowell was asked by
the French historian, Guizot, how long the Republic of the United States
might reasonably be expected to endure. Mr. Lowell's reply has always
been considered peculiarly happy. "So long," said he, "as the ideas of
its founders continue dominant." In due course of time we, or those who
follow us, will know whether Mr. Lowell diagnosed the situation
correctly, or otherwise. Meanwhile, I do not know how I can better bring
to an end this somewhat lengthy contribution to the occasion, than by
repeating, as singularly applicable to the conditions in which we find
ourselves, these verses from a recent poem, than which I have heard none
in the days that now are which strike a deeper or a truer chord, or one
more appropriate to this New England Paschal eve:
"The tumult and the shouting dies,
The captains and the kings depart;
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!
"Far-called our navies melt away,
On dune and headline sinks the fire--
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!
"If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the law--
Lord God of hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!
"For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard--
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard--
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on thy people, Lord!
Amen."
Taken in connection with the foregoing paper, the following-letter,
addressed to the Hon. Carl Schurz, is self-explanatory:
BOSTON, December 21, 1898.
MY DEAR MR. SCHURZ:
In a recent letter you kindly suggest that I submit to you a sketch of
what, I think, should be said in an address such as it is proposed
should now be put forth by the Anti-Imperialist League to the people of
the United States.
I last evening read a paper before the Lexington Historical Society, in
which I discussed the question of extra-territorial expansion from the
historical point of view. A copy of this paper I hope soon to forward
you. Meanwhile, there is one aspect, and, to my mind, the all-important
aspect of the question, which, in addressing an historical society, was
not germane. I refer to the question of a practical policy to be pursued
by us, as a nation, under existing conditions. That Spain has abandoned
all claim of sovereignty over the Philippine islands admits of no
question. Whether the United States has accepted the sovereignty thus
abandoned is still an open question; but this I do not regard as
material. Nevertheless, we are confronted by a fact; and, whenever we
criticise the policy up to this time pursued; we are met with an inquiry
as to what we have to propose in place of it. We are invited to stop
finding fault with others, and to suggest some feasible alternative
policy ourselves.
To this we must, therefore, in fairness, address ourselves. It is, in my
judgment, useless to attempt to carry on the discussion merely in the
negative form. As opponents of an inchoate policy we must, in place of
what we object to, propose something positive, or we must abandon the
field. Accepting the alternative, I now want to suggest a positive
policy for the consideration of those who feel as we feel. I wish your
judgment upon it.
There has, it seems to me, been a great deal of idle "Duty," "Mission,"
and "Call" talk on the subject of our recent acquisition of "Islands
beyond the Sea," and the necessity of adopting some policy, commonly
described as "Imperial," in dealing with them. This policy is, in the
minds of most people who favor it, to be indirectly modelled on the
policy heretofore so successfully pursued under somewhat similar
conditions by Great Britain. It involves, as I tried to point out in the
Lexington paper I have referred to, the abandonment or reversal of all
the fundamental principles of our government since its origin, and of
the foreign policy we have heretofore pursued. This, I submit, is
absolutely unnecessary. Another and substitute policy, purely American,
as contradistinguished from the European or British, known as
"Imperial," policy, can readily be formulated.
This essentially American policy would be based both upon our cardinal
political principles, and our recent foreign experiences. It is commonly
argued that, having destroyed the existing government in Cuba, Porto
Rico, and the Philippines, we have assumed a political responsibility,
and are under a moral obligation to provide another government in place
of that which by our action has ceased to exist. What has been our
course heretofore under similar circumstances? Precedents, I submit, at
once suggest themselves. Precedents, too, directly in point, and within
your and my easy recollection.
I refer to the course pursued by us towards Mexico in the year 1848, and
again in 1866; towards Hayti for seventy years back; and towards
Venezuela as recently as three years ago. It is said that the
inhabitants of the islands of the Antilles, and much more those of the
Philippine archipelago, are as yet unfitted to maintain a government;
and that they should be kept in a condition of "tutelage" until they are
fitted so to do. It is further argued that a stable government is
necessary, and that it is out of the question for us to permit a
condition of chronic disturbance and scandalous unrest to exist so near
our own borders as Cuba and Porto Rico. Yet how long, I would ask, did
that condition exist in Mexico? And with what results? How long has it
existed in Hayti? Has the government of Venezuela ever been "stable"?
Have we found it necessary or thought it best to establish a
governmental protectorate in any of those immediately adjacent regions?
