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 GOV. ROOSEVELT'S "EXACT PARALLELS." 
 
 BY EDWIN D. MEAD. 
 
 Gov. Roosevelt's letter of acceptance 
 is mainly devoted to the discussion of 
 imperialism. "He presents here," says 
 one of his leading supporters, " an argu- 
 ment based upon the history of the for- 
 mer expansions of the country, which, 
 although not absolutely novel, has not 
 been elaborated before with so much 
 force and cleverness. His own exten- 
 sive studies in American history make 
 him at home here." If Mr. Roosevelt is 
 at home in American history, and espe- 
 cially in the history of the Louisiana pur- 
 chase, which is the chapter of history 
 which he chiefly discusses, he has con- 
 cealed the fact in his letter with a clever- 
 ness which is certainly conspicuous. 
 He says : — 
 
 The parallel between what Jefferson did with 
 Louisiana and what is now being done in the 
 Philippines is exact. He intended that ulti- 
 mately self-government should be introduced 
 throughout the territory, but only as the different 
 parts became fit for it, and no sooner. . . . 
 Years elapsed before the Louisianians were 
 given self-government, Jefferson appointing the 
 governor and other officials without any con- 
 sultation with the inhabitants of the newly ac- 
 quired territory. . . . The great majority of 
 the inhabitants, white and colored alike, were 
 bitterly opposed to the transfer. An armed 
 force of United States soldiers had to be hastily 
 sent into the territory to prevent insurrection, 
 President Jefferson sending these troops to 
 Louisiana for exactly the same reasons and with 
 exactly the same purpose that President Mc- 
 Kinley has sent troops to the Philippines. . . . 
 As soon as the present revolt in the I'hilippines 
 is put down and order established, it will un- 
 doubtedly be possible to give the islands a lar- 
 ger measure of self-government than Jefferson 
 originally gave Louisiana. 
 
 These are Mr. Roosevelt's six points. 
 Every historical scholar surely knows that 
 every one of them is utterly misleading 
 and most of them false. Mr. Roosevelt 
 knows it. I say it to his praise ; for his 
 credit as a scholar is more important 
 
 than his fame in melodrama. A histori- 
 cal scholar Mr. Roosevelt is ; and if I 
 were sure that readers would turn to his 
 own chapter upon the purchase of Louis- 
 iana, in his work upon "The Winning 
 of the West," where he has treated the 
 subject as a historian, instead of as a 
 reckless partisan, I would gladly stop 
 here, — for I should much prefer to let 
 him refute himself. There is no better 
 account of the Louisiana purchase and 
 the events following it than that there 
 given by Mr. Roosevelt, save only the 
 account by Henry Adams in his his- 
 tory of Jefferson's administration ; and 
 the account makes shipwreck of the 
 impression given in his letter of accept- 
 ance, besides emphasizing in a more 
 striking and powerful manner than any 
 other account whatever the point of 
 most fundamental importance in the 
 whole matter, upon wliich point his let- 
 ter of acceptance is absolutely silent. 
 
 The parallel between our relations to 
 Louisiana and our relations to the Philip- 
 pines fails at every point of controversy 
 or of significance. A condition of the 
 cession of Louisiana was the distinct pro- 
 vision that the inhabitants "shall be in- 
 corporated in the Union of the United 
 States" and in due course admitted to 
 statehood. A regular territorial govern- 
 ment with an elective Legislature and a 
 delegate to Congress was given the por- 
 tion of Louisiana which contained almost 
 the entire French and Spanish population 
 of the territory, March 2, 1805, less than 
 fifteen months after we took possession, 
 with clear understanding that statehood 
 was to follow in a few years, as it did. 
 There was no such degree of disaffection 
 of the people to tiie change as Mr. 
 Roosevelt intimates. There was no 
 danger at any time of insurrection 
 
