can citizenship by alien and inferior races. The same political fanaticism that made citizens of four millions of freed African slaves, would now add to our voting population seven millions of half-savage mongrel Asiatics, of a quality far inferior to the Chinese whom we will not allow to touch our shores.

To Spain and Portugal were given as an inheritance by God's vicegerent all the heathen lands of the earth; with line and plummet his holiness divided the world between them. Where was the advantage? Look at them now! What have Mexico and Peru been to Spain, or India and Brazil to Portugal, further than the means of their ruin? Was France strengthened or weakened by her possessions in America? The tendency of the weaker nations of Europe is toward separation from their colonial possessions as too expensive luxuries. Portugal is practically bankrupt, and able to raise money only by selling her holdings in Africa.

Finally, while we are wasting our breath about what shall be done with these islanders, about our duty, our obligations, the duties and obligations imposed upon us by providence, the duty of teaching them liberty and fraternity, of gently leading them in the paths of our superior civilization, what in truth are we doing? Killing them. Killing them by thousands, as fast as our combined navy and army with their rapid-fire guns can do so. And this through no fault of ours; we have to do it; it is our destiny, the destiny of our humanity, our expansion, the destiny of United States imperialism.

That the prevailing epidemic of imperialism should result in the slaughter by our own forces of those over whom we would spread the mantle of humanity, is not surprising when considered by the logic of coming events. That the American people do not see the glaring inconsistency of closing their door to the admission of the Asiatic while forcing themselves upon him, or the ethical difference between killing off their own Indians when they obstruct progress and going to Asia to kill there the natives who impede their purpose, is strange; but all these are but stages in a transcendentally great movement. Nor will expansion, if permitted to have its way, with all its attendant curses, stop where it is, but the national hunger for land, and the grasping greed of politicians will drive the government into further conquests and complications, in ich are scattered the seeds of self-destruction.

said the anti-expansionists.

CHAPTER IX

IMPERIALISM; THE POLICY OF EXPANSION. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE QUESTION

On the other hand, the expansionists claim that the United States entered upon this war with Spain to deliver Cuba from the hand of the oppressor,-that and nothing more; and with the understanding that the war was not for territorial or other advantage, or for self-aggrandizement, but solely for humanity's sake; that this sentiment the nation still maintains, and the tacit pledge of Cuba free will be carried out. That during this conflict the fortunes of war threw unexpectedly into the hands of the United States other similarly situated and more distant islands, where persecution was similarly practised, and on which the covetous eyes of Europe were also fixed, but whose inhabitants were lower in the scale of humanity than those of Cuba, and less capable of taking care of themselves. These, some think our government is under obligation not to leave defenceless in their present predicament; defenceless as against the powers abroad as well as against rapacious leaders at home. Further than this, the war having extended into distant parts, with portending issues of serious aspect, the sentiment of pure benevolence, which actuated interference in Cuban affairs, does not here apply, but that the government of the United States is at liberty to act according to the dictates of its judgment as conditions develop.

It is true that we declared when we began this war that it was not for territorial aggrandizement. We did not so begin it; nor did we conduct it for that purpose. Dewey's order was not to capture and hold the Philippines, but capture or destroy the Spanish fleet. The result, which added to our domain, was unexpected, not of our own seeking, and not altogether welcome. Whatever may be the quality of these islanders, we are in honor bound to stand by them and see

them made free, free from Spain, free from the other spoilers of Europe, free from their own leader, who is indeed their worst enemy, inflicting on them horrible wrongs, sending them. to their death by thousands to gratify his base ambition. God have mercy on those natives should the sway of such tyrants as Aguinaldo and his crew ever become absolute! Their rule would be a cross between the governments of Dahomey and Spain.

It is not primarily a question of policy, but of duty, expansionists say, though from this duty some policy will evolve; but first of all having interfered, we must deliver these people; having delivered, we must protect them. It is not a question of career of conquest, appropriation, and arbitrary rule to which the name imperialism applies, or a continuance of continental exclusiveness which has hitherto marked our course; in determining present issues we are not obliged to take Russia as our guide to empire-building, or China as an example of isolation.

We are not obliged to apply the term imperialism to the enlargement of our borders unless we choose. There is nothing oppugnant to republicanism, however, in the word empire. as employed at the present day. The significance of words change as the ideas or institutions which they represent change. Canada belongs to the empire of Great Britain, yet Canada | has freedom. Only if imperialism is to be the name of Ameri-: can progress, let it be so, but let it be imperial progress, let it be the imperialism of integrity and humanity, the imperialism of intellect and good morals. Let us have an empire of learning, as well as empires of industry and wealth and gov

ernment.

