"/f/f /I A Conservation Resources s>>' .•"•> OUR NATlOir^" I AND HER NEIGHBORS BY WASHINGTON GLADDEN COLUMBUS, OHIO Published by Quinius & Ridenour 1898 •^^^^'=^»^ '^^^^^^^^=^°^^^=> °^=^ " "^^ '^^^ " .Grfi ®ur ITation anb fyv Hetgl^bors War with Spain is no longer a dreaded proba- bility, but a dreadful fact. Not even the formali- ties are wanting. As I write, the news comes that the House of Representatives has just passed the joint resolution declaring war, and that the deed was done in one minute and fortj-one sec- onds. Who held the stop-watch we are not told. In an emergency like this Chinese Gordon's philosophy helps a little. "It is a delightful thing to be a fatalist," he wrote; "not as that word is generally employed, but to accept that when things happen, and not before, God has for some wise reason ordained them to happen. We have nothing further to do when the scroll of events is unrolled than to accept them as being for the best. Before it is unrolled it is another matter." I am Calvinist enought to believe with Gordon that whatever happens is divinely per- mitted ; and that through this war, against which many of us strove, God will cause the wrath of man to praise Him. This is not saying that He prefers to be praised in this manner. If the wisdom and the justice of man would work out the same results, doubtless they would better 2 Our Natimi and Rer Neighbors. please Him and more abundantly honor Him. And we may well believe that whatever good re- sults are to be gained as the issue of war might have been gained without war, if the people of our nation, and especially the Congress of the I nited States, had possessed a little more dig- nity and strength. Great have been the gains of just war, but it is Ulysses Grant who has testi- fied: "Though I have been trained as a soldier, and have participated in many battles, there never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not have been found of preventing the drawing of the sword." If we, the stronger party in this quarrel, had had a little more pa- tience and steadiness of purpose, we might have compelled a peaceful settlement of this question, by which the horrors now existing in Cuba would have been abated and the island made free. It is true that the resources of our own diplomacy had been exhausted; but with ?uch reports as our consular agencies have furnished us, with such a confession of the failure of autonoomy as that of the De Lome letter, and with such a demonstration of the inability of the Spanish to rule as the destruction of the Maine presented, we could have gone before the great Powers and have com]ielled them to agree mth us that Spain had forfeited her right to rule in Cuba. I be- lieve that if the President had been allowed to follow his own judgment he would have worked out the problem for us without the loss of life and with far greater honor to the nation than can be won in a successful war with Spain. But the Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 3 temper of Congress forbade further negotiation, and swept the administration onward to war. It may be said that delay was intolerable be- cause the Cubans were starving. But, in truth, the prospect of speedily relieving their suffering would have been better if war had been delayed. The work of relief has now come to a pause; how soon it can be resumed no man can tell. If considerations of humanity had been always paramount, we should not have been unwilling t^ wait a little, before drawing the swOrd, that the starving people might first be fed. It is not, however, profitable at this date to discuss this question of what might have been. It is not the Congress that might have been with v.hich Providence aud President McKinley had to deal, but the Congress that is. With this Con- gress no other result was possible. It was not, primarily, with the wisdom and justice of man that the problem had to be solved, but with the wrath of man. There is large room for indignation in this business; it plays and it ought to play an import- ant and decisive part ; but if it had been more per- fectlv under the control of reason the issues would have been more benign. And one must confess, with a heavy heart, that several of the performances which the world has witnessed in the Capitol at Washington, since this matter waa under consideration, are not reassuring to those who wish to see a rational and just solution of our difficult problems. More than once we have been forced to stop and ask ourselves whether 4 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. the moral elevation of our national legislature were such as to qualify it for the task of adminis- tering doctrine, reproof and correction in righte- ousness to the other nations of the earth. That Congress, in this headlong zeal for war, reflected the sentiment of vast numbers of our people is not to be denied. And while this pas- sion is by no means unmixed with baser elements, yet the prevailing motive is a generous sympathy with a suffering people, and a righteous resent- ment against cruelty and oppression. The pas- sion might well have been better restrained, but it is not altogether unholy. At any rate it is the force that the Almighty is using to accomplish His purpose. Some may doubt whether any other force would have sufficed, but that must not be asserted. Doubtless if we had been a braver and a wiser people we might have done Spain more good and ourselves less harm. It must needs be that retributions come, and Providence must use such tools as men furnish Him; but if the hand that deals the blow is guided by brute passion more than by firm reason, neither the smitten nor the smiter gains the highest benefit. That the end of this struggle will witness the expulsion of Spain from the island of Cuba is not, I think, doubted by any of us. The strug- gle may be more or less fierce and prolonged, but this is the issue to which it will come. And this will be a just retribution. So far as Spain is concerned, the ethical judgment of mankind will testify that she has got her deserts. She has abundantly proved her unfitness to rule her Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 5 colonies; her domination has been harsh, oppres- sive, ruinous; one by one her possessions on this side of the sea have revolted, but in all this ex- perience she has learned absolutely nothing; the same tyrannous, exacting, brutalizing policy has been maintained for four centuries. The fact that Cuba has been in a condition of chronic in- surrection for fifty years is itself sufficient to close the case against Spain. If, after three cen- turies and a half of her rule the Cubans were so turbulent and unreasonable that they would not live peaceably under her government, that is a demonstration of her fatal incapacity to govern them. That Spain has richly earned the punish- ment which she is now about to suffer cannot be gainsaid. It is the logic of history, it is the law of God, that great opportunities, misused or dis- used, are taken away