^mr 'Y^ILE«'¥]MII¥IEI^SiIT¥- ytm-^'mv ¦ '"^¦'nmnv^ THE CRISIS OF THE REPUBLIC BY GEO. S. BOUTWELL BOSTON DANA ESTES & COMPANY 1900 roi'YKIOHT, 1900, Bv DaKA KSTES A.M> CO.MI'ANY. CONTENTS POLICV I Ixtroductorv Note II The Venezuelan Question and The Monroe Doctrine III International Arbitration IV Hawaiian Annexation V War, and a Cha.nge of Our Public VI Problems raised by the War . VII Isolation and I.mperialism VIII Peace or War .... I.X Imperialists or Republicans X Self-Goverxment or Tyranny . XI Imperialis.m and Anti-Imperialism XII Un-republican Policy of President McKinley XIII Address to the People ... .XIV Letter to a Meeting of Laboring Men .X\' The War of Despotism in the Philippine Islands, .X\'I Letters to the Chicago Conference, addressed to Edwin Burnett Smith and Erving Winslow, Index PAGR I 5 29 4' 53 6S 89 105121 137 «S7 177 181187 191 2! I 213 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. The publication of these papers is due to the generosity of my friend, Mr. Dana Estes. He has assumed, voluntarily, the cost of the publication, and in case of a profit from the sale of the book, that profit will be passed to the Anti- Imperialist League as a contribution to its means of influence. Geo. S. Boutwell. Boston, November i, 1899. THE VENEZUELAN QUESTION and THE MONROE DOCTRINE THE VENEZUELAN QUESTION AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE. It is my purpose in this article to set forth the views that I entertain of the positions taken by the Executive Depart ment of our Government touching the controversy that, for man>' \-ears, has e.xisted between Great Britain and Venezuela as to the boundaries of the latter country on the line of the colony of British Guiana. Next, it is my purpose to consider the circumstances in which the Monroe doctrine had its rise, its scope as it was understood originally, and then to examine the proposals now made for the enlargement of its scope to national and inter national relations not contemplated by its authors. I may then indulge myself in some observations on the aspect of affairs as they appear to be connected with the Venezuelan controversy. If, in the opinion of anyone, an American citizen, though a private citizen only, may need an apology or an excuse for presenting his views to the public, he may find, not an apology, nor an excuse merely, but full justification in the fact that that controversy has become a menace of war between Great Britain and the United States. If we include the colonies of Great Britain, that menace assails directly not less than one-twelfth part of the civilized inhabitants of the globe ; and if that menace should become an event, the business relations of men and the political relations of states would be disturbed seriously over the whole western world. Do I assume anything beyond what is justified by the record when I say that the positions taken by the Executive Department are a menace of war? What are those positions? From the record they appear to be these, viz. : Note.— From the Boston Herald oi Feb. 2, 1896. First. Great Britain, having refused to submit to arbitra tion the question of boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana, the President, with the assent of Congress, has appointed a commission of five persons, who are charged with the duty of ascertaining the true boundary line between Venezuela and British Guiana, and reporting thereon. Second. " When such report is made and accepted it will," in the opinion of the President, " be the duty of the United States to resist, by every means in its power, as a wilful aggression upon its rights and interests, the appropria tion by Great Britain of any lands, or the exercise of govern mental jurisdiction over any territory which, after investigation, we have determined of right belongs to Venezuela." Such is the President's opinion, and these are the President's words in his message of Dec. 17, 1895. As I am dealing with the positions of the executive branch of the Government, it is not necessary for me to qualify my argument by the statement that the President is not clothed with power to enforce his opinions ; but it is also true that the official opinions of a President are entitled to great con sideration, and that such consideration is accorded to them at home and abroad. As an illustration, it is to be said that the Monroe doctrine, which is involved, or is supposed to be involved, in this con troversy, had its origin, as a public declaration, in President Monroe's message of 1823. The authority of that declaration, which continues to this day, has its chief support in the fact that it was the official utterance of a President, although its scope was not defined by President Monroe, nor has its binding obligation upon the country been recognized dis tinctly by any act of Congress. Indeed, of many resolutions that have been introduced in the House of Representatives, not one has received the con current affirmative action of the two houses. It is not, however, to be inferred from this non-action that the country is not quite unanimous in favor of the Monroe doctrine, but upon some theory of its scope, which, as yet, has not been defined. The gravity of tlic situation has been made more serious by the circumstance that Congress indorsed so much of the Presi dent's plan as was involved in the creation of a commission ; and by the additional circumstance that his policy has been indorsed in substance, if not in e.xact form, by influential presses and by leading statesmen of the majority party of the country, that, upon all questions of domestic policy, is opposed to the policy of the President. Beyond this, and more serious, possibly, than all this, the war spirit has been aroused, especially among the youth of the country, who know not what war is, and contributions to the rising war spirit are made in the Senate by propositions to increase our naval armaments to an equality with the arma ments of England. Simultaneously with these propositions in the Senate of the United States there comes the rumor that the mind of England is being directed to the subject of the enlargement of her navy, by an addition that, of itself, will e.xceed the total naval armament of the United States. Are these prep arations preparations for peace or are they for war? With the material of war accumulated, and the war spirit aroused in a hundred million people, who can be responsible for the peace of the world? We are assured, however, by those who demand an imme diate increase of naval force, that there will be no war. If not, then why the force? Is England to be deterred from war by the magnitude of our means for prosecuting war? I think not. She will be controlled by other considerations, as we shall be controlled by other considerations. In these days war should not be undertaken except for the preservation of national honor, or the protection of public or private rights — rights not merely menaced, but actually invaded. As I go on I shall consider the means of escape from the calamity of war, if, indeed, any honorable means of escape can be found, if we follow in the path that the President has marked out. 8 But first, and as preliminary, I ask attention more specif ically to the two propositions as I have presented them, and which appear to be embodied in the President's pohcy. It is assumed by the President that England, by its refusal to submit the question of boundary to arbitration, has failed in some duty that rested upon her as one nation in the family of nations. If the so-called law of nations be considered as a code, which, assuredly, it is not, its rules are silent in regard to arbitration. The obligations resting upon states to submit questions in controversy to the decision of arbitrators are obligations which are moral in their quality, or obligations which spring from considerations of state policy. V/e must all agree that nations and peoples should insist upon arbitration as the wisest means of adjusting controver sies between states. At the end, however, the admission must be made that in the absence of treaty stipulations between particular states, nations in controversy with each other are free as to the method of adjustment. If, then, England cannot be arraigned for refusing to sub mit the question of boundaries to the judgment of arbitrators, it may yet be said that her present position is not a tenable position. She has recognized the propriety of submitting her rights to arbitration as to certain territory in controversy, and then she assumes to decide what territory is in controversy. As between nations, there may be a claim to territory by one party that the opposing party could not submit to arbi tration. If, as an example, Mexico should now claim the territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, we should decline to submit that claim to arbitration. Our reason would be apparent. Our paper evidence of title is complete. It is known of all men ; and for nearly two generations our occupancy has been actual, it has been uninterrupted, it has never been disputed. To the demand of England for an arbitration to fix the boundaries of Alaska we could make no such answer. The grave question is this: Has England such evidence of title to the territory within the Schomburgk line that its presentation would at once and without debate satisfy impar tial men that her claim is valid? If such evidence exists England's error in not having pre sented this evidence a long time ago is a most serious error, and, apparently, without excuse. Her omission to present such evidence, and her admissions as to the nature of the evidence which is at her command, warrant the conclusion, for the time being, that such evidence does not e.xist. It is admitted by Lord Salisbury in his dispatch of Nov. 26, 1895, that the Schomburgk line when it was run was a tentative line ; that the man whose name it bears made no attempt to follow any authoritative chart, treaty or historical descriptive account of the boundaries of the two countries. Lord Salisbury admits, further, in the dispatch referred to, what was alleged by Mr. Olney, that it " seems impossible to treat the Schomburgk line as being the boundary claimed by Great Britain as a matter of right, or as anything but a line originating in considerations of convenience and expedi ency." This admission relates to the year 1 840, and in that year the British Government refused to enter into a treaty of boundaries, and for the reason that a survey was a necessary preliminary, and that the survey was then proceeding. From these admitted facts some conclusions are deducible, viz. : That whatever may have been the rights of Great Britain under Spain and the Danish treaty, yet, in 1840, there had been no authorized delimitation of the territory of British Guiana from the contiguous territory of Venezuela. And, secondly, that in the survey of 1840, Schomburgk made no attempt to follow the treaties, or to ascertain whether, during the rule of Spain, any line had been observed by both parties as the line either of occupation or of jurisdic tion. Third : That Venezuela has never assented to the Schomburgk line. Upon these facts and this analysis it is difficult to under stand how England can claim that the territory within the Schomburgk line is territory not in controversy. IO Other admissions of Lord Salisbury tend to show that the Schomburgk line is an arbitrary line. We know that it was run ex parte, and, consequently, it has no binding force upon Venezuela. Lord Salisbury says: "The Schomburgk line was in fact a great reduction of the boundary claimed by Great Britain as matter of right." Again, he says of the British claim : " It will be seen from the preceding statement that the Government of Great Britain have from the first held the same view as to the extent of ter ritory which they are entitled to claim as matter of right. It comprised the coast line up to the river Amacura, and the whole basin of the Essequibo river and its tributaries." This statement is a declaration, in substance, that the title on which England rests for support of its claim to the territory within the Schomburgk line covers the entire valley of the Essequibo river. It follows further from this statement that if any portion of the territory in the valley of the Essequibo river is the subject of controversy, then the territory of the entire valley is the subject of controversy, for there is no pre tence by England that any line has been drawn through the valley, within the limits of the territory in dispute, to which Venezuela has assented. Another statement by Lord Salisbury leads to the same conclusion : " A portion of that claim, however, they " — that is, the British Government — "have always been willing to waive altogether ; in regard to another portion they have been and continue to be perfectly ready to submit the ques tion of their title to arbitration." England's position is this : Our title is one and the same to the entire valley of the Essequibo river. As to a portion of this valley, we surrender it to Venezuela without inquiry and without compensation. We are willing to submit the question of the validity of our title to a second portion to the decision of arbitrators ; but the remainder we claim by a valid title, and we will not submit the question to inquiry or to the judgment of anyone. 1 1 In die concluding paragraph of Lord Salisbury's dispatch he makes a statement which is well worthy of serious consid eration. Speaking of the British Government, he says : " They cannot consent to entertain, or to submit to arbitra tion of another power, or of foreign jurists, however eminent, claims based on the extravagant pretensions of Spanish offi cials in the last century, and involving the transfer of large numbers of British subjects, who have for many years enjoyed the settled rule of a British colony, to a nation of a different race and language, whose political system is sub ject to frequent disturbance, and whose institutions as yet too often afford very inadequate protection to life and property." Without considering the necessity or the propriety of the statements contained in the last branch of this sentence, it is yet true that the allegation that there are resident upon the territory claimed by Venezuela "large numbers of British subjects, who have for many years enjoyed the settled rule of a British colony," opened the way for the further exercise of the good offices of the United States. Among the calamities which have fallen upon mankind there are but few which are more serious than the forcible transfer of populations from one jurisdiction to another. The statement of Lord Salisbury opened the way for an adjustment upon a new basis — the cession to Great Britain of the territory occupied by British subjects, on the condition that Venezuela should be compensated for whatever loss of jurisdiction she might suffer. Neither the Secretary of State nor the President saw the way that was thus opened, and in one sentence the President transferred the controversy, as far as the Executive Department of our Government could act, from the field of negotiation, of arbitrament, of possible ami cable adjustment, to the alternative of force, or the submission by Great Britain to the ex parte judgment of the United States as to the nature and extent of England's jurisdiction in British Guiana. This for the reason that Great Britain had refused to sub- 12 mit the controversy, in all its fullness, to the decision of arbi trators. I have attempted to show that Great Britain erred in that respect, but, even if I am correct in the conclusion reached, the fact remains that Great Britain was not bound to arbitrate the question. There is no treaty to that effect between Great Britain and Venezuela, nor between Great Britain and the United States, and at the end, as has been said, the law of nations is silent. If this be so, then it may be asserted that on that seven teenth day of December Great Britain had not done any act nor taken any position of which we had a right to complain. The Monroe doctrine, however broad may be the interpreta tion given to it, had not been violated in any particular. On the contrary, it might happen that it would not be violated. At that moment there were possible ways of adjustment with out resorting to arbitration. Indeed, the President suggested a way : An agreement with Venezuela, and that without regard to the wishes, interests or rights of the United States. To this theory of the Monroe doctrine I do not give my assent without qualification, although I cannot anticipate the consummation of any arrangement between Great Britain and Venezuela which could give rise to any objection on the part of the United States. The President has committed the Executive Department to that doctrine for the time being, but I do not anticipate its ratification by Congress or by the country. The Monroe doctrine is not for the benefit, primarily, of Venezuela, or any other American state, but first for the pro tection of the interests and rights of the United States, and then in aid of the acceptance and maintenance of republican institutions on this continent. Within these limits the United States is concerned in whatever is done in or by any other American state, either by aggressions from without or by the inauguration of a dangerous public policy from within. If Mexico had been content to accept Maximilian as emperor, our right of intervention would have been what it was when his attempt at empire was supported by the armies of France, and when the\- were acting in hostility to the authorities and people of Mexico. The Presiiknt's position may be accepted for the oxistiiii; case of lingland and Ven ezuela, but, as a doctrine, applicable to all cases that may arise, it should be rejected. Kindred to this error is the error of Senator Lodge, who recognizes the act of the British authorities at Corinto as an unobjectionable proceeding. In the particular case, the sei zure of the custom-house at Corinto may not have been prop erly the subject of adverse comment on our part, but we may assume the seizure of all the custom-houses of a countr\-, and then, for the purpose of securing or of increasing the revenues, the occupation might be extended to the sources of revenue and the means of communication, and thus the main features of administration might pass into the control of the invading party. It is an infelicit}- of the situation in which the countr}- has been placed by the President, that Great Britain is challenged by a threat that force will be resorted to when a conclusion shall have been reached by the United States, if that conclu sion should not be accepted by Great Britain. It is by no means certain that the Commission can reach an}- trustworthy conclusion, and there is but little prospect that Congress would sanction any line upon the understanding or declara tion that the " United States would resist, by every means in its power, as a wilful aggression upon its rights and interests, the appropriation by Great Britain of any lands or the exer cise of governmental jurisdiction over any territory which, after investigation, we had determined of right" belonged to Venezuela. Would it not have been wise for the President to have instituted the commission, waited for its report, and invited the judgment of Congress upon its merits, and all in advance of a hostile declaration ? '' Any one of several results may happen, and the happening 14 of any one of them may place the Executive Department of the Government in an unenviable position. The Commission may find that the claim of Great Britain is sustained by the evidence ; or it may find that the evidence is insufficient to warrant the recognition of any line upon legal and historical grounds ; or the Commission may divide in opinion, in which case the majority and minority reports would be alike valueless as the basis of definite action. Either of these results, however disagreeable it might be to the executive branch of the Government, would be a most fortunate event for the country. No further thought would be given to the threat of the President, and the menace of war would disappear as suddenly as it came. I return to one aspect of this case which, as far as its his tory is known to me, is presented to the country for the first time in Lord Salisbury's dispatch of Nov. 22. If, as is alleged, there are considerable numbers of British subjects, who are residents upon the territory in dispute, who speak the English language, and who are accustomed to English law, Venezuela ought not to demand the transfer of that territory; and the United States should not be con tent with the exercise of its good offices merely ; it should exert its active influence in aid of the cession to England of the territory so occupied, assuming, always, reasonable com pensation to Venezuela, in case a right to compensation should ,be established. Nor can Venezuela afford to assume jurisdiction of a con siderable body of people who cannot speak the language of the country, and who for generations may fail to understand and accept its institutions and laws. The fact seems to open a way for an adjustment of the controver.sy upon a basis which recognizes the claims of those who are most interested in the settlement of the question. It is a case in which justice to men may be set off against claims of jurisdiction, whether derived from ancient discov- eries, from conquest, or from treaties signed under duress at the end of unsuccessful wars. In dealing with the Monroe doctrine attention must be directed to several points : its meaning, as the doctrine was understood by its authors ; the obligations which the doc trine imposes upon the United States ; the limitations that it imposes upon foreign states if it shall be observed by them ; and, lastl\-, whether the original scope of the doctrine should be changed in presence of the fact that our influence in the familj' of nations has been increased immensely since 1S23. The first announcement of the doctrine is reported by Mr. Adams in his diarj- under date of July 17, 1823. He recites a conversation that he had that day with Baron Tuyl, the Russian minister, and he then adds: "I told him specially that we should contest the right of Russia to any territorial establishment on this continent, and that we should assume distinctly the principle that the American continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial establish ments." This declaration is of two parts : that which relates to Russia and that which relates to the states of Europe. The part relating to Russia is of no importance at this time. In the December following President Monroe announced the doctrine to Congress, to the country and to the world. After reciting the facts of negotiations with Russia and Eng land, he says: " In the discussions to which this interest has given rise and in the arrangements by which they may ter minate, the occasion has been judged proper for asserting as a principle, in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power." If we accept the natural and common meaning of the words used by Mr. Adams and by President Monroe, our i6 conclusions must be these, viz. : That the then existing colo nies and territories of European nations were recognized as valid, and to be respected by us ; and, second, that any future colonization would not be recognized by us. The message does not contain any threats, nor even a statement of our purposes in case the declaration of Presi dent Monroe should not be observed by the states of Europe. With a single exception — the advent of Maxi milian into Mexico — the declaration has been observed through a period of nearly three-fourths of a century. We know what colonization is. There is no ambiguity in the word. It is the establishment of a government where none before existed, or it is the substitution of a new gov ernment for a government previously existing, and coincident with a transfer of jurisdiction. It is only argumentatively, or, rather, b)' assertion which does not rise to the dignity of argument, that the phrase " future colonization," or the phrase " new European colonial establishment," can be construed to include, or to have reference to, the adjustment of the boundaries of existing states, even if, by such adjust ment, there should be an increase of the territory of a European colony or province. The statement in its value is kindred to the statement so often made that the power to levy taxes involves the power to confiscate estates through the process of taxation. There is no suggestion in any phrase that has been set forth by the British authorities, nor can any inference be drawn from anything that has been done in South America or on the coast of South America, that can lead an impar tial mind to the conclusion that Great Britain intends to sub vert the Government of Venezuela. Nor can it j'et be assumed that she seeks to acquire territory to which she has no just claim. Else why the Commission? Nor ought the country to accept the interpretation of the Monroe doctrine as it was rendered by Senator Lodge in the Senate. "The Monroe doctrine," says Senator Lodge, "is very simple. It is merely the declaration that no foreign 17 power must establish a new government, acquire new terri- tor\- by any method whatever, or seek to control existing governments in the Americas." If all this were true, the controversy between Venezuela and Great Britain would not be touched by the application of the Monroe doctrine as it is thus laid down by Senator Lodge. Great Britain does not aim at the establishment of a new government ; there is not a tittle of testimony which tends to show that she is seeking to control the existing Gov ernment of Venezuela, nor does she make claim to new ter ritory. On the contrary, she asserts a treaty title to the territory in dispute which dates from the year 1 8 14, when the republic of Venezuela did not exist. An assertion that Great Britain is seeking to acquire new- territory cannot be made in justice until her claim of title under the Danish treaty is shown to be invalid. Hence the effort to ascertain through a commission the relative rights of Great Britain and Venezuela. Until that question is settled there can be no ground for the allegation that Great Britain is seeking to acquire territory to which she has not title. The interpretation which I have given to the Monroe doc trine finds some support in the circumstances in which the doctrine had its origin. After the downfall of Napoleon the Holy Alliance was formed for the security of the doctrine of absolutism in governments ; and of necessity the alliance aimed at the suppression of liberal ideas and theories and the overthrow of liberal institutions. The governments most interested in the doctrine of abso lutism were Russia, Austria and Prussia. The purposes of the alliance were set forth in a circular called the Laybach circular, from the name of the place at which the congress was held, in the year 1820. That circular was generally known in the United States, where it produced a deep im pression, and within my own time it was referred to occasion- i8 ally as evidence of the hostility of Europe to the republican ideas and institutions of America. By the census of 1820 the population of the United States was less than 9,700,000 souls. Of the states that had thrown off the yoke of Spain, not any one of them, nor all of them, could have made a successful resistance to the combined assault of the nations composing the Holy Alliance. From the downfall of Napoleon to the advent of Louis Philippe to the throne of France, the continent of Europe was dominated by the doctrines of absolutism in governments. It was the necessity of the situation that the United States should protest against any attempt by European states to sub vert the republican governments that had been recently set up on this continent. The subjugation of those states would have created apprehension as to the fate of the United States. The Monroe doctrine was born of an apprehension — the apprehension that the states of this continent might be re stored to Spain through the intervention and aid of the Holy Alliance. The Monroe doctrine, in its announcement, was directed against that specific danger, and, except for that danger, it would not have been announced. Is it within the limits of reason to suppose that Mr. Adams, when he served notice on the Russian minister, had any thought that the United States, by virtue of that notice, had acquired the authority to supervise, or had accepted the duty of supervising, questions of boundary between existing states, whether sovereignty in those states was in Europe or America? Or that President Monroe, when he announced the same doctrine to Congress and to the world, intended to assume for the United States the responsibility of supervising the adjustment of questions of boundary, even though the parties might be an American republican state on one side and the colony of a European government on the other. With stronger reason, it may be said that neither Mr. Adams nor President Monroe intended to assume jurisdiction over questions that might arise in the enforcement of claims 19 by European governments in behalf of their subjects or citizens, or of questions that might arise touching the rights and privileges of ministers and diplomatic agents. Under the Monroe doctrine, properly interpreted, we stand aloof, free, entirely free from the contentions that from time to time may arise between the republican states of America and the dynastic states of Europe ; but when in the course of events it shall appear, from evidence then existing, that it is the purpose of a European state to overthrow the govern ment and subvert the institutions of a republican American state, the United States can then, as to that case, and upon the facts then known, decide what ought to be done. There fore, I esteem it good fortune, if it is not the result of a wise policy, that in these seventy-five years the Government of the United States has abstained from any interpretation of the Monroe doctrine more definite than President Monroe's statement, as set forth in his message of 1823. For the same reason, I look with apprehension upon each and every project for an official definition of the Monroe doctrine. Any definition must contain limitations to the exercise of power on our part. Nations will proceed at once to consider what they may do and what they may not do. In the changing events of national life no one can foresee the circum stances which may justify the active intervention of the United States. Upon the Monroe doctrine, as laid down by President Monroe, we may intervene in any case, whatever its nature or its origin, in which " the rights and interests of the United States are involved." That declaration puts every nation upon the inquiry, whenever a movement concerning an American state is contemplated, whether, in the execution of the plan, the rights and interests of the United States will be affected. If, however, we indulge ourselves in an official enumeration of acts that may not be done, we thereby consent to the doing of any act not enumerated ; and, further, we pledge the Government to the task of resistance whenever any other 20 government shall do an act which we have forbidden. Can there be any wisdom in thus binding our own hands, which now are free? The President, in his message of the 17th of December, gave voice to the thought that the Monroe doctrine deserves a place in the law of nations. "If," says the President, " the enforcement of the Monroe doctrine is something we may justly claim, it has its place in the code of international law as certainly and as securely as if it were specifically men tioned." Fortunately, the Monroe doctrine is not an article in the code of international law. It can be there only by the recog nition of states, few or many, and if there by the recognition of states, the states recognizing it will interpret it, and of those states the United States would be but one. This, again, would work a limitation of our power. By others it is asserted that Mr. Canning advised the Mon roe doctrine, and therefore it is claimed, argumentatively, that England ought to recognize it. We ought not to ask, nor ought we to accept, its recognition by any nation. If recognized, it must be recognized upon some understanding of what it means. The Monroe doctrine is not a law for any body. It is a declaration of a public policy by and for the United States. We should not ask other nations to indorse it ; we should not allow other nations to interpret it. The President's message and the action of Congress have led states of the South, even in the few weeks that have tran spired since the 17th of December, to look to the United States for protection against the enforcement of claims that are unjust, as is alleged. These expectations are the first fruits of an erroneous policy — a policy which will be burden some to us and injurious to the states that shall rely upon us for protection. The Monroe doctrine is for us, and not for them. If any good to other states shall result, that good will be an incident of the enforcement of a policy, but alwa)'s when enforced, enforced for our own benefit, primarii>'. Wc cannot afford to assume the office of protector of the states on this continent. The states on this continent cannot afford to accept the guardianship of the United States. There is no affection among states. Their relations are dictated by self-interest, and the Monroe doctrine, as announced, was made to rest on "the rights and interests of the United States." The states of this continent should manage their own controversies, settle their own disputes, and thus make their independence something more than a name. The weaker states of this continent should not be misled by the idea that the United States will engage in sympathetic wars on their behalf. The states of this continent should not be misled bj- the idea that the policy announced in the Presi dent's message has been indorsed by the country, or that it will be indorsed by the country. Nor should they be misled by the hope that that policy, if even now it is acceptable, will continue to be the policy of this country for a century, or even for a decade. We are interested in the prosperity of every state on this continent, and, that they may be prosperous, they must be self-reliant. The patronge of states is dangerous to the states patronized. For favors and protection rendered by the strong to the weak, concessions will be demanded and exacted. Through favors granted and protection promised, Russia is gaining a foothold in China and Turkey. By a like policy the sovereignty of Egypt is passing to England. For the friendship and aid of France in the war of the Revolution, we made the treaty of alliance of 1778, which bound us to the war train of our ally. We freed ourselves from a condition of vassalage by the abrogation of the treaty and an open disregard of the obliga tions we had assumed. These events are teachers whose lessons should be heeded by the weaker republican states of this continent. In returning to the important aspect of the case, can any- 22 one point to any fact or feature of the controversy betweeir Venezuela and Great Britain that invades any right of the United States, or affects injuriously any interest that is at once appreciable and valuable? The apprehension that something more urfjust may yet be done is not an adequate reason for declaring that what has been done is an invasion of our rights and interests. The country will be competent to take notice of and to dispose of the case in its new aspect whenever it is presented. England has fixed its limit on the Schomburgk line. Assume that England shall maintain that line by force, will anyone then be able to say that any right of the United States has been invaded, or that any interest that is at once appreciable and valuable has been affected injuriously? And, if not, is it not then clear that the case of Venezuela and Great Britain is outside of the Monroe doctrine, as that doctrine was announced by Mr. Adams and President Monroe? Nor is it pertinent to the inquiry that we should marshal the doings of England, by which she has established colonies on every continent, and acquired possession, and exercised jurisdiction, over islands in every sea. Nor does argument upon this basis become valid through the suggestion, or the assertion even, that in all the controversies and contests inci dent to these acquisitions England has been in the wrong and the suffering party in the right. The question still remains : Has England, by these acquisitions, invaded any right of the United States which can be set forth specifically, or done any act which has affected appreciably and injuriously the inter. ests of the United States? If to this question an affirmative answer shall be tendered, another inquiry must follow: Why has not the United States sought redress directly? I have suggested three ways of escape from the position in which the country has been placed by the President's message : I. That the Commission shall find that I'ngland's claim is justified and sust.iined b)- the e\idence. 2. That the evidence is of such a nature that the Commission cannot reach a satisfactory conclusion. 3. That the Ci^unmission should divide in opinion. If, howev'er, the Commission should designate a line as the true line, and England should disregard that line, and should continue to claim and to exercise jurisdiction as though the Commission had not existed, what are the alternatives that would then be presented to the United States? Those who advocate a war policy, and at the same time promise peace, ma\- say England will accept the judgment of the Commission. That may depend upon the scope of the judgment. If the line shall be so drawn as to transfer any considerable number of English-speaking and English-born subjects to \'^enezuela, the cherished traditions of England must be disregarded if she should recognize the line except at the end of an unsuccessful war. And shall the United States engage in a war upon the question of the boundary line of Venezuela and British Guiana through the valley of the river Essequibo? And was there any wisdom in the creation of a commission not authorized by the constitution, a commission not bound to ^the country by an oath, nor liable to impeachment for misconduct, a commission instructed to deal with a question not within our jurisdiction? If the message of the President embodies the opinions and forecasts the purpose of the countr\-, then to that commission have been entrusted the great issues of war or peace. Is there any interest in this country that can afford a war over the controversy whether in the tropical forests of South America the line between Venezuela and British Guiana shall be laid near to or far from the left bank of the river Essequibo? And can anyone show the country how its rights and interests will be secure if the line shall be laid in harmony 24 with the claim of Venezuela, or how its rights will be invaded or its interests imperiled if the line should be laid in conform ity to the demand of England ? We can understand that Venezuela may gain or lose, but her gain or loss does not raise an issue of war for the United States. If the exigency indicated, and which now is a possibility only, should become a reality, it is probable that Congress would disregard the report of the Commission, or if the line found by the Commission should be recognized, it is also probable that there would be no attempt to enforce its acceptance by England. Thus war may be avoided by the abandonment of the positions taken by the President. To this end the sentiment of the country should be directed ; for this end the opinion of the country should be prepared ; and in the meantime not one dollar of money should be appropriated or expended through an apprehension that war with England is a prob able or even a possible event. I dismiss from my thoughts, as far as possible, the senti mental aspect of the case, arising from the facts that we are of the same race and that we speak the same language. We can accord nothing to England that we would not accord to France, Russia or Germany. Nor should we tolerate injus tice on the part of England more readily than we should tolerate injustice from other states. Thus far in the Venezuelan controversy England has not done us any wrong. She has neither invaded nor put in peril any right, nor touched injuriously any interest of the United States. For the war spirit that has been aroused in this country and in Great Britain we are responsible, and it is our duty to suppress it. Appropriations and expenditures now made upon the belief or the statement that war with England is impending, or is even possible, will prove efficient agencies of provoking war. 25 Let the thoughts of the country be turned to peace ; to the repair of the wasted places that even yet remain as wit nesses of the ravages of war. War is to be accepted only as the final act of the nation when rights are invaded ; and not then until all other means of adjustment and redress have failed. .\ war on account of the boundary line of Venezuela must be characterized as a war of s)nipath_\- ; and in such a war, is the nation prepared to add millions and hundreds of millions to the public debt, to send sorrow into thousands of happy homes, and to see the pension roll increased by an army of new recruits? Well may the advocates of warlike armaments protest that there will be no war. Let us first obey in its fullness the injunction laid upon the country b\- President Lincoln in his second inaugural address : " Let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds ; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan — to do all which may achieve a just and lasting peace among our selves and with all nations." INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION. INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION. Before this day's doings had become a part of our social history, my obligations to the Massachusetts Club were too great for full recognition on my part. On several former occasions I have sought to con\cy to you some evidence of m\- appreciation of your signal kindness, many times ex hibited and in many ways. I pass on today to the topic which we have in mind without further attempt to set forth my sense of the additional obligation which \ou now lay upon me. Our secretary, Mr. Blanchard, with a kindness of nature which, at times, threatens to overmaster his judgment, has mentioned my name in the invitations that were sent to the members of the club. This mention appears to have been due to the circumstance that within the last ten d:i\s I have stepped into my eightieth year. In this there is neither merit nor blame. N(mic of us have more than an alternative. We must grow old or die. Most of us prefer age to death. However barren and gloomy age may appear to the young, it is not destitute of charms and pleasures. At the Phi Beta Kappa dinner at Cambridge in the year 1 86 1 Mr. Quincy, who had been the second mayor of the city of Boston, and who, afterwards, was president of Har vard College, controverted the teachings of Solomon and Cicero in regard to the evils and miseries of old age, and asserted that neither of those teachers had had any experi ence of the period of life that he denounced. Old age is not free from discomforts, neither is youth nor middle age, but in every period there are charms and pleas ures, and it is the part of wisdom to accept with gratitude, in age as in youth, those opportunities for enjoyment which Note. — Address before the Massachusetts Club, Feb. 6, 1897. 