t-^^^* 
 
 against the United States government, 
 springing from such disaffection, and no 
 hasty sending of troops to Louisiana 
 "for exactly the same reasons that Presi- 
 dent McKinley has sent troops to the 
 PhiUppines," — nothing whatever that 
 can truthfully be so described. The 
 Spanish minister at Washington, four 
 
 ment of all the advantages and immuni- 
 ties of citizens of the United States." 
 Does Mr. Roosevelt find an "exact par- 
 allel " to this in the treaty of Paris, by 
 which the Philippines were ceded to the 
 United States ? Did Laussat blue pen- 
 cil this article, in acquainting the people 
 of Louisiana with the provisions of the 
 
 onths after the purchase, protested treaty, in his proclamation ? It was the 
 
 against it, declaring that we had bought 
 stolen goods and that Spain was the 
 rightful owner; and his protests were so 
 energetic that Jefferson sent a strong 
 body of troops to Natchez. " The gov- 
 ernment of Spain," he wrote, "has pro- 
 tested against the right of France to 
 transfer, and it is possible she may re- 
 fuse possession, and that may bring on 
 acts of force." Some of the militia thus 
 assembled, together with a volunteer 
 company of horse, accompanied Wilkin- 
 son and Claiborne to New Orleans, as 
 an escort, to take possession and to gar- 
 rison the forts, from which the Spanish 
 garrisons were being withdrawn ; but this 
 was with no thought of a popular insur- 
 rection. Jefferson sent his troops to 
 Louisiana not to subject the people of 
 the territory, but to meet the threats of 
 the government of Spain. 
 
 "As soon as the present revolt in 
 the Philippines is put down," says Mr. 
 Roosevelt, " it will undoubtedly be pos- 
 sible to give the islands a larger meas- 
 ure of self-government than Jefferson 
 originally gave Louisiana." Here is the 
 disingenuousness of the partisan. By 
 "originally" Mr. Roosevelt means sim- 
 ply the provisional government -given 
 Louisiana immediately, pending the or- 
 ganization of a regular territorial gov- 
 ernment ; he says nothing of any farther 
 hope or promise, and is silent, in draw- 
 ing his "exact parallel," about the great 
 pledge and recognized ultimate obliga- 
 tion, in the light of which every early 
 and provisional act in Louisiana was 
 to be interfireted. The third article of 
 the treaty of cession provided that " the 
 inhabitants of the ceded territory shall 
 be incorporated into the Union of the 
 United States, and admitted as soon as 
 possible, according to the principles of 
 the federal constitution, to the enjoy- .repeating the declaration of the treaty, 
 
 ly J;.. '06 
 
 article to which he directed special at- 
 tention, the one thing in his proclama- 
 tion which he printed in italics; and he 
 added : — 
 
 Thus are you, Louisianians, suddenly invested 
 with the rights and privileges appertaining to a 
 free constitution and government, secured and 
 guaranteed by the force of arms, cemented by 
 treaties, and tested by time and experience. 
 You will be incorporated with a nation already 
 numerous and powerful, renowned besides for 
 its industry, its patriotism, and the degree of 
 civilization and knowledge it possesses, and 
 which by its rapid progress seems destined to 
 the most brilliant rank that a people ever en- 
 joyed on the face of the earth. By the nature 
 of the government of the United States, and of 
 the privileges upon the enjoyment of which you 
 immediately enter, vou will have, even under a 
 provisional government, popular rulers, whose 
 acts you will be at liberty to censure or to pro- 
 test against with impunity, and who will be per- 
 manently in need of your esteem, your suffrages, 
 and your affection. The public affairs and in- 
 terests, far from being interdicted to your con- 
 sideration, will be your own affairs and interests, 
 on which the opinions of wise and impartial men 
 will be sure to exercise, in the long run, a pre- 
 ponderating influence, and to which you could 
 not even remain indifferent without exposing 
 yourselves to bitter repentance. The time will 
 soon come when you will establish for yourselves 
 a form of government which, although respect- 
 ing the sacred jirinciples consecrated in the 
 social pact of the federal union, will be adapted 
 to your manners, your usages, your climate, 
 your soil, and your peculiar localities. 
 