from men and nations. Spain had a great opportunity of civilizing the Western Continent. The rights of discovery Avcre hers, the most and the best of the territory passed under her power. So weak and oppres- sive has been her rule that it has nearly all been torn from her; only to Cuba and Porto Rico of all her vast western possessions does she now set up any claim. This prolonged catastrophe of decaying do- minion is not an accident. Long years ago Spain put out her own eyes and has ever since been stumbling in the darkness which she created for herself. The Inquisition was a crime that could not go unavenged. It was an attempt to ex- terminate independent thought and rational 6 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. leadership, and the history of Spanish decay and misrule shows how deplorably successful the at- tempt has been. This last long struggle with the existing insun-eetion in Cuba, in which Spain has proved herself powerless to restore order, im- potent for everything except the wholesale mur- der of hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children, is the final and complete exhibition of her incapacity to rule. The conduct of Spain in Cuba up to date is a crime against civilization, and it is about to be punished by her expulsion from the island. So much might be said by any unprejudiced onlooker; what is about to happen might seem to him the vindication of the righteous iiile of that Providence which rendereth to men and nations according: to tlicir works. But the people of the United States, who are to be executioners of this decree, have another interest than that of the unprejudiced onlooker. To us it has become a very serious question; our sympathies are stirred, our moral feelings are aroused, and the time for action has come. We claim that our right to in- tervene is indubitable. Spain has maintained a national nuisance near our front door for a good many years; wo have exhausted the resources of ueighborly remonstranc;:^ and now we propose to abate the nuisance. The constant sight of un- s^peakable cruelties has become intolerable; we will endure it no longer. Evidence has accumu-. lated that Spain has forfeited her right to Cuba; therefore, before the bar of the eternal justice we require her to leave the island. Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 7 The incident of tlie Maine greatly complicated this question. The first effect of that terrible tragedy, in just minds, was to check the onset of intervention. It seemed at first incredible, even monstrous to assert that Spain had any agency in that ghastly business. It must have been an accident. Instead of permitting our- selves to be inflamed and exeauty, inspired by sentiments even toward her enemies not of hate but of love; perhaps a little pale about the eyes and a smile upon her lips, bnt as sure, de- termined, unerring, invincible as was the arch- angel Michael when he struck down and tram- pled upon the demon of darkness." This is the spirit in which, as I trust, we are going into this war. We are acting, not as the avenger of blood, but as the executor of right- eousness. The fact of the destruction of our bat- tleship is simply evidence which we hold up to the world to prove onr right to say that we will no longer have such a next-door neighbor. We have served on her the order of eviction. But it is less a matter of vengeance than a sense of re- 10 Out Nation and Her Neighbors. sponsibiiity for the peace of the neighborhood, for the supp]'ession of misrule and cruelty. We might conceive the case of a judge called to pronounce sentence upon a brigand and des- perado who had been keeping a whole commun- ity in terror, but who had now been brought to justice. The fact that the judge's own home had lately been dynamited by this desperado would not be the only nor the chief reason why the judge should give him the full penalty of the law; if he were a just judge he woiild be careful not to let his sense of injury be the controlling motive of his action. Not resentment for the personal wrong, but regard for the public good would gov- ern his judgment. The people of the United States desire, I trust, to take this high ground in their controversy mth Spain. We are not fighting for conouest, nor for revenge, nor even, under the code of the duelist, for the reparation of wounded honor; we are fighting to redress wrongs which, though not suffered chiefly by ourselves, have become intolerable to us; we are fighting to put an end to savagery in our neigh- borhood. If any one shall say that this is a new kind of war, be it so ; perchance it is a holier and more justifiable kind of Avar than any hitherto undertaken. Let us hope that the day is not far off when even this kind of war will be no longer necessary; when strong combinations of great Christian powers can restrain such violence without resorting to bloodshed. But so long as there are Spaniards and Turks holding weaker peoples in thrall and inflicting on them nameless Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 11 injuries, so long will there be a call for strong nations to appear for the deliverance of the op- pressed. There are malefactors, national as well as individual, who can only be restrained by force. When many strong nations are ready to unite for the exercise of this restraint upon the unruly, nothing more than a show of force will be necessary. United t-lien, the chivalric im- pulse which makes a man stand between a brutal bully and his helpless victim, ought to inspire stronger peoples to intervene for the protection of the weak and defenseless. When the Armenian butcheries were in pro- gress most of us felt that they ought to have been stopped; that if the Great Powers could not unitedly intervene, any one of them w^ould have been qualified in a peremptory demand that the savagery should cease. Some of us never quite forgave Lord Salisbury's government for not flinging diplomacy to the winds and taking the Turk by the throat. Multitudes of Englishmen, like William Watson, bitterly denounced the in- action of their own government. The excuse for that inaction was the danger of a general Europ- ean war. But no such vast calamity over- shadows the present crisis, and it is not easy to see hovv^ those who condemned England for not in- tervening to protect the Armenians could justify America for failing to put an end to slaughter and starvation in Cuba. We may recall the kindling words of Mrs. Browning in her poem, "A Court Lady." The time is the war of Italian liberation, and the poem represents the queen of 12 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. Italy passing through a hospital, and pausing at the cots of the soldiers mth a blessing for the Lombard and the Tuscan and the Romagnole — Italians all; then — "On she passed to a Frenchman, his aiin carried oil" by a ball, — Kneeling, 'O, more than my brother, how shall I thank thee for all? " 'Each of these heroes around us has fought for his land and line. But thou hast fought