29 30 we may be able to command. In this presence and today I gather in pleasures which were not within my reach at the middle period of my life. It is not to be assumed, however, that this meeting of the club has been called for personal purposes, or for the special gratification of anyone. We are to engage in the exercise of a high privilege of citizenship — the examination of a proposed measure of pubhc policy which concerns directly the United States and Great Britain, and which may aid in turning the thoughts and conduct of mankind from war and the evils of war to peace and the more acceptable triumphs that are sure to come from a condition of universal peace. I have no means for an estimate of the losses of life in war since the opening of the Christian era, but it is safe to speak of hundreds of millions, and not a small part merely of this sacrifice was made in the prosecution of religious wars. Less important, but yet worthy of notice, are the burdens of taxation that have been laid upon the people, and the debts that have been created and which yet rest upon the nations. England has not passed out from the pressure of the debt created by the Napoleonic wars, and the continental nations, from Spain to Russia, are menaced by insolvency and repu diation. The war of the Rebellion has left upon the United States an annual charge which, in the year 1897, is about $200,000,000, and we are indulging in large expenditures which can have neither meaning nor value except as prepa rations for fresh wars in the near future. A public policy which diminishes the chances of war among the nations is a wise public policy. As much as this has been accomplished already by arbitration. The war of the Rebellion left to the country the inheritance of the claim against England for the losses caused by the depredations of the Alabama and her sister ships upon the commerce of the United States. The treaty of 1871 between the United 31 States and Great Britain, negotiated on our part by Mr. Fish, whose name and services deserve more consideration than they have received from the country, ended all thought of war — a thought that had disturbed the public mind for more than five years. At the same time the controversy over the fisheries on our northeastern coast, and the jurisdiction of the island of San Juan on our northwestern coast, were adjusted by arbitration. Criticism on our part was limited to one of the three judg ments that were rendered — the amount of the award for the freedom of the fisheries. Can there be any doubt that the adjustment of the three questions was a gain — an appreciable gain to both countries — and that without considering the justice of the judgments that were rendered ? Since the treaty of Ghent, in 1814, now more than eighty 3-ears awa\-, the United States has not been a sufferer either through diplomatic adjustments of differences nor by arbitra tion, except in a single instance, and then not through the greed or power of England. In 1846 the administration of President Polk surrendered the territory of Oregon north of the forty-ninth parallel of latitude. That surrender was due to the domination of slaveholders in the affairs of the country. Unoccupied territory in the north meant more and more free states, more and more anti- slavery votes in the Congress of the United States. Hence the surrender of northern territory was in the line of the public policy of the country. The settlement of international differences by arbitration is the contribution — the great contribution of the last half of the nineteenth century — to the welfare of mankind. It is true that in that period there have been several great wars in the western world, and it is also true that the public opinion of nations and the policy of statesmen were not so advanced as to check the warlike tendency of the people and to curb the ambitions of leaders. In the case of the Franco- Prussian controversy of 1870, it 32 is not probable that either party could have framed an issue worthy of submission to an impartial arbitration. It may not be possible to control the tendency to civil wars by any system of international arbitration. Treaties can only subsist between nations. In a controversy between a government and its discontented citizens or subjects, there cannot be equality of position, and to such cases arbitration is inapplicable. The government is on one side ; on the other side there are insurgents only. In such a controversy a government can not allow an appeal to any other tribunal than its own authority. It may happen, however, that a general system of arbitra tion may temper the policy of states in their dealings with disturbed colonies and restless classes. The abolition of slavery in the United States, and through the force of our e.xample, was followed by the abolition of slavery in the colo nies of Spain and in the empire of Brazil. Of the causes for controversy between nations, those which are more likely to end in war ought to be within the jurisdic tion of arbitration tribunals, whenever provision is made by treaty for the creation of such tribunals. Ordinary matters of controversy, such as the adjustment of claims by citizens or subjects of one government against another government, will be settled by diplomatic processes that are now well understood and easily applied. These will be adjusted without the aid of international permanent treaties. In international treaties provision should be made for the adjustment of controversies which m.ay arouse the sympathies and excite the passions of the masses, and so force the authorities into war even against their own judgment. Under arbitration treaties there will be, first of all, a period of delay, an assurance that the controversy will be adjusted in con formity to the treaty, and an entire freedom from business paralysis, which the possibility of war is certain to produce. It is probable that the closing years of this century may be made memorable by two international arbitration treaties. 33 Chile and Bolivia have formulated a protocol, which may ripen into a trc.it\-, in which provision is made for the refer ence of all contro\orsies to arbitratit)n. Of special importance to us, and of more importance to a world in arms, is the treaty between the United States and Great Britain now pending in the Senate of the United States. .Vs far as can be foreseen, the moral value of such a treaty will be its chief value. Ouestions of great magni tude may arise between the two countries, but the appearance of such questions is not probable. The Alaskan boundary question will be disposed of by a special treaty, although it has been reported that a senator expressed the opinion that that question was of such gravit)- that it ought to be e.xcepted from the jurisdiction of the arbitration treaty. The seal fishery is the only other matter of disquiet. The arbitration treaty, when ratified, may aid the states of con tinental Europe in entering upon a policy of disarmament, and it may lead us to abandon the wild scheme of creating a navy that shall rival the navy of England, and for which there can be no use except in a war with England. It may be asserted with confidence that the country is quite unanimous in the opinion that the opportunity now presented for a treaty of arbitration with England ought to be accepted, and that the merits of persons and parties should be referred to another generation. Next, there must be a majority opinion on both sides of the Atlantic that the terms of the treaty should include the most important questions that can arise. The exclusion of specified questions or classes of questions is notice to the world that those questions are reserved for the arbitrament of war. The fact is not to be overlooked that in every case the ordinary diplomatic processes for adjustment must have been exhausted before a case is submitted to arbitration. Hence it must happen that when an excepted case of differ ence has failed of adjustment through such processes, then war is inevitable. Hence it must be that the exception of 34 cases or classes of cases leaves the country and the world to the ills that are incident to a general apprehension that war is impending, and possibly to the losses and miseries that are incident to a condition of war. The importance of an international treaty of arbitration is not in the fact that it provides for cases and classes of cases that are likely to be adjusted by negotiation, or by amicable arbitrament, but that it includes cases in which the interests or passions of the parties are so much involved that an arrangement by them and between them has become im possible. A conclusion reached by legal processes and in obedience to rules theretofore prescribed, will be accepted by England and America, even if the result should be disagreeable to the losing party — and in every controversy there must be a losing party. Our recent experience furnishes ground for this statement. The Supreme Court made a decision that was adverse to the opinion of not less than a majority of the American people, but it was reached by a due course of action, and the result has been accepted by all except a few, who yielded to the impulse of the moment. The President's message of Dec. 17, 1895, paralyzed the business of England and America, and in both countries there were serious and disturbing apprehensions that a con troversy, in which the United States had only a sentimental interest, might involve the nations in war. The paralysis was arrested, and the apprehensions were allayed when the announcement was made that the question of boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana had been referred to arbitrators, and the reference was accepted without thought or care as to the loss or augmentation of territory by either party. These instances are worthy of notice as illustrative of the deference that is paid to results reached by " due process of law." Herein is the great advantage to be gained from permanent arrangements for the settlement of controversies. In the presence of such .irrangements the appearance of a new contro\crsy will not give rise to aii\' disturbance of business, nor to any anxiet}' in the public mind or on the part of public authorities. Is the treaty now pending in the Senate so framed as to meet the questions that are likely to arise between the United States and Great Britain? We are not to imagine possible differences, and especially we are not to conjecture that differences may arise over national and international changes which may never occur. It ma\- be assumed that neither England nor the United States will set up and press claims that are either manufac tured or groundless. We must assume that the countries are acting in good faith, and we know that in each country there is a public sentiment that will rebuke any administra tion that enters upon a dishonorable course of conduct. The treaty provides for three classes of cases, although as arranged in the treaty there appear to be four. Articles two and four provide for " pecuniary claims or groups of pecu niary claims." These are divided into two classes. In the first class are those which in the group do not in amount exceed ;^I00,000, and in the second class are those which in the group e.xceed that sum. These provisions include direct claims by one government against the other. Such claims, however, do not e.xist, and they are not likely to arise. These provisions are designed to provide for the adjustments of claims by citizens or sub jects of one government against the other government. Usually the claimant government has no other purpose in view than the protection of its own citizens. In 1880 a treaty was made with France by which claims of French citizens resident in the South during the Rebel lion, amounting in number to more than seven hundred and aggregating $35,000,000, were adjusted by a tribunal of three commissioners, one of whom was appointed by the United States, one by France, and the president of the com mission was appointed by the Emperor of Brazil. More 36 recently a similar treaty was made with Chile. The articles of the proposed treaty provide a standing rule for a course of action which is already the settled policy of the United States. The fourth article of the treaty gives jurisdiction of another class of cases, which is set forth by the exclusion of pecuniary claims for which provision is otherwise made, and of territorial claims, which are placed under the control of Article 6. The fourth article reads thus: "All pecuniary claims or groups of pecuniary claims which shall exceed ;^I 00,000 in amount and all other matters in difference, in respect of which either of the high contracting parties shall have rights against the other under treaty or otherwise, provided that such matters in difference do not involve the determination of territorial claims, shall be dealt with and decided by an arbitral tribunal, constituted as provided in the next following article." I do not concern myself with the constitution of the tribunals. It has been my fortune to act as counsel before three international arbitration tribunals, and in each case I was fully convinced of the upright and intelligent perform ance of duty by the arbitrators. Article 6 gives jurisdiction of " territorial claims " to a board of arbitrators, and to this there can be no objection, unless an objection should be made to rest upon the fact that the constitution of the board is such as to render a decision impossible, unless the weight of evidence should be so great as to extort a concurrent opinion from five arbitra tors in a board composed of six persons. It is declared in Article 9 that " territorial claims in this treaty shall include all claims to territory, and all claims involving questions of servitude, right of navigation and of access, fisheries, and all rights and interests necessary to the control and enjoyment of the territory claimed by either of the high contracting parties." From this analysis I reach the conclusion that there can be no valid objection to so much of the treaty as relates to "pecuniary claims" and to "territorial claims," with the appurtenances thereto, as set forth in Article 9. The debata ble phrases are found in Article 4, and it may not be safe to indulge in any predictions concerning their scope. For the moment 1 am persuaded that they are not dangerous phrases. It is to be observed that the scope of the main phrase is self-limited. Consider the words used : " In respect of which either of the high contracting parties shall have rights against the other under treaty or otherwise." The committee of the Senate on foreign relations seems to have acted under the apprehension that by this language the Monroe doctrine would be brought within the jurisdiction of arbitrators. With less adequate means for reaching a safe conclusion, it is the requirement of the position in which I am placed that I should give expression to my own views. On a former occasion and in a different connection I made this remark when speaking of the Monroe doctrine: Wc ought not to ask, nor ought ive lo accept, its recognition by any nation. The Monroe doctrine is not a law for anybody. It is a declaration of a public policy by and for the United States. ]Vf should not ask other nations to indorse it. Wc should not allow other nations to interpret it. England has not recognized the Monroe doctrine, and therefore she has no rights against us, derived or derivable from that doctrine. Nothing is granted in the pending treaty, and our rights to act under the Monroe doctrine will be what they now are, and what they have been since the year 1823. If England had recognized and accepted the Monroe doc trine as the law of the two nations, the question arising under Article 4 of the treaty might have been open to a different interpretation. The scope of arbitration, as set forth in the treaty, is in the affirmative, and therefore every subject-matter of arbitration 38 is excluded which is not included, and therefore the proposed amendment seems to be either dangerous or unnecessary. This amendment has been proposed in the Senate : " But no question which affects the foreign or domestic policy of either of the high contracting parties, or the rela tions of either to any other state or power, by treaty or other wise, shall be a subject for arbitration under this treaty,. except by special agreement." If it is intended by this amendment to limit the affirmative propositions of the treaty, then some very grave questions may arise ; but if, as is probable, it is designed to exclude matters not within the scope of the treaty, then the amend ment is not necessary. The phrase "but no question which affects the foreign or domestic policy of either of the high contracting parties"^ may give rise to serious difficulties. It may, indeed, be said, and without resort to captious criticism, that many questions between nations "affect the foreign or domestic policy" of one party or the other. At the present moment there is no question pending be tween the United States and Great Britain which can disturb the relations of the two countries, and no harm can come from such a period of delay as may be required for a full discussion of the treaty by the country, as well as by the Senate, the department of the Government on which the responsibility now rests. HAWAIIAN ANNEXATION. HAWAIIAN ANNEXATION. As I was forewarned by the gentleman from whom I re ceived your invitation to meet the members of the Boston Boot and Shoe Club this evening, that the time for the dis cussion of the topic before us was limited to two hours, and that four persons were to participate in the debate, I have forecast the observations that I have had in mind that I might avoid the danger of trespassing upon the privileges of others who are to address you. Since the organization of the Government there have been four opportunities for the annexation of territory within con tinental lines, and all of them have been accepted. In the same period of time there have been three tenders of insular possessions, two of them without direct consideration in mone)', and all of them have been declined. The first of these was the tender of the Sandwich Islands, made through our then commissioner, Mr. Elisha H. Allen, in the year 1852. It was in the early months of Mr. Fill more's administration, when Mr. Webster was Secretary of State. Mr. Allen had been my acquaintance and friend from the year 1847, when we were associated as members of the Massachusetts House of Representatii^es, and as members also of an important special committee. Upon his arrival in Boston he took lodgings at the Adams House, where I was then living. Our meetings at the table and otherwise were frequent, and it was then that I received from Mr. Allen the statement that he came with authority, carte blanche, from the king to tender the islands to the United States. There may have been terms and conditions, but none were mentioned by Mr. Allen. At the same time Note. — Address delivered before the Boot and Shoe Club of Boston, Dec. 22, 1S97. 41 42 he informed me that the offer had been declined by Mr. Webster. The treaty for the acquisition of the island of St. Thomas, that was negotiated by Mr. Seward in President Johnson's administration, was not ratified by the Senate. The cause of its failure, or the circumstances incident to its failure, have been the subject of controversy. The undertaking failed, and that controversy should not now be revived. In General Grant's first term the country had an oppor tunity to acquire so much of the island of San Domingo as is known by that name. The terms of acquisition were favorable. The project was supported resolutely by General Grant, when his influence in the country had not suffered any serious impairment. The offer was rejected by the Senate, and there were no indications of a controlling public opinion adverse to its action. Thus it appears that there have been three favorable opportunities for the acquisition of insular possessions, all of which have been declined. Two of them were within a day's sail of our mainland coasts, while one of them, and that the one now urged upon the country, is more than two thousand miles from our nearest harbor on the Pacific ocean. The question of the extension of slavery was involved in the projects for the annexation of Louisiana, Texas and Cali fornia, and except for the existence of that question the acquisition of those vast territories would have received a general support in all parts of the country. The fourth was the acquisition of Alaska, a territory that in 1 867 offered but few attractions to the people of the United States. It is worthy of remark that the men of the revolu tionary era contemplated a union with Canada. This resume warrants the statement that the country has accepted continental territory as a wise public policy, now fully justified by experience, and that it has as uniformly rejected insular possessions. And, further, this resume warrants the statement that the burden of proof is upon those who demand a change in our public policy. 43 The public policy of the country may not have been based upon distinct propositions resting in the public mind, but I formulate that policy in two propositions, namely: first, continental acquisitions of contiguous territory tend to peace; second, the acquisition of insular territories increases the chances of war and adds to the difficulties in the way of conducting war. If the first proposition is under question in the mind of anyone, much support may be found in our own experience, and in the recent experience of other countries. The force of the North was augmented immensely in our Civil War by the consideration that two contiguous nations would not remain at peace, except during brief intervals between long and lengthening periods of open or smothered hostilities. By unification the provinces and states of Germany and Italy have been forced into peaceful relations with each other. And, if now it were possible for France, Italy, Spain and Portugal to unite into one confederated republic, they would not only command peace for themselves, but they might dic tate peace for Europe. The possession by Great Britain of the Canadas has given rise to many, I may say to most, of the questions that have disturbed our relations with England during the last sixty years. I mention the Oregon dispute, the San Juan dispute, the Caroline affair, the northeastern boundary controversy, the Fenian invasions, the fisheries and now the seal fishery in Behring sea. If the United States and the Canadas were under one government the killing of seal upon the open sea would not be defended by anyone. It is to be admitted that small countries and minor com munities are strengthened and protected by union with strong states. That, as a practical question, is their ques tion and not our question. If the gain is theirs and the loss is ours, there can be no ground of defence for a policy of annexation, unless it can be found in the indulgence of the 44 feeling called sympathy. Sympathy is akin to one of the passions, and the guidance of the passions in public affairs ought never to be accepted. My second proposition is not within the limits of actual demonstration, but it can command some support argu mentatively. Assume a war with England, would our position be strengthened or weakened by the possession of St. Thomas, San Domingo or Hayti, or by the possession of one or all of the islands of the Caribbean sea? Assume a war with England or Russia or Japan or China, a possible, aggressive and warlike power in a future not far away, and would the possession of the eight tropical islands in the mid-Pacific and extending over three degrees of lati tude and six meridians of longitude, be a help or a peril? Would a coaling station or a harbor of resort at the mouth of the Pearl river, two thousand miles and more from our Pacific coasts, give security, either in form or in fact, to Cali fornia, Oregon, Washington, or to the dwellers on the shore and islands of Alaska? Does the example of England attract us? The august ceremonies which closed the sixtieth year of the reign of Queen Victoria were clouded by the fact that those had been years of uninterrupted wars, — wars in which there had been hardships and dangers in unequal contests with inferior peoples ; wars made necessary by the policy of England to preserve unbroken and to strengthen, if possible, the chain of empire, that England has carried around the globe. For England this may have been a wise policy. An attempt at its imitation by us cannot bring either success or honor. England conquers that she may inhabit and trade. A small island in a northern sea with a hardy and adventur ous population must gain new lands as a refuge and home for its accumulating masses. Thus it seeks and secures pro tection for its home industries by first subduing and then clothing the millions of Asia and the half-clad tribes of Africa. 45 Thus and by such processes was the foundation laid for the great eulogium which Mr. Webster pronounced upon our ancestors in America and in England when he said of the Colonists: "They raised their flag against a power to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome in the height of her glory is not to be compared ; a power that has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with its pos sessions and militar}' posts whose morning drum-beat, follow ing the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." But the example of England is not for us. The field for conquest, for appropriation, is about all occupied. Our theory is a theory of self-government. Such has been our practice. Next we demand equality of citizenship in the states and equality of states in the Union. All this is incon sistent with the acquisition of distant and incongruous popu lations. And nowhere can there be found a more incongru ous population than the present population of the Hawaiian Islands. The future of the United States cannot be predicted, but of unoccupied territory we have a vast domain. Its vastness may be set forth in one statement : If the population of all the states and territories of the Union could be transported to the state of Texas the number of inhabitants to the square mile would not exceed the number now resident in the states of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. By the treaty of 1875 and the amendment of 1887, we have as full control of the trade of the Hawaiian Islands as we should have were those islands made a part of the United States. Our manufactures, from iron bridges to friction matches, are entered without duty, and in return the sugar, rice, coffee and other products of the islands are admitted free of duty at all our custom-houses. By the treaty of 1887 we acquired Pearl river harbor, the most valuable harbor of the islands. The treaty of 1875 contains a stipulation that as long as 46 the treaty shall remain in force the authorities of the islands will not " dispose of or create any hen upon this port, harbor, or other territory, ... or grant any special privilege or right of use therein, to any other power, state or government, nor make any treaty by which any other nation shall obtain the same privileges, relative to the admis sion of any articles free of duty." These agreements and stipulations are all very well, says the advocate of annexation, but the treaty may be abrogated whenever we decline the treaty of annexation. What are the probabilities? In 1875, when the islands were free to deal with England or with any other nation, when the United States had no foothold, we dictated the terms of the treaty. Again, in 1887, under the lead of Senator Edmunds, and when there was a heavy adverse public sentiment in the United States, and the treaty was in peril from our action, the Hawaiian authorities conceded the possession of Pearl river harbor. For what reason have all these concessions been made ? For fifty years the fortunes of the islands have been in our hands, and the day of their freedom from our control is far away. All the benefits that can come from annexation are now enjoyed by us, and they will continue to be enjoyed by us and by our successors through many generations, while we now are, and they hereafter are to be relieved of all respon sibihty for the government of the islands. Moreover, the islands can rest securely in mid-ocean, freed from the anxieties and apprehensions of war, as Belgium and Switzer land are secure, though surrounded by rival and hostile states. Whence this security for our supremacy in the islands? It is to be found in two facts. First, in the situation of the islands with reference to other countries. When we had acquired California and had connected it by railroads with the older states of the Union, the United States became the convenient, indeed, the only valuable market for the products of the islands. Distant as we are from the islands, we are 47 their only neighbors. Japan is 3,400 miles from Honolulu. Hong Kong is 5,000 miles away. The countries of Central and South America can only be reached by ocean voyages of three, four, five and six thousand miles. M)- second reason is equally conclusive. Those distant <:ountries are of no considerable value as markets for the products of the islands. In 1896 the total of exports was $15,515,230, and of this the sum of $55,132 found a market in other countries. In the same year the imports amounted to $7,164,562. Of this sum the imports from the United States amounted to $5,235,729. The exports of sugar to the United States in the year 1896 amounted to $14,932,173. What would be the consequences of the abrogation of the treaty? What the consequences of the annexation of the islands by Japan or by England? The loss of the free American market and the imposition of a duty by the United States of forty per cent or more on the sugar product of the islands would inevitably follow. What next? The depreci ation of the sugar plantations at the rate of twenty-five per cent or more, and the ruin of the owners. And who are the owners? The owners of the plantations are the two thousand and seven hundred voters in a population of 109,000, and those whom they represent. The owners are the meager minority now in authority and who constitute the Government of Hawaii. They cannot consent to annexation by any other country. They cannot afford to abrogate the treaty. From 1882 to 1887, when propositions for the abrogation of the treaty were pending in our Congress, the business of the islands was interrupted, property was depressed, the sugar planters were threatened with bankruptcy and the represent atives of the Hawaiians appeared beft)re the committees on foreign affairs, pleading for the preservation of the treaty. The pecuniary interests are much larger now than they then were, and by those interests any and every government that may be set up, by whatever name called and by whom soever managed, will be controlled. The old monarchy had 48 no affection for the United States, but its policy was subordi nated to our policy, and such must be the condition of every successor, whether an oligarchy, a monarchy, or a republic. From these general remarks I turn to the consideration of the circumstances under which we are invited to accept the annexation of the Hawaiians Islands. We are not so far removed in time from the events that occurred in Hawaii in the early months bf the year 1893, that we may disregard the political character and moral quality of the proceedings, called a revolution, when we are invited to accept the terri tory that was then and thus wrested from its ancient pro prietors. There is nothing sacred in a monarchy; indeed, there is nothing sacred in any government, whatever its form or name. The right of a government to exist comes from the will of the people freely expressed. This test is fatal to the claim of those who now rule in Hawaii. There are forty thousand Hawaiians in the islands and of those thirty-one thousand are of unmixed blood. It is claimed that under the old regime there were ten thousand voters. They owed allegiance to the old government. There may have been others who were subjects. These as a body have never been consulted. Assume, what I do assume, that the Queen had no rights except such as may have been derived from the people, and that there was a continuing right in the people to supersede her in authority, and yet the fact remains that that power in the people has never been exercised. Mr. Secretary Foster, in the treaty which he prepared in the last days of President Harrison's administration, admitted a right as then existing in the Queen and beyond her in the heir apparent to the throne. By that projet of a treaty the Queen was to be paid the sum of $20,000 annually during her life and the Princess was to receive in hand from the United States the sum of $150,000, provided, however, that those two women, respec tively, should, " in good faith, submit to the authority of 49 the Government of the United States and the local govern ment of the islands." Thus did that projet recognize the personal rights of the Queen and also the right of succession in the dynasty of which she was then the head. There may be those who favor annexation, who will ex cuse themselves in the thought that the government was only a monarchy, and that its overthrow, however accom plished, was a praiseworthy act. Governments ought not to disregard their moral obliga tions. This transaction is tainted with injustice. Injustice it may be to the deposed Queen, but assuredly it is tainted with injustice to the 40,000 Hawaiians who should be permitted to speak in regard to the government of their native land. And we who have maintained the doctrine of home rule, who have pleaded for Ireland, who have raised millions of men from slavery to citizenship, can we either defend this proceeding or accept the fruit thereof? Finally, what disposition is to be made of the present population? Of the native Hawaiians there are about 40,000, of Japanese 24,000, of Chinese 21,000, of Portu guese 15,000, of Americans 3,000, of British, Germans and French combined there are 4,000, of other nationalities a thousand. Thus the islands contain a population of 109,000. Are the Japanese and Chinese to be deported, the planta tions to be abandoned and their owners to be consigned to ruin? The pending treaty prohibits the further immigration of Chinese, and those who are now resident in the islands are excluded from the mainland of the United States. By annexation the country will have in view the alternative of a vassal population within its jurisdiction or the presence of a Mongolian state in the Union. WAR, AND A CHANGE OF OUR PUBLIC POLICY. WAR, AND A CHANGE OF OUR PUBLIC POLICY. 1 In a time of war — a war which in the brief period of ten ' days from the formal declaration ripened into active and aggressive hostilities in two hemispheres — the attention of the country cannot be turned to any other topic than warj To most persons war is an enforced theme of thought and discussion. I shall limit myself in this address to a single aspect of the war in which we are now involved, and then after some observations on war as an agency in advancing or retarding the progress of mankind, I shall consider the change in our public policy that may follow the contest now going on between Spain and the United States. The apothegm, or maxim, " Our country, right or wrong," is, as a proposition, not more applicable to a condition of war than to a condition of peace. Indeed, as a measure or rule for the guidance of individuals in their relations to the gov ernment, it is not applicable to a condition of peace nor to a condition of war. The duties of citizenship are the same whether the citizen approves or disapproves the policy on which his government has entered. This rule applies to times of peace, but its observance is more imperative in times of war. A declara tion of war is the most solemn and important act of a government, inasmuch as the act involves results which always are uncertain and often they are of the gravest nature. Our Constitution has placed the war-making power in the hands of Congress. When Congress makes a declaration of war the act is the act of the people of the United States speaking through their duly authorized representatives, and for the prosecution of the war all are bound to meet the Note. — Address delivered at Kingston, Mass., Memorial Day, 1S98. 53 54 requisitions of the Government, whether in money or by per sonal service, as requisitions may be made. For the purposes of the Government and as a measure of private duty, the war is a just and proper war. The citizen cannot measure his duty to the state by any notion that he may entertain concerning the merits of the contest. It is his contest and it is his duty to contribute to the extent of his ability, that it may be brought to a conclusion speedily and with honor to the country. Wars that have become historical will be judged and adjudged, finally, upon ethical principles. The sentiment of justice is universal in mankind, and in some form, whether rude or cultured, it must find expression. There have been wars for which the quality of justice cannot be invoked in behalf of either party. Of that class a conspicuous example may be found in the war of 1870, between France and Prussia. France made a demand upon Prussia concerning the throne of Spain in a contingency of fortune which might never happen. Prussia replied by a declaration of war. Put that case to a test : could either party have framed an issue for the adjudication of a board of international, impar tial arbitrators? It is not too much to say and to claim, that in every con troversy between nations which is of such magnitude as to menace the peace of the countries interested, the contest should be so well defined as to enable the parties or the party, claiming to be aggrieved, to frame issues for the con sideration and judgment of an international board of arbitra tion. This proposition, as a proposition in ethics, must be true, even though provision may not have been made for the peaceful adjustment of national controversies. In the war of 1812, between the United States and Great Britain, the issue was well defined. Great Britain claimed the right to examine our merchant vessels and to seize and to carry away seamen upon the unsupported allegation that they were British subjects. A ship of a country is a part of the territory of the country. The seizure of a ship is the 55 invasion of the country to which the ship belongs. The seizure and detention of American ships was the equivalent in law and in the nature of things with the invasion of American territory. Thus was our case clear and the issue was well defined. Of all the causes of war no one is so worthy of defense on ethical grounds as a demand for the surrender of well-estab lished and long-continued territorial jurisdiction, especially when such jurisdiction includes the protection of citizens in their property and in their rights of government, according to the forms to which they may have been accustomed. Lord Salisbury asserted this doctrine, and he maintained it successfully in the Venezuelan controversy. In his letter to Mr. Olney, of Nov. 26, 1895, Lord Salisbury sets forth the correct doctrine concerning the rights and duties of states touching jurisdiction, and the rights of persons inhabiting territory that may have become the subject of controversy between governments. The questions then existing between Venezuela and Great Britain were adjusted upon the basis of Lord Salisbury's communication. He asserted a claim of title to all the valley of the Essequibo river, and of its tribu taries, and also to the coast line up to the river Amacura. On this statement of legal title he asserted one claim that was not open to negotiation, and he recognized one duty in the nature of a concession which would be performed without debate. First, so much of the territory as was occupied by British subjects would not be yielded, nor submitted to arbitration. Secondly, so much of the territory as was occupied by citizens of Venezuela would be conceded without controversy. Further, that the remaining portion was open to arbitration upon the question of sovereignty. Two propositions are embodied in that declaration, namely : First, a nation cannot retain its essential quality of sovereignty, except by a sturdy defense of its territory and the homes of its citizens or subjects. Second, the settlers upon unoccupied territory may, by occupation and the lapse 56 of time, acquire a title superior in its nature to a title over unoccupied lands derived from discovery or conquest. On this basis the treaty between Great Britain and Vene zuela was consummated, and with the concurrence of the United States, notwithstanding President Cleveland's unwise message of Dec. 17, 1895. The treaty provides that each of the contending parties is to enjoy jurisdiction over all ter ritory that it has occupied for fifty years. That fact the arbitrators are to find in each case. The intermediate terri tory is subject to arbitration. Thus was there no departure from Lord Salisbury's proposal of November, 1895; ^^^ thus was the menace of war suppressed by the acceptance of a rule of action that was tendered to Venezuela and the United States before the menace of war was announced, which through many months disturbed the peaceful relations of the great empire and the great republic of the western world. Of one war only, can the claim be made upon tenable grounds that each party was in the right or had a justifying appearance of being in the right, — that war was the war for the independence of the American colonies. The case of the colonies has been often set forth, and its sufficiency is recognized by historians and by the statesmen and moralists of England. England's position may be thus stated : The discovery of this part of the continent was made by England. By the permission of England and from grants made by the sover eigns, the colonists had been enabled to found settlements. The jurisdiction of England over the entire territory had never been ceded. Jurisdiction carries with it the right to legislate. Who shall set limits to the exercise of the right? Thus we have, in brief, England's case. Not satisfactory at the bar of posterity, but sufficient for a living generation whose interests were involved in the controversy. There may not be another case in modern times where as much can be offered in extenuation of the wrong-doing party. Finally, it may be asserted of all controversies which 57 have terminated in war, that one party, at least, was in the wrong, and that a tribunal of impartial men could have named the party in the wrong. From what I have said this may be deduced, possibly: that wars for the mere conquest of territory cannot be defended, and, as the necessary corollary, that the only wars which can be justified are wars waged in defense of territory and of the inhabitants dwelling upon territory, over which jurisdiction — established and recognized jurisdiction — exists. As in other cases of legal rights, a right of jurisdiction may be lost by the nonuse or by the misuse of power. Many suggestions are made in defense of war on general grounds, or in palliation of war in special cases. Some speak of war as a proper means of retarding the population of this earth, not realizing the fact that there are immense unsettled regions in Africa and South America ; or the fact, that upon the ratio to the square mile of inhabitants now dwelling in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the state of Texas can fur nish homes for seventy million people ; or the more impor tant fact, that war destroys the best of every nation, the young and the vigorous, thus violating the rule of nature, whose law of life and of death, and of the progress of the human race, is the destruction of the weaker. Others imagine that war is a legitimate means for the promulgation of higher ideas in religion and government, and that republican institutions may be e.xtended by force. When the war of the Rebellion was brought to an end, sys tems of slavery existed in the colonies of Spain, and in the empire of Brazil. By our example, and by mild persuasion, slavery was abolished on this continent during General Grant's administration. Could as much have been accom plished by war or by threats of war, in the brief period of twenty years? J And there are some, of ministers of the gospel there are some, who tolerate wars as furnishing opportunities for the extension of the doctrines of Christianity. They should realize that ideas are not disseminated by force, that errors cannot be uprooted by authority. 