 Does Mr. Roosevelt find an "exact 
 parallel " between this proclamation and 
 that of President McKinley in the Phil- 
 ippines, in December, 1898, even after 
 General Otis had done his utmost edi- 
 torial work upon h? Does he find any 
 parallel in any address to the people of 
 the Philippines by General Otis, or 
 President Schurman, or Judge Taft, to 
 the address by Commissioner Claiborne 
 upon taking possession of Louisiana in 
 the name of the United States, in which, 
 
he assured the people that "the United 
 States received them as brothers, and 
 would hasten to extend to them a par- 
 ticipation in the invaluable rights form- 
 ing the basis of their own unexampled 
 
 >_ prosperity?" Does he find the account 
 
 ^ ^ of any ceremony in Manila parallel to 
 
 L_ J that by which, in the presence of Laus- 
 
 •^ sat, the French prefect, and Claiborne, 
 
 ^ the right of the people to choice of 
 
 /^ allegiance was recognized? 
 
 Whether the transfer of sovereignty in 
 Louisiana from France to the United 
 States was the occasion of violence to 
 many tender ties may be judged from 
 the fact that the French domination had 
 lasted just twenty days, after a Spanish 
 government of thirty-four years. The 
 news of the annexation to France had 
 been welcomed at New Orleans with 
 general rejoicing, as was natural, for the 
 city was more French than Spanish ; but 
 the representative citizens hastened to 
 assure Laussat that they had " no cause 
 of complaint against the Spanish govern- 
 ment." Both Spanish and French would, 
 doubtless, for the most part, have pre- 
 ferred French sovereignty to American ; 
 but resistance to the transfer of the 
 province there was none, and there was 
 largely indifference. Mr. Roosevelt as- 
 sured us four years ago that the French 
 at New Orleans accepted their rapidly 
 changing fates "with something very 
 much like apathy," their joy^ at cession 
 to France being " tepid," and their feel- 
 ing toward us being that of " a puzzled 
 distrust." The chief thing at which they 
 murmured afterward was our prohibi- 
 tion of the importation of slaves into 
 Louisiana. Mr. Roosevelt was uncer- 
 tain, four years ago, whether their mur- 
 murings "did or did not comport with 
 entire loyalty to the United States gov- 
 ernment." He is probably not uncer- 
 tain today as to the feeling we have 
 earned from the people of Luzon, and 
 whether that feeling is expressed in 
 something plainer than murmurings. 
 
 When Laussat received notice of the 
 cession to the United States, he at once 
 gathered, he tells us, " what Louisiana 
 possesses of most respectable and dis- 
 tinguished, within thirty miles, in point 
 
 of reputation, virtue, talent, influence, 
 and wealth," explained to tiiem the sit- 
 uation and asked their co-operation, 
 which was courteously promised. The 
 Spanish commissioner, recognizing the 
 interchanges as mere formalities, offered 
 the services of their own troops to the 
 French until the arrival of the Ameri- 
 cans. " From the moment of the ces- 
 sion," Laussat wrote, " Casa Calvo (the 
 Spanish governor) has behaved toward 
 me with exquisite politeness." So far 
 from the time of these mutations being 
 a lugubrious time, it was a time of mutual 
 festivities and big dinners. A large 
 number of young Frenchmen, sons of 
 the best families, joined the volunteer 
 battalion organized by the American 
 consul to police the city until the arrival 
 of the American commissioners, and 
 the historian says: "The French, by 
 their zeal, vigilance and patriotism 
 during their time of service, proved 
 themselves worthy of American citizen- 
 ship." 
 