for a stranger, in hate of a wrong not thine! " 'Happy are all free peoples, too strong to be dispossessed, But blessed are they among nations who dare to be strong for the rest!' " It is this beatitude which America may hope to win in the days now before us. So far as military prestige is concerned I do not see how we are to gain much by a war* with Spain. There is little glory to be won in overcoming a poor, bankrupt, distracted, fourth-rate power. The war may be prolonged, it may inflict upon us some terrible injuries, but so far as human foresight can avail there is no more question al>out the issue than there would be in a test be- tween a stalwart athlete and a crippled and half- paralyzed invalid. We shall all be glad when the cruelty and misrule of Spain are brought to Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 13 an end in Cuba, but we shall have no great rea- son to be proud of our victory as a martial achievement. And the frantic zest for war with such an antagonist which hnds utterance on the streets and in the newspapers does not make one very proud of the American people. The reas- suring consideration is that this is not the real reason why we are going to war. The nation does not doubt that the issue of the war will be the evacuation of Cuba by the Span- ish power. We will trust that this end may be gained by the smallest possible expenditure of blood and treasure. But when it is gained, what then i This is the question which now confronts us. After taking so much responsibility for the welfare of Cuba are we to leave her to her fate? The President says that annexation is not to be thought of; in that judgment most Americans agree. But it is said that we must use our good offices to secure a stable, free and independent government in Cuba. Does anybody realize just how much this means? When the Spaniards are driven out of Cuba will there be any elements left out of which stable, free and independent gov- ernment can be constructed ? It is all very well to say, as our orators have l)een saying in Con- gress, that the people of Cuba are and of right ought to be free and independent. Independent of Spain they may be, by grace of our anus; and doubtless they ought to be free, but they ai-e not, and for the next hundred years they will not be unless some strong power steps in and rules them for their own a'ood, enforcing order and obedi- 14 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. ence and slowly educating them to respect those muniments of law bj which alone freedom is es- tablished and defended. It ought to be understood at the outset that such an intervention as we have undertaken in- volves serious consequences and heavy responsi- bilities. Our task will not be performed when the Spaniards shall have been driven out of Cuba. Doubtless those senators were sincere when they framed the resolution affirming that our interven- tion in Cuban affairs would end when the Spanish power was broken; but they could not have fully comprehended the problem with which they were dealing. They would have been wiser if they had phrased their disclaimer somewhat different- ly. To say that we are not fighting for terri- torial aggrandizement is, I hope, entirely true; but to say that we do not propose to take any responsibility for the Cubans after they are sdt free from Spain is neither kind nor wise. They will need our protection, and we shall not be be able to withhold it. The expectation that the people of Cuba will be able to govern themselves as soon as the Spaniards are driven out, is one with which we must not delude ourselves. It is passing strange that our orators in Congress and our advocates 'in the newspaper offices should know so little of the lessons of experience. Republics of Spanish American origin are not rare on this continent; would it not be worth while to find out what manner of things they are? The experiment which it is proposed to try in Cuba has been tried Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 15 a great many times; if anybody can point to an instance in tropical countries in which it has been successful, that would be instructive and encour- aging. Quite a number of such countries upon this continent have been under republican forms of government for from fifty to seventy-five years; if any one knows of an instance in which free and stable government has been developed among them it might be well to speak up and tell us where it is. Somehow the geographers and the historians and the newspaper reporters do not seem to have discovered it. The April number of llie Forum contains an article by that experienced and capable observer and student, Mr. William Eleroy Curtis, respect- ing the republics, so-called, of Central America. Speaking generally of these states, Mr. Curtis says : ''Public opinion in the Latin states is tolerant toward official peculation; perhaps this is due to habit. It is too often the case in Central Ameri- ca for a new president, when he first comes into ]>ower, to invest in Xew York, London, or Paris as soon as possible a sum suf- ficient to keep himself and his family in luxury for the rest of their lives. When that is accomplished his next effort is to provide for his re-election by the ordinary means known to politicians in those countries, which in- volve liberal allowances and sinecures for his sup^ porters, the appointment of unnecessary officials, unwarranted liberality in granting contracts and concessions, and the maintenance of an army to 16 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. preserve order and protect the palace. Though such efforts, when directed by a brave and skill- ful man, usually prove successful, rivals are apt to spring up, and factions and feuds are numer- ous. Whenever a revolution occurs it means that some president is endeavoring to perpetuate his authority against some one who desires to succeed him, or that some ambitious statesman is so eager for political promotion that he cannot wait for an election. If let alone the people never rebel. They are patient, patriotic, long suffering; and while their partizanship finds ex- pression in fiercer emotions than are oft«n displayed in the political contests of North America they will submit to almost any kind of misgovernment until their indignation is aroused by some unusual act. '^This peculiarity of the Central American re- publics keeps tliem poor. It prevents the de- velopment of their natural resources, the con- struction of internal improvements and the estab- lishment of mechanical industries. It frightens capital from making investments, and keeps im- migrants away. There is practically no immi- gration. Money raised by taxation or by the sale of bonds for educational purposes or public works is too often used to pay an army and to buy ammunition for the suppression of a revolution. In one country four loans have been made for one and the same purpose during the last twenty years, and every dollar has been diverted. The roads are neglected, schools and public institu- tions are unsupported, and citizens who are fortu- Our Nation arid Her Neighbors. 