58 What is the teaching of history? This, assuredly this: that excommunications, inquisitions, tortures, burnings and wars for the dissemination of opinions and the bettering of institutions in matters of morals and religion and govern ment have retarded the causes that they were intended to promote. It may be true that a lie will go around the world while truth is putting on its boots, but it is also true that a lie goes around the world but once, while the progress of truth is never interrupted, permanently. Let us abandon the notion that views of religion, or theories of government, or that institutions which are the outgrowth of such views and theories, can be promulgated and extended by force. Ideas that contain truths that concern the welfare and progress of mankind are immortal. The humanities, in some degree of excellence, are found in all the religions of the world ; and if the religions may not be promulgated by force, then with stronger reasons the humanities may not. The contest in which we are now engaged portends a change in our public policy. Thus far the country has rejected or put aside every opportunity for the acquisition of insular possessions, except as islands were appurtenant to the mainland of Florida, California and Alaska. In the administration of President Fillmore, Mr. Webster declined the free gift of Hawaii, and in General Grant's administration we refused to accept San Domingo. We are now engaged in a war in which the objects — I may not say prizes — are Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philip pine Islands. I say objects in the sense of acquiring possession. Occupation and holding, either permanently or for the time being, are events more remote, and yet they are events to be met and to be dealt with in case of naval and military successes. Congress has given a pledge to the world, which the world will not believe, that the United States has no purpose to appropriate Cuba to itself ; but events may change opinions, and opinions may change Congresses. As to Porto Rico and the Philippines, no pledge has been given, and 59 there is no probability that we shall restore them to Spain as a free gift. Spain will not be in a condition at the end of the war to make compensation in money. The islands will remain with us as dependencies to be governed as circum stances may dictate. As dependencies they must be pro tected that they may be governed. Protection implies naval power and military power, proportionate to the circumstances. Naval power and military power involve expenditures, — enormous expenditures ; — and the expenditures necessary for the protection of a continent resting on two oceans, and of islands in two hemispheres, will require a system of perma nent taxation equal to that which was borne by the country in the years following the close of the Civil War. There are public men who anticipate, and with reason, apparently, an understanding with England for an interna tional union for the arrangement or the rearrangement of the affairs of the world. Senator Chandler has spoken in their behalf. In his view there is to be an arrangement, but it is not to be called an alliance. An international arrangement, by whatever name it may be called, must rest upon mutual obligations ; and obligations imply co-operation for some purposes and under some conditions. Such suggestions indicate conscious weakness on the part of those by whom the suggestions are made. For the moment the United States does not need the aid of England, and England does not need the aid of America. The sug gestion looks to a new policy. It is a humiliation for us to entertain the thought that we need the aid of England. But for what purpose is an arrangement to be made with Eng land ? Must not the answer be this : that whatever either has is to be defended, and that whatever either takes is to be kept? In the closing quarter of the last century the United States passed through a serious experience, due to the alliance of 1778, with France. The ratifications of a treaty were exchanged in July, 1778, and in July, 1798, the treaty was 6o abrogated by the Congress of the United States. For the. period of about six years, from 1794 to 1800, the twO' countries were engaged in hostile acts without a formal! declaration of war. Several hundred ships of the United States were seized by French cruisers, taken into French ports, where they were condemned and sold as prizes for the benefit of the captors. Congress made preparations for war, and General Washington was appointed lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief of the army. Peace came with the treaty of 1800, but the country was divided into a French party and an English party, — a contest which contributed to the war of 18 12. Such were some of the evil consequences of a treaty of alliance which opened with these attractive phrases : " There shall be a firm, inviolable and universal peace, and a true and sincere friend ship between the Most Christian King, his heirs and suc cessors, and the United States ; and the terms hereinafter mentioned shall be perpetual between the Most Christian King, his heirs and successors, and the said United States." It may not be possible to avert the first step in an erro neous policy, — the possession of islands in seas near, and in seas remote, — but it is not too late to utter a word of caution against a second step by which we are to exchange the good will of the nations of the world over, for an alliance with England. Let England be and remain to us what Russia, what Japan, what Germany, what the states of Europe are to us, — friends always, it may be hoped, but allies never. When the second quarter of this century opened, wooden ships moved under sails were the means of naval warfare, and a seventy-four gun ship was a spectacular exhibition of the power of maritime states. These disappeared and their place was taken by ships of wood propelled by steam. These were succeeded by iron vessels driven by steam. All are now obsolete. None of them could withstand a modern projectile. When the Cumberland was destroyed in the bay of Fortress Monroe by the Merrimac, an ironclad ship, the 6i country was in a panic under the belief that she was invul nerable, and that our seaboard cities were at the mercy of the Confederacy. That apprehension was removed by the appearance of Ericson's monitor and the destruction of the Merrimac. Novv we have improved monitors, torpedo boats, torpedo destroyers, and battleships of enormous size — clad with impenetrable armor. The tragedy of the battleship Maine, and the destruction of the Spanish fleet in the harbor of Manila, teach the awful lesson that when one of these great engines of war is struck fatally, it is transformed in an instant into an iron coffin in which all must perish. Thus in these seventy years has naval warfare become a more scientific, a more desperate and a more deadly struggle. Greater changes, even, have taken place in the enginery of war on the land. Where now are the muzzle-loading, flint lock muskets of 1840, and of the Mexican War? the cum brous two and four pound fieldpieces drawn by men? They are to be found only in the museums, and the showrooms of arsenals. In the year 185 1, Captain Braxton Bragg came to Boston with his battery, drawn and manoeuvred by horses. It was called the Flying Artillery. As governor of the state I reviewed the corps on Boston Common. It was an occasion of considerable interest, as no one among us had then seen such an exhibition of skill and power. Bragg was a more celebrated person in 185 I than he was in 1863, when he was in command of the Confederate forces at the battle of Missionary Ridge; for it was to him that General Taylor gave the much quoted order, spoken at the battle of Buena Vista, and which aided Taylor in the election of 1848 : " Give them a little more grape. Captain Bragg!' Now we have breech-loading rifled cannon of sizes enor mous, and projectiles that can penetrate even the heavily plated and armored ships of war. We have telescopic apparatus for musketry, breech-loading muskets, magazine 62 guns and gatling guns which render an open field fight like that of the plains of Chippewa, in the war of i8i2, an impos sibility. In my last conversation with General Sheridan he ex pressed the hope and the belief that the instruments of war would become so deadly that the nations could not engage in war. That hope and belief I also entertain. What has been done justifies the opinion that science and the inventive faculties of men may secure for mankind eras of peace which all the religions of the world and of the ages have not been able to command. PROBLEMS RAISED BY THE WAR. PROBLEMS RAISED BY THE WAR. Our estimate of the importance of passing events is often erroneous ; and therefore, it cannot be assumed with full confidence that the evil consequences which some of us apprehend from the policy of insular, territorial expansion will be realized by the country, either in the near or the dis tant future. The remarks, however, that I am to submit to you all proceed upon the opinion, which I entertain, that evil consequences of the most serious character are not only probable, but that they are inevitable, as incidents of the policy on which the country is entering. It has been my fortune on several occasions to express opinions upon public questions and pending measures that were not in harmony with the prevailing sentiment of the people. In some instances my views have been vindicated by time and experience, but in other cases, and in a like authoritative way, my opinions have been condemned. While I am not dismayed by this experience, it chastens any disposition that I may have to rely with implicit con fidence upon the wisdom of the views that I am now to set forth. It is known to some of my friends that I was opposed to the war with Spain. I was not a believer in the necessity, or the wisdom or the justice of the undertaking. The resolu tions of Congress of April 19, made the war a constitutional war, and thenceforward we were all and alike bound to its support. PRINCIPLES OF OUR GOVERNMENT AT .STAKE. For myself, however, I could not foresee nor forecast any fortunate outcome of the contest. On the one hand we could not tolerate defeat, but on the other hand, with success, we NoTB. — Address before the Twentieth Century Club, Boston, Oct. 8, 1898. 65 66 are called to the discussion and decision of practical ques tions, which challenge the principles on which the govern ment was framed, and which in their final adjudication may work a change in our political institutions. The war as a war has been a signal success ; but the sum of the difficulties that confront us is proportionate to the magnitude of that success. For one I overestimated the the ability of the Spanish people and the capacity of the Spanish Government. The Madrid administration has ex hibited a marvelous incapacity for the business of govern ment, and we are indebted to that incapacity for the speedy conclusion of the war. If only this had happened : If Spain had kept its fleets in the waters of the Mediterranean sea, our army might even now be engaged in an unequal struggle with pestilential diseases and death in the morasses and among the mountains of Cuba. We may assume that the war of arms is ended and, there fore, I shall use a paragraph in a summary statement of the causes on which the war has been made to rest: First of all, and most important of all, was the destruction of the battleship Maine. A tragedy and a criminal tragedy, probably, but as yet the responsibility has not been fastened upon anybody. Passion and excitement laid the crime upon the Spanish Government. The reason of the case justified a suspicion that the act was the work of the Cuban junta in the city of New York. Next, the country had come to look upon the insurgents as patriotic imitators of Washington and the men of our rev olution, and it had reached the conclusion that we ought to act the part of Lafayette and the French nation. I was not influenced by these considerations. I had known something of the revolutionists of 1868. To me they were the least worthy and the most untrustworthy of the Spanish race in the island of Cuba. I had evidence satisfactory that it was of their settled policy to delude and deceive the credulous, and to bribe the corrupt. 67 I had also reached the conclusion that the plantation owners were giving aid to the insurgents, and that they looked to the annexation of Cuba to the United States, and not to the independence of the island except as a step in their scheme. When the independence of Cuba shall have become an accomplished fact the landowners, resident and non resident, will struggle for annexation and the consequent freedom of sugar and tobacco from the tariff duties that are now imposed upon those articles, to be followed by an immense increase in the value of their estates. Annexation may not bring peace to Cuba, but peace will not be the gen eral condition of Cuba until the annexation of the island to the United States shall have been effected, and the end for which the insurrection was fomented shall have been attained. Other considerations contributed to the public sentiment in favor of the war. Some were influenced by the injustice and brutality of Spanish rule in Cuba, and the consequent suffer ings of the inhabitants; some by a wish to enlarge the American markets ; some by the belief that a new and fruit ful missionary ground would be opened ; some by a purpose to enlarge the scope of republican institutions; some by a wish to secure coaling stations in the Caribbean sea ; and at the critical moment an immense impetus was given to the war spirit by Senator Proctor's speech in which he set forth the sufferings of masses of human beings in Cuba, but with an exhibition of emotional humanitarianism not often witnessed in the Senate of the United States. These incidents and events had large influence in the country, and they had a controlling influence in Congress. It was in the critical condition of affairs so existing that I wrote two letters to Governor Long. They were dated March 29 and April 3. To me they are a connecting link between the opinions that I then entertained, and the views that I am now to lay before you. 68 Boston, Mass., March 29, 1898. The Hon. John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy, Washington, D. C. My Dear Sir : It is always a question of doubt with me whether a letter from an outsider can be of any value to those who are intrusted with the management of affairs ; but there are indications in the news papers that the public opinion of this section of the country in respect to the difficulties with Spain may be misunderstood at Washington. I have been in contact daily for the month preceding, with many persons in varying conditions of life, and I have not met one who is in favor of hostilities with Spain upon any of the grounds that are supposed to exist. There is, as you might expect, a very general concurrence in the opinion that if unhappily we should be brought into a condition of war, the government must be sustained in its prosecution until an hon orable peace can be secured. I think it is safe to assume that any arrangement by which peace shall be secured will be acceptable to the people of Massachusetts, and I think it will be acceptable to the people of this part of the country. As to forcible intervention in the affairs of Cuba for the purpose of securing peace, it is safe to say that there are no advocates of such a policy. For myself, I may say from my experience of four years during the former war, and from my knowledge of Spanish character, acquired then and since, that Spain will never yield her hold upon Cuba except through war with the United States. Should such a war occur, the administration will find support in Massachusetts, but few or no advocates of the policy which may have led to such a war. It may be practicable — and on this point you can judge much better than I — but it may be practicable to effect an arrangement by which as much freedom in government shall be secured to the inhabitants of Cuba as is now enjoyed by the inhabitants of Canada. If such an arrangement can be made it will be accepted and approved very generally in this part of the country. If in Congress and out there should be wordy declamation against such a policy, its effect will be temporary, and its influence limited to a very few persons. In one phrase, I am of opinion, in which I think there is very general concurrence here, that forcible intervention in the afiairs of Cuba should not be thought of ; and that it would be wholly indefen sible on moral grounds, as well as a proceeding hostile to the best interests of the country. The second letter was within the limits of a single sen tence : 69 Groton, Mass., April 3, 1898. My Dear Long: If the President can say to the country that he "has exhausted diplomacy and secured for the insurgents everything except absolute independence, and that the United States cannot afford a war in their behalf on that issue, the country will be so nearly unani mous in his support that dissenters will be silenced without much delay. As having some connection with these letters, I may say, without impropriety, that on the fifteenth day of April I had a brief interview with the President. From that interview I received the impression that the President was an.xious for ¦delay, and that he was apprehensive of the speedy passage of war resolutions by Congress. What he apprehended came to pass, and the immediate and unconditional concurrence of the President in the action of Congress was the necessity of the situation. These extended remarks are only prefatory, and I turn to the consideration of questions and topics that are the out come of the war. We may assume, what is not impossible, that the country -will retain all the islands and clusters of islands on which our flag has been set up. However that may be, some acquisi tions are certain, and therefore new questions of government are before us. The questions — the inevitable questions — are these : Shall we treat the people and territories that we may acquire as prospective states, or shall we deal with them as perpetual colonies? These questions, and questions and topics incidental to these, I propose now to consider. First of all I am to discuss a public policy which is sug gested by advocates of the scheme of insular expansion of territory, and it is also forced into view by the course of events. ARE WE TO ENSLAVE COMMUNITIES ? We are assured by some of the advocates of annexation that the outlying islands of Cuba, Porto Rico, the Philippines and Hawaii, when acquired and appropriated, are never to become states of the American Union. Thus we are invited 70 by advocates of what is called a policy of expansion to enter into political arrangements with bodies of men to be counted by millions on millions, of other races, of other languages, of other religions, of other habits of life and industry, who are never, never to be permitted to govern themselves, nor tO' aid in governing others. This, this is to be an outcome of the Civil War, which cost a half-million lives and thousands of millions of dollars, and which for a time we thought — vainly thought, it may now appear — had not only emancipated a race, but had moved the world many steps on towards a higher civilization and to purer views of personal rights and of public justice. By what authority, or by what example, or by what teach ing may this country find justification for the seizure and appropriation to its jurisdiction of vast populations — alien populations — equal in numbers to the combined millions of the states of New York and New England, and upon the avowed purpose of denying to them and to their descendants forever the accustomed rights of American citizenship? In what American precedent can this Government find shelter for the doctrine that it may seize communities, exercise juris diction over territories and deny to the inhabitants the right — I do not say the privilege — I say the right — of self-gov ernment? On the contrary, I maintain that every person over whom the jurisdiction of the United States is thrown should see before him the prospect — the certain prospect — of citi zenship in the United States and in a state which shall include and protect his own home, and give promise that the homes of his descendants will be protected through all coming time. Whenever an opportunity is offered for an increase of popu lation by an extension of territory, this question should be considered and answered affirmatively, or the opportunity should be rejected : Are the inhabitants adapted to citizen ship and statehood in the American Union? Put this ques tion to those who advocated the annexation of Hawaii. What will President McKinley answer? What answer can Senator Hoar make? What is the answer of senators north, south. 71 east and west? Will anyone give an affirmative answer? What will be the answer in regard to Cuba, which has a popu lation far in excess of the population in any one of twenty states of the Union that may be named? What will be the answer in regard to the Philippines, which have a population equal to the combined populations of the great states of New York and Pennsylvania? Are the inhabitants of Cuba and the Philippines to be brought under the control of the United States, and kept in a condition of vassalage? Having abol ished one form of slavery, are we to create another form of slavery? Having emancipated individuals, are we to enslave communities? Do we say that we can govern Hawaii, Cuba, and the Philippines better than the inhabitants of those islands can govern themselves ? That was the claim of the slaveholder of 1 860. It is the claim that we trampled under our feet by the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the constitution. First of all and always, as one citizen, I have advised and protested against the acquisition of these distant islands and against any and every form of jurisdiction over their alien, incompatible, incapable populations ; but more than all I now protest against the assembling of these waifs of the ocean upon our borders, and then subjecting them to a condition of vassalage, which we shall attempt to conceal in some form of euphemistic phraseology. Let us be consistent in our form of government, if we cannot be wise in fact. If we are to take the islands of the sea by force, or to receive them as free gifts, let us observe the forms of personal rights and the privileges of citizenship in states of the American Union to which we and our ancestors have been accustomed. If we are compelled to choose between vassal populations to be now counted by millions, and at the end of the twen tieth century to be counted by tens of millions, or the endow ment of the sovereignty of statehood upon ignorant, incapable, dangerous communities and tribes vvho know nothing of the great work and responsible duties of self-government, let us at least preserve the forms of the republic even if its princi ples must perish. 72 If these millions of denizens of distant lands are to be brought within the jurisdiction of the republic, let us pay due respect to the ancient principles of the republic. Slavery and despotism are connected, and forever and inseparably must they be connected. When we create a vassal popula tion within the republic, the republic becomes a despotism. When, in the same country we have provided for a gov erning class and a subordinate class, we have established an oligarchy, whatever may be the difference in numbers of the two classes. Such is Hawaii today, and such it has been for now five years and more, since the eventful moment, already fruitful in consequences of evil, when President Harrison, without authority of law, set up the flag of the republic in a foreign land where he himself had no right to set his foot. Thus he aided, encouraged, indeed, thus and by such means he called into e.xistence the little oligarchy, dignified now as a government, over which we assume jurisdiction by an arrangement with less than one-tenth of the inhabitants, and they for the larger part foreigners, or the immediate descendants of foreigners, and upon the understanding, ap parently, that the inhabitants as a body are never to become American citizens in a constitutional sense. It will be well for those who maintain this doctrine to examine the fourteenth amendment of the constitution, by force of which all the de scendants of Chinese, Japanese and Mongolians of every other nationality born within our jurisdiction will be citizens of the United States. Thus in less than three generations these mil lions of other races and languages in Hawaii, Cuba and the Philippines, will be transformed into American citizens. It will also be wise for them to consider the authorities now exist ing from the reading of which it may appear that all the perma nent residents of Hawaii are now citizens of the United States by virtue of the act of annexation. Anne.xation, in whatever form it may be made, means citizenship for the inhabitants of the countries annexed. 73 SHALL WE HAVE TWO CLASSES OF CITIZENS? Are we to have two classes of American citizens — some of a governing class and some of a subordinate class? Whenever this change shall have been accomplished, we shall have admitted the imperfectness of the form of govern ment which our ancestors set up, and we shall have paid a fatal and humiliating tribute to the supremacy of the aristo cratic and monarchical governments of the world. The time has come when those who maintain the doctrine of expansion and sovereignty, and advocate the consequent public policy of which I have spoken, should put aside the teachings of Washington and disregard avowedly the example of the fathers of the republic. Already alarmed by the actual results of their departure from those teachings, and apprehensive of other evil conse quences, they turn to England for succor and support. If an alliance with England has become a necessity then is America doubly humiliated — humiliated by the adoption of a policy which has created an apparent necessity for an alliance with a foreign country, and humiliated by the sug gestion of an alliance with England, the country which of all others should be to us what the Declaration of Independence made England, and the people of England — "Enemies in war, in peace friends." Any arrangement with England, whether for mutual support or for common plunder, must become an entangling alliance, not less fruitful of evil than the alliance of 1778 between France and the United States. If we are to enter upon an extra or an ultra continental policy, let us not present ourselves to the world as subservi ent imitators of England, nor as dependents upon her superior power. Let us stand and speak and act for America and for America only. Any alliance with any nation contem plates undertakings which, upon our own estimate of our selves, are beyond our capacity. What must be the nature, the character of those undertakings? Did the contest with Spain grow in the brief space of seventy days to such pro- 74 portions that the advocates of expansion and sovereignty were alarmed lest the country should prove to be incapable of its solution either by arms or by diplomacy? Or are we to co-operate with England in the division of the Chinese empire and the redistribution of the islands of the eastern Pacific ocean? Is there no Monroe doctrine for any nation but the United States? And who so blind as not to see that an alliance with Eng land for any purpose in the East means hostility with Russia, and with a probability approaching certainty, it means hostilities with Germany, France and Japan? Indeed, any alliance between England and the United States, however formal and indefinite it may appear in the phraseology used, must awaken the suspicions and excite the jealousies of the nations the globe around. But if we are to form an alliance, whether for protection or for conquests, let our arrangements be made with a growing power rather than with a decaying power. Prophecies as prophecies are vain, but public action must always rest upon the probabilities of national public life. Counting national life by centuries, and viewing England and Russia as they appear today, which is to increase, and which is to decrease with the progress of time? ALLIANCES MEAN WAR, NOT PEACE. But, more than all things else, why, why should we, a young nation, already great and powerful, with capacities equal to any exigency that is within the scope of any reason able probability, — why should we form an alliance with Japan, Russia or England? Any alliance or arrangement, by what ever name called, implies an obligation to act or not to act upon the judgment of another. Thus should we limit our power, thus should we, in some degree, become the servant of another, placing ourselves, voluntarily, under a qualified pro tectorate. After an experience of a century and a quarter of established, recognized and prosperous independence, are we to be tempted into an alliance with any nation for purposes 75 eitherof peace or of war? But alliances are for war, and not for peace. Read the treaty of 1778 with France and note the consequences that followed. Read the history of the alliance which resulted in the Crimean War. Except for the alliance that war would have been impossible. Neither of the allied parties would have entered upon the contest unaided. The alliance made the war possible. Again, I say, alliances are formed for war, and not for peace. But why does England now turn tous, and why do her states men now speak approvingly of an alliance with the United States? We are told that we are of the same race, that we speak the same language, that the same blood runs in all our veins, that we are all and alike the worshippers of Shakes peare and the admirers of the great lights of English litera ture. Have we not been this and these for two and a half centuries, and, since we disappeared as colonies, has Great Britain ever, until now, sought for any closer tie than the tie formed by a common treaty of peace and friendship? Have not the war vvnth Spain and the occupation of Manila bay stimulated, if those events have not caused, the sentiment in England in favor of an alliance with the United States? If our possession of the Philippines shall become permanent, we are thenceforth to participate in the affairs of the Pacific, and in the adjustment of those affairs our friendship and an alliance with us may be important to England. Her adver sary, her natural enemy in the East is Russia, and an impor tant point will have been gained by England if a feeling of antagonism between the United States and Russia can be substituted for our long-continued and unbroken friendship. Whichever way we turn for an alliance we are to create enemies. That the nations of the world may be our friends our treatment of them must be just and equal to all alike. An alliance with any one invites and provokes the hostility of all others. 1^ BRITISH COLONIAL FORMS OF GOVERNMENT UN-AMERICAN, The suggestion has been made that we may govern out lying possessions as England governs her colonies, whom she admits to no considerable self-government. That is the phrase of Senator Hoar as he has been reported. He may have said " whom she admits to no inconsiderable self-gov ernment." England has two or more systems of civil government for the provinces and countries that are under her rule. It cannot be said that any system of self-govern ment exists in British India, and I assume that we are not re ferred to British India for our American policy. On the other hand, Canada may be quoted as a colony in which the people manage their own affairs with but little interference- from the home government. The difficulties that have arisen in the management of foreign affairs in which the Canadas have had a direct interest, justify the opinion that our gov ernment would be greatly embarrassed if similar colonial arrangements should be established between the United States and Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines.. It is manifest that the interests of those islands, in foreign affairs, especially in matters of trade, would not correspond to the interests of the United States. There are degrees of subordination, but in Canada and in Australia, as in India, the inhabitants are subordinated to a government in which they are not represented. All these forms of government are un-American. To us they are alien institutions. Their acceptance by us is an admission that our form of government is incapable of indefinite exten sion, and it is a verdict of wrong-doing against our ancestors, who carried on a seven years' war in support of the doctrine that there can be no taxation without representation. There are limits to any system of self-government. There must be some preparatory training on the part of the peoples. A government organized as is our government, may receive and assimilate foreign elements from time to time, but in what quantities none can foresay. Although I have objected to the acquisition of Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philip pines, I yet maintain that they should be treated as we have treated the peoples and territories acquired of France, Spain, Mexico and Russia. First of all, the inhabitants so acquired should be recognized as citizens of the United States ; next, territorial governments should be set up, and upon the under standing that there may come a time, and that there will come a time, when from the presence of numbers and of other favoring conditions, they will be admitted as states into the American Union. I am of opinion that this policy, however hazardous it may appear, is a less dangerous policy than any form of political subordination which can be devised. This view of duty and of public policy should have led to conservative action upon measures touching the jurisdic tion of the country. WISDOM OF THE POLICY OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. Time and experience have not lessened my confidence in the disposition of mankind to make advances in the principles and agencies of self-government. In the year 1 796, in his historical speech on the Jay treaty, Fisher Ames made this startling declaration, which, in a half- century, was transformed into a prophecy by the events in Van Diemen's Land : "If there could be a resurrection from the foot of the gallows," said Mr. Ames, " if the victims of justice could live again, collect together and form a society, they would, however loath, soon find themselves obliged to make justice — that justice under which they fell — the funda mental law of their state." I regret to observe that there are statesmen, some of whom had a part in the work of reconstructing the government at the close of the Civil War, who now question the wisdom of the fifteenth amendment to the constitution, by which the right to vote was guaranteed to the freedmen of the country. I do not share their doubts. On the other hand, I think that time and experience have demonstrated the wisdom of the policy then adopted. The freedmen of the South have made 78 great advances in political knowledge of the business of gov ernment, and the white people have made signal progress in the recognition of the equality of all men before the law. The evidence is seen in the fact that the votes of negroes are received and counted in one-half of the old slave states, and that perceptible gains have been made in the other half. Overmuch reliance, however, must not be placed upon this experience when we contemplate the extension of the suffrage to the million and a half of untrained inhabitants of Cuba, or to the extension of the suffrage to the eight or ten million in the Philippines, many of whom are yet in a condition of sava- gism. The negro of the South had had some training in political affairs. He had attended political meetings in towns and villages, and he had been a listener to conversations and debates in communities where political action was the leading topic of thought and discussion. Our success with the negro, whatever may be the degree attained, does not justify the experiment with untutored populations concerning whom no obligation was upon us. The negro was a resident of the United States. He had no abiding-place elsewhere. He could not be expatriated. We had only an alternative : his elevation to citizenship and a practical recognition of the doctrine df political equality, on the one hand, or the establishment of a race aristocracy on the other. If our political ideas and institutions are of a superior sort, the superiority is due to centuries of training in England and in the United States, and of such training all the Asiatic races are signally deficient. In Europe and America the Latin races are engaged even now ,in an uncertain struggle for the maintenance of institutions framed on the model of our dec laration of independence. The great error, the error from whose sad consequences there is no certain way of escape, has been committed already in the extension of our jurisdiction over the islands of the sea and over the races that occupy them. The question before us is this : By what policy can the more serious of the probable or possible evils be avoided ? 79 First of all, let us abide by and maintain the principles on which our government was framed. This, I say, should be done without regard to any ulterior consideration. Some of the requisites are these: (i) Citizenship, universal and co-extensive with the jurisdiction of the country. (2) Local self-government, and upon the basis of ultimate admis sion into the United States. (3) Freedom to travel, to labor and to engage in business in any part of the country. These conditions imply the early abandonment of military government, a form of government always hostile to republi can institutions. Next, neither the successful revolutionists in Hawaii, nor the revolting insurgents in Cuba and the Philippines, should be recognized by us. Nor should the Catholic Church or any other church be consulted by our authorities, or heeded in the conduct of public affairs. The churches will be pro tected in their rights of property and in freedom of worship undisturbed. Nothing more ought they to ask ; nothing more should they secure. Finally, the nation should provide for a system of public instruction in which the English language should be taught as the language of the country. As these limitations and exactions are fundamental in our scheme of government, they should be enforced and accepted as the basis of the organizations out of which states are to be formed. I do not trouble myself with a conjecture as to the time that may be required for the transformation of these untu tored millions into capable and tru.stworthy American citizens. I say only this: Give to any people an opportunity to govern themselves, and out of their experience they will gain in capacity for self-government. In thought, I quote again the prophecy of Fisher Ames. Nor do I delay you with an enumeration of the difficulties, possible or probable, that are to be encountered in the exer cise of jurisdiction, over the territories and peoples that we are acquiring. Outside of the possible or probable difficul- 8o ties, there are difficulties which we can foresee — difficulties that are certain to arise, and which are uncertain only as to their magnitude, cost and duration : standing armies, quartered in distant regions, and under the control of mili tary chieftains or civil governors, corresponding in their functions to the provincial pretors of ancient Rome ; a navy capable of defending these remote and disconnected posses sions against the most powerful of the nations of the earth, or otherwise to be preserved by humiliating alliances, des tined at some time to be sundered violently; and all to be supported by an all-pervading and burdensome system of taxation upon the inhabitants and industries of the United States. INHABITANCY ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS IN COLONIZATION. I pass on now to one serious aspect of this most serious condition of affairs which, as far as I have observed, has not been considered by anyone in a public way, unless Mr. Bryce may have taken a similar view in an article which I have not read nor seen. Seneca said of the Romans: " Wherever the Roman conquers he inhabits." Inhabitancy is the essential condition to success in the vvork of colonizing new regions. England may be cited as an example to those who urge us to take up the role that England may soon be compelled to lay down. I do not speak of political relations, — they may be broken ; — but England will live in Canada and Australia, for Canada and Australia are inhabited by Englishmen. But what of Egypt and India? Whenever the political power of England shall be withdrawn from Egypt, the Egypt of former days will reappear. England has sent officers, rulers and administrators of various sorts to India, but the English emigrant, who went forth in search of a home for himself and his family, is not to be found in India. England's rule of a century in India has not changed essentially the habits and customs of the people, nor wrought the overflow of their ancient religions. England has con quered India, but she has not inhabited India, and her influ- ence will disappear when her dominion as a ruler passes away. The English Church is not an .accepted religion by more than a very small minority of the inhabitants of India, and the political institutions of England will disappear with the withdrawal of political and military power. The accessible parts of India are within the tropics. These parts are occupied to some extent, and for temporary purposes, by Englishmen, but they are not inhabited by Englishmen. The same statement applies to Ceylon and to Jamaica, and to the tropical possessions of Great Britain generally. But not thus with South Africa. That country has an English population. It is inhabited by Englishmen, and English ideas and English institutions will remain whatever may be the political fortunes of that part of the African continent. Are we to overcome vvhat, to England, has been an obstacle for a century? Can we carry on a successful war against a climate? Mark the experiment of the hundred days' war with Spain. Bring before your minds the array of young men who went out from our cities, towns and hillsides to do service for the country. They were animated by an enduring courage, moved by a lofty patriotism, and in health and strength they were the select of our vigorous population. Bring before your minds the appearance of those who return, and contem plate the fate of those who do not return ! I neither assail nor defend the department of war. State your account. Charge against the department whatever you please as the consequences of its misdoings and its not doing, and there will remain a sum of horrors due to climatic condi tions that will prevent family emigration from the United States to Hawaii, Porto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines, not for our time only, but for all time. A small number of Americans will reside in the islands for special purposes and for limited periods. The majority rule, however, will con tinue in the hands of the existing populations and be 82 continued for generations, in the hands of their descendants. The development of the human race is obedient to fixed climatic laws. There are no great men and no great races in the regions where the icy hand of winter is never relaxed ; and the law of human progress is arrested in the broad zone where nature never purifies herself by the influence of autumn frosts. In the order of events colonial possessions exact a form of servitude on the part of the possessor. England is forced to accept a degree of subordination to her colonies. Consider the long and unwholesome controversy that Eng land has carried on with the United States, while we have argued and pleaded for the protection of the seals of Alaska, — animals that, from their human-like appearance, habits and intelligence, excite our admiration and compassion at once, — and yet England has subordinated its own opinion of what is right and just to the demands of Canadian poachers on the Pacific coast. Her subordination to Turkey is more exacting and more permanent. The Sultan is the head of the Mohammedan Church, and it is believed that he has the power, as he has the power, to promote rebellion among the Mohammedan subjects of the British queen. It is not, then, an unreason able conjecture that Lord Salisbury feared to apply force to Turkey for the protection of the Armenians in the valley of the Euphrates. Thus are the rulers of colonies brought into subjection to the colonies that they rule. The questions to which I invited attention in my opening have now been considered. The questions were these: Shall we treat Hawaii, Porto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines as prospective states, or shall we deal with them as perpetual colonies? On these questions and the discussion in which I have indulged, I impose two other questions, namely : Is there any statesman or taxpayer who can approve of the acquisition of 83 the islands named, and upon the certain assurance that one branch or the other of the alternative proposition must be accepted by the country? Or is there a statesman who can name a third proposition, and a proposition different in sub stance and not in form merely, that he will defend before the country? In the presence of accomplished facts the impor tant question is this: WHAT OUGHT NOW TO BE DONE? Hawaii is annexed to the United States, and Porto Rico is a possession of the United States. Without hesitation I say give them territorial governments upon the American basis, with the largest opportunity for progress and for statehood in the American Union. Cuba is not a possession of the United States, and our policy in regard to that island should correspond to the dec laration of Congress. Cuba has been freed from the domin ion of Spain and upon the understanding that the inhabitants of the island are to set up and maintain a republican govern ment. If the United States is bound to Cuba, the obligation hath this extent only — that the inhabitants shall be free from any interference while the work of organization is going on. This obligation can be kept easily, but it will not be accepted and acted upon in good faith by the leaders who have carried on the war against Spain. From the first their ultimate object has been the annexation of the island to the United States. That object they will pursue through many years, and with the tenacity that they have exhibited in the thirty years of contest with Spain. In the contest now before us, the landowners and the political leaders of the insurgents of Cuba, transformed into ardent friends of the United States, will receive the support of a large body of the people of the United States, especially in the manufacturing and trading districts of the country. Every attempt to frame a popular government will be resisted, and any government that may be set up will be denounced as a failure. Aside from political considerations there are, however, three large classes of Americans who are interested in adhering to the declaration of Congress. ¦" First, the taxpayers, who, in case of the annexation of the 84 island, must supply the deficiency in revenue, say not less than $60,000,000 a year, caused by the loss of duties on sugar and tobacco brought from Cuba to the United States. Second, the mass of American laborers, of every grade and occupation, who will be forced into competition with the millions of underpaid and unclothed workers of the tropics. Third, the owners and workers of land whose interest in the sugar-producing industry is to be destroyed. My conclusion, however, must be this: After such a sur vey of the situation as I have been able to make, and not withstanding the declaration of Congress, and notwithstanding the many valid objections to the annexation of Cuba, I reach the conclusion that there is much reason to fear that the project for annexation will have become an accomplished fact in the near future Even more, serious are the questions that must arise from our possession of Manila bay and the capture of the city of Manila. These acquisitions are, and for the moment only, military lodgments made in time of war, and they cannot be treated as the conquest of the Philippine Islands. They con stitute standing ground for diplomatic debate, or for further military undertakings. The conquest of the Spanish islands in the Pacific ocean was no part of the purpose of the war, .as the purpose was declared by us, and the seizure of those islands may be treated, wisely and properly, as a means of compelling Spain to yield jurisdiction over the island of Cuba, which was the one only avowed object of the war. Spain has surrendered all jurisdiction over Cuba, and thereon the Government of the United States may with propriety, wisdom and justice, surrender its temporary possessions and all jurisdiction in the islands of the East, and that without controversy, or debate, or thought of compensation. If we assert a right in those islands on the basis of con quest, then and thenceforward we are, and are to be, parties to questions and controversies, not with Spain and Aguinaldo only, but with many countries that have interests and estab lishments for business in the islands. 