 The Frenchmen did not love us; why 
 should they? They were silent enough 
 when their flag went down and ours went 
 up — and we do not think the worse of 
 them for that. But they did not regard 
 it as any blow or menace to their polit- 
 ical aspirations; there was no parallel 
 whatever to the feeling which drove the 
 people of Luzon to war. The Spanish 
 royalists hated us and our republican- 
 ism ; a few sisters of charity thought the 
 world was coming to an end ; but the 
 mass of the people accepted the change 
 with complacency, as they had accepted 
 five other similar changes which had oc- 
 curred within the lifetime of men then 
 living. The Spanish officers stayed in 
 New Orleans for a year, making mis- 
 chief; presently Aaron Burr came, try- 
 ing to foment treason there as in other 
 places in the Southwest, inside and out- 
 side of Louisiana ; and the city was full 
 of filibusters — largely, it must be con- 
 fessed, Americans — plotting against 
 Mexico. Wiiat trouble there was in 
 Louisiana sprang from these three 
 sources ; any popular uprising or oppo- 
 sition, from any class of the people, 
 offering any analogy whatever to the 
 
resentment and resistance in Luzon, 
 never appeared and never impended. 
 The people certainly had grievances 
 enough ; and if they had made more 
 protest than they did, it would not have 
 been to their discredit. Most violent 
 things were said about them in Congress 
 — some of the worst by Massachusetts 
 men. Our two commissioners, sent to 
 organize them, were as unsuitable and 
 offensive as President Schurman and 
 Judge Taft have been intelligent and 
 courteous. Here Mr. Roosevelt's par- 
 allel fails again, — and for once to our 
 credit. Schurman and Taft have been 
 good men in bad business ; Claiborne 
 and Wilkinson were bad men in good 
 business. What trouble there was in 
 New Orleans sprang not from bad poli- 
 tics, but from bad manners. It was the 
 arrogance and vulgarity of the .Ameri- 
 cans, contrasting so rudely with the 
 civility and refinement of Laussat, that 
 exasperated the better people of New 
 Orleans. Major Stoddard, the governor 
 sent to St. Louis, was a gentleman ; and 
 " in all the changes there," the historian 
 of St. Louis tells us, ''■ the public peace, 
 or course of business or amusement, was 
 not checked or disturbed; on the con- 
 trary, the kindest and most hospitable 
 feeling everywhere manifested itself." 
 The abuses which ensued at New 
 Orleans would have been rectified im- 
 mediately if it had not taken months to 
 exchange communications with Wash- 
 ington, instead of a few hours, as in the 
 case of Manila. The provisional gov- 
 ernment was limited by law to one year; 
 but in deference to the remonstrances 
 from New Orleans, regular territorial 
 government was instituted even before 
 that term expired, with the promise of 
 statehood to Louisiana as soon as her 
 population reached" 60,000, the number 
 fixed for statehood in connectioiT with 
 the Northwest territory. As a matter of 
 fact, Louisiana was admitted to statehood 
 before either Indiana or Illinois; and 
 two other states, Missouri and Arkansas, 
 were constituted from the Louisiana pur- 
 chase, while Michigan and Wisconsin of 
 the old Northwest territory still waited 
 for statehood. Our promise to treat the 
 
 Louisiana territory according to our reg- 
 ular principles in dealing with our other 
 territory was faithfully and absolutely 
 kept. 
 
 This is the sum and substance of the 
 politics of the Louisiana question. What 
 was the common sense of it .-• The Louis- 
 iana purchase, which doubled the area 
 of the United States, comprised almost 
 a million square miles, almost the en- 
 tire region between the Mississippi river 
 and the Rocky mountains north of Texas. 
 The dozen states created from it have 
 now a population of perhaps fifteen mil- 
 lions ; but in 1803 it was practically un- 
 inhabited. Roving over the whole terri- 
 tory were perhaps 30,000 Indians. The 
 total negro and white population was 
 not twice that number ; and the Louis- 
 iana question really resolved itself into 
 the question of the few thousand French 
 and Spaniards in and about the city of 
 New Orleans. The white population of 
 the territory was already largely Ameri- 
 can. In upper Louisiana, the St. Louis 
 region, there were at the time of the ces- 
 sion, 5,000 Americans, against 3,760 
 French and Spanish together. In the 
 Baton Rouge district the Americans 
 were " in a great majority ; " and in 
 other districts "a considerable part," 
 says the official report, were" American. 
 There were doubtless more Americans 
 than Spanish ; and in ten years, even if 
 there had been no cession, there would 
 have been more Americans than Span- 
 ish and French together — for our peo- 
 ple were everywhere pushing into the 
 territory, whose rivers were their great 
 highways of trade. It is not at all im- 
 probable, in view of all the facts and 
 clear tendencies, that could a popular 
 vote have been held upon the cession in 
 1803, it would have approved it ; it cer- 
 tainly would have, by the natural Ameri- 
 can increase, while men were still won- 
 dering whether it would or not. The 
 " consent of the governed " — and more 
 than that, the urgent demand of the 
 governed, as Mr. Roosevelt, the histo- 
 rian, so impressively shows — potentially 
 existed, and everybody knew it. 
 