17 nate enough to have a surplus invest it abroad be- cause they dare not engage in enterprises that may be interrupted by political disturbances." Such is the testimony of this competent wit- ness respecting the political conditions which generally prevail in Central American republics. He suggests no exceptions to this statement; if different conditions from these anywhere exist he does not mention them. Speaking particularly of Guatemala Mr. Curtis tells us that ''a form of peonage still exists in the Central American countries; and the law re- quires that a man who owes money must work out the debt if the creditor insists upon it. Even death does not release the debt, for the obligation rests upon his children until the money is paid. Thus the 'haciendados,' or planters, who are of Spanish origin, hold their laborers with as strong a grip as when slavery was lawful. But the peons are contented, and seldom make an effort to escape from bondage. Their masters live at the capital or in Paris or New York, occasionally visiting their farms, which are committed to the care of overseers. * * * There is but little in- dependent farming among the cominon people, although each family has a garden-plot on which the women raise vegetables for market. There are lying idle in Gautemala millions of acres of excellent soil that might be bought for a song. But it is not customary for the laboring classes to own their own homes. They are contented to remain as their father's and grandfather's were; contributing to the prosperity of the 18 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. grandees, into whose pockets the profits of their labor go." One of the nominal presidents of Guatemala, the late Justo Rufiuo Barrios, made vigorous ef- forts to educate and reform the people, but he was a dictator rather than a constitutional ruler; ''there was, so to speak, only one man in Guate- mala while he was president." That he "had high aspirations for the welfare of his people" is not to be denied; but it is also to be confessed ^'that he failed to observe the conventional dis- tinction between public and private property, and accumulated a fortune of several millions during his presidency, which he invested in l^ew York and Paris for the benefit of his family." In 1886 he w^as shot from an ambush while lead- ing an army against Salvador. Of his nephew, Rema Barrios, who has since been styled president, this writer says: "He had marked ability, was educated in San Francisco and at a German university, married a young lady from 'New Orleans and was credited with a higher degree of integrity than most of his prede- cessors and with a genuine ambition to promote the development and prosperity of his country. Put all these advantages did not enable him to overcome the hereditary tendency, and he fell a victim to his love of power. An attempt to pro- long his administration beyond the constitutional period provoked a revolution which he suppressed with difficulty; and a servant of a merchant who had been executed mthout process of law found an opportunity for swift and fatal revenge." Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 19 This assassination of Kema Barrios was only two months ago; how many presidents the coun- try has had since then I do not know. So runs the world in the "republic" of Guatemala. Salvador is the "republic" which adjoins Guatemala on the South. The soil is extremely fertile; the population is about 800,000, of whom 20,000 are whites who own all the land, fill the professions and manage the politics, while the 780,000 mixed blood Indians "follow their for- tunes with an unquestioning fidelity and with an enthusiasm that is worthy of a better cause." Free schools and compulsory education are there, on paper; three per cent, of the population at- tend school. "The rich," says Mr. Curtis, "live in luxury and spend their money freely. They are highly educated, accomplished in the polite arts and fond of foreign travel and social enjoy- ment. The peons live in a primitive manner. They are uneducated, and lack most of the com- forts of civilization, but they are devoted to their employers, and to the interests of the Catholic church." The words that follow ought to be carefully attended to, because they may be taken as a fair account of the political condition of most Spanish- American "republics": "There is probably more politics in Salvador than in any other country in the world ; and while it appears in the geographies as a republic it is really an absolute monarchy (?), ruled by a small group of politicians who maintain their power by military force, and are overthrown as often as the opposition can form and carry out a conspiracy. 20 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. There has not been a 'constitutional' president in Salvador for many jears. The presidents have always been 'pronunciamentos' ; that is, they have come into power by self-proclamation, rather than through an election by the people, according to law. This is so common that the people ex- pect nothing else. I happened to land at La Libertad shortly after President Cleveland had been inaugurated, and was much surprised when the governor asked me whether he were a con- stitutional or a 'pronunciamento' president." After sketching ^he provisions of the written constitution of Salvador, which is pronounced ''a model document," Mr. Curtis says: "But these admirable provisions are purely theoretical; and thexe has not been a free election in Salvador during the present generation. The president is generally a soldier; and the commander-in-chiief of the army generally steps into that office when a vacancy occurs. There is a law forbidding the conscription of soldiers; but it has never deterred the government from raising as many troops as were required. A story is told of a recruiting officer who sent a detachment of recruits to head- quarters with a note which read : 'I forward, herewith, one hundred volunteers. Please re- turn immediatelv the ropes with which they are tied.'" This report, in a magazine of the current month, upon the existing conditions in Central America, should throw some light upon the so- cial and political problems which we are taking upon our hands. Another brief recital, from Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 21 another and equally intelligent investigator, will confirm this impression. The editor of "The Congregationalist," published in Boston, has just returned from a visit to another Spanish Ameri- can ''republic" — that of Venezuela, and in his issue of March 31 he reports what he has seen and heard. Venezuela has been a republic in name for eightv-seven years. The revolt from the Spanish rule was led by men of commanding- ability, Miranda, Bolivar and others; some of our own countrymen gave their lives for the liberty of Venezuela. Venezuela has a constitution similar to ours, and a population