85 Consider one question : By our constitution the duties levied upon foreign products must be uniform throughout the United States. Presumably our system of duties is enforced in Hawaii as it is in the city of New York. The trade be tween Xew York and Honolulu is coastwise trade, and duties are not imposed upon American products. Upon the annexation of the Philippines the trade between those islands and other countries will be diminished seriously. Will Eng land, France and Germany be content while we take into our hands the trade of the ten million inhabitants of the Philip pines? My propositions are these : First: Give to Hawaii and Porto Rico territorial govern ments and upon a liberal basis. Second : Insist upon an independent government for Cuba, and give no encouragement to the project for annexation. Third : Abandon the Spanish islands of the Pacific with out controversy, debate or negotiations with anyone. To some, to many, perhaps, the policy that I commend may seem insignificant when compared with the permanent possession of all the islands on which our flag has been set up. I have not been influenced by the circumstance that our flag has been set up in foreign lands as evidence of temporary. possession gained by force and to be held by force. Con quests in war are temporary until jurisdiction is recognized by the losing party. The flag as a symbol of established right, follows legal recognized jurisdiction. There can be no dis honor in the abandonment of the Philippine Islands. The sovereignty has never been in us. If it be charged that I am reducing our acquisitions to the minimum quantity, then I admit the justice of the charge. Such has been my purpose. Every acquisition in the tropics is freighted with misfortunes for the country. As we diminish the extent of these acquisitions we lessen the sum or moderate the intensity of our misfortunes. ISOLATION AND IMPERIALISM. ISOLATION AND IMPERIALISM. 1 When I accepted the invitation of the Cantabrigia Club, I resolved to ask the women of Cambridge whether they prefer a policy of isolation for the United States, as the policy of Washington is now characterized by its enemies, with peace as the general condition of the country, ora policy of territo rial expansion such as has already been entered upon by war, and which can only be preserved and perpetuated by succes sive wars. If not to be so perpetuated, why the demand novvj made by those, or on behalf of those who are responsible for the present condition of affairs, for additions to the army and the navy at a cost of $100,000,000 or $150,000,000 a year? If the war with Spain and the acquisitions of territory now made, or already determined upon, do not menace the country with other wars, why the demand for additional armaments by sea and by land? At the meeting of the Massachusetts Club the twenty-second day of October, several statements were made by Mr. Boutelle of the House of Representatives, and by Mr. Woodford, our late minister to Madrid, that open a new chapter in the his tory of the war with Spain. I shall say something of that chapter, but I cannot assume to write it. First of all, I am to speak of the policy of isolation which we have favored for a century and more, and vvhich we ascribe justly to Washington and his associates of the revo lutionary and constitutional periods of our history. The policy of isolation, however, is not to be justified even by the name and counsel of Washington, although Washing ton's nan\e and counsel ought always to have great value with the American people. The policy must find its justifi cation in the experience of the country. We departed from Note. — Speech before the Cantabrigia Club, Cambridge, Nov. 4, 18 90 the policy of isolation in the case of the Samoan islands, and in that case we have been involved already in disagreeable misunderstandings with Germany. Our policy of isolation has been a policy of avoidance of alliances with foreign nations, and the avoidance of policies in foreign affairs which would invite or provoke controversies with other governments. In fine, we have limited our dis cussions and actions, as a government, to matters which, primarily and unavoidably, concern ourselves. President Monroe limited the application of the principle set forth in his message of 1823, to cases in which the rights and interests of the United States might be involved. With the exception of the arrangement in regard to the Samoan islands, we had not passed beyond the rule so laid down until the annexation of Hawaii. The policy of isola tion, which we have pursued, has been a policy of peace; the policy of expansion, as that policy is now presented to us, is a policy of war. That is the issue which I make. Our acquisitions on this continent have, as a policy and upon the facts, tended to peace. The treaties by which we acquired Louisiana and Florida saved us from controversies over unde fined territorial claims. By the treaty of 1 803 with France we quieted the then ex isting animosities between the authorities and the inhabitants of the two countries. It was provided by that treaty that the inhabitants of the ceded territory should be incorporated " in the union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the federal constitu tion, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States." A correspond ing provision was incorporated in the treaty of 18 19 with Spain by which we acquired Florida, and a like provision was incorporated in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, by which we acquired California and the then undefined ter ritory between the Louisiana purchase and the Pacific ocean. The same provision is found in the treaty of 1867 with 91 llussia, by which the territory of Alaska was ceded to the United States. All of these treaties were in the line of peace, and of the first three it may be asserted with entire confidence that the chances of war were diminished immensely. Our peaceful relations with France have continued from 1803, with only a slight interruption during the administration of General Jack son, and except for the unwise action of our authorities a condi tion of peace might have been maintained with Spain for an indefinite future. That our relations with Mexico, which were consummated by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, may be understood, I shall pass in review, briefly, the issue involved in the war of 1 846, and the means by which the controversy was brought to a peaceful termination. When the state or province of Texas declared its independence of Mexico, the limits of the state were set forth in the declaration. The Rio Grande was named as the southern and western line. Following the declaration of independence, the new government of Texas was recognized by the United States, by Russia, by Great Britain and by France. Mexico claimed that the river Nueces, a river to the east of the Rio Grande, was the boundary of the province of Texas. When Texas was annexed to the United States, in March, 1845, that claim was unadjusted. The war opened upon that issue. General Taylor was sent to the Nueces at the head of a small army, known first as an army of observation, then as an army of occupation, and finally it became an army of invasion. General Scott landed an army at Vera Cruz, and from there he marched to the city of Mexico, fighting several successful battles on the way, and levying contributions upon the con quered cities and provinces. , Thus we had set up our flag on two lines, from the Rio Grande to the capital of Monterey on the one side, and from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico on the other, and every where by the month of July, 1848, the flag of the republic had been hauled down. 92 What is the new doctrine? Only this: Wherever the flag of the republic has been set up, there it is to remain. Every nation has hauled down its flag when it has been set up as evidence of possession gained by war. In the war of i8i2 England set up its flag at Eastport on our northern frontier, and in Washington, the capital of the country. We set up our flag in Canada, on the plains of Chippewa. Let us not be deluded by phrases. Under some circumstances the flag is a symbol of existing power only ; in other circumstances it is a representation of actual and permanent right. The two conditions are distinct, and my complaint is that the friends of territorial expansion seek to confound them in the public mind, and so consequently to misdirect public opinion. We not only hauled down our flag on two lines on which we had penetrated Mexico, but we declined to take any territory as due to conquest. The strip of land between the Nueces and the Rio Grande was treated as a part of Texas. A new boundary line was made. The territory ceded was purchased, for which we paid $i 5,000,000, and we released Mexico from claims of American citizens amounting to $3,250,000 more. Thus by the treaty of 1848 we quieted all claims pending between Mexico and the United States, we paid for the terri tory acquired, we took nothing as the fruit of conquest, and we established a peace which has been undisturbed for a full half-century. In one particular the men of that period may have erred. It did not occur to them that the United States, by the act of conquest and temporary occupation, had become' responsible for the future good government of the inhabitants of the cities and provinces along the lines traversed by the armies of General Taylor and General Scott. The cession of Alaska may may have been due to a pur pose on the part of Russia to rid itself of the burden of de fending an unoccupied territory against Great Britain on the western Pacific coast, in case of hostilities arising out of con flicting policies in China and Chinese waters. Beyond such 93 considerations, Russia was not unwilling to extend our juris diction on this continent as a menace to Great Britain. To us the cession vvas an indication of good will on the part of Russia, and it was so regarded by the Government and people of the United States. Thus, in a period of less than one hundred years, our ter ritory has been augmented many times over, and from the proceedings and conditions some conclusions may be de duced : I. Nothing has been taken by naked conquest. 2. The territories acquired are within the oceans, except ing only dependent islands always unimportant and for the most part uninhabited. 3. In each case the inhabitants were few in number, and in every case citizenship, self-government, and admission into the union of states upon the basis of the federal constitution were guaranteed to the inhabitants of the respective territories. 4. The countries acquired were immediately or easily accessible to the inhabitants of the states of the American Union. 5. With the exception of the northern parts of Alaska, the territories acquired were inviting to natives of the tem perate zone — say between the thirty-fifth degree and the fiftieth degree north latitude. 6. Immigrants from the United States and from other countries within the degrees named were not exposed to the perils of acclimation, nor to the necessity of any considerable change in their habits and customs of former life. 7. The proceedings were promotive of peace for the United States and promotive of a general policy of peace. 8. With the exception of the territory on the right bank of the Nueces, over which we claimed jurisdiction as I have stated, all the territory ceded was ceded by the voluntary acts of those in whose hands the sovereignty had been placed. Can these conclusions of fact, or can any one of them, be applied to Hawaii, Porto Rico, Cuba or the Philippines? 94 Can we, as a nation and in good faith, pledge the honor of the country that the inhabitants of Hawaii, Porto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines shall be admitted into the American union of states upon an equality with the states of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and the other states of the revolu tionary era, or, if you please, are they to be accepted upon a plane of equality with the newer and least populous states of the Union? That was the pledge which we gave to France, to Spain, to Mexico, and to Russia. That pledge we have kept ; that pledge we are keeping. Such a pledge to the Philippines would be only less bur densome than the policy into which we appear to be drifting ; a policy of authority on the one side and of vassalage on the other, with a vain attempt at concealment under the term protectorate. Can any American, who voluntarily accepts the inhabitants of the Philippines as political equals or sanc tions a policy of vassalage, defend himself to himself, failing which, is the " last infirmity of evil " ? Thus have I attempted to pass in review the policy of the country from 1803 to 1893. It was a policy of continental expansion, a policy of progress, a policy of justice, a policy of peace. During the period of isolation we were not without in fluence, and it is not yet an assured fact that the nation has been advanced by this war, brilliant as some of its achieve ments were, beyond the point we occupied at the close of the Civil War, when the volume of reconstruction had been writ ten, and we were again a united people. It was not then possible for anyone to suggest even that the cause of the South had been lost, or that the cause of the North had been won, through the timidity or the incapacity of either party. What then happened, and without delay, even when our army of veterans had been disbanded, when our navy had become worthless? England recognized her liability for the depredations upon 95 our commerce committed during the war by the Alabama and her associate corsairs. In 1873, every matter of difference between the United States and Great Britain had been ad justed, either by arbitration or by compromise, and new rules had been formulated that were calculated to promote and destined to promote the peace of mankind. These were the achievements of the country under a policy of isolation, as it is called, and made at a time when our army was not ade quate to aggressive undertakings, when our navy was inca pable of defense against the then modern modes of naval warfare. But we did more. In the administration of General Grant, and under the directing hand of Hamilton Fish, whose wis dom, whose positive greatness in public affairs are not appreciated by the country, the United States had a leading part in securing the abolition of slavery in the dominions of Spain and Portugal, and in the empire of Brazil, and thus the ocean slave trade was abolished and the traffic in slaves on the continent of Africa was brought to an end. Has the present war secured, or does it give promise that it can secure, equivalent advantages for the country and for mankind? Or is our form of civilization to be carried around the world by navies and by armies and to be established in foreign lands by battles and by conquests? Are we to abandon the opinion that ultimately the world is to be ruled by ideas, and that it is most wisely guided and most safely protected by institutions that rest upon accepted ideas? Nor let us be deluded by the notion that the nation has been elevated in the opinion of the world by the events of the war with Spain. While I give full credit to the skill and valor of our navy at Manila and Santiago, and to the cour age and endurance of our soldiers in battle and under tropi cal heats in pestilential climes, I am quite indifferent to the opinion of the world upon the question of our greatness. England sanctions and approves what we are doing, for we are imitating and justifying her policy of the entire century, r 96 and we may wisely inquire whether the adoption of that policy may not be followed by like evil consequences. An enumeration of the wars in which England has been engaged shows that there have not been two consecutive years of peace during the long reign of Queen Victoria. Is this an example to be imitated, and is it important for us to know that what we are doing is approved by Great Britain ? Of other European countries I do not speak. With the excep tion of Russia their opinions are of no consequence to us. I have often said, and I have always thought, that Mr. Webster's conclusion of the Hayne speech was a great aid to the country in the Civil War. Thousands of young men have been touched and inspired by the patriotic sentiments con tained in the peroration of that speech. I now very much fear that Mr. Webster has left a passage of descriptive, graphic, glowing eloquence which is an aid to those who wish us to take and to keep the islands of the sea the globe around. It is not more than three and a half centuries since Charles V. of Spain boasted that the sun never set on his dominions. Where now is the empire of Spain? Gone. Vanished utterly. Disappearing in blood, with no recollections for the inhabitants of old Spain of honorable dealings in its colonial policy. Spain had an empire. How was it main tained while it lasted? By wars — wars in Europe, wars in South America, in Central America, in Mexico, in the islands of the Caribbean sea, in the islands of the northern Pacific ocean. There are incidents of any colonial policy frOm which no nation can escape. Some of them can be specified : armies, navies, wars, taxation and the unrequitable sacrifice of the young men of a state. It has been said that America cannot now name one statesman of influence abroad, or of command ing influence at. home, nor one great orator, nor one lawyer of admitted supremacy the nation over, nor one great leader in, any department of human thought or action. 97 If we are forced to accept any part of this generalization my answer is this : The country, north and south, gave its young men, the hope of the future, to the contest of 1861, and our impoverishment, whatever it may have been, is due to the sacrifices thus made. The memorials in all the uni versities and colleges, in all the cities and towns of the country, may indicate, but they cannot measure the extent or the magnitude of the losses that the nation has thus been called to endure. This war has exacted sacrifices of a like sort, and like sacrifices will be exacted in every war. We entered upon the war with Spain for the liberation of Cuba, and upon a pledge that the inhabitants should have an opportunity to govern themselves, and in the belief enter tained generally, but a belief in which I had no share, that they could and would govern themselves. Incidentally, we were to relieve the miseries of masses of the inhabitants who had been driven into the cities and fortified towns that were controlled by the Spanish forces. If the miseries of the reconcentrados have been relieved in any considerable degree the evidence has. not been given to the country. Next, are the expectations that were entertained as to thp abihty of the Cuban people to govern themselves to be realized by those who inaugurated the war? Let me read what Minister Woodford said on that subject at the Massa chusetts Club dinner: Now I frankly say to you, from nothing that I saw in Spain and from nothing that I have been able to learn with regard to the Cuban popula tion, do I believe that it is possible for Cuba to establish a government that shall protect the insurgents against the Spaniards, or the Spaniards against the insurgents, or establish a secure and stable government. I do not believe that the inhabitants of Cuba are qualified to administer a home government either for their own advantage or for the protection of our great and just American interests in the island of Cuba, and I am constrained to the personal belief that it will be necessary to maintain the occupation — the American occupation — of the island of Cuba, until such time as Americans, Englishmen, Germans, Frenchmen, — peo- 98 pie acquainted with the methods and the theory of self-government, — shall have gone into that island in sufficient numbers to enable the fever to be stamped out on the one side and good order established on the other. Two things are to be accomplished before the main result — home government in Cuba — can be realized: First, the fever is tb be stamped out. How is that work to be done and by whom ? The malarial fevers of the low lands of the tropics have never been stamped out. Nor are they confined to the land. They prevail on our war vessels often, where the best of sanitary conditions exist. Upon a low estimate the inhabitants of Cuba number a million and a half. Who can say what time will be required for an inflow of immigrants from Great Britain, France, Ger many, and the United States equal to the present population, without considering the natural increase? Inthe meantime, the United States must police the island. We are to protect the Spaniards from the brutality of the insurgents, and we are to protect the insurgents against the brutality of the Spaniards. Thus, we have the fruits of the war in the two particulars for which the war was waged. It was matter for regret with me to find in Senator Hoar's most excellent speech against imperialism, a declaration in favor of holding the Philippine Islands until the inhabitants were prepared for self-government, coupled with a sugges tion that in an exigency we might invite the co-operation of other nations. On another occasion, I have declared my opposition to every form of alliance with other nations for purposes either of peace or of war. I adhere to the opinion then expressed. It is now said that the President disavows the imperialistic policy which Senator Hoar has so wisely and effectually de nounced, but at the same time the President indorses Senator Hoar's plan for the government of the Philippines. Thus, the country is called to an examination of that plan. First of all, we are to expel Spain from the islands, not as 99 a conquest for our advantage, but for the purpose of securing to the inhabitants an opportunity, at some time in the future, to engage in the work of self-government. Until that time arrives, the government is to be in our hands, and of that time we are to be the judge. Our relation to the Philippines will be that which England now sustains to Egypt. We are not conquering territory for ourselves, but for other people. We are to engage in the work of governing Cuba and the Philippines, not for our own benefit, but for the benefit of peoples in whom we have no interest. Let us consider the magnitude of the undertaking. Let us bring into view some ofthe difficulties that are before us: In territorial extent, Cuba is equal to six states of the area of Massachusetts. The Philippine Islands extend over sixteen degrees of latitude, the distance between Boston and San Augustine in Florida. The twelve hundred islands, more or less, are supposed to contain one hundred and fourteen thou sand square miles, or fourteen times the area of Massa chusetts. Of this vast territory only one-half is under the actual jurisdiction of Spain, and for the most part the exer cise of power by the officers and agents of Spain is depend ent upon the good will and influence of the priests of the Catholic church. Nothing of what I say in this connection is to be treated as a criticism of the Catholic church, nor as an encomium upon it. I am to deal with the facts as they have been re ported by the latest and most trustworthy authority. From the time of Philip II. the Catholic church has been engaged in missionary work in the islands. As a result, and in so far as they have penetrated the islands, the priests are supreme, not in matters of faith alone, but in public affairs as well. It has come to pass also that the church and the priests are large holders of the tillable and available lands of the islands. Thus has the church come to be the dominat ing power. IOO ¦First, then, on that . basis, what has been, the policy of Spain? The local and tribal chiefs have been permitted to govern their clans and tribes as long as the chiefs recognized the sovereignty of Spain. The officers of Spain appear to have approached the chiefs with their exactions and measures ,of policy through the priests and the church. In fine, the church and the priesthood have been the instrumentalities through and by which Spain has maintained its power in the Philippines. I cannot say whether the present insurrection is directed against the church as well as against Spain, but one event of the future can be predicted with more than common cer tainty. If we enter upon the work of governing the Philip pines the time will come tvhen we shall be compelled to co-operate with the Catholic church or to make war upon ¦ it. And is the country prepared to accept the alternative ? The islands may contain eight million .inhabitants, and in intellect and attainments they pass by rapid gradations from cultivated Europeans to the wild mo.untain negritos, under sized Malays, who are hardly more than the first remove from the walking but speechless inhabitants of. Central Africa. The population of the city of Manila is the best which the islands can offer, and, fortunately, we have trustworthy infor mation as to its magnitude and character. The total is 300,000. Of these there are 200,000 native Malays, 50,000 Chinese half-castes, 40,000 Chinese ; of Spaniards and Spanish Creoles there are 5,000, of Spanish half-castes, 4,000; of white persons from all other countries than Spain there are about 300. Of the latter, the number may vary with the seasons and the years. What are we proposing to do? Certainly this: We pro pose to carry our institutions into the Philippines and to set them up over a people who have never even heard of the ideas on which the institutions ought to rest. If American institutions of government are to be set up and established firmly in other countries, the ideas on which 101 our institutions rest must, in anticipation, have been accepted by the people. Hence I condemn the attempt to extend American institu tions by the sword. Let the institutions wait until the world is conquered by ideas. As the conquest of ideas goes on, the people who accept the ideas will create and protect cor responding institutions. In this aspect of the case we may be assured by someone, in whom the country may have confidence, that it is no part of our purpose to change the institutions of the Philippine Islands further than to give the people an opportunity to dictate their form of government. Assume this, and then let us ask ourselves this question : What form of government will the inhabitants of the Philippines set up at any time be fore the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century? That question can be answered without the help of prophet or statesman. It has been our boast that within this republic we had founded states freed from the domination of a church, and that we had founded a republic in which it was and is possi ble to establish a church freed from the domination of the state. This is the legacy which has come down to us alike from the Pilgrims of Plymouth and the Catholics of Mary land. Let not the army, the navy and the young men of the republic be employed in setting up a state which must in the end fall under the domination of a church. Instructed by Senator Hoar's speech, I qualify the proposi tions with vvhich I ended my address to the Twentieth Century Club. I reproduce them in this form : I. Give to Hawaii a territorial government and upon a liberal basis. 2. Insist upon an independent government for Cuba, and give no encouragement to the project for annexation. 3. Abandon Porto Rico and the Spanish islands of the Pacific ocean without controversy, debate or negotiations with anyone. Note, — Upon the information received during the last year my confidence in the ability of the Filipinos for the work of self-government is much greater than it was in November, 1898. PEACE OR WAR PEACE OR WAR. It is my purpose on this occasion to consider this ques tion : Is the policy on which the country is entering a policy of peace or a policy of war? The seizure, possession and oc cupation ofthe Philippines, whether the occupation is treated as temporary or permanent, proceeds upon the theory that our present peaceful relations with England, Russia and Japan are never to be broken nor disturbed seriously. Three years have not yet gone since England and the United States were on the brink of war, and there can be no security for continued peace with Great Britain. If, as Captain Mahan maintains, navies are in command of the globe, and the fate of nations and empires is to be determined by battles on the ocean, then we are acquiring the Philippines for the benefit of England, or Russia, or Japan even, unless, indeed, we are to create and maintain a navy equal to the navy of England, and to keep a naval force in the Pacific equal to the naval force that England may choose to keep in the waters of the East and in the Mediterranean sea. That force must be equal also to the force that Russia or Japan may be able to command on the moment, combined as well as separate. When we take possession of the Philippines, whatever may be our theory of the future, we enter upon a jurisdiction from which we may be expelled by Japan, Russia or England. The coasts of Japan are only two days' sail from Manila, and the distance from Formosa to Luzon is less than two hundred miles. Japan is a maritime power already, and with time it may acquire a position in the East that will bear no slight resemblance to the position that England has gained in the West. In population and in capacity for growth Japan is superior to England: Note. — Address before the Congregational Club, Boston, Dec. 27, i8g8. 105 ! io6 In case of war with England that country would be able to concentrate a force that would compel us to abandon the Philippines, or otherwise to witness a repetition of the fate of Spain when Dewey entered the bay of Manila. It cannot be assumed fairly by anybody that the United States can meet England upon equal terms in the northern Pacific ocean. The naval force of England must always be considerable in the waters of India, and, with the control of the Suez canal, her fleets could be augmented rapidly. A contest with Eng land would be an unequal contest, and the result would be fatal to our dominion in the East and humiliating to our pride at home. Friendships among nations have only slight value in quiet times, and when the passions of revenge and ambition, the two dominating passions in nations and in rulers, are in con trol, then friendships are of no value whatever. It is now only twenty-five years since President Grant was able to say to the country that every question with England had been adjusted. Since that time many disturbing ques tions have arisen, and in 1895-96 the nations were on the verge of war, apparently. As to England, nothing can be assumed of its future. Nor do I invade the regions of fancy when I indulge the conjecture that war with England will come with any serious attempt for the independence of the Canadas. A revolution ary movement on our northern frontier would give rise to projects for aiding the revolutionists, and even the silent co-operation of our authorities might not be wanting. The laxity that was exhibited by the administration of President Cleveland and by President McKinley while the insurgents in Cuba were carrying on the war against Spain would not be tolerated by Great Britain. Spanish-born sub jects, but naturalized citizens of the United States, who had been engaged in the rebellion, were the cause of vigorous diplomatic debate, and Spain was forced to consent to the release of men who had been taken with arms in their hands while making war on her authority. I07 All this was in marked contrast to the course of the government in the presidency of John Tyler and when Mr. Webster was Secretary of State. In the year 1841 there were revolutionary proceedings on the other side of the Canadian line in which American citizens were taking part. In the month of September Mr. Webster prepared a proclamation, in which this language may be found : Whereas, It has come to the knowledge of the government of the United States that sundry secret lodges exist on the northern frontier, that it is their purpose to violate the laws of their country by making military and lawless incursions into the territories of a power with which the United States is at peace. Now, therefore, I, John Tyler, President of the United States, do issue this, my proclamation, admonishing all such evil-minded persons of the condign punishment which is certain to overtake them ; and that, if in any lawless incursions into Canada they fall into the hands of the British authorities, they will not be reclaimed as American citizens, nor any interference made by this government in their behalf. A striking contrast to the conduct of the United States during the insurrection in Cuba, vvhen American citizens who had been engaged in a war against a nation with which the United States was at peace were reclaimed under a threat of war. The historical facts to which this proclamation relates ¦furnish some support to the suggestion that persons in the United States are likely to aid and abet any revolutionary movement that may be undertaken in Canada. The laxity of our policy during the insurrection in Cuba, if imitated by us in the event of revolutionary movements in Canada, would open a controversy with Great Britain that might end in war ; but my object is attained when so much is conceded as this — that war with England is not an impossibility. Many persons who advocate, or rather who tolerate, the acquisition of the Philippines seem to assume that we are to remain at peace with Great Britain, yet they are demanding military and naval armaments adequate to a contest with that country, and which are unnecessary with reference to any other power this side of Russia. io8 Having in view what I have said on this occasion, as well as what I have said on former occasions, I ask you to accept two statements, which I lay before you as my fixed opinions. concerning the future of the country : First : If, by the treaty with Spain, ratified by the Ameri can Senate, we take jurisdiction of the Philippine Islands for any purpose or for any period of time, that jurisdiction will never be surrendered voluntarily by the United States. Second : That the sovereignty of the islands will be yielded to force finally, and that that force may be exerted by the inhabitants of the islands, or by England, or by Japan, or by Russia, and not unlikely by the combination or the co-opera tion of two or more of those powers. In support of the second proposition, which must provoke a feeling of contempt in those who believe that our govern ment is both immortal and irresistible, I assume that we are to be a disturbing element in the East. That, indeed, we are already. England, Germany, Russia and Japan are sensitive over possible tariff regulations. When our jurisdiction shall have been established we shall be called to meet a demand for the payment of the debt rest ing upon the islands, as we shall be called to meet a demand for the payment of the Cuban debt. Finally, arbitration will be tendered, a tender which we cannot refuse, unless we de part from our theory and practice as a nation. Thus by these questions and in other ways we are, and are to be, a disturbing and unwelcome power in the East, and an insignifi cant power in the East as compared with England or Russia, or even Japan. We shall sustain the relation to those coun tries that Spain sustained to the United States in its contest for the preservation of the Antilles, with the added impedi ment that the distance to the theater of operations is magni fied four times over, while the difficulties of correspondence and support in times of war are to be multiplied in a much greater ratio. A slight knowledge of geography, physical and political, may justify the statement that it is unwise for the United 109 States to accept the jurisdiction of any island in the Pacific ocean, either great or small. I am now to speak of Russia, of its position, of its present actual power, and of the controlling influence it is to exert in the affairs of the East through the centuries that are ap proaching. At once it will be said. Why imagine difficulties with Russia? — that country is our friend. Yes, Russia has been our friend. She has had no occasion to be other than our friend. But is it wise to accept possessions that can only be held by the preservation of a friendship with a nation that has the power to wrest our possessions from us? There is neither gratitude nor friendship among nations, and I claim that it is unwise for the United States to undertake the cus tody of territories which are not defensible by our own power. Our ocean lines were the best defenses which nature has provided for the protection of mankind. Our insular posses sions must ever be a source of weakness. Hawaii has been acquired for the protection of the Pacific coast, so it was claimed. In the event of war, however, Hawaii will be pro tected by the Pacific coast, or it will fall into the hands of the enemy. Our theory for the responsibility of protection will be reversed. If we hold the Philippines we shall hold them because Russia permits us to hold them, but not other wise. This in itself is a humiliation. Russia extends from the Baltic sea to the Sea of Japan, over one hundred meridians of longitude, on the fiftieth parallel of latitude, or something more than a fourth part of the circumference of the globe on that parallel. It contains a hardy population of one hundred million, with abundant resources for the support of one hundred million more. Its financial means are as limitless as are our own, and it keeps a vigilant eye upon all the inventions and improvements that relate to the art of war. This century is to close with the full consummation of three great acts of policy on the part of Russia, by which that country will acquire and keep control I IO of the northern Pacific ocean against every other jurisdiction and against every contestant for dominion : First: I name the construction of the railway from the Gulf of Finland to the Bay of Corea, a distance of five thou sand miles or more. Second: The possession of Port Arthur as one of the termini of the railway, while the other is to be at Pekin, the capital of the Chinese empire. Third: A protecting alliance with China, which at any time may be changed into an authoritative government in the hands of Russia. Thus the power of the Chinese empire is to be subject to the control of Russia. The resources of China are underestimated, and the capacity of the Chinese is much undervalued, in the United States. I need not say that the empire of China covers a tenth part of the habitable globe, and that it contains a pop ulation of four hundred million. They are industrious and time saving, and in every way they are an economical race. In one particular they surpass all the rest of the world — they are a debt-paying people. They can defy competition, and that pecuharity is the only adequate defense for our hostile legislation. They can manage a bank or run a laun dry with a certainty of success that cannot be foretold of any other people, whether English, American or Hebrew. I had the acquaintance of two men who had represented this country to the Government of China — Mr. Cushing and Mr. Burlingame They alike, and from experience, enter tained a high opinion of China and of the possibilities of its population. Some of us can remember the event of the appearance of Mr. Burlingame at the head of the most distinguished embassy that ever crossed the oceans. It was the misfortune of China that he did not live to return. He had already accepted the idea that China must enter upon a military career, or that it must submit itself to the domination of England or Russia. His apprehensions and his military plans he had laid before the authorities. They were reluctant to enter Ill upon a war policy. They said that war was of their experi ence, that they had abandoned it as a public policy, although they had been compelled to accept it in the provinces, as in the case of the great rebellion, in which Captain Ward of Salem was a conspicuous actor, and which, as Mr. Burlingame informed me, was supposed to have cost twelve million lives. If Mr. Burlingame had returned to China, and the authori ties had accepted his advice and had adopted his policy, the fortunes of the empire in the contest with Japan would have been reversed, or, as is probable, rather, the thought of war would not have been entertained by Japan. The fortunes of Russia and China are now identified, and henceforth their immense resources are to be wielded as one power. It is already the most formidable organization, either for peace or war, which the world has ever seen. I say already, for the presence of Russia at Pekin and Port Arthur, whether with the friendly concurrence of the Chinese author ities or by the exercise of hostile dominating power on the part of Russia, warrants the conclusion that China and Russia are combined, and that there can be no division of the Chinese empire adverse to the wishes and policy of Russia. Port Arthur is at the toe of the peninsula called the Regent's Sword, which commands the waters of the Yellow sea and the upper Pacific ocean, as Florida commands the waters and islands of the Caribbean sea. The two countries contain a population of 500,000,000, and for the defense of the frontiers of China, or for the conquest of the islands of the northern Pacific, including Japan even, they may defy the western world. It is in the nature of events that Russia and China should become allies. They are alike continental, they are contigu ous, and combined they are invincible. So much has been said in recent years in disparagement of China and the Chinese that we are disposed to look upon the nation with an unreasoning measure of contempt. I 12 Upon recognized historical authority China was an empire when King David was on the throne of Israel, and centuries before the foundations of the city of Rome were laid. Chinese authorities claim six thousand years of unbroken national existence. In the three thousand years of accepted history, empires have risen and fallen, nations have appeared and disappeared, and of many their chronicles are forgotten. What are the Chinese today? I do not speak of the gov ernment; I speak of the people. What are they? In business pursuits and in the competitive industries they have become the terror of the world. English and American merchants have been driven from business on the coasts of China, where a half- century ago vast fortunes were accumu lated in a decade. Chinese merchants have taken possession of Madagascar, and they are invading every business center in the East, and this country has protected its business and its industries by restrictive legislation. In the year 1853 Yung Wing, who was educated at Groton and New Haven, and who was afterwards in the diplomatic service of China, made this statement in a letter to me : " There are thousands of Chinese in India, resident mer chants in the principal cities of that country. In the East Indian archipelago the inhabitants are nearly half Chinese." The facts of 1853 are emphasized in 1898. The govern ing dynasty of China may be weak and corrupt, but there is capacity in the people for great undertakings in war as well as in peace. Under the lead of Russia, if not upon its own motion, China is to be transformed into a war-making power. China may repeat the message to the western world that it sent out in the year 1253. In that year, a half-century before the visit of Marco Polo, a French priest, William de Rubruquish, visited China, and upon his return he brought a letter from the emperor to Louis IX., in which are these words: " If you will obey us send your ambassadors unto us, so shall we be certified whether you will have peace with us or war." 113 In the same letter the emperor pleaded for peace, and he set forth the public policy of the empire in these words : " When, by the power of the eternal God, the whole world shall be in unity, joy, and peace, from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, then shall it appear what we will do." These extracts and references are valueless unless they teach this — that the inefficiency of China in war is not due to incapacity, but to an ancient, long-continued, and well- settled opinion that wars are evils, and that the world ought to be at peace. No event of the near future can be predicted with more certainty than this — that China is to be transformed into a warlike power, and that its great resources are to be at the service and under the directing hand of Russia. When we occupy the Philippine Islands we sit down under the shadow of this mighty power, knowing full well that our jurisdiction is a subordinate and tolerated jurisdiction, and that Russia is supreme. And herein we find the source of the flatterjTl which England lavishes on us. She hopes for our aid in the contest with Russia for dominion in the East. Our position will be this : Humiliating subserviency to Russia on the one hand or an alliance with England and a fruitless war on the other. For us, independence in policy, peace, and self- assertion will be impossible, if we enter into the islands of the East. " The real England may be read in an extract from the London Saturday Review : Let us be frank and say outright that we expect mutual gain in material interest from this rapprochment. The American commis sioners at Paris are making their bargain, whether they realize it or not, under the protecting naval strength of England, and we shall expect a material quid pro quo for this assistance. We expect the United States to deal generously with Canada in the matter of tariffs, and we expect to be remembered when the United States comes into possession of the Philippine Islands, and, above all, we expect her assistance on the day, which is quickly approaching. 