 Who were the few thousand French- 
 men at New Orleans concernins: whom 
 
all this pother is about, and what were 
 their real feelings toward the country? 
 The great work on early Louisiana his- 
 tory is that by Charles Gayarre' ; and 
 this is what he says, speaking of the gen- 
 eration before the cession : — 
 
 Those who came to Louisiana never con- 
 sidered that they had found a home in her 
 bosom. With the exception, perhaps, of the 
 Acadians and of the Germans, whom Law had 
 sent to the colony in 1722, those whom she re- 
 ceived in her lap were not grateful for the hos- 
 pitality, and deemed themselves miserable exiles. 
 All the military officers and other persons em- 
 ployed by the government had but one object, 
 that of obtaining promotion for their services 
 here, and of making nionev, by fair or foul 
 means, according to their different dispositions, 
 in order to return with ampler means of enjoy- 
 ment to their cherished native country. With 
 regard to the population not composed of offi- 
 cials, a good many had been transported to 
 Louisiana by force, and detested a country 
 which they looked on as a prison. Others had 
 been deceived by wild hojjes and exaggerated 
 representations of what they were to expect in 
 Louisiana. They smarted under the anguish of 
 disappointment, and if they labored at all, it was 
 to acquire means to get back, — and they even 
 impregnated their offspring with these notions. 
 Louisiana was a mere place of temporary so- 
 journ, nothing better than a caravansary, but no 
 home for any one. There were none of those 
 associations, not a link of that mystic chain con- 
 necting the present with the past and the future, 
 which produce an attachment to locality. The 
 waters of patriotism had not yet gushed from 
 their spring to fertilize the land. 
 
 If this does not exactly describe the 
 French sentiment at New Orleans in 
 1803, it almost describes it; and it ex- 
 actly describes the Spanish sentiment. 
 Parallel between this sentiment and the 
 patriotism of the Filipino people, their 
 love of home, their identification with 
 the soil, the devotion which created their 
 armies for their struggle for independ- 
 ence, there is none. In the one case, a 
 few thousand unattached and miscella- 
 neous squatters, aU told not equal in 
 number to the population of Springfield, 
 Mass., rapidly being outnumbered by us 
 in natural course, with no desire or 
 dream of independence or distinct na- 
 tional life; in the other, an immense 
 permanent people, with generations of 
 association and tradition, intense lovers 
 of their country, and the aspiration for 
 freedom and independence their master 
 
 passion. This is what the "parallel" 
 between the people of New Orleans and 
 the people of Alanila comes to. The 
 parallel between our subjugating army 
 of 70,000 men, who in no possible time 
 of peace will ever be followed to Luzon 
 by 7,000 American exotics, and the 
 American people in their natural rela- 
 tions to Louisiana in 1803, can best be 
 considered in the description of the 
 latter by Mr. Roosevelt, the historian. 
 Upon this point, the crucial point in the 
 whole matter, Mr. Roosevelt, tlie imperi- 
 alist candidate, is silent; but the express 
 purpose of Mr. Roosevelt's chapter on 
 the purchase of Louisiana, in his history, 
 written only four years ago ("The Win- 
 ning of the West," vol. iv., p. 258, etc.), 
 is precisely to show that there is no 
 parallel between "gaining territory by 
 armed force and retaining it by treaty " 
 and the conditions of our acquisition of 
 Louisiana. This is what he says — and 
 it is the whole truth of the matter : — 
 