of two and a half millions. Of its present condition and pros- pects the editor of "The CongTegationalist" gives the following sketch: "Mr. Andrade was inaugurated president of the latter country at Caracas, February 28. He was the choice of his predecessor General Crespo. Mr. Hernandez, the defeated candidate, at once began to gather his followers into a camp near Valencia. They are variously estimated at from a few hundreds to 5000 men. The merchants of Caracas, many of whom are foreigners, have made considerable contribu^ns to support the existing government. Crespo, now commander- in-chief of the army, is daily making conscripts of the workmen on the plantations and in the cities. These are mostlv taken off to headquarters "lay night, but occasionally are seen marching deject- edly through the streets under guard. Crespo amassed a large fortune during his four years' term as president, and with the army is guarding 22 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. his estates while organizing a campaign to sup- press the incipient revolution. He furnishes sup- plies to the army, thus daily augmenting his pos- sessions. Hernandez owns a fine property in New York city, to which he may retreat in case jof failure. But should his prospects improve, a considerable portion of the conscripts may escape to his cauip. If he should captvire Caracas, the revolution would succeed. Once in power it would he for the interjest of business men to sup- port him. "But Venezuela is not today a nation. It is a , political party, maintained by force of arms for private gain. It is a business enterprise, i n which vast national wealth is crudely operated by costliest methods for immediate returns; for it is liable at anv time to be captured by an opposing party of equal greed. ''A word for patriotism is in the Venezuelan dictionary, but it is practically obsolete. So far as it has meaning it stands for commercialism confined to a clique. The few are rich. The great majority are poor, and, so far as they par- ticipate in government, are swung alternately to the support of one or another party by vain prom- ises of better conditions for themselves. What- ever party wins the people lose. "Venezuela is like a farm or mine held by ten- ants on no certain title and for no definite period, to get all possible out of it by any means in the shortest time. It illustrates the depths to which a republic may fall when selfish aims dominate, when patriotism and faith live only in name. Our Nation and Her AeiyhLoif', 23 The government of Venezuela is Tammany in its maturity. It is accepted as a matter of course. Neither its supporters nor its opposers feel any need of apologizing for it. Those who profit by it value it for what they think it is worth to themselves. Those who lose by it keep for it a hatred held in check by hopes of capturing it." Since this was printed, on Monday, April 17, a dispatch from Venezuela, by way of London, informs us that General Crespo was killed on Saturday, the 15th, in a fight with the forces of Hernandez. Whether this means the success of the insurgents or not we have not yet heard ; in- deed these South American revolutions are so frequent that they are hardly news; the telegraph editor probably throws many of the dispatches announcing them into the waste basket. A picturesque and realistic description of the conditions prevailing in these South American "republics" may be found in Mr. Richard Hard- ing Davis's ''Soldiers of Fortune." A more pro- saic and precise statement is this, from Mr. Ben- jamin Kidd's '^Social Evolution." Mr. Kidd is speaking of the vast territories embraced in Cen- tral America and in tropical South America: "In this expanse, which includes over three- fourths of the entire continental area south of the territory of the United States, we have one of the richest regions of the earth. Under the out- ward forms of European government it appears, however, to be slowly drifting out of our civiliza- tion. The habit has lately obtained among us of thinking of those countries as inhabited by 24 Our Ifation and Her Neighbors. Europeans ouly, and as included in our western civilization— a habit doubtless due to the tend- ency to regard them as colonies of European powers which have become independent after the manner of the United States. As a matter of fact this view has little to justify it. In the twenty-two republics comprising the territory in question, considerably over three-fourths of the entire population are descendants of the original Indian inhabitants, or imported negroes or mixed races. The pure white population appears to be unable to maintain itself for more than a limited number of generations, without recruiting itself from the outside. It is a gradually diminish- ing element, tending to ally itself in an increasing degree with 'color.' * * * We must apparent- ly look forward to the time when these territories will be almost exclusively peopled by the Black and Indian races. "Meanwhile the resources of this large region remain almost undeveloped or run to waste. During the past fifty years the European powers may be said to have endeavored to develope them in a manner that apparently promised to be ad- vantageous to both parties, and not inconsistent with the spirit of the new altruistic ideas which have come to govern men's minds. Since the period of their independence immense sums have been borrowed by the republics of Central and South America, with the object of developing their resources, and large amounts have been in- vested by private persons in public enterprises undertaken by Europeans in these countries. Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 25 But the general prevalence of those qualities which distinguish peoples of low social efficiency lias been like a blight on. the whole region. In nearly all the republics in question the history of government has been the same. Under the out- ward forms of written laws and constitutions of the most exemplary character, they have dis- played a general absence of that sense of public and private duty which has always distinguished peoples who have reached a high state of social development. Corruption in all branches of the government, insolvency, bankruptcy and politic- al revolutions succeeding each other at short in- tervals, have become the normal incidents of pub- lic life — the accompanying features being a permanent state of of uncertainty, lack of energy and enterprise among"st the people, and general commercial depression." Such is the verdict of history upon the at- tempts to establish republican institutions in the tropical Spanish-American populations. Mr, Kidd includes in his generalizations twenty-two '^republics" of Central and tropical South Ameri- ca; he makes no exception among them. The impression which his words convey, and the im- pression which we gain from the current reports- is that there is no tendency to improvement in these countries. Indeed it is easy to see that such political conditions