114 when the future of China comes up for settlement, for the young im perialist has entered upon a path where it will require a strong friend, and a lasting friendship between the two nations can be secured, not by frothy sentimentality or public platforms, but by reciprocal advantages in solid, material interests. Americans may take note of four or more observations that are of supreme importance : I. We are indebted to the protecting naval strength of England for our successes in the war with Spain. 2. We are to deal generously with Canada. 3. Whatever trade benefits may arise from the conquest of the Philippines, England is to enjoy with us. 4. There must be mutual help in the coming contest with Russia. Thus are we to be inveigled into chronic wars, in which our resources of men and money will be wasted, and, it may be, exhausted, and for which no return — I do not say no adequate return — I say for which no appreciable return can be made. We may now retire from the Philippine Islands without dis honor. If we accept jurisdiction we shall be driven away in disgrace, or we may remain in subordination to Russia. If the President, or our commanders in the Pacific, have given pledges, they have not avowed them. They have not had authority to make pledges. The country is free to act. In this aspect of the condition of affairs I ask attention tO' the perils incident to the un-American policy of the admin istration. The President proposes to take jurisdiction of the Philippines, and then to consider how they are to be gov erned. I use his language : I do not discuss, at this time, government or the future of the new possessions which will come to us as the result of the war with Spain. Such decision will be appropriate after the treaty of peace shall be ratified. In the meantime, and until the Congress has legislated other wise, it will be my duty to continue the military governments which have existed since our occupation, and give to the people security in life and property, and encouragement under a just and beneficent rule. "5 Thus he announces the essential doctrines of an unlimited tyranny. First, we are to take the islands, and then we are to decide how they are to be governed. The President as sumes that the inhabitants have no rights, that all right was in Spain, and that as we succeed to her jurisdiction we may also impose upon the inhabitants whatever form of govern ment may be agreeable to us. We are to pursue the policy which we have condemned in Spain, and which has ended in unmitigated disaster. I do not now discuss the constitutionality of the projected colonial system, but it is manifest that its introduction leads to a departure, a wide departure, from the doctrine that all just governments derive their powers from the free consent of the governed. By this one step which the President invites us to take, and which the President proposes to take, we p^ss from a republic to an empire. We abandon the doctrine that personal freedom and political equality in public affairs, and self-government in communities, are a common heritage, and we ally ourselves with the long line of despots who have seized power and jurisdiction, and then governed and misgov erned their fellow-men according to their own sovereign will. Nor ought the country to be pacified and misled by assur ances that our governments are to be temporary, and that they will be liberal governments. Enforced governments, though temporary, are unjust gov ernments, and leniency in despotic governments is far away from justice. These considerations, even if well founded, are no defense for the wrong act of seizing ten million people, and holding them for a day, even. Of two conjectures it is certain that the truth is to be found in one of them: Either the President has no plan for the government of the Philippines or he is not willing to lay it before the country. Will Congress accept the jurisdiction of ten million of alien and incapable people without having first formulated a plan of government, or, at least, without having advanced to the consideration and decision of the question ii6 whether they are to be treated as a vassal class or to be accepted as fellow-citizens and political equals? Upon the President's plan the Philippines are to be under a military government until — until vvhen? Assuredly until a civil gov ernment can be set up. Can any dreamer suggest a time when a free, republican, self-sustaining and self-supporting civil government can be set up in the Philippines? Can the President name such a time? Although no such time has been named, and although no such time can be named, yet, as a measure of public policy, the United States is urged to sanction in perpetuity a presidential government over ten million conquered people who occupy one thousand islands in pestilential climes, in unfrequented seas, ten thousand miles away. If we leave the islands the inhabitants will set up a govern ment. It may not be a good government as we prize gov ernments, but it win be their government. Any form of free government is better than any form of tyranny. For the moment I pass by the unrepublican features of the President's policy, and, having in mind the disastrous expedi tions of Napoleon to Egypt and Russia, I ask whether the history of Europe gives an account of any undertaking that in its beginnings seemed to be fraught with evils and perils of equal magnitude? I end my observations with a suggestive comparison. A review of our administrations, beginning with the administra tion of General Washington in 1789, invites us to the con clusion that the opening of the administration of President McKinley was the most auspicious of them all. The victory of 1896 had been a partisan victory, but it was full of the promise of benign results, in which all could participate. The demand for the free coinage of silver had been arrested, if not silenced forever. The apprehension of war with Eng land had disappeared. Confidence in our financial ability had been re-established. The country had declared for the policy of protection, and it was certain that the incoming 1(7 Congress would enact a measure of revenue which would promote our industries and check the growth of the public debt. We were at peace with the world, and there were no dis turbing divisions among our people. Yet it happened that while we were thus situated, and at the end of fourteen months only from the day of inauguration, the country was involved in war with Spain, and without the ability on our part to allege truthfully any act of wrongdoing on the part of Spain that had been injurious to us. The treaties between the two countries had not been violated by Spain, our territory had not been invaded, the rights of American citizens had been respected, and, as to the destruction of the battleship, Spain had tendered a reference to arbitrators, with a promise of full compensation in case of an adverse decision. The war on our part was a volunteer war. The question whether the war was a justifiable war is not now under con sideration. Thus we passed from a condition of peace to a condition of war. We have exchanged the greatest of blessings for the direst of calamities. We have sacrificed many lives ?ind expended hundreds of millions of money in behalf of a people that, upon closer acquaintance, seem to be worthy only of our pity and contempt. We have loaded ourselves with possessions which we do not need ; we have assumed jurisdiction over millions of human beings who do not recognize the rightfulness of our authority, and who manifestly, in the opinion of all, are inca pable of self-government, and who cannot be governed by us unless we abandon our political principles and accept doc trines that we have been taught to despise. We have extended our system cf taxation until we have levied upon more than a majority of the available subjects of taxation, and we have increased the public debt in the sum of hundreds of millions. Our current expenses are in excess of the revenues at the rate of $150,000,000 a year. Our ii8 pension rolls have been lengthened to the end of the first half of the next century, and we are threatened with a permanent increase of the army and the navy at a cost of $150,000,000 a year. It is a matter of minor importance that the supremacy of the Republican party has been put in peril, but to some of us such an event is no slight catastrophe. What are our compensations ? The miseries of Cuba that were the occasion of the war have not been relieved, and the sum of them has been multi plied many times over within the limits of the United States. While we are not to undervalue the achievements of the navy and the army at Manila, at Santiago, and at San Juan, they are but slight compensation for the sacrifices and suffer ings incident to the war. It is a boast that the war has cemented the Union, and that the South has shown its capacity in war. The Union was compacted and firm when the war opened, and faith in our form of government has been lessened rather than strengthened by the events of the war, as is indicated in the opinion of Europe that our system is about to undergo an organic change. We did not need a war to demonstrate the courage and skill of the South. When an Enghsh sympathizer with the South said to Mr. Charles Francis Adams, then our minister at London, "The Confederates fight well," — "Yes," said Mr. Adams, "they are brave men ; they are my countrymen." The opinion of Mr. Adams was indorsed universally. The South has added nothing, it can add nothing, to its standing in the quality of courage in war. Finally, all the events of this war culminate in this : The foundations have been laid on which may be set up — I borrow the language of Mr. Choate, of Mr. Rufus Choate — on which may be set up "the frowning arch of a ranged empire." IMPERIALISTS OR REPUBLICANS? IMPERIALISTS OR REPUBLICANS ? I SHALL devote the larger part of the time assigned to me to the discussion of two topics that sustain an important relation to the movement by which this government is to be so changed and transformed that its republican character will be subordinated to an aggressive foreign policy, to be followed by burdensome taxation at home and the sacrifice in war of successive generations of the youth of the country. First of all I am to seek for the line of delimitation between a republic and an empire, and in proportion to the degree of success that may be attained will be our means of deciding whether we are Imperialists or Republicans. In the second place, even though I compel myself to stand at the confessional, I shall not hesitate to pass in review the steps and processes by which this republic is being trans formed into an empire. Words are of no considerable value, but Senator Lodge objects to the word " Imperialist " as applied to him and to those who support the policy that he approves. It is alleged also that a senator who stands high in the opinion of the President and in the councils of the Republican party has said that he is ignorant of the meaning of the words " imperi alist " and " imperialism," and he declares that he will not become a lexicographer and give his time to the inquiry involved in so laborious an undertaking. His abstention is a mark of wisdom. The inquiry might convince himself, even, that he is an Imperialist, and that he is lending himself to the work of transforming this republic into an empire. I am not concerned about words, nor am I anxious to find words and phrases that may be applicable to individuals or to classes of men. Let us seek for facts on which conclusions may be based. Note. — Address before the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass., Jan. g, 1899. 122 It may not be an impossible undertaking to mark the dis tinction between a republic and an empire, and thus from our opinions and policy we may decide whether we are Re publicans or Imperiahsts. That is the object of this my first inquiry. Mr. Lincoln expressed in choice language and in phrase immortal the democratic-republicanism of the American republic when he said at Gettysburg, in honor of the dead who had fallen there : " We here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain, that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." The new birth of freedom came with the proclamation of emancipation and the thirteenth amendment to the Constitu tion. Is its life to be ended with the first third of the first century of its existence? That is a very important question, and the answer must soon be made by the American people. When I spoke before the Twentieth Century Club, the eighth day of October last, I considered an alternative propo sition as to the government of the islands that we are acquir ing. The alternative was this : Are the territories and peoples that we have acquired and are acquiring to be treated as pro spective states or as perpetual colonies? That alternative has disappeared and a new aspect of the case is presented. It is not only understood, it has been announced in substance by the President at Atlanta, that, with the possible exception of Hawaii, the islands claimed and demanded are not destined to statehood in the American Union. PORTO RICO. Porto Rico, which contains a population of a million, whose homes are on a territory about equal in area to the five western counties of Massachusetts, is to be held in some subordinate condition, without the consent of the inhabitants of the islands having been first obtained, and without any 123 pledges on our part as to the nature and duration of the gov ernment we are to establish over them. As to Cuba and the Philippines, we are to set up and maintain such military governments as please us, and the governments so set up are to remain until the governing party is of opinion that the parties governed are capable of governing themselves. Do we not find in this policy the essential quality of every despotism that has ever existed? And was there ever a despot who did not plead in excuse and justification of his usurpation the incompetency and incapacity of those over whom he exercised power? " He serves them for their good." That is his plea, and that is to be our plea. It is the plea of the President in his proclamation to the Philippines in these opening days of the new year. It is a plea which will justify the acquisition of territory and the subjugation of peoples half the globe over. But a further answer is tendered : These governments, say the advocates of the new policy, are to be temporary govern ments. All things are temporary that are measured by time, but why temporary if good, and if good why not to be per manent? To whatever length of time temporary govern ments may be maintained, the ability of the people resident to establish a government for themselves can never be made certain until the experiment has been tried. Why not submit to the experiment at once ? The war was undertaken for the freedom of Cuba and upon the allegation that the Cubans could govern themselves. Spain has been driven from Cuba. If the reason for the war was adequate the reason remains ; and by force of that reason we are required to allow the inhabitants of Cuba to set up a government for themselves, and that without delay. This duty the President should realize. The nature of a government is to be found in its origin and not in the character or quality of its administration. There may be mildness, there may be leniency in the administration of a despotic government, but the existence of despotic gov- 124 ernments cannot therefore and thereon be justified. We must look to the foundation, and no one can complain that we now apply Mr. Lincoln's test of republican government to the case in hand. By our authority, and without asking the inhabitants of Porto Rico and the Philippines, we are to set up governments over them, make laws for which we demand uncomplaining submission, and we are to appoint officers who are to follow our guidance, and that without regard to the opinions of the people over whom those officers may bear rule. Can this conduct endure the test of the great political aphorism laid down by Mr. Lincoln on the battlefield of Gettsyburg? Or, if I am not too old-fashioned for the present age, I venture to ask the advocates of the modern system of expan sion of territory and the government of foreign peoples with out their consent, if they can cite an act in Washington's career, or quote a passage in his writings, which gives sup port to the present policy? If republicanism in government is to be deduced from our history as a republic the result, the conclusion, must be this, as to the acquisition of occupied territory : I. The people acquired must have consented freely thereto, or the lawful authorities who were over such people must have consented freely to the transfer. 2. The acceptance of the transfer of territory and popu lation must be upon the understanding and pledge on the part of the United States that the territories and inhabitants so acquired are to become members of the American Union upon the basis of equality of citizenship in the several states and of the equality of states in the Union. These facts and conditions do not exist in the proceedings touching Porto Rico and the Philippines. One conclusion, therefore, is unavoidable, namely, the proceedings in regard to those islands are not in harmony with American-republi can ideas and institutions. A further inquiry may be this: Do the proceedings correspond to the policy and history of Great Britain? And 125 ne.xt. Is England an empire, or is the title " Empress of India," that was bestowed upon Queen Victoria by Lord Beaconsfield, a fabrication? And how has the empire of Britain been created? Assuredly by conquest, as in the Canadas and India, and by the seizure and appropriation of defenseless territories, as in parts of Africa. One law or rule of creation may be found in all the empires that have existed, from Phoenicia and Carthage to Rome and England. In every empire there may be found a nucleus where power has resided, and around that central force dependent and subordinate territories and provinces have been gathered. It is in this relation that Porto Rico and the Philippines are to stand with reference to the United States, if the policy of the administration shall be consummated and made the policy of the country. The city of Rome was the nucleus of the Roman empire, as England is the nucleus of the empire of Britain, and as the United States is to be the nucleus of the empire of America. If Mr. Joseph Chamberlain can bear with composure the statement that he is an Imperialist our fellow-citizens who are introducing the colonial policy of Great Britain as the policy of the United States ought not to be disturbed when they are assigned to equal rank with Great Britain's secretary for colonial affairs. In this connection I put two questions to the upholders of the expansion policy of the administration, and in set-off I will submit an answer in my own behalf to a question that the President has put to the Anti-Imperialists of the country. My questions are these : Will you present a statement of your policy, as you understand it, and justify it as an Ameri can policy? And, secondly. Will you show wherein it differs from the colonial policy of Great Britain? The question that I am to answer is this : What measure can the Anti-Imperialists offer as a substitute for the seizure, possession and occupation of the Philippine Islands, as that work is now going on under the lead of the President? My answer may be found in a single sentence. 126 Recognize the pledges that were made in April last by Congress and by the President, and retire from Porto Rico and the Philippines in obedience to those pledges. From the President's question, but more distinctly from his general policy, we are to infer that what has been done is to be accepted and justified, and that the abandonment of the Phil ippines is not to be considered. By the roughest proceeding known to diplomacy in modern times we have secured the cession of the Philippines to ourselves, and all in disregard of the millions whose homes are in the islands. If the country is prepared to sanction this proceeding, it is already prepared to carry on a war for the suppression of any attempt at self- government that may be made by the native inhabitants. It is claimed that events have obliterated the pledges of April and that they are no longer of binding force. What are those events ? We have seized a harbor and a city in the Philippines, and it is alleged that Spain has kept open the question of the sovereignty of the islands. When the fleet of Cervera had been destroyed, when the city of Santiago had capitulated, when Spain had abandoned the sovereignty of Cuba, everything relating to jurisdiction for which the war was undertaken had been accomplished. The arrangement of Aug. 12, 1898, should have been an actual peace — it should have been a comprehensive peace. Having secured the independence of Cuba, our duty as a nation, according to our own theory of duty, had been per formed fully. Spain had neither the disposition nor the capacity for further hostilities. If when the protocol was signed the question of the dis posal of the Philippines had been eliminated, then war, and all the apprehensions of war, would have disappeared at once. The war expenses would have been reduced rapidly, and, above all, the hundred thousand young men who are now engaged in guard and police duties in regions where death is the fre quent visitor of every regiment, would have been restored to their homes, and the dire apprehensions, that are only less disturbing than death itself, which now assail the happiness of 127 thousands of families would not have been the nation's riturn for patriotic services and patriotic sacrifices. If the President had been disposed in August last to receive what we had demanded, and what in April we had agreed to receive, our authorities would have signed a treaty instead of a protocol, and in the place of am armistice we should have had an accomplished and established peace. Whatever of suffering and loss of life there may have been at Manila since the protocol of Aug. 12 was made known to Admiral Dewey, whatever expenditures may have been incurred for the support of the army in the East, all, all are the consequences of a purpose on the part of the President to gain control of the Philippine Islands. A war that was begun for humanity, as we alleged, has been continued for conquest. The responsibility forthe war since the 12th of August is upon the administration and not upon Admiral Dewey. An order from the President would have ended the siege of Manila. That the order was not issued places the responsi bility upon the President. The resolution of Congress of April 19 was a limitation of the powers of the President. The war was declared for a specific purpose — the freedom of Cuba from the rule of Spain. When the protocol was signed that object had been accomplished ; and at that moment all military operations not required for the protection of Cuba should have come to an end. The President's question is answered when I say : Redeem the promises you made in April last. Allow the inhabitants of Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines to enter at once upon the work of self-government. • The question is put : Are we to be deprived of the results of our victories? My answer is this: We have not con quered the Philippines. Less than three per cent of the inhabitants are under our jurisdiction even nominally. Spain has surrendered its sovereignty, but we are in the presence of an army of occupation that we are to conciliate or to subdue. For one I say: Bring these sacrifices to an end. Spurn the congratulations of Great Britain, and redeem the 128 pledges given in April last. Thus and only thus can we command peace and maintain our honor. I pass on to an examination of the protocol of Aug. 12. That protocol contains this provision: "The United States will occupy and hold the city, bay, and harbor of Manila pen ding the conclusion of a treaty of peace which shall deter mine the control, disposition, and government of the Philip pines." Under this stipulation the pretension of Spain that the taking of the city of Manila on Saturday, Aug. 13, was a violation of the protocol is a groundless pretension. Spain surrendered its jurisdiction over the city pending the forma tion of a treaty of peace, and the time and manner of enter ing into possession became the right of the United States. On another point our claim cannot be maintained either upon moral grounds or upon a fair construction of the lan guage of the protocol. If in August last the President intended to demand the surrender of the sovereignty of the Philippines, the language of the protocol in regard to those islands should have corres ponded to the language used in reference to Cuba, or it should have contained a specific declaration of purpose. As to Cuba, the stipulation is in these words : " Spain will relinquish all claims of sovereignty over and title to Cuba." The United States has not only demanded the relinquishment of " all claims of sovereignty over and title to the Philippines," but the cession of the islands has been demanded also. That demand has been acceded to bj' Spain. Under this claim Cuba and the Philippines are placed upon the same basis as far as the rights of Spain are concerned. Why was not the demand made in August last for the relinquishment of the sovereignty over and title to the Philippines if at that time such was the purpose of the President? And if such was then his purpose why did not the protocol in regard to the Philippines follow the protocol in regard to Cuba? Further, upon what moral grounds can the indefinite and multifaced paragraph in regard to the Philippines be now so construed as to become the equivalent of the explicit provision in regard 129 to Cuba? Or has there been a change of opinion in the President since August last and, consequently, a change of policy? And if such changes have taken place can they be defended upon moral grounds, or upon those plain principles of justice which ought to characterize the proceedings of ¦ governments as well as the conduct of individual men? The protocol does not furnish any ground for a demand of the sovereignty of the Philippines for any purpose or for any period of time, and its language is an admission that we did not then claim title by conquest. It is further clear, and should be admitted by us, that we gained nothing by the events of the 13th of August. We entered the city of Manila under the protocol which gave us that right, and as an armistice existed on the thir teenth we could take nothing by a warlike movement, even though the military authorities at Manila were ignorant of the arrangements by which hostilities were suspended. If, as matter of fact, and in the opinion of the President, the Philippines had been conquered on the 12th of August, why was not a demand then made for the surrender of juris diction? The . listice was operative on the 13th of August, and the military movements of that day wrought no change in our relations to Spain. The provisions in the treaty of peace by which Spain surrenders the sovereignty of the Phil ippines found its place there in obedience to a new rule of international law — " that a treaty of peace can contain noth ing except what the victors choose to put in," and conversely, that a treaty of peace must contain whatever the victors choose to put in. On the basis of this public policy we might have demanded and secured the cession of the Balearic isles in the Mediter ranean sea, or even the cession of the peninsula of Spain. We may yet be led to say with a retired governor-general of India, and without the aid of a profane expletive, that we " stand astonished at our own moderation." I come now to the consideration of my second topic, the steps and processes by which this republic is being trans- I30 formed into an empire. In this inquiry I shall deal with events to which I have referred already. As long ago as during the administration of President Fillmore the jurisdiction of the Sandwich islands was tendered to the United States. The offer was declined. The weak ness of the monarchy and the grasping policy of England gave rise to rumors and to apprehensions that that govern ment might take or accept a jurisdiction which we had refused. The events of the Civil War had renewed and intensified the ancient hostility of the people of the United States toward Great Britain. Our recent conversion to the policy of the mother country was not anticipated in the administrations of Mr. Lincoln and General Grant. Out of the events and con ditions concerning Hawaii there came into view, and with some apparent strength, a tendency to favor a policy of annexation to the United States. The administration of General Grant entered upon a policy to which I gave my support both in the Cabinet and in the Senate, and which promised two important political results, namely, the extinguishment of any purpose that England might have in regard to the future of the islands, and the suppression of any purpose that might exist to secure their annexation to the United States. The fourth article of the treaty of 1875 with Hawaii con tains a stipulation that as long as the treaty shall remain in force the authorities of the islands will not " dispose of or create any liens upon any port, harbor, or other territory — or grant any special privileges or right of use therein, to any other power, state or government, nor make any treaty by which any other nation shall obtain the same privileges relative to the admission of any articles free of duty." By the treaty of 1887, and under the lead of Senator Edmunds, we acquired Pearl river harbor, the most valuable harbor in the islands. It was thus, and for the twofold purpose of guarding the islands against England and checking the tendency to annex ation in the United States, that we made our first lodgment in the tropical parts of the Pacific ocean. 131 In the year 1890 we entered into a tripartite agreement with England and Germany for the management rather than for the government of the Samoan islands. We have incurred expenditures in the undertaking, we have sustained losses, and we have failed to satisfy the con tending rival chieftains. Of gains and advantages there has been no exhibit. When General Gresham was at the head of the Department of State he had a purpose to annul the arrangement, but he hesitated to try the experiment of changing the policy of his predecessors. When an adminis tration has taken territory or acquired power a successor will never surrender territory nor relinquish power except under the force of a public opinion so expressed that it must be accepted as a command. So it will happen that any juris diction which we may take over the Philippine Islands, how ever we may qualify it, will be continued — continued probably until it is wrested from us by force. Then came the usurpation in Hawaii, carried on by persons of foreign birth or the immediate descendants of foreigners, aided by the presence of an American war-vessel. The haste with which President Harrison recognized the new government, and the brief time that he allowed himself before he entered upon the policy of annexation, justify the conjec ture that he was preadvised of the proceedings. The annexation of the islands seems to have been a pre liminary step to the seizure of the Philippines. It is a fact of common observation, and a fact which those who are of the profession of the law have occasion to observe frequently, that when a man has done a wrong act, or violated a law, he is ready without delay to perpetrate another wrong, or to commit another crime, either for a defense or for an explanation of what he has already done. Our experience in Hawaii, Cuba and the Philippines is in accord with this general law of human conduct. We have erred and we are erring in taking into our juris diction bodies of men who have no knowledge of our institutions, or of the principles and ideas on which our institutions are supposed to rest. 132 Consider the one hundred and ten thousand inhabitants in Hawaii. Is there an advocate of annexation, from the Presi dent along the entire line, — is there one man who will advocate what we call universal suffrage for the semibarba- rians whom we have taken into fellowship ? What follows ? The answer is in the report of the Commission. First of all, the commissioners recommend the exclusion from citizenship of more than four-tenths of the resident inhabitants on account of race, thus setting aside the four teenth and fifteen amendments to the Constitution. It will appear that these excluded persons are already citizens of the United States, and they will so remain in defiance of the commissioners and of Congress. Mr. Wheaton cites as cases of " collective naturalization " the inhabitants of the territo ries acquired of France, Spain and Mexico, and also the inhabitants of Texas, who were made citizens of the United States by the joint resolution of Congress of March 3, 1845. His opinion was followed by the international tribunal organ ized under the treaty of 1880 with France. [See the case of Egle Aubrey.J Citizens may be made by act of Congress, but citizenship cannot be destroyed by act of Congress, either for self-pro tection or as a penalty upon a race. By the report of the Commission the right to vote is not only limited to citizenship, but within the limits of citizenship the right to vote and the right to a seat in the House and the Senate are made dependent upon the possession of a sum of money. Since Dr. Franklin's illustrative example by which he shows that under a property qualification the right of voting might be in a mule rather than in the man who owned the mule, that offensive relic of a former age has been scourged out of the states, where it had made a lodgment under the influence of England's political system, towards which the Imperialistic party of America is now tending with an appre ciable movement that is accelerated constantly. Mark the steps by which we have gained our first position as an empire. 133 In the administration of President Harrison we contributed to the overthrow of a government which we had recognized as a legitimate government, and whose friendship for us had never been clouded by any act of injustice. We first encouraged and then recognized as a lawful organ ization a body of men, hardly more than a twentieth of the population, who had seized the islands and subjected the great majority to their domination. With hot haste the President presented a treaty of annex ation to the Senate. The undertaking failed. President Mc Kinley renewed the treaty. Again the undertaking failed. Finally the administration secured the annexation of the islands by a joint resolution, a mode of action that vvas con demned in the case of Texas by a large body of citizens who afterwards became the Republican party. Next, the Commission has misnamed the proposed govern ment. It is called a territorial government, but whatever may be the name under which it may be organized it has all the ear-marks and qualities of a disciplined oligarchy. The plan of the Commission has no precedent in our his tory; it has no example on this side of the Atlantic. It stands alone, and it is conspicuous as a wide departure from American principles and practice. Forty-eight thousand of the resident inhabitants are excluded on account of race, and without any inquiry as to character or attainments. Of the sixty thousand remaining, others may be excluded for illit eracy ; and finally, no one can vote for a member of the Sen ate, nor can anyone sit in the House or Senate, who does not enjoy an annual income, or possess a very considerable property. Thus, as an example of American policy, politics and justice, we are to set up a little oligarchy founded on money. Neither Franklin nor Lincoln, in their early days of struggling poverty, could have met the requirements now demanded for full citizenship in Hawaii. Washington's example and teachings have vanished, — van ished for a time only ; they will reappear, — and the example and teachings of Mr. Lincoln are disregarded utterly. 