Nor does expansion necessarily imply imperialism, or a colonial policy, or what is ordinarily meant by these terms, which i are as a rule loosely and inaccurately used. Neither empire in the sense of a union of sovereignties, or vast and arbitrary dominion, nor the colonization of white people in tropical islands, was ever seriously contemplated by the American government. And most meaningless of all is the term colonial expansion as applied to territorial extension, and for which it would be difficult to find any rational equivalent. Expansion ist simply growth; to resist expansion is to resist progress, which is to resist destiny.

Because of the acquisition of new lands, and the assumption of new duties, we are told that we are grasping at empire. Is it grasping at empire to do one's duty, to deliver the oppressed, to right the wrongs that cry loudly at our door? As for the acquisition of new lands and the management of strange peoples, there is nothing very formidable in either. If this is imperialism it is a new, a noble imperialism, born not of despotism but of democracy, not of slavery but of freedom, the imperialism of equity and humanity. The policy of expansion, if proper conditions are present, may as well be questioned in the growth of the individual from boy to manhood as in the growth of an intelligent and progressive nation, which does not object to a seat among the dominating powers of the earth. Why should we not enlarge our borders with the enlargement of experience, wealth, and population; why not grow to the full stature of manhood? Moreover, what of the man having ten talents and employs but two, burying the others; what saith the scriptures of such an one? Providence has given us wealth, intelligence, and power, not quietly to sit down and enjoy, but to use for the advancement of the true interests of mankind.

There were able men in our nation a half-century ago who openly advocated the extension of our borders. Few will deny, whatever their politics, that Stephen A. Douglas was a great statesman. He said: "It is our destiny to have Cuba, and it is folly to debate the question. It naturally belongs to the American continent. It guards the mouth of the Mississippi, which is the heart of the American continent, and the body of the American nation. Its acquisition is a matter of time only. Our government should adopt the policy of receiving Cuba as soon as a fair and just opportunity shall be presented. I am in favor of expansion as fast as consistent with our interest and the increase and development of our population and resources. If that principle prevails, we have a future before us more glorious than that of any other people that ever existed. Our republic will endure for thousands of years. Progress will be the law of its destiny. The more degrees of latitude and longitude embraced beneath our constitution the better. I believe the interests of commerce, of civilization, every interest which civilized nations hold dear, would be benefited by expansion."

Some of our best and most conservative men hold that departure from established methods entails serious risks, that what was best for the republic in the days of Washington and Webster is best for it now; others believe that wealth and power bring responsibilities upon the nation as well as on the individual, and that the United States can safely and beneficially undertake things now which could not have been safely undertaken a hundred or even fifty years ago. As to the doctrine or tradition of isolation, let the dead bury their dead. However it may have been in the past, whether beneficial or detrimental, we are now no longer isolated and never shall be again. The world is round, and America is as near the middle of it as any other country, but no nearer. The term ends of the earth is obsolete; the earth no longer has ends. One side of America is in touch with Europe, and the other side is in touch with Asia. Steam bridges space, and the lightnings of commerce flash over both oceans. How then is isolation longer possible? What other continent has on either side of it these the world's greatest oceans? Rather say that with us, of all the world, isolation is not possible, whether or not we own a foot of land outside the continent.

As the world is moving, with the hungry eyes of Europe on China, political isolation signifies commercial depreciation on the shores of Asia. To withdraw ourselves from the responsibility of the Philippines would be to stultify ourselves before the world. Having gone to war to stop brutality in one island. and having had other islands where is also much brutality placed in our charge, we cannot stop now and say we have had enough of it, we will do nothing more; we cannot claim that we made a mistake in the first instance, or that this tyranny is beyond our reach. Conservatism and isolation up to a certain point in a nation's growth may be, and as regards our own country have been good politics while bringing expansion: for while we have enlarged our borders we have increased our strength. Having attained this much we would scarcely be content to hold aloof from the world and turn our land inte a hermitage, when we are as willing and competent to take part in affairs concerning our interests as others. Isolation is not inconsistent with expansion; and after having swelled ourselves out from the Atlantic to the Pacific, there is nothing frightful in laying gently one hand on the Antilles and the other on the Philippines.