The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1898-12-15
Expansion Consistent.

pendent federation of states, first
without territories and then with, and
finally to a great nation with foreign
possessions and colonial policy.
Each of the steps in our national career
| have been taken with some hesitency
and anxiety. Even that momentous
one which severed our relations with
the mother country was made only
through the travail of thousands OF
minds who could not see whittier it was
tending. The annexation of further
territory was regarded with the utmost
apprehension by our forefathers. Even
80 great a man as Josiah Quincy look
ed with unconcealed alarm upon the
annexation of Louisiana and made the
halls of Congress ring with the note OF
his opposition to what he declared
would dissolve the union and prepare
it for separation, amicable if possible,
but violent is necessary. Thus it has
been with our own, as with every
nation in tn worlds history, that each
departure from old customs or methods
has been hailed with the prophecy of
destruction. which has remained un-
fulfilled. The United States is just
completing another epoch in her his
tory. She has advanced another stadi-
UNI and is about to enter upon a new
policy which, like its predecessors, has
aroused sharp opposition and brought
forth the usual forecast of dire calamity.
With our adoption of a colonial
policy the stock arguement of the OPP
position is the old, old one of incOn-
sistency. 1t is urged that in adopting
this altogether new policy in our history
we are revoking the principles of which
we have boasted throughout our ma
tional existence; the very principles
which brought forth our constitution
and provoked the struggle of our fore
fathers against the tyranny of England.
Taxation without representation which
has been drilled into us from babyhoOd
as the greatest of all governmental
evils, it is said, we are about to adopt
as our own means of government. In
fact, it is insisted that we ourselves are
about to do that which we fought
for doing and in direct viola-
tiOn of the principles at that time de-
clared by Americans and engrafted into
the United States constitution.
This is most manifestly wrong. One
hundred and twenty-five years ago the
people of the United States began a
struggle against oppression, imposition
and tyranny. 1t was warfare against
the barbarous theory that colony ex-
listed only for the purpose of enriching
the country that had founded it. 1t
was war for independence in the true
sense of the term, and from that prin-
ciple the United States has not with
drawn in the smallest measure. Rather,
it has Just finished sanguinary strug-
gle, the sole purpose of which was to
secure the blessings of independence to
a foreign people, No doubt the alarm.
ist will sheer at the idea of independ-
ence under an alien flag, but the fancy
that it cannot so exist is the vital error
in his philosophy. When the stars and
stripes are flying permanently over the
Philippines and Puerto Rico all those
of misgovernment which have
driven those islands to revolt will be
removed. We will introduce into all
their institutions the same degree of
equity and Justice that characterizes
our own. We will enact no Navigation
Acts, we will issue no Writs of Assist
ance, nor will we impose any of the
harsh measures upon our colonies which
our own revolution IN '75
and stirred the Spanish colonies to re-
volt. We will, however. give to our
colonies such degree of independence
as Canada enjoys, and which, had the
England of old 7ouchsafed to the
United States, would have averted
revolution; not anarchy, but independ-
ence, and that not independence in
name, but independence in reality.
When our anti-expansionist says this is
inconsistent he reduces a principle to a
word and the valiant struggle of our
fathers to all absurd bubble.
Moreover, the anti-expansionist
makes an egregious blunder when he
asserts that the republic of the United
States cannot satisfactorily govern
colonies. The record of England suffi
GENTLY proves that a colony can be
governed with satisfaction both to the
colony and the mother country. To