134 I may disturb the serenity of Imperialists, but I am to indulge myself in reading again Mr. Lincoln's formula of American liberty, that Imperialists and Anti-Imperialists may have, in one view, the means of testing the proceedings in Hawaii, which are to be reproduced on a larger scale in Porto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines, if the attempt to acquire the Philippines shall be ratified by the Senate. Said Mr. Lincoln: "We here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain, that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." The task to which I invite the Imperialists is this : Recon cile your scheme for the government of Hawaii with the principles enunciated by Mr. Lincoln, or, if to you the task should seem to be an easier task, then demonstrate the unsoundness of the principles laid down by him. I return to the proposition that the doer of a wrong act will continue in wrongdoing for the purpose of explaining or defending what he has already done. Such, indeed, is the necessity of his situation. We erred in the aid we gave to the small body of revolu tionists in Hawaii, who, by our aid, were enabled ta overthrow a friendly and long-existing government. They set up an oligarchy; we recognized it; we took from its hands the sovereignty they had acquired ; we became their allies ; and the proposed government is calculated to continue that oligarchy in power. We engaged originally in an unjust enterprise, and every step in the subsequent proceed ings has been marked by injustice, all to be consummated by the establishment of a government which some will tolerate, but which no one can defend on principle or exten uate on the ground of necessity. Thus and by such means we laid the beginnings of our empire in the tropical waters of the Pacific ocean. SELF-GOVERNMENT OR TYRANNY? SELF-GOVERNMENT OR TYRANNY. I H.WE set before myself two main objects in the address that I have prepared for this occasion. Incidentally I shall deal with some of the reasons that are tendered in justifica tion of the war in Cuba and the war in the Philippine Islands. I have gathered somewhat of evidence, and thereto I add something in the nature of argument in support of the claim that the people of this country have never abandoned the doctrine of self-government as the cardinal doctrine of our public life, whether in the municipality, the state or the nation. Next I have marshaled a portion of the evidence that is at my command which proves, or tends to prove, that the President has entered systematically upon a colonial policy in imitation of the colonial policy of Great Britain. You will observe as I go on that I give no attention to the speeches that the President has made. I follow him by his doings. I give the President credit for ability, for signal ability, in the work of transforming this government, and, therefore, unless I err in that particular, his policy must be logical. When the actions of men and the language of men appear not to harmonize, I look for the truth in the actions of men. A knowledge of a single act, especially in the case of a public officer, may not warrant a conclusion as to the motives and purposes of the actor, but when there is an array of sev eral consecutive acts, and all relating to the same subject matter, and all tending in the same direction, a conclusion may be deduced with unerring certainty. Four great events, for which the President is responsible in his office, are reconcilable with each other upon one theory only, and they all tend to one conclusion, — an American Note. — Address delivered at the Anti-Imperialist meeting, Tremont Temple, Boston,. Apirl 4. i!i99- 137 /I38 colonial system. First, I /mention the protocol of Aug. 12, 1898; second, the treaty of Paris of Dec. 10, 1898; then the proclamation to the Philippines of Jan. 5, 1899; and, finally, the Philippinean war of subjugation, which the Presi dent is now carrying on in the Philippine Islands, upon his sole responsibility and without special authority of law. That war is transforming, and transforming rapidly, the eight or ten million Filipinos who were our friends, and who, except for this war, would have continued to be our friends, into enemies of the United States. When this shall have been accomplished we shall be met by the formidable prop osition that we cannot consent to the erection of an inde pendent state in hostility to the government by whose agency the state is to be created. Thus the colonial system will become the alternative — the inevitable alternative. I pause to ask the devotees of commerce and the friends of missionary work whether the prospect for their undertak ings is now more inviting than it would have been if the President had aided the Filipinos to set up a government without delay, and thus to have bound them to this country by ties of gratitude which would have lasted through the centuries? The President is not drifting, nor is he anxious for the advice of Congress. He appears rather to shun its inter ference. He has a policy of his own — a colonial system for America which shall correspond to the colonial system of Great Britain. This is to be the distinguishing feature of his administration. On that policy we join issue. Passing from this topic for the moment and speaking for myself, I concede one point to the advocates of imperialism. If some of the opponents of the present policy of terri torial, insular expansion have questioned the power of this government to acquire territory either by purchase or by conquest, they may have erred as to the extent of the sov ereignty existing in the Government of the United States, and it is certain that they have erred in raising a question which is not essential and which is calculated to embarrass 139 the opponents of the present policy. The power to acquire territory is a necessary incident of sovereignty in any form of government, and its existence must always be assumed unless a contrary and controlling declaration shall have been made in the fundamental law of a particular state. As no such restriction has been made in our Constitution, it must be admitted that the power of the United States to acquire ter ritory is an unlimited power. It is in vain that we seek to make a constitutional distinction between the acquisition of contiguous continental territories and the acquisition of islands in distant and unfrequented seas. For one, therefore, I have not opposed the acquisition of the Philippines upon the ground that there is not power in our government to acquire the islands either by conquest or by purchase, but I have opposed the scheme as bad public policy, and for the further and controlling reason that under our form of govern ment the inhabitants will be entitled to citizenship and to membership as states in the American Union. Our form of government in each and every of its attributes proceeds upon the idea that the people, acting in communi ties, are to govern themselves. It may be said with entire confidence that, until the opening of the Spanish war, there had not appeared in the United States one man whose voice could reach the public ear who had ventured to intimate that the United States could seize, or take, or accept, territories and peoples, and then proceed in the business of government upon any other theory than the theory of self-government. No change in the public policy has been wrought by the fact that in many cases there has been a period of minority, nor can the fact be quoted as evidence of a departure from the general policy of the country. With equal honesty it might be alleged that the full rights of citizenship are denied to young men, who do not possess the elective franchise until they arrive at the age of twenty-one years. With a marvelous inaptitude in the use of the faculty called reason the advocates of enforced jurisdiction over the Philippines cite the case of the District of Columbia, where 140 the right to vote does not exist. The District of Columbia was a little territory originally, that measured ten miles on each of its four sides, or one hundred square miles in all. It is now reduced to one-half of its original size. With suffi cient reasons, with reasons imperative, in fine, reasons which were sufficient to distinguish a government subordinate from a government supreme ; reasons arising from the experiences of a fugitive Congress, the framers of the Constitution made a wide departure from the theory of a republican government, and in a manly, open way they recognized the fact. They made no resort to subterfuges ; they made no attempt to qualify, to misinterpret, or to conceal the fundamental truths of the Declaration of Independence. They said : A great exigency is upon us. We are engaged in a mighty struggle. We are striving to create a nation. In a nation there must be sovereignty, and that there may be sovereignty there must be a capital, free, always free, from the untimely or impertinent or dangerous interference of a state or of a mob. They did not assume that some Congress might seize a terri tory, exercise jurisdiction, and authorize or permit a Presi dent, as commander-in-chief, to keep the peace. They said : We will invoke the highest human authority; we will not attempt to exercise jurisdiction over any territory and its occupants, however insignificant the territory or feeble in numbers the dwellers thereon may be, unless the people and states of the Union shall authorize the thing to be done. This of the territory of the United States, and over which a limited jurisdiction was to be thrown by the new Constitu tion. Let the advocates of imperial jurisdiction over the Phil ippines follow the example of the founders of the republic. Let them ask the people and the states of the Union for constitutional authority to set aside the Declaration of Inde pendence and the preamble to the Constitution, wherein the establishment of justice is named as only second in importance of the objects for which the Constitution was formed. 141 Let them state the exact facts to the country, and say that, with the aid of the natives, we have expelled Spain from the islands where she has claimed jurisdiction since 1 52 1, although her actual jurisdiction has never been exer cised over more than one-half of the territory ; that we have succeeded to the title of Spain, but without the concurrence of the natives ; that the territory is equal in extent to the territory of the states of New England and New York com bined ; that the population is equal to the population of the seven states named ; and that we propose to govern these people and to tax these people without their consent, until in our opinion they are capable of governing themselves. Finally, we ask for authority to compel them into submis sion in case of resistance, and we are able to assure the country that the millions on the islands are bound to the soil, and that they cannot find homes or abiding-place or shelter anywhere else within the limits of the habitable globe. We know that we are departing from the principles of our gov ernment when we attempt to rule and to tax a people without their consent. We know that our proposition is inconsistent with the preamble to the Constitution, and that it is espe cially inconsistent with the Declaration of Independence, wherein these words are used : We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriv ing their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to thera shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Let them say to the country : We stand in the presence of these great political truths, we recognize their binding force, we shrink from the violation of them in setting up govern ments and enforcing systems of taxation over and among a people whose wishes have not been consulted, and whose 142 voice has not been heard. We realize that these truths are for the islanders as well as for us, and that thereby they are prejustified in resisting any attempt that we may make to set up our government over them. Moreover, one of our trusted leaders has said of himself and of his associates : " There is not one among us who would not cut off his hand sooner than be false to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and to the great traditions and ideals of American history." Hence it is that we ask the people and states of the American Union to assume the responsibility. By this course the advocates of free conquest and imperial schemes of government may bring themselves within the prec edent of the founders of the Republic, who created a voice less municipality that a nation might possess sovereignty. In support of the request three reasons might be offered : I. A possibility of an increase in the Philippines in the demand for low-priced cotton cloths, and thus the manufac turing industries of Fall River and Lowell and kindred cities might be improved. 2. The field for missionary work might be enlarged. One observation on this point. The war through which we are now passing has been tolerated by some and defended by others as a war in behalf of humanity, or as a war which will enlarge the field for the spread of Christianity. Wars will not cease until mankind abandon the opinion that the senti ment of humanity, in any of its many forms of expression, or the spread of any system of religion, can justify the sacrifice of human life in war. Wars for humanity, for civilization, for religion, have no fixed points at vvhich, in the nature of things, they are to terminate. Our Cuban war, for humanity, has spread already to the Philippines, and for a like reason it may pass over to China. 3. The forcible seizure and occupation of the Philippines by us may prevent the forcible seizure and occupation of the islands by some other nation possessing less wisdom and humanity in government than we claim for ourselves. Can anyone, can the President or Senator Lodge, have a 143 doubt about the verdict of the country upon these proposi tions ? Are wars to be justified upon the ground that markets may be extended? On the contrary, I hazard the statement that every war limits the ability of the people to make purchases, and for the reason that the earnings of the laborers are con sumed in war taxes. Wars tend to enhance the price of the products of labor, and to diminish the means of the toilers in every line of industry. Wars increase the demand for the enginery of war, but they limit the demand for everything else. The markets of the world are not opened by wars abroad, but by schools, by institutes of design and technology, by inventions, and by applied science at home. Whoever can excel in cheapness and quality of production will open all the markets of the world to his products. All markets are closed against the inferior and the more expensive arti cles. While England is struggling for new markets she is losing the monopoly of the markets that she has conquered, and one by one and step by step they are passing into the hands of France, Germany and the United States. Wars are closing the markets of the world against those who carry on the wars. The war with Spain has added largely to the cost of production in the United States by the new taxes laid upon capitalists and upon laborers. The prosecution of the war against the Filipinos is an offense to every producer, and every laborer, and every tax payer in America. Our demand must be this : Withdraw the troops from the Philippines, and that without regard to any arrangements that may have been made. Leave the islands to the inhabitants. Let them set up a government for themselves. Let it be recognized as an independent state, and without any inquiry by us as to its character. Nothing can be more presumptuous in human affairs than the claim that the President and Congress are entitled to an opinion even upon the matter of the government of the Philippines. The only preparation for such a work is the preparation which ignorance may furnish. We are ignorant of their languages. 144 of their traditions, of their habits of life, of the exactions which climate may make upon the dwellers in the tropics, and yet we think ourselves capable of governing a distant and foreign people with whom ordinary intercourse is impossible. What is the next step in the career of public crime on which the country has entered ? Only this : The creation of a mercenary army, to be composed of men with whom, for the most part, we are unable to have personal intercourse, who have no knowledge of our institutions, and who will be bound to us by no tie, except that which may be established between the oppressed and the oppressor. The demand has already come from Cuba, and for the reason that our troops cannot remain in the island after April i. If natives can be obtained in Cuba and Porto Rico, what is to be done for or with the forty thousand citizen soldiers who are in the Philippines? Mercenary armies have been the curse of every country in which they have found employment. At the best, they are bound to the country that they serve by no other tie than the tie which binds the employed to the employer. In the Philippines the relation will be that of the oppressed to the oppressor. We are to establish a system of slavery in the Philippines, and then trust to an army composed of men who are conscious of the chains that they are wearing. The battle of the 5th of February has given us control of the suburbs of Manila, but the subjugation of the island of Luzon is the work on which the army is entering. That may be a work of days, or the contest may go on for years. I pass now to the question of responsibility, and I assume, first of all, that the responsibility for the existing state of affairs is upon the President. To that point I shall offer some evidence. How far Aguinaldo represents the inhabitants of the islands is not known to anyone. Three facts, however, are established : He represents somebody ; he has a military force at his command that rises to the proportions of an army ; and he is the only person in the island of Luzon who makes a claim to authority. I4S A vital charge against the President and the administration is this: Since the I2th of August, when the protocol was signed, Aguinaldo has been treated as a rebel, or as an enemy. As early as December, 1898, we sent a menacing fleet and army for the purpose of capturing or destroying the city of Iloilo. That movement was delayed for the ratification of the treaty. The treaty ratified was preannounced as security for peace, and immediately we attacked the city of Iloilo. It is now evident that every habitation and hamlet that is within range of the shot and shell of our navy will suffer a like fate. How otherwise is the rebellion to be suppressed ? The President's proclamation of Jan. 5 was a declaration of war against the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands. The declaration of war by us justified the Filipinos in making actual war, and it is in vain that we attempt to transfer the responsibihty from ourselves to them. Nor as yet is it an established fact that the war of arms was commenced by Aguinaldo. What are the allegations and demands of the proclamation? I quote from its language: I. It is alleged in the proclamation that the destruction of the Spanish fleet and the capture of the city of Manila " practically effected the conquest of the Philippine islands." 2. " As the result of the victories of American arms the future control, disposition and government of the Philippine islands are ceded to the United States." 3. "The military government heretofore maintained by the United States in the city, harbor and bay of Manila is to be extended with all possible dispatch to the whole of the ceded territory." 4. " The taxes and duties heretofore payable by the inhabitants to the late government become payable to the authorities of the United States, unless it be seen fit to sub stitute for them other reasonable rates or modes of contribu tion to the expenses of government." 5. "In the fulfillment of this high mission, supporting the temperate administration of affairs for the greatest good of the governed, there must be sedulously maintained the 146 strong arm of authority, to repress disturbances and to overcome all obstacles to the bestowal of the blessings of good and stable government upon the people of the Philip pine islands under the free flag of the United States." The President occupies the position in reference to the Philippines that Russia occupies in regard to Poland, and a position kindred to the position that Austria occupied to Hungary in 1848, when Kossuth was carrying on a contest in behalf of self-government in which all America sympa thized. The President abandons the Declaration of Independence, and sets aside the immortal words, " Governments are insti tuted among men, deriving their just powers from the con sent of the governed." He is now using an army of American citizens to overcome an obstacle — the opinion of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands that they have a natural and inalienable right to govern themselves. In the presence of the proclamation of Jan. 5, the conjecture even is impossible that the President contemplates a time when the inhabitants of the Philippines will be permitted to govern themselves. He is now engaged in carrying on a war for the purpose, as he alleges, of " bestowing the blessings of good and stable government upon the people of the Philippine islands, under the free flag of the United States." Thus does the President avow a purpose through war to undertake the " bestowal of the blessings of good and stable government, under the free flag of the United States," upon unwilling peoples. What is the meaning of this declaration, when it is stripped of its rhetoric? Only this — we are to enter upon wars of con quest, and to govern the conquered by force. The flag which to us is a free flag would be to them only an emblem of tyranny. What sort of a government is the President setting up in the Phihppine Islands? The answer must be this : A military government set up over a people who have been subdued or who are to be subdued by military power. 147 Can such a government be a good government in the opinion of those who are the subjects of it? And of vvhat value is the opinion of the governing party to those who are the subjects of the government? The President avows the purpose to enforce submission against all resistance, and to govern and to tax without refer ence to the wishes of the inhabitants. He asserts a purpose to use all the powers ever claimed by any despot. In fine, there is no middle ground in prin ciple between the republicanism of the Declaration of Amer ican Independence and the broadest claims that were ever put forth by a czar of Russia. That some despotisms are mild in administration cannot justify the existence of despotic governments. The promises of the President as to the gen tleness of his rule in the Philippine Islands cannot qualify the badness of his policy as he has set it forth in the procla mation of Jan. 5. Promises ! Of what value are promises as security against the evils of military rule over a people seven thousand or ten thousand miles away? It was as recently as the first third of the iri_2th of February that the Secretary of War admitted the necessity of conceding to General Otis absolute power to deal with the Filipinos upon his own judgment, and in the second week of March a like authority was given General Brooke in Cuba. And now the administration offers in its defense the statement that it is ignorant of an order by which a military chieftain forbade the free transmission from one American citizen to another of a speech spoken in the Senate of the United States by a senator from a sovereign state. To make " the gruel thick and slab " we have the startling rumor that the capture of prisoners has been forbidden. Thus for the time being there is a full surrender of executive supervision over the military authorities in the Philippine Islands and in Cuba. Thus does the civil authority disap pear, and thus does military rule take its place. Thus is despotism the constant companion of military rule. Under such circumstances, of what value are executive promises of 148 good government, even if the official life, of the promiser could be extended from two years to two centuries? Has not this country had its fill of experience of military governments while the states of the South were passing from the rebellion to renewed statehood in the Union? And was there one man who did not rejoice as the days of deliverance came when military rule disappeared and the rule of the people was re-established? Our military districts of those days were within call of the telegraph every minute of the twenty-four hours; we had actual personal supervision of what was going on ; we had free communication through private and public channels ; there was no censorship of the press and the telegraph ; and yet evils of the gravest character were the incidents of that transition period. With this experience we are invited to stand aside and be silent while the President forces a " good and stable government " upon an unwilling people, through military rule. This is the advice of our fellow-citizen. Governor Long, advice which some of us can neither accept nor heed. Although I place myself under the disagreeable necessity of repeating what I have said on former occasions, I shall trace the steps by which the President has developed his aggressive, warlike, and un-American policy. I shall not now deal with his motives and ultimate purposes. I pause, however, to say that it is great good fortune for the country that the brevity of our presidential term gives to the peo ple an opportunity to interrupt or to change a bad public policy. Dewey entered the harbor of Manila Sunday, the first day of May, 1898. By whose agency, by whose aid, by whose co-operation was he enabled to achieve the most illustrious success in modern naval warfare, and in an hour to advance himself to an equality in rank with Farragut and Nelson? His coadjutor and ally was Aguinaldo, and his aids were the military forces under the command of Aguinaldo, who were then engaged in the work — the successful work — of 149 expelling Spain from the Philippines. He was then thought to be worthy of our friendship a:nd alliance. We were engaged in a common cause — the overthrow of Spanish rule. Aguinaldo was not then denounced as an enemy or as a rebel, nor was a hint whispered by anyone in authority that he was an adventurer, and a person without support in the islands. That he is an adventurer and a person without influence among the Filipinos is a discovery of more recent times — a discovery made in the presence of the fact that he is in command of an army confronting us at every point. Following the occupation of the harbor of Manila and the capture of Cavite, there was no military movement until after the 1 2th of August, when the protocol was signed. If our title to the Philippines is a title by conquest that title was gained by the entrance to the harbor of Manila and the capture of Cavite. At that time, however, there was no claim to jurisdiction by conquest, and there was no sugges tion that Aguinaldo was either an adventurer, a rebel, or an enemy. He was our associate and co-worker for the over throw of the authority of Spain, and to the uninitiated he appeared to be an ally. It may be a misfortune for the administration that its sub ordinates have left footprints in the sands which indicate the position of the administration in the spring and summer of 1898. The correspondence of Mr. Williams, consul-general at Manila, and of Consul Pratt, in the months of March and April, is conclusive to the point that Aguinaldo was treated as an ally in case of war, and conclusive as to the fact that as early as the closing days of March the authorities of Spain were at the mercy of the insurgents. Mr. WiUiams writes under date of March 19: " Rebellion never more threatening to Spain. Rebels outnumbered the Spaniards, resident and soldiery, probably a hundred to one." Consul Pratt sends this certificate to Secretry Day of a date not earlier than April 28 — nine days after the declaration of war: ISO General Aguinaldo impressed me as a man of intellectual ability, courage, and worthy of the confidence that had been placed in him. No close observer of what has transpired in the Philippines during the past four years could have failed to recognize that General Aguin aldo enjoyed, above all others, the confidence of the Philippine insur gents and the respect alike of the Spaniards and foreigners in the islands, all of which vouched for his justice and high sense of honor. As late as July i8, Consul-General Williams gave the in surgent leaders full indorsement in a letter to our Department of State : " General Aguinaldo, Agoncillo and Sandico are all men who would all be leaders in their separate depart ments in any country." These quotations may not rise to the dignity of proofs, but they suggest inferences, reasonable inferences, in support of two propositions: (i) That the power of Spain was so much impaired that it could not have withstood the insurgents after the declaration of war of April 19, even if Dewey had not appeared in the bay of Manila. (2) That it was not until the twelfth day of August — a day fraught with evils to the country second only to the evils and sacrifices that followed the proceedings at Montgomery, Ala., Feb. 22, 1 861 — that it was not until the twelfth day of August that the leadership of Aguinaldo was repudiated, his char acter assailed, and his proffers of friendship and harmony of action contemptuously spurned. An address by Aguinaldo to the Filipinos was dated at Cavite, within Admiral Dewey's quarters, the eighteenth day of June. A paragraph in that address deserves special atten tion. It reads thus: "I proclaim in the face of the whole world that the aspirations of my whole life, and the final object of all my desires and efforts, is no other thing than your independence, because I have the innate conviction that that constitutes your unalterable desire, as independence means for us the redemption from slavery and tyranny, the reconquest of our lost liberties, and our entry into the concert of the civilized nations." Herein we find a distinct declaration of the purpose of Aguinaldo — the independence of the Philippines. It was made in the quarters of Admiral Dewey, and six and IS! forty days after we had conquered the Philippine islands, if our conquest dates from the advent of Dewey into the bay of Manila. In my address at the Essex Institute I spoke of the events of Aug. 13. It is sufficient for me to say at this moment that the entry into the city of Manila was authorized by the protocol, and that the proceeding was without value as a military move ment. As the protocol decreed an armistice, all military move ments, whether by one party or the other, were of no value. The protocol fixed the standing of the parties irrevocably. The harbor and city of Manila were placed temporarily under the control of the United States. This stipulation was, in fact, an admission that we did not then claim the islands by conquest. The President now claims title by conquest, which by a recent authority has been characterized as a crime, and he claims title also through the treaty by which Spain's title passes to us. I do not press you to an opinion upon these proceedings. I have one suggestion only to make : Is it a matter for adverse comment or surprise that Aguinaldo entertains the notion that he has been misled, deceived, and in the end betrayed by the authorities of the United States ? In the presence of these facts of history I invite you to one conclusion, — an inevitable conclusion, — namely, that what ever there may have been of expense, of loss of life, of physical suffering, and of permanent impairment of health in the men comprising our army in the Philippines is due to the aggressive war policy of the United States. And can there be a doubt, the shadow of a doubt, as to the truthfulness of this further proposition — that the war would have come to an end at any moment if the President had said to Aguinaldo : " Set up your government and we will retire " ? Why has not this been said? The answer is on the surface. It is the purpose of the President to seize and to hold the Philippines 152 by the strong hand of conquest, to subjugate or to extermi nate the natives, and there are indications that the two events may coincide in respect to time. And I ask those of my countrymen who condemned, and condemned justly, the brutality of the war that Weyler carried on in Cuba whether the war that General Otis is now carrying on in the Philip pines is not equally brutal and upon the same lines of policy — the destruction of the homes of non-combatants and the concentration of the women and children in the forests and open fields, where they can obtain neither food nor shelter? Is the country to be beguiled and misled by the statement, now often made, that the great majority of the Filipinos are ready to accept our rule, and that Aguinaldo is the only obstacle to submission and peace? He is an obstacle to submission and peace; but how, and why? He commands an army that checks, if it does not arrest, our advance as we attempt to cover the country in the rear of Manila. The inhabitants have set up a government based on a declaration of independence that was issued the first day of August, 1898, and which was signed by the elected chiefs of one hundred and ninety-one cities, towns and provinces. I select two sentences from the declaration, prefaced by the remark on my part that their quality will justify a reading in any assembly of American citizens. They say : The Filipinos are fully convinced that, if individual perfection, material, moral, and intellectual, is necessary to contribute to the well- being of their fellow-beings, the people must have the fulness of life — requiring liberty and independence — to contribute to the infinite pro gress of humanity. They say of their constituency : They fight, and will fight, with decision and constancy, without fear, and never receding before any obstacles that oppose their aim and desire, and with everlasting faith which realizes the power of justice and the fulfilment of the providential laws. It is against a people who have thus given expression to sentiments worthy of the age of Jefferson, worthy of the lips of Lincoln, that we are making war, aggressive, unjustifiable, 153 cruel war. What is the issue? The President demands unconditional submission, including taxation by military decrees. The Filipinos plead for the opportunity to exercise the right of self- government — seh-government, nothing more. If the President would accept the teachings of our Declaration of Independence we should be at peace. The President and his supporters ask us to accept the situ ation. We dechne to accept the situation. We say in reply: You have involved the country in an unnecessary and unjust war. We say further: You can command peace with honor to the country, and, moreover, you can create a free and grateful commonwealth where now you are sacrificing human lives in an effort to extend the area of human bondage, which, euphemistically, you term " a process of benevolent assimilation." At the end and for this occasion I arraign the Imperialistic party upon two grounds. First, they have abandoned the fundamental truths of the Declaration of Independence. Their policy requires the abandonment of the truth that " governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." In harmony with that policy the Declaration of Indepen dence was qualified and limited in the Senate and upon the poor pretext that the truth of the declaration had not always and everywhere been followed by the people and government of the United States. What great truth was ever yet observed in its fulness? Not even the truths of the Sermon on the Mount. And are failures to be made the occasion for neglecting and rejecting the truth altogether? Instead of burial in the earth, the truths of the Declaration of Inde pendence should be read in all languages. It is not necessary to inquire whether the British ministry and our authorities have come to an understanding upon the questions which primarily concern England and Russia. The seizure of the Philippine Islands by us is English policy — a policy more important to England than the possession of the islands in her own hands. 154 We are thus, and by England, to be forced into the con flict with Russia. In accepting England's policy in the East we accept her sovereignty. One of the calamitous incidents of this war has not been noticed publicly by anyone except as an event for congratula tion. I speakof the claim made by England that her refusal to co-operate with the states of Europe saved us from a conflict with those states combined. The misery of the incident is in the fact that England has laid upon us an obligation which we can neither satisfy nor repudiate. In the month of November last the Anti-Imperialists were asked for a plan, and in a way that implied a lack of faith in our ability to furnish a plan. Time having been taken we are now able to submit our plan. With it we appeal to the country in the belief that the two main propositions involved in our plan will be acceptable to the people ! ( i ) We demand the re-enthronement of the truths of the Declaration of Independence to their former place in the hearts of the people and in the public policy of the United States. For that we shall strive. (2) We demand a distinct disavowal of any purpose on the part of the United States to accept the colonial policy of Great Britain. Hence we have set forth our purpose in regard to the Philippine Islands in these words : I. The Anti-Imperialist League demands the suspension of hostil ities in the Philippines. 2. The League insists that it is the duty of Congress to tender an official assurance to the country and to the inhabitants of the Philippines that the United States will encourage the organization of such a govern ment as may be agreeable to the people of the islands, and that upon its organization the United States will, in accordance with its traditional and prescriptive policy in such cases, recognize it as an independent and equal state among nations. This is our platform, and whether it is heeded or derided it has in it the quality of immortality. Until an end shall have been reached the contest must be over these two propo sitions — and the end cannot be reached until these two propositions shall have been accepted by the country. IMPERIALISM AND ANTI-IMPERIALISM. IMPERIALISM AND ANTI-IMPERIALISM. So much has been said, sometimes by insinuation in the columns of imperialistic newspapers, and sometimes by direct statement, charging Anti-Imperialists, and especially the Anti-Imperialist League, with improper dealings with the army in the Philippines, that some notice may be taken of the charges by one who, within certain limits, is authorized to speak for the league. Keeping within those limits, I proceed to say that the Anti-Imperialist League has never authorized the transmis sion of any communication nor made any communication, of any sort whatever, to any officer or soldier of the army of the United States, now or heretofore employed in the Philip pine Islands. I may say of the league that its limited means can be used more wisely within the United States, where the demand for anti-imperialistic literature appears to be inexhaustible. Moreover, we are of the opinion that the soldiers of the Philippine army will return to America with fixed opinions in regard to the wisdom and justice of the Philippinean war, derived from an experience of more value to them than any observations that we might make, or any recommendations that may be found in the literature that we are sending forth. If their opinions are hostile to our policy, nothing of effort on our part would work a change ; and if, on the other hand, the soldiers are of opinion that the war is unnecessary, unjust, cruel, criminal in a public sense, then are they already with us, and without any effort by the league. The administration and its supporters may dismiss their fears as to any attempt on our part to influence the army. It is, however, our purpose, and in this purpose we cannot be frustrated nor delayed, to bring the army out of the Note. — Address at a Conference of Anti-Imperialists, Boston, May i6, 1899. 157 158 Philippines by the quiet influence of the American people at home, acting through the ordinary channels of intercourse and communication ; but, failing in that effort, as fail we may, then we propose to so act as to summon the army from the Philippines by the authority of the votes of the American people, and without thought of the consequences to men, to administrations, to political parties, or to questions of domes tic concern. Having said thus much as president of the Anti-Impe rialist League, I pass on to some observations on my own account. It may be a fortunate circumstance at a time when influ ential parties in America are accepting the ideas of despotic governments, — and all governments are despotic that exer cise powers not derived from the free consent of the people over whom the powers are exercised, — when parties are sanctioning or tolerating warlike and tyrannical proceedings over unwilling peoples for the enforcement of those ideas, that the Constitution contains a guarantee in these words : " Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech or of the press." That guarantee is for the soldier as well as for the citizen, and the consequences of full freedom in the exercise of the rights so guaranteed cannot be made the subject of inhibitive or punitive legislation. The domain of legislative jurisdic tion is the same for the soldier as for the citizen, and the same for the citizen as for the soldier. No one may advise a citizen to commit a crime, to violate a law, or to neglect a duty which the law imposes upon him. So, no one can advise a soldier to avoid or neglect his duties, or in any way to fail in obedience to the orders and commands of his superiors. Within these limits the soldier and the citizen are entitled to the enjoyment of full and equal means for forming a judgment of the wisdom or unwisdom of the policy of an administration and of the country. In a time of war, and on the theater of war flagrant, the 159 commander may exercise powers for which he may not be amenable to the civii tribunals. I do not consider the nature and scope of these powers, nor the manner of their exercise, in this connection ; but having in mind the declara tions that have been made, and having observed the tendency to enlarge the army and to magnify its importance to the country, I add the remark that the advice which one citizen may give to another, as to voluntary service in the army, is a matter with which neither the government nor the law can take notice. Kindred to these charges against the Anti-Imperialist League is the allegation that we are giving aid and comfort to the Filipinos, and thus that we are prolonging the war. We are engaged in a contest for free government — free government in America and free government in Asia, if the people of Asia prefer free governments. If our efforts con tribute to the advancement of corresponding ideas, whether in Asia or America, we have no apologies to offer, no de fenses to make. Our contest, primarily, is not in aid of the Filipinos, but for the honor of the United States, and the preservation of free government in America as a model and example to the world. We lament the loss of American citizens in war, — in an unjust and unnecessary war, — but we cannot condemn a liberty-loving people, who are imitators of the men who fought for the independence of the United States. With our means of information we cannot say whether the Filipinos are influenced by what is said and done by the anti-imperi alists in America. We are engaged in a contest for liberty and justice in the United States, but we welcome converts to our ideas in any part of the world, and we have no words of censure for those who are striving to maintain the equality of men, whether by the ballot or by the sword. If the opinion of one person upon the question whether the President of the United States or Aguinaldo is in the right, is of any value to the advocates of imperialism, I am i6o prepared to make answer. Aguinaldo is contending for that which is his own — the right to self-government, in common with those with whom he is associated and whom he repre sents. The President asserts a right to govern others without their consent, a right which has never been possessed by any one, and which has never been exercised except through fear, fraud, force and war. As between Aguinaldo and the President, Aguinaldo is in the right and the President is in the wrong. Aguinaldo can only bring the war to an end by the sur render of all right to self-government in himself and in his people, and by the recognition of a right in the President to govern and to tax eight million Filipinos in whatever manner shall to him seem expedient; while, on the other hand, the President can bring peace to the islands by the abandonment of a claim to which he has no just title, and which can only be prosecuted for a purpose that is inconsistent with Ameri can institutions and with American ideas of freedom, equality and justice. The President demands of the Filipinos a surrender of all the rights that they possess, and for the enforcement of this demand he is making war ; and he offers in return a promise that he will, from time to time, concede to them all the rights and privileges that, in his opinion, they are fitted to use and to enjoy. The President can command peace. By his unjust demands he provoked war. By his unjust demands the war goes on. The responsibility is on him. I borrow the language of the poet, and I say to the President : Stay thy clutching hands From pleading throats in distant lands, Wherefrom there comes, though faint the cry, A stifled wail for liberty. Oh, stretch thy helping arm to free The prostrate forms that kneel to thee. And give to men, unjustly blamed. The sacred rights thy land proclaimed ! It is not in our line of duty, of policy, or of purpose to exalt Aguinaldo. Upon the evidence at our command, he i6i seems to be worthy of confidence and respect. Much of the evidence has been furnished by Admiral Dewey, by officers of the army and by other officials who have been employed in the East. The information that has been gathered in the twelve months that have passed since Dewey entered the bay of Manila warrants the opinion that the inhabitants of Luzon, under the lead of Aguinaldo and his assistants, are capable of self-government. However, the question is unimportant to us when we are considering the duty of the United States. It is not for us to render judgment upon the question of the capacity of other people to govern themselves, and especially it is not for us to seize and enforce jurisdiction over all those vvho, in our opinion, are incapable of self-government. Following these limitations of responsibility for Aguinaldo, I shall use a sentence of illustrative comparison that may not be agreeable to those who think that any form of commenda tion of the Filipinos or any criticism of the war, has in it the taint of treason. May not an enthusiastic imitator of George Washington, who carried on a seven years' war for the right of three million people to tax themselves and to govern themselves, be as worthy of a place in our confidence and as worthy of honorable mention on the page of history as an imitator, even though a successful imitator, of Lord North and George III. ? In the case of the American colonies the king had a claim to sovereignty, to which our title to sovereignty in the Philippines bears only a slight resemblance. They had accepted their charters from the hands of his predecessors, a grant of money had been made to one of the colonies from the treasury of the realm, and all of them had been defended by sea and by land, through a period of more than a century and a half, — not always in kindness and under a sense of justice, but there was never a day when the hand of the realm was not security against France and Spain, the constant enemies of England and of her possessions. As to the Philippines, we have contributed nothing beyond 1 62 the aid which was given by the declaration of war against Spain. At that moment the authority of Spain in the Phil ippine Islands had departed forever. Since the second day of May, 1898, our presence at Manila has cost us tens of millions of treasure and some thousands of lives, more precious than money and more exhaustive of the resources of the country than any system of taxation can ever be, and all without any advantage that can be stated by anyone, while in Luzon a district of terri tory as large as the state of Rhode Island has been traversed by our armies, the inhabitants have been driven from their homes, the houses of the rich have been sacrificed to greed, the huts of the poor have been given to the flames, and, if by their owners, as is alleged, then more worthy of condemna tion is a policy by which human beings in mass have been driven to suicidal desperation. These are the fruits of the attempt, running through one short year, to create an imperial republic. On whose shoulders rests the awful responsibility? I pass abruptly to another topic. The appearance of Governor Long as the exponent and defender of the Philip pinean policy of the administration is an event for which the body of anti-imperialists have occasion to be thankful. What he has said is to be accepted as a truthful presentation of the views and purposes of the administration, unless the President shall indicate his dissent from the statement that Governor Long has submitted to the country. What he omitted to say may prove in the end, and that at a day not far off, of more importance to him, as, beyond question, what he omitted to say is of more importance to the state and to the country than all that he did say. It must be assumed that Governor Long has become the indorser of the Presi dent's policy and doings, except so far as he may have expressed dissent in his speech to the Essex Club. I proceed to state again the policy of the President as he i63 has set it forth in his proclamation of Jan. 5, and as he has reproduced in it more persuasive phraseology in his proc lamation of April, 1899. These are the claims of the Presi dent, and in his own language : I. "The destruction of the Spanish fleet and the capture of the city of Manila practically effected the conquest of the Philippine islands." 