 " In 1802 American settlers were already clus- 
 tered here and there on the eastern fringe of 
 the vast region whicli then went by the name of 
 Louisiana. All the stalwart freemen who had 
 made their rude clearings and built their rude 
 towns on the hither side of the mighty Mississ- 
 ippi were straining with eager desire aj^ainst the 
 forces which withheld them from seizing with 
 strong hand the coveted province. . . . The 
 winning of Louisiana followed inevitably upon 
 the great westward thrust of the settler folk. . . 
 The navigation of the mouth of the Mississippi 
 seemed to them of the first importance. . . . 
 Upper Louisiana was owned by the Spaniards 
 only in sliadowy fashion, and could not have 
 been held by any luiropcan ]iower against the 
 sturdy westward pressure of the rifle-bearing 
 settlers ; it is improl)able that its fate would 
 even have been seriously delayed had it re- 
 mained nominally under the control of France 
 or Spain. . . . The mouth of the Mississippi 
 was held to be of right the projierty of the 
 United States. . . . Even Jefferson could see 
 that for the Frencli to take Louisiana meant 
 war with the United States. ... A faith- 
 ful French agent sent a report to Napoleon 
 plainly pointing out ti>e impossibility of perma- 
 nently holding Louisiana against the Americans. 
 He showed that on the western waters alone it 
 would be possil>le to gather armies amounting 
 in the aggregate to 20,000 or 30,000 men, all of 
 them inflamed with the, eager desire to take 
 New Orleans." The Sjjaniards left Natchez be- 
 cause thev were "fairly drowned out " by the 
 American settlers and soldiers ; they now felt 
 the same |)ressure upon them in New Orleans. . 
 " The surrender of Louisiana" — this was Mr. 
 
Roosevelt's sensible conclusion — " was due 
 primarily to the steady pushing and crowding 
 of the frontiersmen. It was not the diplomats 
 who decided its destiny, but the settlers of the 
 western states. The growth of the teeming 
 folk who had crossed the Alleghanies, and were 
 building their vigorous commonwealths in the 
 northeastern portion of the Mississippi basin 
 decided the destiny of all the lands that were 
 drained by that mighty river. The steady west- 
 ward movement of the Americans was the all- 
 important factor in determining the ultimate 
 ownership of New Orleans." 
 
 Was it crowding American settlers, 
 and not armies and diplomats, who de- 
 cided the destiny of Luzon ? Even Mr. 
 Roosevelt in 1900 will not press the par- 
 allel. In truth, there are no parallels 
 which are skin deep. In connection with 
 the changes in Louisiana there was, we 
 all well know, some personal hardship and 
 grief, such as is incident to almost every- 
 thing in life ; there was a good deal of 
 hyper-theoretics on the one side and the 
 other; there was some playing fast and 
 loose with obligation ; but these were 
 most superficial and temporary things 
 — and did not affect for a moment the 
 nation's course. We took formal pos- 
 session of a territory where we were sure 
 to be in an actual majority on the mor- 
 row ; we promised the people the same 
 treatment given the people in the rest of 
 our territory; and we faithfully kept our 
 word. That is the whole of the Louis- 
 iana story. No, there is one thing 
 more ; and for my own part I am very 
 glad to add it, in the words of Mr. 
 Adams : We proved once for ail " that 
 the hopes of humanity lay thenceforward, 
 not in attempting to restrain the govern- 
 ment from doing whatever the majority 
 should think necessary, but in raising 
 the people themselves till they should 
 think nothing necessary but what was 
 good." 
 
