Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1897-12-14

the current year under existing laws Of
$469, 227077. A little Of this great increase
is due. to an estimated deficiency Of &c.
liz In postal receipts. But the report
Includes SCI, 100000 for public works In the
war department, besides $24, 620. 0i4 for the
military establishment and $l.9S90S7 for
public works In the navy department,
with $29.929540 for the naval establish
ment. 1t also includes miscellaneous ex-
penditures In various departments
amounting to more than $35.0OD0O0. 1T Is
at this point that the greatest prudence
and caution will be required in Congress.
as well as good judgment. for appropri-
atoms as large as the aggregate asked
would leave deficit of over s2l. 100000 for
the next fiscal year. Notwithstanding the
expected increase of revenue. Yet part
of the increased appropriations are to
provide for the national defence and may
not properly be cut down too closely.
Louisiana, Hawaii, New England.
IN. Y. Press)
There is a not entirely unmelancholy in
terest In noting the tendency of some
New England Republicans to initiate.
through the operation of a clear and gen
orally creditable political heredity. one of
the cardinal and characteristic errors OF
their predecessors. the New England fed
eralists.
Every argument made today against
the Hawaiian annexation was made
ninety-five years ago against the Louisi-
ana purchase--racial diversity and inferi-
GRITTY, geographical remoteness and all
the rest. Now 1t is lepers that we are
warned against. Then it was pirates.
Now 1t Is the Pacific that stretches be-
tween us and the new province. Then it
was the trackless waste of the Floridas,
inhabited by Indians. owned by Span
iards. Then there was the same derision
Of dreams of empire the same mega
ton of commercial and military advan-
tage.
Then 1t was with the New England
federaliSts as II seems to be now with
some New England Repubicans-that "A
certain racial and regional exclusiveness
an Athenian repulsion of outside barbar-
fans. YANKEE contempt for any project
whose supporters are sometimes guilty
of grandiloquence. begat opposition to an
nexation. SO far as ii was political at all
the Louisiana project was Federalist
just the Hawaiian project, when po-
litiCsl at all. is Republican. The neces-
sity of holding the Mississippfs mouth
Hamilton had advocated its seizure by
force when Spain held it. When Mr.
Jefferson arrived on the scene 1t was
within the range OF practical and press
ing politics. All Kentucky was camor-
ing for il as a way to market. He showed
in the purchase about as much of the
foresight and "divinaion' with which
grateful but iIliterate party has cred
tied him he did in paying last years
grocery bill.
So the parallel is complete enough as
far IL has so far gone New England
federaiist opposition then proceeded as
New England Republican opposition will
proceed. If at all, now against a party
measure on sectional ground. il is not
a wholly discreditablc ground. but 1t was
without substance then. and IL Is almost
without shadow now. Its primal genesis
is in a vague fear that New England will
he swamped by strange peoples. But the
peoples do not live who can swamp New
England as New England showed sixty
years after the Louisiana purchase. Par
ticularly they do not live on Il little patch
In the sea where the census taker cannot
find as many heads tn count as h. would
discover in two fairly populous wards of
Boston.
Let us hope that the parallel will gn
no further.