hold in themselves no saving energies; corruption doess not cure itself. These remarks do not apply to Chili or the- Argentine Republic, both of which are to a con- siderable extent populated by Europeans. Even 26 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. in these the conditions are not ideal, but they are less discouraging than in the countries nearer the equator. Mexico is sonietinies mentioned as a progressive state, and the improvement in that ancient seat of civilization is notable and cheer- ing; but Mexico is under the hand of a powerful ^md wise dictator, who permits no constitutional impediment to obstruct his plans. To speak of the government of Diaz as republican is to forget the meaning of words. The question now arises whether we have any reason for believing that a different fate is in store for the republic of Cuba, after Spain has been expelled, than that which has overtaken other tropical Spanish republics. The condi- tions are, indeed, in some respects dissimilar from those which have prevailed in Central and South America. The population is of a different char- acter. In Central and South America the bulk of the population consists of the descendants of the aborigines, more or less mixed with Spanish .and other European blood. In Cuba little or nothing of the aboriginal element remains. The natives were practically exterminated by the slavery to which they were consigned by the Spaniards; negTO slaves were imported to take their places and since emancipation the laboring people are mainly negroes. About 50,000 Chinese coolies must also be reckoned in this class. Census reports are not altogether trust- worthy; but according to the best information I can gather, the population at the outbreak of the present disturbances was about 1,600,000, of Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 27 whom probably half a million were negroes. Something like a million of whites were, there^ fore, in Cuba; and these were partly Spaniards residing on the island for revenue only, either connected with the government or engaged in commercial enterprises, having few social rela- tions with the native Cubans — regarding them, indeed, with great contempt. Between the native Spaniards, "peninsulares," they are called, and the native Cubans or Creoles there has been no love lo lose for many a day. In 18Y2 about one-sixth of the whites were "peninsulars." Many of these have returned to Spain during the insurrection; a large number of the poorer Creoles and the blacks, probably not less than 200,000, have perislied by starvation and disease. Before the country shall be pacified the population will therefore have been greatly reduced. The native Spaniards who have not gone will not then stand on the order of their going; the country will be too hot to hold them. The Creoles and the negroes will constitute the population, and the whites will be, I siippose, in a considerable ma- jority. This, then, is the difference between the Cuban population and the population of most of the South American and Central American states — that the whi-tes are and are likely to be more numerous in Cuba than in the other coun- tries, and that the colored races which make up the remainder are not Indians or mixed bloods, hut negroes and Chinese coolies. So far as the negroes are concerned, it must be remembered that thev were mostlv slaves until 28 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. twelve years ago ; and slaves, not of such masters as those of our Southern States, but of masters the great majority of whom were ignorant and superstitious and brutal. The slaves on many of our Southern plantations had received some instruction; they had lived under the forms of democratic government; many of them had ab- sorbed not a little moral and political education. This has not been the case with the slaves in (Juba; their unpreparedness for the responsibili- ties of citizenship must be far greater than waa that of our own freedmen. Of the white population of Cuba I do not wish to speak uncharitably. I have no doubt that there are honorable and patriotic men and wo- men amongst them. But the measure of their intelligence as a mass can be taken from the last census report which shows that, in a population of 1,600,000, there were 34,000 pupils in schools of all kinds, or two and one-tenth per cent, of the population. Compare also, this statement by the eminent geographer, Keith Johnston, that not one in ten of the children of free parents, in the days before the abolition of slavery, received lettered education of any kind. ISTor have I any desire to speak unkindly of the religious influences under which this whole pop- ulation, white and black, has been reared. It is, as we all know, a Roman Catholic country. But there are Catholics and Catholics. Our Ameri- can Catholics partake of the American spirit of intelligence and are spending a great deal of money for the education of their children and Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 29 youth; the Spanish Catholics follow Spanish ideas, and the type of intellect and chai'acter which they are producing there is a very different thing from that which is produced, under Catholic influences, in the United States of America. As to the general character of the creole popu- lation, I will venture on no sweeping state- ments. It is evident that as a whole the people must be deplorably ignorant; that the religious craining which they have received has been far different from that which Roman Catholics re- ceive in England and Germany and America. The climatic influences are not such as t-o de- velope the robust virtues. That there are strong tendencies among the Cubans to effeminacy and sensuality is not denied. ''Although," says one authority, "the 'ereoles' and the 'peninsulares' are of the same oi-ifin, the difference between them is most striking. They can be distinguished at a glance in the streets of Havana. The Creoles are feeble and indolent, even when they are children of parents born in Spain. The Cuban Spaniards on the other hand are a sturdy and energetic body of men. * * * They treat the Creoles with a scorn and contempt only exceeded by the hatred mixed with fear with which the latter regard the dominant popu- lation." These sketches do not raise any high hopes of a superior quality of citizenship among the Cubans. Add to all this the fact that they are utterly unpractised in the intellectual and politic- 30 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. al habits of self-goveruing peoples. iNTeither they nor any of their ancestors have had anything to do with governing themselves. Is it supposed that snch a race is going to take up off-hand the business of popular government? One thing may be safely affirmed: No popu- lation resembling this ever did establish and maintain for any length of time free and stable democratic government. It has been tried a good many times, and has always failed. Until the thing has been done somewhere in the world we may modestly venture to question the wisdom of the people who are trying* to do it. I am not now^ gainsaying the fact that the Cuban leaders at the present time are devoted and patriotic men. But the strength of a republic is not in the leaders, but in the rank and file. The few can never lift up the many by the machinery of deuKxn'acy ; the many will drag down the few. If the mass is ignorant and brutal, the leadership will quickly pass from the hands of the wise and good to the hands of the unscrupulous and the vile. The Cuban leaders are no better men than Miranda or Bolivar of Venezuela, or Barrios of (lautemala; but how much has the leadership of these men availed to secure for their countries free and stable democratic government? To say, then, that we ]:)ro])ose to drive out the Spaniards and leave the Cubans to their fate is not to speak advisedly. The kind of government which would spring wv from the soil when the Spanish tyranny was swept away would not be Our Nation and Her Neiyhhors. 