 Does Mr. Roosevelt see only an 
 " exact parallel " between this chapter 
 of our history and the chapter in the 
 Philippines, which began with Mr. Mc- 
 Kinley's proclamation of December, 
 1898 ; no difference between this and 
 the procedure by which a great republic 
 bought a rotten title to the sovereignty 
 over a whole people in the throes of 
 revolution, struggling for freedom and 
 
 independence — a people, moreover, who 
 had trustingly fought by its side against 
 the common enemy — and then, with its 
 superior resources supplanting the former 
 sovereign, turned to subjugate them to 
 its own ends, expressly refusing them 
 for any future any pledge of citizenship, 
 either through independence or incorpo- 
 ration, making them forever men without 
 a country ? 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt, in speaking of the atti- 
 tude of his opponents on finance, says : 
 "They are either insincere or sincere in 
 their championship. If insincere, they, 
 of course, forfeit all right to belief or 
 support on any ground. If sincere, then 
 they are a menace to the welfare of the 
 country." If Mr. Roosevelt is sincere 
 in professing that he can see only an 
 exact parallel between Jefferson's atti- 
 tude toward Louisiana and McKinley's 
 toward the Philippines, then surely never 
 was a man more unfit to be intrusted 
 with the guidance of a great republic. 
 
 In truth, Mr. Roosevelt knows well 
 that Mr. McKinley intends no " ultimate 
 self-government" in the Philippines like 
 that which was a thing of course to Jef- 
 ferson for Louisiana. He knows that 
 no sane or sincere man who did intend 
 it would fight inveterately any declara- 
 tion of that intention — which declara- 
 tion would instantly bring peace and 
 friendship. He knows what the high 
 pledge was which was given to Louisiana 
 in advance, while the people of Luzon 
 have waited vainly for any pledge what- 
 ever as to their ultimate status, such as 
 might content them with any fair pro- 
 visional government ; and he knows that 
 the administration has persistently re- 
 fused, and that he would refuse today, 
 that pledge, which is the only thing of 
 moment when we talk of "parallels." 
 He knows that what this election is 
 about is to determine whether the Amer- 
 ican people will declare, by their indorse- 
 ment of Mr. McKinley, that they count 
 it safe and right for this republic to do 
 this thing. 
 
 I shall not follow Mr. Roosevelt to 
 Florida or Texas or New Mexico. All 
 tell one story. The Louisiana case is 
 the great case, and that on which men 
 
like to ring the changes. I think that 
 I have shown that it has no bearing on 
 the case now before the country, nor on 
 the whole question of imperialism. The 
 very words of the pledge to the people 
 of Louisiana became the form in which 
 we plighted faith to succeeding acquisi- 
 tions. It was not until the taking of the 
 Philippines that — it is understood at 
 Mr. McKinley's own instance — we re- 
 fused any pledge, and declared that we 
 reserved it to ourselves to determine the 
 civil rights and political status of the 
 people of the ceded country. It was 
 then that the republican way, on our 
 part, was supplanted by the imperial 
 
 way, and tiiat the parallelism between 
 our past and present ceased. 
 
 We have a right therefore to ask that, 
 whatever appeals for the present course 
 may be valid, the appeal to history cease. 
 Appeals to precedent even in behalf of 
 good and wise policies are often slavish ; 
 tlie false appeal to precedent, to white- 
 wash wickedness, is pitiful indeed. It 
 may be that we are fated to be the an- 
 cestors of generations that can see no 
 difference between our course in Louis- 
 iana and our course in Luzon ; but let 
 us not be so cowardly and impious as to 
 plead that we are descendants of such 
 men. 
 
LiBKHKY Uh CUNUKtbb 
 
 013 744 835 fl 
 
 ORGANIZE THE WORLD. 
 
 RANTS ''ETERNAL PEACE: 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER'S MORE EXCEL- 
 LENT WAY. 
 
 By Edwin D. Mead. Three Tracts in behalf of 
 permanent peace. 3 cents per copy, $1.50 per 
 hundred copies, $10 per thousand. Peace Crusade 
 Committee^ I Beacon Street, Boston.