2. " As the result of the victories of American arms, the future control, disposition and government of the Philippine islands are ceded to the United States." 3. "The military government heretofore maintained by the United States in the city, harbor, and bay of Manila is to be extended with all, possible dispatch to the whole of the ceded territory." 4. " The taxes and duties heretofore payable by the inhabitants to the late government become payable to the authorities of the United States, unless it be seen fit to sub stitute for them other reasonable rates or modes of contribu tion to the expenses of government." 5. "In the fulfilment of this high mission, supporting the temperate administration of affairs for the greatest good of the governed, there must be sedulously maintained the strong arm of authority, to repress disturbances, and to overcome all obstacles to the bestowal of the blessings of good and stable government upon the people of the Philip pine islands, under the free flag of the United States." Governor Long has given a general indorsement to this policy of the President by his services and co-operation as a member of the Cabinet, and now, more specifically, by his Essex speech, in his neglect to express his dissent of the President's position. Thus he partakes of the responsibility resting upon the President, first, for the policy of the war, and then for the conduct of the war in the Philippine Islands. What is the policy of the war? The answer is to be found in the proclamations and in the replies of General Otis to the appeals of the Filipinos for a suspension of hostilities looking 164 to negotiations for an adjustment upon a basis of a perma- nentpeace. The war is to be prosecuted until the eight mil lion inhabitants of unnumbered islands are brought into subjection to the authority of the United States. Until they consent that we may rule them and may tax them, or until we acquire the power to rule them and to tax them against their consent, this war of subjugation, a brutal war of sub jugation, is to go on. I hazard the statement, and without considering whether my voice will reach the Philippine Islands or not, that neither of these results is a possible result. If not by the circum stances of time and of distance from the theater of war, yet by the authoritative judgment of the people of the United States, these short-sighted conjectures of a misguided administration will be forced, finally, into the class of impos sibilities. But the war, hopeless as it is, may go on for a period, if not indefinitely, with its sacrifices and horrors of which, as yet, the country knows but little. On the 5th of May the official statement was made that on the day preceding, one hundred wounded soldiers and invalids were brought from the front to the hospitals at Manila. The statement was added that " the heat was unbearable." In the last days of April we had a statement, as coming from General Otis, that his effective force, not including the troops at Iloilo, was reduced to fifteen thousand men, and in this month of May we have official knowledge that a regiment consisting originally of not less than one thousand men, and presumably of one thousand three hundred and eight men, is reduced to four hundred and sixty on the roster, and that of these one-third are on the sick list. Of the territory that we conquered in the months of March and April, and then announced in a voice of exultation as victories of signal importance, more than one-half has been abandoned, and in the first week of the month of May an army of Filipinos was encamped so near the city of Manila as to require the presence of troops for its protection. i65 In diplomacy, and in all artful practices that may seem essential to the success of diplomacy, the orientals are adepts. Hence it may appear in the end to have been true that their request for a suspension of hostihties, and their suggestions for arrangements for peace without independence, were only schemes for delay, they knowing from long experience that time and the diseases of the tropics are their friends. If correctly reported, a word of truth dropped from the agent of General Luna when he said to General Otis that the unconditional surrender of the army would not bring peace. Peace is never secured by wrong, by injustice, by wars for sovereignty, and despotic rule. Peace is the outcome of justice, and only of justice. Governor Long, in substance, repeats the statement made by the President in his Home Market speech, in which he disavows imperialism and all sympathy with imperialists. I ask Governor Long this question : Be pleased to state wherein you would differ in your policy and conduct concern ing the Philippine Islands, if you were an imperialist in fact, and acting according to your ideas of imperialism? Will some member of the administration, or some friend of the administration, name a country, either historical or now existing, against which the charge of imperialism can be made with justice, or is it to be affirmed that there neither is nor was ever any such government? Rome seized provinces and ruled and taxed peoples with out their consent through the agency of pretors and govern ors-general. We have seized Porto Rico, Cuba, and the margins of two islands in the Philippines, and we are ruling and taxing the inhabitants without their consent through the agency of military chieftains, who, for the time being, are endowed with full powers. Was the empire of Rome imperi alistic, and wherein does our rule in the islands differ from the rule of Rome in Judea or in Gaul and Britain? And if different, then in what respect? Is England an empire, with two hundred million natives in 1 66 India, whom she rules and taxes upon her own judgment and in constant denial of the right of those whom she claims as her subjects to tax and govern themselves? Are we not pursuing, or attempting to pursue, the same policy in Porto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines? Is it to be said that our title to the islands is superior to the title of Britain on the continent of Asia? Both titles were acquired by force, and in that respect they are of equal value. The title of England in India was wrested from peoples who had enjoyed it from antehistorical ages. England succeeded to titles that no one can question. We have succeeded to titles from Spain that we had ourselves discredited, upon moral and political grounds, through a period of more than one hundred years. If we cannot sus tain our claim to a nonimperialistic policy by a reference to the history of England, then what of Spain? Spain carried on a war for three hundred years in a vain attempt to rule and to tax a people, and to secure peace through force, and the end was a disastrous failure. Her title, whatever it was, was a title obtained through force, and it never extended to more than one-half of the territory that we now claim. We are assured of ultimate success, however, by the fact that our soldiers are quite superior to the conscripts of Spain. Thus we are invited to rely upon the superiority of our armies, and to dismiss all thought of the justice of our cause. And thus, by the abandonment of the principle of justice in the affairs of government, do we lay a foundation for an indiscriminate warfare upon mankind whenever we are of the opinion that our armies are of a superior quality. In passing from this branch of my discourse, I ask the friends of the administration to say wherein their policy differs from the policy of Rome, of England, or of Spain, or, denying the imperialistic character of those countries, then to name an imperialistic government, and show wherein the policy of President McKinley in the island of Luzon is favor ably distinguished from the standard so set up. According to the policy of the administration, the war in i67 the Philippines is to come to an end whenever there shall be an unconditional surrender of the Philippine armed forces. Second : The inhabitants of the Philippine Islands are to be permitted to enjoy self-government whenever the author ities of the United States shall be of the opinion that the millions in the islands are capable of governing themselves. Into this practical form of government President McKinley and his assistants and supporters have perverted these immortal truths : " That all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi ness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Will the country indorse this perversion of the principles on which the government was founded? And will the country consent to the inevitable expenditure of money and the sacrifice of life while the war goes on ? On the first day of May, when the average length of serv ice of thirty thousand men had not exceeded six months, and the term of service in the field had been less than three months, the deaths from diseases and wounds exceeded two thousand, showing an annual death-rate of about fifteen per cent. For what length of time will the country tolerate such sacrifices of its youth in a war begun for humanity, as was claimed, but now prosecuted for conquest and the enslave ment of eight million people, over whom our title, if title we have, is a title resting in a purchase commercial in its char acter, like a title to oxen or to mining lands ? There is no misrepresentation of the policy of President McKinley in the statement that I now make. He claims the right, as President of the United States, to exercise every power of government over eight million people in the Phihppine Islands, and he offers in atonement, or as a just measure of compensation, his promise of good government. This policy and this promise are indorsed by Governor Long. 1 68 There may be found in some ancient library or in some antique bookstore an essay, now a long time ago forgotten, and the first sentence thereof is this : " Truth and integrity have all the advantages of appearance and many more." As long ago as the fifth day of February last the Presi dent made the offer of good government to the Filipinos, exacting only the single condition that they should, as a con dition precedent, surrender all right of government to him. a Now at the end of more than one hundred days this proposi tion for peace has not been accepted by Aguinaldo and his associates, and no adequate reason has been assigned for the delay. Thus are we left to conjecture a reason. The Filipinos may entertain the barbaric notion that a man may derive more satisfaction from an inferior govern ment in which he has a part, than will come to him under any government of foreign origin, whose movements are to be guided by alien and, it may be, by hostile hands. Or they may have obtained some knowledge of the Constitution of the United States and of the term of President McKinley in his office ; and they may have heard, also, that his re-election is in peril through the machinations of a body of men called anti-imperialists. Hence they may hesitate to enter into an arrangement of which time is the essence and over vvhich the blind god called destiny, who has either forced or inveigled us into the Philippinean war, may have supreme control. Or they may have heard the rumor that in the summer months of 1898 the authorities of the United States gave a promise to Aguinaldo that, upon the expulsion of Spain from the islands, the inhabitants would be allowed to set up a government for themselves. As five months have now gone since Spain surrendered all authority over the islands, and as the privilege of self-government has not been ceded, — as, on the contrary, the right of self-government has been specifically and repeatedly denied, — a delay in the accept ance of a new promise may be understood, if it cannot be pardoned. 1 69 Finally, it is not an unreasonable suggestion to say that the Filipinos may have had doubts of our ability to meet the obligations arising from the promises contained in the proclamation of the commissioners of April, 1899. What is to be said of paragraph five if read by one who has some knowledge of the civil service of the United States — " There shall be guaranteed to the Philippine people an honest and effective civil service," and as security for the pledge, it is said, " in which, to the fullest extent that it is practical, natives shall be employed "? Can this promise be performed? Can the equivalent con dition of the civil service be found within the limits of the United States? Consider the proclamation as a state paper. It is an address to the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands. It is upon a plane of intelligence and of knowledge of public affairs and of administration quite abreast of the intelligence of the average American citizen. If the President and the commissioners were of the opinion that the Filipinos were equal to the task of examining and weighing the statements and promises contained in the proclamation, then that opinion is an important piece of evidence in support of the claim that they are capable of self-government. If in the opinion of the President and the commissioners the Fili pinos are not so capable, then why was the proclamation sent forth? Or was it designed for use in the United States ? Governor Long may have occasion to qualify a promise that he has given to the public of the United States and of the Philippine Islands in his letter to Mr. Bachelor of the Christian Register. Speaking of the President, and in his name. Governor Long says : All his military efforts are directed solely to the preservation of the law and order there ; and if the natives would co-operate in this respect he and the peace commission which he has sent to them would enter at 170 once upon the work of their political regeneration with a view to giving them all the privileges which the territories of the United States between the Pacific and the Atlantic now enjoy. A partial enumeration of the privileges which the terri tories of the United States now enjoy may be set forth : I. Representation by delegates in the House of Repre sentatives as a pledge of ultimate statehood. 2. The right to travel, to labor, to own land in any part of the United States. 3. The right to acquire citizenship in any part of the Union, with the consequent freedom from discriminating adverse legislation on account of race or color. 4. The freedom of the markets of the United States for the products of their industry. 5. The right to export the products of their industry to all parts of the world without the payment of an export duty. 6. The right to protection against foreign aggression, whether from Japan, France, Germany, England or Russia. 7. The right to import goods from all parts of the world upon the payment of the rates of duties imposed upon citi zens of states. These advantages and privileges, so attractively set forth, may be sufficient to induce the Filipinos to surrender their claim to self-government, but how will the scheme be received by classes of American citizens? What will be the reply of American laborers to the propo sition to endow eight million Malays, and their posterity through all time, with a right of competition which has been denied to the Chinese? What will be the answer of sugar producers from Louisi ana to Minnesota, whose industry is to be destroyed, not alone by the competition of the Philippines, but, upon the doctrine of equality, by the competition of Porto Rico, and it may be of Cuba also, should the project for annexation be accepted by the country? 171 What will be said by the mass of tax-payers who are to supply the deficiency of revenues caused by the free admis sion of sugar and coffee and the other products of tropical climes? With the annexations contemplated, the duties on tropical products, whether of the land, of the hand, or of the loom, will disappear. Finally, there is no aspect of this war and its probable con sequences that can be made attractive to the laboring and producing classes of America. They are to furnish the main body of recruits for the army; they are to meet the sacrifices of campaigns in the tropics ; and at the end, and as an inevitable consequence, the laboring men and the pursuits of laboring men are to be degraded by competition with inferior races. These would be the results of Governor Long's promise to the Filipinos. The promise, however, will not be sanctioned nor observed by the people of the United States, nor will it be received by Aguinaldo and his associates as a promise made in good faith. The iniquity of imperialism is bearing a harvest of evil in many quarters. In Samoa, in co-operation with two monarchies, we are engaged in the work of setting up and maintaining an insignificant monarchy over an uncivilized, half-clad, and incompetent race, in violation of our principles of govern ment, and for no good purpose that can be stated by any one. In Hawaii, our commission, under the lead of Senator Cullom, has sanctioned the exclusion of two-fifths of the population from citizenship, and within the limits of citizen ship the right to vote and the right to hold office are made dependent upon the possession of property. All this be cause President Dole and Senator Cullom and his associates think that Mongolians are not qualified for citizenship and the exercise of the right of suffrage. In presence of this policy, what criticism can be made of 172 the white people in Mississippi and South Carolina who think that persons of the negro race ought not to possess the rights of citizenship and suffrage? And sad it is that these departures from the doctrines of the Declaration of Indepen dence were inaugurated by members and leaders of the Republican party, and are now defended by the successors of the men who reaffirmed the Declaration of Independence in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution ! Having thus contributed to the creation and support of a monarchy in Samoa, having trampled down the principles of human equality in Hawaii, it is only a natural consequence that we should demand of eight million Malays in the Phil ippine Islands a full surrender of all their rights as an act preliminary to the enjoyment of such privileges of existence in the land of their birth and in the home of their ancestors as we may be pleased to concede to them. Where else in the world has tyranny made such rapid advances, and where else in the world have tyrants assumed to assert and to exercise more absolute control over their subjects? In the presence and under the influence of these teachings, the statement is not a surprise that our Postmaster-General has seized the contents of the mail, and made the public announcement that a person named is not worthy to enjoy its privileges in common with his fellow-citizens. If, in 1764, when the contest between the American colonies and the mother country was opening, George III. and the British ministry had said to the colonists: " If you wish to enter upon the experiment of self-government we will not only not oppose the undertaking, but we will co-operate with you," how changed, how beneficially changed, would have been the relations of the two great branches of the English-speaking race through the long century now closing ! Instead of war, instead of threats and menaces of war, 173 instead of a century of suspicion, of jealous rivalries, of syco phantic hypocrisy at intervals, we might have enjoyed a long period of friendship and co-operation, resting, in America, upon a basis of gratitude as permanent as the existence of the English race on this continent. Our relations with France, tempered always with a feeling of gratitude for the aid given to us in the days of weakness, poverty and peril, may be accepted as a trustworthy indi cation of the relations that would have subsisted between the United States and Great Britain if our beginnings had been in peace and justice instead of controversy and war. A like opportunity was presented to President McKinley when the protocol of Aug. 12 had been signed. If he had then proceeded upon the theory of aiding Cuba and Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands in the establishment of sep arate and independent governments, the inhabitants of those islands for all time future would have been allied to the United States, and ever ready to co-operate with us in every aspect of public affairs. His neglect thus to avail himself of the opportunity, and his inauguration of war in the Philippine Islands, have alien ated the inhabitants of those islands from the United States for a long time future. Thus was a great opportunity to establish friendly relations lost, and forever lost, to the United States, should the present policy be continued. The only possibility for peace and friendship remaining is n the opportunity now presented of abandoning our claim to jurisdiction in the Philippine Islands, and in the tender of our aid, without any positive obligation on our part, in the estab lishment of an independent government. Freedom, Justice and Peace are natural allies. Herein is our demand. The administration has entered upon a policy of aggres sion, injustice and war. Herein is the issue on which the country is to pass judg ment. -UN-REPUBLICAN POLICY OF PRESIDENT McKINLEY." UN-REPUBLICAN POLICY OF PRESIDENT McKINLEY." Groton, Mass., July i, 1899. John f. Teevens, Esq., South Boston. My Dear Sir. — The circumstance that the speaking on the occasion of the reunion and field day of the Clan-na- Gael of Massachusetts, July 4, will be in the evening, seems to make it unwise for me to accept your invitation to be present. This decision is very much against my inclination, which is to join you and to give further public utterance to my opposition to the un-American and unrepublican policy of President McKinley. There has been no other such departure from American ideas and principles in all our history, not even by Jefferson Davis, as is now in progress under the lead of the President. Jefferson Davis did not contemplate the destruction of the American republic, he only contemplated its division ; President McKinley is transforming this republic into an empire, and the permanent establishment of our authority in the Philippine Islands is the consummation of the under taking. ' We are engaged in a war which no one defends, which no one can defend, as a just and righteous war. Its supporters are apologists, laying the responsibility for the war some times on destiny and sometimes upon divinity. Is it an answer or only a guilty pretext when we say that for $20,000,000 we have purchased from Spain the title to the Philippine Islands, and therewith the right, through war and slaughter, to subjugate ten million human beings who never injured us, and who ask only for the right to manage their own affairs — a right as sacred as the right to exist? For the execution of this unholy purpose a call is now 178 pending for the 'enlistment of thirty thousand, soon to be sixty thousand, and then one hundred thousand, of the youth of the country, whose destioy it will be to either fall in battle, or to perish by disease, or to return broken in health to become the recipients of pensions to be paid from the labor of those who may remain at home. This sacrifice of men and this waste of money and the con sequent burden of taxation through generations are not more to be regretted than the humiliation to which the country is now subjected in the abandonment of the republic and the acceptance of England as our guide and model in affairs of government. This administration has been inveigled into a policy which involves an alliance with England for the defense of her eastern empire against the frowning supremacy of Russia, that has already laid its iron hand upon China, and which is yet to dominate over Japan. We are now to choose whether America shall remain a republic and lead the world on to higher ideas and to purer practices in public affairs, or whether we are to accept the ideas and principles of despotic governments. Justice and peace are possibilities in a republic. Justice and peace are impossibilities in an empire. Imperialism and republicanism are impossible in the same government. The greatest crime which the world can ever know, the greatest crime which mankind can commit, is the inaugura tion of a war and the prosecution of a war for the conquest of territory and the subjugation of peoples, with the incident and inevitable sacrifice of human life. The founders of this government preferred republicanism and peace to imperialism and war. President McKinley and his supporters are engaged in an effort to revise their work and to reverse their opinion. This is the issue. Let us unite, one and all, whatever may be our differences on other matters, and whatever our nationality, and demand the abandonment of the unjust and thus far unsuccessful war in the Philippine Islands. ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE. ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE. The Anti-Imperialist League was formed at Boston in the month of November, 1898. It was the first organized protest against the imperialistic-colonial policy on which President McKinley was then entering. From the tone of the press it was to have been assumed that the country was prepared to tolerate and, finally, that it would be compelled or induced to accept the new policy, and thus to follow England and to co-operate with England in the subjugation of the world to what is called Anglo-Saxon civilization. In the few months that have passed great changes have taken place. Anti-imperialist leagues have been formed in Chicago, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Detroit, St. Louis, Portland, Oregon, New York, Washington, and in other cities and towns in many parts of the country. These organizations, as a whole, contain an array of names such as has not been brought together in support of a com mon cause since the signing of the Declaration of Indepen dence. That cause is the Declaration of Independence and the preservation of the great truths therein announced, with their application to the affairs of America and of the world. The issue is again made up. The republicanism of our fathers is assailed by the doctrines of imperialism as they were maintained by George III. The country is compre hending the issue. A vigorous and powerful portion of the press, religious, secular, independent and industrial, is giving full support to the anti-imperialistic policy. It is not known to us that the President's policy has one supporter in the press devoted to the interests ot agriculture. The war in the Philippines is not defended by anyone upon the ground of wisdom or right or justice. Of bold and NoTB. — Issued by the Executive Committee of the Anti-Imperialist League, Boston, Aug. n, 1899. 181 182 manly defense on the basis of justice we hear nothing. We are asked to accept an exculpatory analogy between our conduct in the Philippines and our treatment of the Indians on the changing frontier from the Atlantic to the Pacific. If the analogy must be accepted it may be said that our treat ment of the Indians cannot be dignified and made a precedent or a defense for a like policy in foreign lands. This league is now carrying on the contest, and it will con tinue to carry on the contest, upon the idea and in the belief that the United States — that the President of the United States, especially — is responsible for the war, and that President McKinley, at any moment, or the United States, acting through him or through a successor, can bring the war to an end. It is our purpose to aid in bringing the war to an end, and, in advance, we reject any and every scheme of compromise. We are gratified, and well may the country be elated, by the fact that the laboring populations, with singular unanimity, have resolved against the un-American policy of the adminis tration. All that men can have at stake they now have at stake in the issue that is before them. Their own right to self-government is involved in the claim to self-government now made by ten million artisans and land-workers in the Philippine Islands. The annexation of those islands to the United States, in whatever form it may come, whether as states or as colonies, means free and full competition by the American laborer, of every trade and condition, with the underpaid and half-clad workers of the tropics. Henceforth the plain people, on whom Lincoln relied, — American born many; others immigrants from Ireland, from Germany, from the Scandinavian states, — are to enter upon the task of saving the republic. Of their disposition we are already well informed, and of their capacity we are not in doubt. In presence of the evidence before us our aim is not so much to secure a verdict against the administration as to obtain a dominating judgment which shall stand as a con- i83 trolling precedent for the guidance of the republic in all times future. In general, it may be said that events rather than men have been our teachers ; and henceforth, even if the country should disregard principles, events will become our masters. We have carried on a campaign of the winter months, the available months of the year, and a disastrous campaign it has been. A force of thirty thou.sand men has been wasted as an army for an aggressive movement, and the remnant is now limited to the environs of the six or ten cities and towns that we are able to occupy. The war goes on, the public debt increases rapidly, the tax gatherer demands daily contributions from every household for the support of the war, and for the same purpose he col lects a percentage upon every business transaction and upon every industry of the country. But, outweighing all other events is the demand for an army of thirty thousand or forty thousand, or, as some friends of the administration say, of one hundred thousand men, to be kept constantly in the islands as an effective force to meet the casualties of the field and to countervail the ravages of disease in the camps. There is only a possibility that an army of fifty thousand can be raised by voluntary enlistments and placed in Luzon by November, and there is only a slight probability that such an army would remain an aggressive force beyond the month of May next. Is the country prepared for a conscript system that shall run through years and decades of years? Can a Congress be elected and continued in power that will vote men and money for the further prosecution of the war? Herein are perils of which the country and the public men of the country may wisely take notice. Our information and experience justify the opinion that the body of anti-imperialists, the country over, will disregard the claims of domestic questions, subordinating them one and all to a single purpose of comprehensive public policy, — 1 84 the purpose tp bring the army of the United States out of the Philippine Islands with the least possible delay, and without delay to recognize in the inhabitants of the Philip pines, of Cuba, and of Porto Rico the right of self-govern ment agreeably to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and as a pledge of the permanent policy of the United States. LETTER TO A MEETING OF LABORING MEN. LETTER TO A MEETING OF LABORING MEN. Groton, Aug. 31, 1899. To George E. McNeill, Esq. : My Dear Sir : It is with misgivings that I put aside the opportunity to meet you and your friends and associates on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the passage of the ten-hour law in Massachusetts. I have welcomed the steps by which the interests of the laboring classes have been advanced in the last half-century, and the limitations of the hours of labor have been among the more important steps. As a fact of history and as an act of personal justice, I take this occasion to say that General Banks prepared the bill by which the eight-hour rule was introduced into the labor service of the United States. To me and to you one topic is supreme over all others when questions of public importance are under consideration. The nation is passing through a crisis, or rather it is in a crisis, which portends all of evil to the laboring population that can ever come to them — their downfall from a condi tion of independence, of power in the affairs of the country, to a state of servility through competition with the millions of the oriental world. The Philippines are never to be sur rendered. So says the President. They are to be con quered, and they are to be kept within or under the jurisdic tion of the United States. The laboring population of this country have one means of averting the evil, and I do not hesitate in advising its use. Let them unitedly and with energy oppose the re-election of President McKinley, and their days of peril will be ended and the country will be saved from the grasp of imperialism. Note. — Letter to a meeting of laboring men, held in Boston Sept. i , 1899. 187 THE WAR OF DESPOTISM IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. THE WAR OF DESPOTISM IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. Liberty is Liberty as God is God. — Louis Kossuth. The war against Spain and the war in the Philippine Islands have given rise to an opinion, now much cultivated by the advocates and organs of imperialism, that the supreme power in the United States is vested in the Presi dent, and, consequently, that any criticism of his doings is akin to the crime known in monarchies as lese majeste, mean ing thereby high treason or the purpose to commit high treason. The prevalence of this opinion and the support given to it by the imperialistic press of the country justify an inquiry into the nature of our government, and especially for the purpose of ascertaining where the attribute or endow ment called supremacy has been lodged. Indirectly and in a collateral inquiry that question has been settled by the Supreme Court. The President and all subordinates in the Executive Departments holding under him, and all judges and all subordinates in the Judicial Department holding under them, are officers of the Govern ment, and consequently all of them may, under some cir cumstances, become amenable to a higher power. An office is a place created, and an officer is a person holding in a place created, and by necessity he is amenable to the author or creator of the place so created. This theory is met in practice and without limitation in our system of government. All the officers of whom I have spoken, including the President, are amenable to an authority in which the President has no part — an authority to which the President himself may become responsible. That authority is vested in the House of Representatives and in the Senate of the United States, acting concurrently. Note. — Address at Springfield, Mass., Sept. s, 1899. 191 192 The Congress of the United States is a body which may or may not include the President as a co-ordinate branch. The provision of the Constitution by which the veto power is given to the President may work, and often it has worked, the exclusion of the President from the law-making branch of the government. For a particular occasion and for a special purpose, he ceases to be of the Congress of the United States. The two houses, by a two-thirds vote in each house, may enact laws in defiance of the President's opinion, may declare war without his concurrence, may authorize and require him to make a treaty of peace, and in case of his neglect to comply with such requirement, the two houses, acting in the way pointed out in the Constitution, may impeach him and remove him from office. By the Constitution the United States guarantees to each state a republican form of government. That guarantee is to be executed by Congress, with the co-operation of the President as a part of the Congress, or by the two houses acting independently, in case of the nonconcurrence of the President. Thus the phrase "the United States" means the two houses of Congress acting concurrently, and either with or without the co-operation of the Executive. In the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses the great measures for the reconstruction of the government, and for its preservation upon a republican basis, became statutes against the opinion of the President. Moreover, the two houses provided for the assembling and reassembling of Congress in defiance of the wishes of the President. Beyond what has been done, a Congress may assemble upon the motion of a majority of the members of each house, and may proceed to business without the aid of a preHminary proclamation by the Executive. The Congress always exists, and upon its own motion it may exist with a right to act. Members of Congress are not officers of the gov ernment; they are constituent parts of the government. For the purposes of government and in the ultimate, the two houses of Congress are the United States. They are 193 ~ self-existent bodies. They can command men and money for such purposes as they may think expedient, including their own support and defense, and on them every branch and agency of the government is dependent. As individuals, the members of Congress are responsible, first, to their associates in the respective houses, and beyond that they are responsible only to the people whom they represent. The President, as a public officer, is open to criticism on the part of any citizen who may think that the President errs in his public policy or in his personal conduct. The law protects him, as it protects other citizens, but not otherwise. Every citizen who criticises another is responsible for the manner in which he exercises his privilege. Nothing more. What Shakespeare has said of kings does not apply to Presi dents — not as yet : There's such divinity doth hedge a king. Not upon Presidents only, but upon Congresses as well, the right and the exercise of the right of criticism are security for the freedom of the citizen and the preservation of the State. Nor is the exercise of this right to be limited to times of peace ; indeed, its fullest enjoyment is most im portant in times of war. War implies the destruction of human life, and the sacrifice and often the waste of vast sums of money. Wars that are unavoidable and defensible are great calamities — wars that are unnecessary and unjust are the greatest of crimes. Is there to be no inquiry, no judgment, no criticism on the part of those who fill the ranks or pay the taxes? No words of warning from those who, void of ambition, consult only the safety and prosperity of the State? As the perils of the Republic are greater in war than in peace, so in war rather than in peace should there be entire freedom in inquiry, unre stricted freedom of judgment of public affairs, and of criticism of those in authority. The full recognition of the right of criticism, with the free 194 exercise of the right on the part of the people, is the chief security, indeed, it is the only security, against maladminis tration in public affairs. One of the regretable incidents of the Philippinean war is the appearance of officers of the regular army and navy who, not content with the free expression of their own opinions, venture to suggest the sup pression of opinion in those who differ from them. They should realize that they are the servants of the Republic, and not its rulers. The attempt now making by the imperialistic press and organs to compel the country into silence means the accept ance of imperialism in America, while the President makes war in Asia — a war which has never been sanctioned or recognized by Congress, and whose conduct and fortunes are systematically concealed from the people. Thus does imperialism in Asia react and imperil liberty in America. The attempt to stifle criticism is a vain attempt. Criticism of the President will be more and more general and vigorous as month after month passes, until his administration shall have come to an end. With this explanation and defense of the right of criticism on the part of the citizens of the United States, I proceed to the individual exercise of the right. First of all, I seek for an answer to this question : What is the character of the war that we are now carrying on in the Philippine Islands? Is it a struggle of arms for the suppres sion of a riot or a popular outbreak against recognized and established authority, such as occurred at Chicago in Presi dent Cleveland's administration, or is it a war against an organization which has all the attributes and qualities of a civil government and which has come into existence through the exercise of original sovereignty by eight million or ten million people, — a sovereignty that is divine in its origin, if any sovereignty in government can be called divine — and with which the millions of Filipinos were and are quite con tent? If it is a war against such an organization and against such a people, then those who are carrying it on are guilty of a crime called lese humanite — treason to humanity. 