3L worth tlie sacrilice of life and treasure that it is likely to cost. , To put an end to Spanish tyranny and then stand by and see it replaced with Cuban anarchy would be a proceeding in which we could not justify ourselves in the eye of the nations. No; we have put our hand to the plough and there is no looking back. We haA^e taken on ourselve& the responsibility of suppressing misrule in Cuba ; now we must see that the island is well and be- nignly ruled. To cast out one devil is not enough ; we must see to it that seven others, worse- than the first, do not enter in. But how shall this be done? We have said that we will not annex Cuba ; and if we had not said it we could not incorporate this island into our national domain and undertake to govern it by our constitutional machinery. That involves- universal suffrage, and self-government, which is- precisely what these people are not fit for and will not be for many a year. It is evident that here is a problem of statesmanship. We have no- governmental machinery, no political apparatus for managing such a dependency as Cuba is likely to be. England can do it. Her colonial system easily disposes of such a task. France, our sister republic, seems to know how to do it. She has held and subdued and civilized Algeria and Tunis. The work was begun under the empire, but it has been carried forward under the repub- lic. If we are going into business of this sort it will be necessary for us to furnish ourselves with the tools and appliances by which it can be done.. 32 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. We shall need some carefully considered laws, isome new forms of administration,; I rather think that we shall be obliged to have some constitu- tional amendments. All this involves a consid- erable extension and some reconstruction of our X)olitieal system. It involves the abandonment, in such populations, of universal suffrage, and the introduction of limited, tentative and progressive methods of enfranchisement. It involves the frank admission and enforcement of the truth that some men do not know as much and are not as good citizens as some other men; and that there are those who do not know enough and are not iiood enough to take part in governing their fellow-men. If we are going into business of this sort we have got to free our minds of a good deal of cant, and stop chasing rainbows; we have got to send the popular orator to the war and call the practical administrator to the front. And when we begin to use our common sense a little more freely in this business of political adminis- tration we shall see that it is too delicate and diffi- cult business to be entrusted to those who have no other qualification for it than that they have been bom males and have contrived to eat and drink and breathe for twenty-one years. Something more than this is necessary to qualify a man for taking part in a free government which means to endure; and possibly our experiments in the tentative enfranchisement of the people of Cuba may teach us some lessons that we may wisely apply upon this continent. I am not at all sure that Providence is not going to show us how to Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 33 reform our home administration by giving us some such tasks as will be thrust into our hands in Cuba. It may be said that we cannot do such work as this. But why not? England can do it ; Erance can do it; little Holland can do it; why cannot we? All these countries have done a great deal of this kind of work. Say what we will about their greed of empire, this is a vastly better world today than it would have been if these great na- tions had not put forth their strength and dis- ciplined their wisdom in just such enterprises as these. Is there anything in our political system which disables us from undertaking any kind of good work that may fall to the lot of a Christian nation? If so, we had better reconstruct our po- litical system. If, in the next fifteen years we could do for Cuba what England has done for Egypt in the last fifteen years, it would be one of the greatest achievements of our history. Eif- teen years ago the government of Egypt was drifting swiftly to anarchy and ruin. Within thirteen years ite debt had increased from $15,- 000,000 "to $445,000,000, almost thirty fold. "With a submissive population," says Mr. Kidd, "a corrupt bureaucracy, and a reckless, ambitious and voluptuous ruler, surrounded by adventurers of every kind, we had all the elements of national bankruptcy and ruin." England's interests, rather than her honor, seemed to demand inter- vention in this ease ; but the Liberal government fought against this idea. I have just been read- ing an essay by Mr. Gladstone, written in 1877, 3i. Our Nation and Her Neighbors. in wliicli he sturdily protested against the occupa- tion of Egypt. But England at length reluctant- ly took up the task of straightening out the crook- ed finances of Egypt, and found herself, just as we shall find ourselves, with a large contract on her hands. It was impossible for her to retreat, and she has done for that hapless country a great and inestimable service. The taxation which was almost confiscation, has been greatly reduced and equalized; the administration of justice has been greatly improved ; new methods of irrigation have added large areas of land for cultivation; the cotton croj? has increased fifty per cent. ; the foreign trade has been vastly augmented, and the credit of the country so strengthened that the bonds rose in nine years from 59 to 98. All this guardianship exercised over Egypt by England has certainly tended to make that country freer, more prosperous, and happier than it was before. And British influence in Egypt, as Mr. Alfred Milner has said, ''is not exercised to impose an uncongenial foreign system upon a reluctant peo- ple. It is a force making for the triumph of the simplest ideas of honesty, humanity and justice, to the value of which Egyptians are just as much alive as any