What has been, historically, our policy--the American, as distinguished
from the European and British policy--towards those communities,--two
of them Spanish, one African? So far as foreign powers are concerned, we
have laid down the principle of "Hands-off." So far as their own
government was concerned, we insisted that the only way to learn to walk
was to try to walk, and that the history of mankind did not show that
nations placed under systems of "tutelage,"--taught to lean for support
on a superior power,--ever acquired the faculty of independent action.
Of this, with us, fundamental truth, the British race itself furnishes a
very notable example. In the forty-fourth year of the Christian era the
island of Great Britain was occupied by what the "Imperial" Romans
adjudged to be an inferior race. To the Romans the Britons
unquestionably were inferior. Every child's history contains an account
of the course then pursued by the superior towards that inferior race,
and its results. The Romans occupied Great Britain, and they occupied it
hard upon four centuries, holding the people in "tutelage," and
protecting them against themselves, as well as against their enemies.
With what result? So emasculated and incapable of self-government did
the people of England become during their "tutelage" that, when Rome at
last withdrew, they found themselves totally unfitted for
self-government, much more for facing a foreign enemy. As the last, and
best, historian of the English people tells us, the purely despotic
system of the imperial government "by crushing all local independence,
crushed all local vigor. Men forgot how to fight for their country when
they forgot how to govern it."[3] The end was that, through six
centuries more, England was overrun, first by those of one race, and
then by those of another, until the Normans established themselves in it
as conquerors; and then, and not until then, the deteriorating effect of
a system of long continued "tutelage" ceased to be felt, and the
islanders became by degrees the most energetic, virile, and
self-sustaining of races. As nearly, therefore, as can be historically
stated, it took eight centuries for the people of England to overcome
the injurious influence of four centuries of just such a system as it is
now proposed by us to inflict on the Philippines.[4] Hindostan would
furnish another highly suggestive example of the educational effects of
"tutelage" on a race. After a century and a half of that British
"tutelage," what progress has India made towards fitness for
self-government? Is the end in sight?
From the historical point of view, it is instructive to note the exactly
different results reached through the truly American policy we have
pursued in the not dissimilar cases of Hayti and Mexico. While Hayti, it
is true, has failed to make great progress in one century, it has made
quite as much progress as England made during any equal period
immediately after Rome withdrew from it. And that degree of slowness in
growth, which with equanimity has been endured by us in Hayti, could
certainly be endured by us in islands on the coast of Asia. It cannot be
gainsaid that, through our insisting on the policy of non-interference
ourselves, and of non-interference by European nations, Hayti has been
brought into a position where it is on the high road to better things in
future. That has been the result of the prescriptive American policy.
With Mexico, the case is far stronger. We all know that in 1848, after
our war of spoliation, we had to bolster up a semblance of a government
for Mexico, with which to negotiate a treaty of peace. Mexico at that
time was reduced by us to a condition of utter anarchy. Under the theory
now gaining in vogue, it would then have been our plain duty to make of
Mexico an extra-territorial dependency, and protect it against itself.
We wisely took a different course. Like other Spanish communities in
America, Mexico than passed through a succession of revolutions, from
which it became apparent the people were not in a fit condition for
self-government. Nevertheless, sternly insisting on non-interference by
outside powers, we ourselves wisely left that country to work out its
own salvation in its own way.
In 1862, when the United States was involved in the War of the
Rebellion, the Europeans took advantage of the situation to invade
Mexico, and to establish there a "stable government." They undertook to
protect that people against themselves, and to erect for them a species
of protectorate, such as we now propose for the Philippines. As soon as
our war was over, we insisted upon the withdrawal of Europe from Mexico.
What followed is matter of recent history. It is unnecessary to recall
it. We did not reduce Mexico into a condition of "tutelage," or
establish over it a "protectorate" of our own. We, on the contrary,
insisted that it should stand on its own legs; and, by so doing, learn
to stand firmly on them, just as a child learns to walk, by being
compelled to try to walk, not by being kept everlastingly in "leading
strings." This was the American, as contradistinguished from the
European policy; and Mexico to-day walks firmly.
Finally take the case of Venezuela in 1895. I believe I am not mistaken
when I say that, during the twenty-five preceding years, Venezuela had
undergone almost as many revolutions. It certainly had not enjoyed a
stable government. Through disputes over questions of boundary, Great
Britain proposed to confer that indisputable blessing upon a
considerable region. We interfered under a most questionable extension
of the Monroe Doctrine, and asserted the principle of "Hands-off."
Having done this,--having in so far perpetuated what we now call the
scandal of anarchy,--we did not establish "tutelage," or a protectorate,
ourselves. We wisely left Venezuela to work out its destiny in its own
way, and in the fullness of time. That policy was far-seeing,
beneficent, and strictly American in 1895. Why, then, make almost
indecent haste to abandon it in 1898?