195 It is only by slow processes and under the restraints of a military censorship and despotism that we have gained a partial knowledge of the nature and perfectness of the civili zation of the island of Luzon. Whoever has had the oppor tunity to read Clay MacCauley's lecture on "The Very Noble City Manila," delivered at Yokohama in the present year, has acquired some trustworthy knowledge of the civilization of the chief city of the Philippine Islands — a civilization which has a footing in other parts of the island and in other islands of the Philippinean group. Mr. MacCauley was formerly a resident clergyman in Washington, where he is now well remembered and highly appreciated. For many years he has lived in Japan as the representative of the Unitarian denomination of the United States. He is a trustworthy witness, and that within my own knowledge. Listen to a description of a home in Manila. He says : Possibly you would like to know of the kind of house into which I then was welcomed. It is a long, broad bungalow, having a floor raised about five feet from the ground. Between it and the street lies the garden of which I spoke before, ornamented in the center by a fountain, and bearing in great abundance foliage, shrubbery, and flowers that serve as a shield for the inmates of the house against the curious eyes of passers-by, and that delight the senses with color and fragrance. Fronting the garden and reached by wide steps is a vine-surrounded porch extending the whole width of the house, whence one may enter, by large windows and doors, a vestibule that is as wide as the porch. This vestibule, large enough for the dancing of a good-sized Virginia reel, is richly frescoed in dark colors — walls and ceiling. Its floor is made of hardwood boards, so hard as to seem rather like metal than wood, laid in alternating colors, yellow and brown, and so highly polished as to look more like costly furniture than a floor. Here is social hall, drawing-room, and family gathering-place, all in one. Leading backward from the vestibule for about seventy-five feet is a generous corridor. From one side of this passage doors open into five large chambers for the use of separate members of the family. In a certain sense this corridor is only a balcony. It may be thrown wholly open, on the side opposite the bedrooms, upon the shaded driveway that leads thence to the carriage-house and servants' quarters. At the farther end of the passageway, by flights of steps under three Moresque 196 arches, one ascends to a large enclosed platform that covers the carriage- house, and serves as the general dining-room. The walls of the dining- room are frescoed so as to simulate the trellises of a grape arbor. Everywhere in the building are Pompeii-like decorations : floors of hardwood, laid, as in the vestibule, in alternating colors ; high-studded ceilings with open gratings under them for the free circulation of air, and large windows, unglazed, but iron barred and heavily shuttered. Toward the sea the view is fully open. The house is especially char acterized by spaciousness, airiness, shade, and a free outlook across the bay. On this description I ask you to realize that such a home could not exist, would not be permitted to exist, except in a highly civilized community, and under the protection of a wise and efficient government. From Manila a railway extends longitudinally along the island to the distance of one hundred and forty-nine miles, carrying civilization to the interior parts of Luzon. One excuse, one pretext for the war, has been the assertion that the Filipinos were uncivilized, and, therefore, that they were not entitled to consideration, — a criminal view of human rights, and a view resting on a falsehood as to the facts. The country has indulged in many delusions. It was a delusion that the insurgents in Cuba were the worthiest part of the population of the island. That delusion is passing away, but it was an incentive to the war against Spain. It is an error, which the Administration has promulgated, and which it continues to cherish and defend, that the Fil ipinos are uncivilized and incapable of self-government, even now when the evidence to the contrary is conclusive. With cheek unblushing we go on in the prosecution of this war as though our ideas of civilization were to be accepted by every grade of people from the tropics to the arctics. In all the public policy of this war, and especially in the proclamations of the President to the Filipinos, there may be seen, and only half concealed, the arrogant pretension that whatever we have is good and that whatever has been accepted by the inhabitants of the Philippines is bad. 197 But the evidence of civilization and good government is not hmited to Manila and Luzon. Five degrees of latitude to the south of Manila is the small island of Cebu, which resembles in size and shape the island of Long Island, on our own coast. On the anniversary day of the birth of Washington the United States gunboat "Petrel" demanded the surrender of the city of Cebu. I am to read the answer which the governor of Cebu gave to the commander of the " Petrel " upon the short notice of fourteen hours. As a specimen of literary work it may rival the writings of the mayor of the city of Boston, and the writer exhibits a respect able knowledge of diplomacy and the usage of nations, not unworthy the notice of the accomplished Secretary of State of the United States. Listen to words of truth and justice from the lips of an uncivilized ruler of an uncivilized people : In the face of the verbal intimation to this government by the com mander of the United States gunboat " Petrel " demanding the surrender of the fort and city of Cebu, in order to hoist the flag of his nation on the Cotta within the limit of fourteen hours, the great council convoked in consequence, and, composed of representatives of all the live forces of the country, resolved unanimously to cede to these demands, in view of the superiority of the American arms, but not without first protesting that neither the government of this province nor the whole of its inhab itants combined have the power to execute acts expressly forbidden by the honorable President of the Philippine Republic, Emilio Aguinaldo, our legitimate chief of the state, recognized, thanks to his indisputable qualities of just governor and illustrious general. Sad and painful is the situation of this defenseless city, compelled to act contrary to its own convictions ; therefore, it proclaims before the whole world that this occupation is not based upon any rights which form the codes of any civilized nation; it never expected to behold such a scene at the close of a century supposed to be enlightened. The talk of conquest, of protectorate, of cession made by the Spaniards, as if the Archipelago, and our persons, above all, were mer chandise, subject to barter, when one only of these is worth more than a thousand worlds, even if composed of that metal called vile, which possibly enchants like the eyes of a serpent. But be this as it may, the only person whom the pretender can treat with is Senor Aguinaldo, without whose acquiescence the act demanded of this government is neither licit nor legal, being too momentous. (Signed) Luis Flores, Govemor. Cebu, Feb. 22, 1899. 198 Can this act on the part of the United States be called a worthy commemoration of the birthday of a man who car ried on a war through seven years in support of the right of self-government, and thereupon founded a republic as a living protest against tyranny and imperialism in every form? I am thus able to lay before you evidence from two cities in two islands of the Philippine group, five hundred miles distant from each other, which gives support to three propo sitions, namely : That the Filipinos are a civilized people ; that they are already a self-governing people; and that Aguinaldo is supreme even in the extreme parts of the archipelago. In the presence of the missive of the Governor of Cebu, what is to be said of the tender of " good and stable gov ernment " by the President of the United States? How can the claim be made that we are engaged in a war for civiliza tion and humanity? In truth, nothing in honesty and justice remains for the President and his supporters except the admission that the war is a war of aggression and conquest — a criminal war of aggression and conquest for which the President alone is responsible. But, whether admitted or evaded, that is the issue before the country. Wherever we have touched the islands of the Philippinean group we have found civilization, domestic comfort, and a form of government that was popular in its nature and agreeable to the people. The records of the army move ments in Luzon justify this statement, and at Iloilo and Cebu there were well-administered local governments when we entered those towns. In all the principal islands there are local and municipal governments on which the framework of a general gov ernment can rest and be maintained in stability and vigor. Such a government, based on a declaration of independence, has been set up, with Aguinaldo at its head, and with the authorized concurrence of the representative men of one hundred and ninety-one provinces and cities and towns. Its provisions are known. They are not open to any 199 serious criticism. The instrument, as a scheme of work manship, and as an instrument for the guidance of affairs of state, is far superior to our Articles of Confederation under which our fathers lived for a long ten years. The answer to all this is that the government is a govern ment of paper only, and that Aguinaldo is not recognized beyond the military limits of his command. Something to the contrary might be inferred from the events of the i8th and 19th of June, when a reconnoitring party of General Wheaton's command was ambuscaded within twenty miles of Manila by Filipinos who professed friendship, and then subjected our small force to a treat ment not unlike that which the troops of England received at Concord in 1775. In the autumn of 1898 Aguinaldo proclaimed a fast to be observed on the thirty-first day of December in memory of Jose Rizal, who had been executed by the Spanish Govern ment. The day was observed in Manila, in the presence of our army. Business was suspended, the streets were vacant, and the houses were draped in mourning. Such was the influence of Aguinaldo. The Filipinos at Manila, and elsewhere, are not to be trusted as to the position and power of Aguinaldo, nor as to the strength and location of his command. To the inhab itants of Luzon we are usurpers and tyrants, and as a conse quence they practice falsehood and deception upon us. These vices everywhere and always are the outgrowth of tyranny. Frankness, truthfulness, courage, justice, coexist with freedom of thought and freedom of action, and they flourish nowhere else. To the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands t_^e President is a usurper and a tyrant, and yet we indulge the hope that the subjugation of the Filipinos will be followed by confidence, respect, and a devoted attachment on their part to the insti tutions and people of the United States. Friendships and the attendant virtues of friendships — confidence, mutual respect, free service, devotion — are not the outcome of 200 processes of subjugation. Subjugation is followed always by tyranny, and tyranny on the one part breeds hypocrisy, deception, and treachery on the part of those who are the victims of tyranny. At this point in my address I give emphasis to two propo sitions: We are engaged in war with an organized, civilized body of men, who number eight million or ten million, or even twelve million possibly in all, and who can command a fighting force of two million, all our enemies, and united in opinion and compacted in purpose as were never the people of the United States in any war that we have carried on. My second proposition is this : As between the policy of the President and the demand of the Filipinos there can be no compromise, no arrangements. We are to subjugate the Filipinos, or they are to achieve their independence. In this viev(r of the situation I ask : What has been accom plished, and what is now the outlook? What value can the President now attach to his proclamations of Jan. 5 and April last? Let him consider the answer that has been given by time and events to the declarations therein made, and let him announce the time, if he will, that will be required for their fulfilment. Three of the propositions as announced by the President are these : I. "The destruction of the Spanish fleet and the capture of the city of Manila practically effected the conquest of the Philippine Islands." 2. "As the result of the victories of American arms, the future control, disposition, and government of the Philippine Islands are ceded to the United States." 3. " The military government heretofore maintained by the United States in the city, harbor, and bay of Manila is to be extended with all possible despatch to the whole of the ceded territory." And now in this month of September, 1899, what remains of these pretensions to power and right? Has the conquest 20I of the Philippine Islands been effected? Have we the "control, disposition, and government" of them? Has the military government " heretofore maintained by the United States in the city, harbor, and bay of Manila " been extended to " the whole of the ceded territory," or permanently to any part of it? Has our recognized occupation of territory or our authority in government been advanced since the opening of the year? Has any declaration then made been verified by events? Has any promise then made been kept? Has any hope that was then entertained been real ized? What has come from the embassy of peace that went out with a demand for unconditional submission in one hand and a promise of supernal government in the other? Buffeted and overmatched by its adversaries, it returns discredited by its own admissions. Further, I ask what progress has been made in the execu tion of these declarations put forth by the President in January and April of the present year? — I. "The taxes and duties heretofore payable by the inhabitants to the late government become payable to the authorities of the United States, unless it be seen fit to sub stitute for them other reasonable rates or modes of contribution to the expenses of government." 2. " In the fulfilment of this high mission, supporting the temperate administration of affairs for the greatest good of the governed, there must be sedulously maintained the strong arm of authority, to repress disturbances, and to overcome all obstacles to the bestowal of the blessings of good and stable government upon the people of the Philippine Islands, under the free flag of the United States." Have any taxes been collected outside of Manila and the environs of that city and two other cities that we control by force of arms? How far has " the strong arm of authority " been stretched over the thousand islands of the Philippine group? I do not ask the imperialistic supporters of the administration to name an island, even an insignificant one. 202 that is grateful or would be grateful for our presence. I only ask them to name a league of land, however sparsely inhab ited, that will accept our jurisdiction with complacency. Enemies have we everywhere ? Yes, enemies everywhere ; and everywhere they have been created by the policy and doings of the government and the army. In June, 1898, from Aguinaldo to the humblest worker in the rice fields, the United States had not an enemy in the archipelago. In June, 1899, we could not command a friend. Diplomacy and embassies have accomplished nothing, and now I ask what can be said of our military operations? Our navy has had command of the coasts. The natives there have been defenseless. Our dominion within range of the shell and shot of the navy is supreme. We are indebted to the navy for the capture and occupation df Cebu and Iloilo. At the end, what remains as the fruit of the operations of the army? When the contest of arms opened, our force in the Philippines was not less than thirty thousand men — a force equal to the conquest of the islands, as was then claimed. Through many dreary weeks and months we were assured from day to day that General Otis was " master of the situation "; that the Filipinos were discouraged; that Aguinaldo was anxious to surrender ; that he was deserted by his army; and that the insurrection would soon come to an end. What was our situation when in June the weather for campaigning was ended, and the rainy season had come? We occupied three positions in Luzon — Manila, Fernan- dino, and Imus, the two last mentioned of no value what ever in a strategical point of view. In the four months from February to May, inclusive, we had had many skirmishes, many insignificant victories, many exhibitions of courage on the part of our soldiers, but for the subjugation of the islands the prospect was less favorable in June than it had been in January. Our losses in battle were inconsiderable, but our capacity for further military undertakings had been reduced 203 not less than fifty per cent. The quite unanimous refusal of the volunteers to re-enlist, although large inducements were offered, was a protest against service in the islands, and it may have been a protest also against the policy of the war on the part of the government. Upon the return of the volun teers, we are receiving trustworthy information, from which the country will derive valuable instruction. An Englishman, who claims to have been at the theater of v^ar, estimates the American losses from fighting at an average of five per day during the winter campaign, and the losses of the Filipinos at twice that number. If the loss on the part of the Filipinos from February to June has been at the rate of fifty or even one hundred a day, Aguinaldo's fighting force has not been diminished. In November next Aguinaldo will have all the fighting men that he can use ; he will have added to his supply of arms and ammunition, and in every respect his command will be better prepared than ever before. This view, however, will not be accepted at Washington, and the statement will be offensive to the imperialists of the country. Time will test its wisdom. We are at the end of a year of occupation — we are at the close of a winter campaign. We have gained nothing that is of value to us. The Filipinos have lost nothing that impairs their resources for the conduct of another campaign. Our loss of life must be counted by the thousand, and the expenditure of money by tens of millions, and where is the imperialist who can boast of what has been accomplished ? Or state the gain that has been secured? Or offer anything but vain promises for the future, such as the President's promise of a victorious peace? Nor are we free from cause for anxiety for the fate of the army during the months of inaction through which we are passing. The statements made by Surgeon McQueston of General Otis' staff, and recently the head of the medical staff at Manila, furnish food for serious thought. The inter viewer's report, which has stood unchallenged for many weeks, is this : 204 Unless troops, thousands of them, are sent to the aid of our men there, they will be driven back into Manila in the course of the next few months, during the rainy season. Our men simply cannot stand the climate. Fifty per cent of them will be incapacitated by sickness, and the territory overrun will have to be abandoned. Manila will be in a state of seige again. Our officers and soldiers have accomplished wonders and have proved themselves the best soldiers in the world. But nothing decisive has come of it, because our men were not in great enough force. One of the great dangers that our men have to face is the climate. The new comers will be at a disadvantage, because the volunteers who are returning home are inured to the climate. This will make more men necessary than we could otherwise have put in the field. As a matter of belief, the Filipinos think they have the Americans licked already. One solution of the situation might be to enlist colored men from the Gulf States, and this might settle some of the race questions of that section. These men would be better able to stand the climate conditions around Manila, and it has been proved that they are good fighters. I want to say a word for the Western volunteers. They make the finest soldiers in the world, and their fighting qualities are wonderfuL But the volunteers all want to return home, and I hardly think that the plan to reenlist these skeleton regiments from the volunteers now in the Philippines will be a success. The men enlisted to fight for their country, and they are not the kind of men who want to stay and fight an insurrection for money or the fun of fighting. If Surgeon McQueston's report of the condition of the army is trustworthy, the summary must be this : At the end of a fruitless campaign the remnant of the army is not only incapable of an aggressive movement, but re-enforce ments are required for its protection and preservation. As proclamations of power and embassies of peace are no longer available, the Administration can offer to the country only war — exhausting war — for an indefinite future. The continuance of the war means more men and more money. The increase of the army for service in the tropics means a longer death roll, and that without reference to the losses in the field. With men, and the frequent renewal of the supply of men, we can overrun the territory, we can destroy property, we can lay waste the evidences of civiliza tion, we may blast the prospects of youth and dim the hopes 205 of age, we may make misery the general condition of millions of human beings, and the inheritance of those yet to be born, but there are two enemies in the Philippines we cannot van quish. The climatic diseases of the tropics gloat upon num bers, and prosper with every addition. When you double or treble the army in the East, you lengthen the death roll and increase the sum of family and domestic misery in the United States in the same proportion. Our other enemy is the embittered hostility of the people, which war may aggravate but can never remove. Is it a wild suggestion to say that if General Otis had had sixty thousand men in his command in January last his situ ation today would not be better than it now is, while his record of death losses would be much worse? He might have penetrated the island to the distance of a hundred miles, but the spectacle would have been the same, and the necessity for a retreat the same upon the approach of the rainy season. The invasion of a territory is not conquest. Conquest requires permanent occupation of territory and continuing local government, and finally the abject submission or the general approval of the people. These conditions are impos sible in the Philippines. American citizens will never colonize the islands, and, therefore, local civil government friendly to the United States can never be instituted. The army cannot subsist in the interior through the seasons and year after year, and, there fore, local military government is impracticable. The Administration may be congratulated upon its success if it will accept the teaching of the lessons furnished by the experience of the past year. We are invincible on the sea- coast along the margin that is within range of our gunboats and ships of war, but gunboat jurisdiction is temporary, evanescent, and at any moment we may be dispossessed by a storm. An army of thirty thousand men may penetrate the island of Luzon at its pleasure in the winter season, and an army of 206 one hundred thousand men will perish in the swamps and rice-fields of the interior, or it will seek refuge in the moun tains, or it will retreat to the seacoast when the rainy season comes on, as in this year, 1899. What Macauley said of Spain is equally true of the Philip pines: " The easiest of all lands to overrun and the .hardest to conquer." We have overrun a territory in Luzon as large as the state of Rhode Island, and we have not gained peace ful jurisdiction of an acre of ground. Hostile populations, numbering millions, cannot be charmed by peace embassies nor cajoled by veneered proclamations, nor by force of armies can they be converted into patriotic citizens. It is the history of popular rebellions that they succeed — it is in the nature of things that they should succeed — espe cially when the rebels have a just cause and ample territory to which they may flee for refuge and for reorganization. We have examples, not in the United States only, but in Hayti and in the states of Central and South America, from Mexico to the Argentine Republic. No exception in two continents, and the Philippines will not be an exception. The Administration has been forced by events to abandon its policy of peace, for which there was no justifying founda tion or ground for hope. We now enter upon a policy of war — a policy of war unmasked and freed from all adventitious circumstances. A heavy responsibility rests upon those who venture to assume it. Not much time can pass before the country will be forced to abandon the policy of war and to enter upon a policy of justice to others, thereby securing peace for our selves. Let the country command peace, or else be prepared to accept a conscription act for the prosecution of the war in the Philippine Islands. The Governor of Cebu has raised the question of title on our part, as against the title of the Filipinos, who are the occupants, and whose ancestors for centuries have been the 207 occupants of the islands. He claims that the tide of the inhabitants of the Philippines is superior to the title of Spain as the discoverer. His claim has support in the treaty between Great Britain and Venezuela, to which the United States has assented. The valley of the Essequibo river is the territory in dis pute. Great Britain claims a right to the entire valley as derived from Spain, the discoverer, through Denmark, the intermediate proprietor. By the treaty, which is now under arbitration at Paris, Great Britain holds the territory that it has occupied for fifty years, and Venezuela holds the territory that its citizens have occupied for fifty years, and all without any inquiry as to the original title, whether it was in Venezuela or in Great Britain. The title to the interme diate and unoccupied portion of the valley is to be found by the arbitrators. The Venezuelan treaty warrants this conclusion, namely : That a title resting in possession is superior to a title derived from discovery. Under this doctrine the superior title to the Philippine Islands was in the inhabitants, and consequently Spain had nothing in the nature of a title to which the treaty of December, 1898, could attach. Under this doctrine the Filipinos had a right to assert their superior title. This has been done in every part of the islands, unless, possibly, the city of Manila may have been an exception. We are now asserting a title that, in principle, has been disavowed by Great Britain and Venezuela in a treaty that received our approval, and that was proclaimed as a triumph of American policy in our new part as one of the great powers of the world. If in this address I have presented a gloomy view of our conduct in the Philippinean war, and of our condition at the close of the year, some relief may be found in a single ray of light that may be thrown upon the dark picture. We declared war against Spain in the belief — a belief in which I had no share — that the sufferings of the patriotic Cubans were such as to justify and require our intervention 208 upon grounds of humanity. The country was deceived and misled, and we entered at once upon a war of aggression and conquest, first in Porto Rico and Cuba, then and now in the Philippine Islands, with hints that the interests of trade and the missionary spirit combined may soon demand our inter vention in China. A war commenced in misrepresentations and misunder standings, and carried on for the subjugation of a people who owe no allegiance to us, may be ended in an exhibition of chivalric justice for which no example can be found in the history of mankind. Is it a vain thing to suggest, is it a vain thing to indulge the hope, that the United States may redeem its honor and purge itself from the foul stain of carrying on a war for con quest and power, by conceding, and conceding freely and without delay, independent statehood and full individual sovereignty to Porto Rico, to Cuba, and to the Philippine Islands ? TO EDWIN BURNETT SMITH AND ERVING WINSLOW. TO EDWIN BURNETT SMITH AND ERVING WINSLOW. Boston, Mass., Oct. ii, 1899. Gentlemen: — I am compelled by Mrs. Boutwell's long continued illness, to put aside and at once, all thought of acceding to your request to me, to be present at the confer ence of American Anti-Imperialists to be held at Chicago, the seventeenth day of the present month. Massachusetts will be represented in the conference, but the state has already so declared its opinions that its further action can be forecast. The Democratic party has denounced the war in the Philippines, and the Republican party has refused to sanction the doings of the President, and it has traversed his policy by demanding peace and the recognition of the right of self-government in those whom the President is seeking to subdue to his will. There are several points on which the conference may declare its opinions and announce its policy with entire free dom and with much power : I. The President should be held responsible for the war in the Philippines, and for the sacrifice of life and the expendi ture of treasure incurred in its prosecution. 2. The conference, in the name of the Anti-Imperialists of the country, should announce its purpose to oppose his re-election and its further purpose to oppose the election of members of Congress who may sustain his policy. 3. The conference may declare its purpose to oppose the re-election of any members of Congress who may sustain an appropriation of men or money for the prosecution of the war. On these points there should be no compromises, no con cessions. Thus far the President alone is responsible. Should Con gress endorse and sustain his policy we can then carry the 212 contest into the states and districts, for the purpose of unseat ing the men who may have supported and sanctioned the doings of the President. At present we are not in co-operation with any political party. Let us reserve and preserve our right of action and our freedom of action in the presidential election of 1900, until that contest has been organized, coupled with the understanding that it is our purpose to contribute to the defeat of any party that demands the subjugation of the Philippine Islands. Our Republic thus far, and certainly since the thirteenth amendment was adopted, has rested upon two great propositions : The equality of men in the states and the equality of states in the Union. The President's policy is an abandonment of both of those propositions and the substitution therefor of a colonial empire on the model of the British empire. We demand peace in the Philippine Islands and the opportunity for the exercise of the right of self-government in Cuba, in Porto Rico, and in the Philippine Islands, as the only means by which our country can be saved from a disgraceful abandonment of the principles on which the Republic has rested for a long century, and a degrading acceptance of wars and policies which we have denounced through the same period. Republic or Empire? That is the question before the country. To Edwin Burnett Smith, Erving Winslow. INDEX Adams, J. Q., as Author of Monroe Doc trine, 13. Address to the people, 170, 181. Age, Old. 27. Aguinaldo, Ally of Dewey, 148; Address by, 150; In the Right, 159; His influence in Manila, 199 ; His Means for a New Cam paign, 203. Alasla, Boundary of, 31; Purchase of, 40; Acquisition of, 90. Allen, Elisha A., 39. AlUance, The Holy, 15; With England, Effect of, 73. Alliances, 59 ; Promote Hostilities, 74 ; Create Enemies, 75. American States, Self-dependence of, 19. America, Colonies of, 56 ; True Policy for, 73. Ames, Fisher, 77. Annexation, Hawaiian, 39 ; of Sandwich Islands, 39 ; No gain by, 43 ; Results of, 72; To be Forced on the United States, 83 ; Consequences of. Political and Indus trial. 85. Anti-Imperialists, Policy of, 125; Plan 01,154; Purposes of. 158. Anti-Imperialism, 155, 157. Arbitration, How far Nations are Bound to Arbitrate Differences, 6; International, 27 ; Benefits of, in cases, 29; Scope of, 30, 54; Treaties for International, Advantages of, 32 ; Terms of the treaty of, with England, 33- Arbitrators, Character of, 34. Army, Mercenary, Character of, 144 ; to be Supplied by Conscription, 183 ; Results of Operations of the, 202. Artillery, Flying, 61. Bragg, Captain, 61. Britain Great, Controversy with Venezuela, 3 ; War of i5i2 with, 54. Burlingame, His Opinion of China, no. Califomia, Purchase of, 40 ; Treaty for the Acquisition of, 90. Canada, Possession of by England, a Cause - of Trouble, 41 ; Proclamation conceming Revolution in, 107. Cantabrigia Club, Address Before, 89. Campaign, What May be Accomplished by Another, 205. Catholic Church in the Philippines, 99, too. Cebu, Governor of, 197 ; Civilization in, 197 ; Letter of Governor of, 197; Anniversary of Birth of Washington in, igS. Chandler, Senator, on Alliance with England, 59- China, its Resources, no; Alliance with Russia, no; As a Warlike Country, 112; Its Antiquity, 112; Its policy in the 13th Century, 112; Character of its People, n2. Chicago Conference, Letter to the, 211. Citizens, Classes of, 73. Churches to be free, 79. Church and State, loi. Citizenship, Duties of, 53; Denial of, 70; Under the Constitution, 72. Civilization in the Philippines, 198. Claims, Adjustment of, with France, 33. Cleveland, President, Opinion of Law of Nations and the Monroe Doctrine, 18. Climate, The Influence of, 81. Colonies, Cost of, 59; Government of, 76; Impose Servitude, 82; Influence of, 96; The Error of Creating, 115. Colonization, 205 ; The Meaning of, 14; Oppor tunities of, 80. Columbia District of, Government in the, 139. Commission on Controversy between Eng land and Venezuela, n. Commission, Failure in the Philippines of, 202. Communications, none to Philippines, 157. Confederation of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, 41. Congress, War Power in, 53; Its Duty, 115; Powers of, 191, 192, 193. CongregationaLClub, Address before the, 105. Conscripts, Army of, 183. Constitution, the 15th Amendment to, 77. Corinto, Acts of England at, n. Countries, Evils of Small, 41. Country, Right or Wrong, 53. Criticism, The Right of, 193. Cuba, Pledge in Regard to, 58; War for, 96; Redemption of, 98; Regeneration of, 99; Government of, 102, 123 ; Neutrality not observed by United States in regard to, 106. Cuban Insurgents, Character of, 66. Cushing, his Opinion of China, no. Davis, Jefferson, his Purposes, 177. Debts of Nations, 28. Dependencies, Cost of, 59. Diplomacy, Failure of, 168. Discovery, Title to Territory Through, 12. England, Position in Regard to Venezuela, 7; Claims of, 8; Doings of, at Corinto, n; No Attempt by, to Seize Venezuela, 20; Claims Against, 28; Monroe Doctrine, Its Nonacceptance by, 35 ; Disputes with, 41 ; Distant Possessions of, a Cause of War, 42; Wars of, 42; Its Policy in Colonizing, 42: Claira of, to Araerican Colonies, 56; Alli ance with, 59; Policjf of, 75 ; Relations to, in case of Revolution in Canada, 107 ; Its real policy as to the United States, 113; Its Policy, 124; Alliance with, 153; Claim of, over Amencan Colonies, 161. Empires, Nature of, 125 ; How Constituted, 165. Equality, Abandonment ofthe doctrine of, 172. Essequibo Valley, England's Claim in, 8- Expansion, How dangers of, may be avoided, 78. Filipinos converted into enemies, 138 ; War against the, The evils of a, 143 ; Their Pur pose and Courage, 152 ; Capable of Self- government, 161. Flag, Jurisdiction of, 85; Set up in Mexico and Hauled Down, 91, 92. France, Treaty with, of 1880, 33 ; Italy, Spain and Portugal, if Confederated, 4^ ; Alliance with, 59; Treaty of 1803 with, 90. Freedom for Cuba and the Philippines, 83. 214 Governraent, Self-right of , to exist, 46; Self, 71 ; Self, Claims for, 71 ; Self, Limits of, 76 ; Self, Wisdom of, 77; Self, Opinion of Fisher Ames on, 77 ; Self, Fitness for. How acquired, 78 ; Self, Knowledge of. How Acquired, 79 ; Free, for Cuba and the Philippines, 83; Nature of where found, 123; Essential Elements of free, 124; Self, or Tyranny, 137; inthe Philippines, 146; Contest for Free, 159. Grant, General, Favored the Acquisition of San Domingo, 40. Hawaii, Under Control of United States, 43; Population of Incongruous, 43 ; Alliance of, with any other country impossible, 44; How Situated, 44; Revolution in a wrongful act, 46; Population of, 47; Rejection of, 58; Annexation of, 39. 70; Can it be admitted into the Union? 94; Acquisition of, 130; Com mission on policy for, 132, 133. Horaes, Americans will not make, in the tropics, 81. Independence of the Philippines, 206. Inhabitancy Essential to Colonization, So. Inhabitants of Territory, Transfer of, 12. Imperialism, 87, 89, 155, 157 ; Evils of, 171. Imperialist, Who is an, 121. Imperialists or Republicans, 120, 121 ; Policy of, 125. Institutions, How Extended, loi. International Arbitration, 27. Intervention, Under the Monroe Doctrine, 17. Islands, PoUcy Concerning the, 208. Isolation, 87, 89; Policy of, 90; Results of, 94, Japan, Future of, 105. Jurisdiction, Title to, by Possession, 9; Lim its of, 70 ; Evils and Responsibilities of, 79. Law of Nations, Monroe Doctrine not a part ofthe, iS. Law, Advantages of our process of, 32. Laborers, Letter to, 187. LiCa^ue, Anti-Imperialist, Policy of the, 182, 183 ; Anti-Imperialist, its demands^ 212. Letters to Governor Long, 67. Letter to Laboring Men, 187. Lincoln, Mr., Definitioaof Republicanism by, 122. Lodge, Senator, Definition of Monroe Doc trine by, 14 ; Senator, 121. Long, Governor, Letters to, 67; Governor, Advice of, 148; Governor, Position of, 162, 163 ; Governor, Promises by, 169. Louisiana, Purchase of, 40. Luzon, Civilization in, 196. Maine, Battleship, Destruction of, 66. MacCauley, Lecture by, 195. Manila, Consequences of Capture of, 83, 129 ; Inhabitants of, 100; Home in, 195; Taxes in, 201. Maximilian, Expedition of, to Mexico, 10. McKinley's Administration, Review of, 116. McKinley's Policy, Effects of, 117, 118. McQueston. Surgeon, His Statement, 203. Merrimac, Destruction of ship, 61. Mexico, Maximilian in, 10; War With, qi. Monroe Doctrine, 3 ; Origin of, and Authority of, 4 ; Scope of, ro, 13, 35, 90 ; For Whose Benefit? 10; History of, 13 ; For the Benefit of the United States, 16, 17 ; Interpretation of, 17. Nations, Debts of, 28; Friendships among, 106. Navy, Danger from Increase of, 5. Negro, The, His Fitness for Self-Govern- ment, 78. Neutrality, Not Observed by us in Regard to Cuba, 106; How Preserved in 1841, 107. Oligarchy, 72. Pacific, Perils of Possessions in the, 75. Peace, Security For, 60; Or War, 104; How Secured, 165. Pearl River Harbor, How Acquired, 43. Philippines, Adraission of, Into the Union, 94 ; Government of, 98, 102, 123 ; Cause of the Insurrection in the, 100 ; For Whose Benefit Acquired, 105; Dangers from, 108; President's Policy Concerning the, 116; Advantages of, 142; Promises of President, Concerning, 147; Title to, 149; No Com munications to, by Anti- Imperialists, 1^7; War in the, Cost of, 162, 167 ; Subjugation of, Impossible, 164; CiviUzation in, 198; Local Govemments in, ig8; The, Their Number and Power, 200 ; Title to the, 206; Policy in Regard to the, 207, 208; War in, Character of, 194. Platform of the Anti-Imperialist League, 154; Policy, Public, Changed by War, 51, 53. Porto Rico, Government of, 102; Subordinate Condition of, 122 ; Policy in Regard to, 208. Possessions, Insular, Refused, 40, 58 ; Insular, a Source of Weakness in War, 42. Pratt, Consul, Statement of, 149. President, Interview with, 69; Position of, 114; Plans of, Concealed, 115; Responsible for the War, 127, 144 ; Deception of the, in Regard to the Philippines, 128; Policy of, 138 ; Proclamation by the, 145; Claims by, 145; a Despot, 146; His Purpose, 151 ; In the Wrong, 159, 160; Proclamation of Jan. 5, 1899, 163 ; Errors of, 17^ ; Unrepublican Policy of, 176, 177; McKinley, A Duty to Defeat, 187; Opinion of him in the Philip pines, 199; His Policy is War, 200; His Demands, 200; Promises of, Failures, 201. Problems Raised by the War, 65. Proclamation of the President, 145 ; Presi dent's of Jan. 5, 1899, 163. Proraises of the President, 147. Protocol, Error Concerning, 126, 128. Rebellion, Clairas against England, 28 ; Pres ent Annual Charge on account of, 28. RepubUc, How Transformed, 130. Republicans or Iraperialists, 120. Russia, its Position, 109; Its Policy in tht East, 109; and China in Combination, in. Salisbury, Lord, Views Conceming Venez uela, 55. Salera, Address at, 121. Samoa, 90 ; Policy Concerning, 130; Evils of the Occupation of. 171. San Domingo, Offer of, 40; Rejection of, 58. Sandwich Islands, Tender of, 39. Schomburgh's Line, Venezuela Not Bound by it, 7. Servitude, Colonial Systems Impose, on the Governing Country, 82. Sheridan. General, Ideas of War, 62. Ships, Changes in Structure of, 60. Slavery, Peaceful Abolition of, 30 ; Its Aboli tion in Spain and Brazil, 57. Soldiers, Rights of, 158. Sovereignty, Our Claim to, in the Philippines, 161. Spain, Weakness of, 66; Reasons for War with, 67; Treaty of 1819 with, 90; Its Downfall, 96; Government, of the Philip pines by, 100 ; Our Title from, 166. Springfield, Speech at, 191. St. Thomas, Purchase of, 40. State and Church, loi. Taxes, Collection of, 201. Teavens, John J., Letter to, 177. Territory, Title of, by discovery, 12 ; Trans fer of , by Force, iz; Continental, accepted, 40; Wars for Conquest of, 57: Extension of, 70; Acquisition of, 78; Conditions for the Increase of, 93; Power of our Government to Acquire, 138. 215 Texas, Purchase of, 40; Annexation of, 91. Treaty, Terms of Proposed Treaty with Eng land, 33, 34; Arbitration, Its Effect upon Foreign and Domestic Policy, 36. Tremont Temple, Meeting in, 136. Tropics, Americans Cannot Make Homes in the, 81 ; Jurisdiction of, fraught with evil, 85. Tyler, John, Proclamation by, in 1841, 107. Tyranny or Self- Govemment, 137. United States, Interest in the Monroe Doc trine, 10; Coramission of, on Controversy Between England and Venezuela, 11 ; Right of, to Intervene under Monroe Doctrine, 17 ; As Protector of other States, 19; No Inter est in the Controversy Between England and Venezuela, 21; Tender of Sandwich Islands to, 39; Disputes with England, 41; Territory of, 43 ; Policy of, 70 ; Future of. If we Occupy the Philippines, 108 ; Power of, to Acquire Territory, 138. Venezuela, Controversy with Great Britain, 3; Not bound by the Schoraburgh Line, 7; Dispute Concerning, 55. Venezuelan Question, 3 ; Treaty, the Prin ciple in, 207. Washington, Policy of, 87; Example of, 124; His Conduct in 1776, 161; Birthday of, in Cebu, 198. War Spirit, 5; The United States Responsible forthe, in England and the United States, 22. War, Justifying Reasons for, 5 ; Historical, 54; Just Causes of, 55; For Religion and Huraanity, 57 ; Change of our Public PoUcy Through, 51, 53; Spanish, Changes in Gov ernment from, 65 ; the Fruits of Alliances, 74; Results of the Present, 95 ; Sacrifices in , 96 ; or Peace, 104, 105 ; Responsibility for, on the President, 127; Object of the war with Spain, 127; Justification for, 143; Declared by the Presidents, 145; Unjust, the Greatest of Crimes, 178 ; the Character of, 193 ; Its Continuance and Cost, 204 ; ResponsibiUty for its Continuance, 206; Power in Con- Wjress, 53. ebster, the Influence ot his Eulogy on America, 43 ; Speech of, 96. Williams, Consul, Statement of, 149. Woodford, Minister, Opinion of, in regard to Cuba, 97. World, Opinion of, 95. k