one else." England has profited by all this; but she has gained not by despoiling, but by enriching Egypt. And "neither directly nor indirectly," says Mr. Mil- ner, "has Great Britain drawn from her pre- dominant iwsition any profit at the expense of other nations." Her "gain is also the gain of ci"\nlization." Is not this good work ? To break Oil'' Natirni and Her Ntiyhbors. S5 in pieces the oppressor, to lift from a whole popu- lation the heavy hand of the spoiler, to lead in light and liberty, peace and plenty — is there any better work than this for the great nations of the earth ? Something like this is what we shall find our- selves pledged to do for Cuba, and if we have not the ideas and the laws and the governmental fa- cilities for doing such work as this, the sooner we get them the bett^er. A large amount of work of this kind is waiting to be done by somebody. Vast spaces of earthy that ought to be fruitful and bountiful of good for the whole race, are now cursed by misrule and anarchy; is it no-t the high calling of the great nations to reclaim these blighted lands, to set free these hapless peoples ? We shall be called to take part in this work.; and the first installment of pur task is set for us in Cuba. Not a little work of this kind is waiting for us on this con- tinent. We have assumed that we and nobody else are responsible for this entire hemisphere. T wonder if we comprehend the magnitude of the undertaking to which we have thus commit- ted ourselves. For my part I doubt the wisdom of this exclusive claim, because it seems to me that in these large undertakings for the liberation and development of sinking populations, the great na- tions of the earth should take counsel together. T look for the time^and the centripetal tenden- cies of commerce and the great fraterriities of labor are hastening it — when a mighty confedera- tion of nations shall join to establish peace and ■36 Oiir Nation and Her Neighbors. order in all the earth. The United States of America will not wish to be outside of that con- federation. The counsels of isolation which were wise in the days of Washington are no longer applicable; we are living in a new day, in £L new world; and it is no longer the baseless fabric of a vision that the poet descried: '*'ror I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see. Saw the vision of the world and all the wonders that would be; iSaw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew Trom the nations' airy navies gTappling in the central blue; Far along the w^orld wide whispers of the south wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunderstorm, Till this war-drum throbbed no longer, arid the battle-flags were furled In the Parliament of man, the federation of the world; There the common sense of ^nost shall hold a fretful realm in pwe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in uni- versal l-w." Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 37 How this confederation is to be formed I am not quite sure, but the way is opening. It will begin with a compact of friendship between America and England; (I wonder how many of those senators who defeated that treaty would dare to vote against it today!) and when that is formed France can hardly hold aloof from it; and Switzerland, brave little Holland, Belgium and the Scandinavian countries will naturally gravitate toward it. As for the absolutist em- pires, let them stay outside, if they so decree; the power of such a confederation, like the magnetic mountain, will draw from the absolutist ships the very nails that hold them together, and internal' revolutions will sweep away the obstacles that hinder their fraternization with the other nations of the earth. The whole movement of humanity is developing this consciousness of unity; the governments that are most responsive to the thought of the people are most aware of it; it is not only those deep sea cables which join Eng- land with her colonies, but every other strand of steel that binds distant lands together of which Mr. Kipling's words are true : "Hush, men talk today o'er the waste of the ulti- mate slime. And a new word runs between, whispering, 'Let us be one!' " We cannot now wait for this great consum- mation; we must gird ourselves for the work on our hands. Only let us keep high aloft the 38 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. whitest banner ever flung to the breeze in any ^var between nations; let us know for ourselves of *a surety, and make all the world own, that the ^word which we draw is the sword bathed in heaven; that we are fighting not for territory or empire or national honor, but for the redress of wrongs not our own, for the -establishment of peace and justice on the earth. Is there not great peril in such an undertaking? Vast ])eril. To hold the nation to this high pur- pose is not an easy task. Yet we cannot fall be- low it. The Turk mav fisrht for greed or for vengeance and not be greatly damaged by it; the American cannot, without losing his soul. Any foreigii war which has not for its central purpose tlie welfare of humanity would curse this nation with a great curse. The real reason of this war is this highest rea- son. Man}^, no doubt, have urged this reason in- sincerely, but the heart of the nation would never have consented to war for any lower purpose. The war will be prosecuted in this spirit and for this end. Two things I hope for as the outcome of it : First, I trust that it will be made evident to everybody over the sea that America stands for something else besides the almighty dollar; that the people of this country can take great risks and make great sacrifices in a cause which promises them no selfish gain or aggrandizement. That demonstration will be worth a great deal to America ; it will strengthen the hopes of all who love liberty in the nations of the old world. Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 39 Secondj, I trust and believe that this lire of a consecrated purpose burning at the heart of the nation will help to consume the iniquities of our own national politics. This sublime idea that the nation lives not for itself alone, lifted up and glorified, ought to throw a revealing light into all our caucuses and council chambers. What place has the self-seeker in the service of such a nation? So long as international law teaches that the nation is a colossal egotist, seeking only its own advantage, the citizen seems justified in making the law of the nation the law of his own life. When we begin to understand that na- tions must live unselfishly, the citizen may be able to see that he cannot follow the career of a spoilsman. iSTations, like men, are saved not by law but by love, l"'© some of us it has long been evident that salvation could come to this people only through the enkindling of some high and pure passion in the national heart. Perhaps this ex- perience may awaken in us that enthusiasm of humanity by which the life is purified. In sav- ii -g others we may save ourselves.