The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1896-01-29

an everyday kind of a revier OF peoples
struggling up into the sunlight OF
higher civilization, this is ABOUT the
meanest business an American can
stoop to engage in. Because those re-
pubics are weak and have not yet at
tanned the stature of older governments
that had better start in life, therefore
let England, the bully and the thief of
the world, extend her dominion over
them. 1t is no affair of the government
of the United States, although these
depredations are committed at its very
door. The Monroe doctrine does not
apply. Venezuela, says the senator 10
further justification of the attempt to
swallow up that republic, has had a
revolution at an average interval of
eighteen months since she was enamel
pated from Spanish dominion, and
Mexico, in thirty. nine years, had thirty
six different forms of govern nent and
seventy-two chief executives. How
ever this may be, even if it is all true,
what warrant does it give for the ex-
tension of the European system over
those countries? The Anglo-Saxons,
and other peoples in the van of civilza-
ton to-day, during the centuries of
their emergence from barbarism, were
conspicuous for their impotence of re-
straint and authority, and their early
history is the story of turbulence and
bloodshed. Their rulers were often
usurpers, tyrants and assassins.
But Mexico itself upsets the conclu-
sions of the senator and his associ-
ate defenders of Anglican robbery.
The present century had ended its
first quarter when "those countries
down there" as distinguished doctor
of divinity contemptuously speaks of
them, had wrested their liberties from
the clutches of their European masters
in Spain or Portugal. Existence as an
English colony our fathers found intol-
cradle. What could have been the con-
ditions as colony of Spain? Cuba can
answer to-day, though her colonial ex-
istence now is freedom itself COM
pared with the conditions of colonial
dependence century ago. During
three-quarters of century those south
ern people have been struggling up out
of social and civil chaos. They are
progressing. Since Mexico repealed the
attempts of Louis Napoleon to re-es-
tablish the European system on her
soil, she has had stability of govern
ment. The fires of revolution in that
particular member of the group of
volcanic republics" have burned out.
Under President Juarez, constitutional
government was firmly established, and
an era of progress and prosperity was
begun, which President Diaz, his sue
cessor, has continued, ruling with wis
dom and frmness through four success
sive terms. Mexico is pledge of
what may come in the fulness of time
out of others of those much. condemned
governments, if the Monroe doctrine is
firmly enforced. They are our neigh
bors. Under the change of commercial
policy instituted by the reciprocity
clause of the Mckinley tariff, they were
likely to become more desirable neigh.
bors than they had been. Under the
declaration of the Monroe doctrine
which republican congress will make,
and under reciprocity treaties which
the coming republican administration
will re-establish, they will become
members of great American CONNER
cial union, cultivating neighborly am.
ity and intercourse, and forming and
strengthening the ties of an association
of all American nationalities for their
common advantage and protection.