Evening star., 1898-12-28
WALK ALONE POLICY
Charles Francis Adams Views Re-
garding Lately Acquired Territory.
CASES OF MEXICO AND HAYFI
Parallel Drawn to Show Superiority
Over European System.
G A S e OF E q L A n D

In letter to the New York Evening Post
Charles Francis Adams of Boston gives his
views as to the policy which should be
adopted toward the people of the territories
| recently acquired by the United States. He'
says:
1T is commonly argued that. having de-
stroyed the existing government in Cuba
Porto Rico and the Philippines, we have
assumed a political responsibility, and are
| under moral obligation to provide an
other government in place of that which
by our action, has ceased to exist What
has been our course heretofore under sim
liar circumstances?
Il refer to the course pursued by us to-
ward Mexico in the year 1S4S and again
! in 1866 and toward Hayti for seventy years
back. 1t is said that the Inhabitants of the
islands of the Antilles, and much more
those of the Philippines archipelago are
siS yet untitled to maintain government.
and that they should be kept in a condition
of tutelage, until they are fitted to do.
1t is further argued that stable govern
ment is necessary, and that ii is out of the
question for US 20 permit a condition of
chronic disturbance and unrest TO exist so
| near our own borders Cuba and Porto
| Rico. Yet how long, l would ask, did that
condition exist in Mexico? And with what
results? How long has it existed in Hayti?
it best to establish a governmental pro-
tectorate in either of these Immediately
adjacent regions?
What has been, historically, our policy
| the American, as distinguished from the
| European and British policy-toward those
communities-one Spanish; the other Afri-
can? SO far foreign powers are
cerned, we have laid down the principle of
hands Off So far as their own govern
| ment was concerned, we insisted that the
| only way to learn to walk to try to
| walk, and that the history of mankind did
| not show that nations placed under sys-
TENS of 'tutelage'-taught to lean for sup
port on superior power-ever acquired the
| faculty of Independent action.
Case of England.
'Of this, with us, fundamental truth the
British race itself furnishes very notable
| example. In the forty-fourth year of the
Christian era the island of Great Britain
was occupied by what the imperial Ro-
mans adjudged to be an inferior race To
| the Romans the Britons unquestionably
were inferior. Every childs history con-
| talns an account ,of the Course then pur-
sued by the superior toward that inferior
| race, and its results. The Romans occu-
| pied Great Britain and they occupied it
hard upon four centuries, holding the peo-
pie in 'tutelage and protecting them
against themselves well as againS: their
| enemies. With what result? So emascu-
| lated and incapable of self f-government did
| the people of England become during their
| tutelage that, when Rome at last with
drew, they found themselves totally un-
| fitted for self-government, much less for
| facing a foreign enemy. The end was that,
through six centuries more, England was
| overrun, first by those of one race, and
| then by those of another, until the Nor
mans established themselves in it as con-
| querors; and then. and not until then, the
deteriorating effect of a system of long
| continued 'tuJe1age' ceased to be felt and
thn ictd 1Ar hp,.. .p,1.a htF II
energetic, virile and self-sustaining of
races. AS nearly. therefore, can be his
torically stated, 1t took about eight Gen.
turtles for the people of England to over
come the injurious influence of four CEN
turies of just such a system as ii is now
proposed by to infiict on the Philippines
Hindustan would furnish another highly
suggestive example of the educational ef-
fects of 'tutelage on race. After a CEN
tury and half of that 'tutelage' what pro-
gresS has India made toward fitness for
self-government? Is the end in sight?
From the historical point of view, 1t is
instructive to note the exactly different re-
| suits reached through the truly American
policy We have pursued in the not dissimi-
lar case of Hayti and Mexico. While Hayti
| it is true, has failed TO make great prog
ress, in one century, it has made quite as
much progress England made during any
| equal period Immediately after Rome with
drew from it. And that degree of slowness
in growth which with eauanimity has been
endured by us in islands on the coast of
Asia. 1t cannot be gainsaid that, through
our insisting on the policy of Hon-interfer-
ence ourselves and of nen-interference by
European nations Hayd has been brought
into a position where it is on the high road
| to better things in future. That has been
the result of the prescriptive American pol
ley.
The Case of Mexico.
with Mexico the case is far stronger
yNa hat in, of
spoliation, we had to bolster UP a SEM
blance of government for Mexico with
| which to negotiate treaty of peace. Mex
leo at that time was reduced by us to
condition of utter anarchy. Under the the
ory now gaining in vogue ii would then
have been our plain duty to make of Mexico
an eXtraterritorial dependency, and protect
it against itself. We wisely took differ
ent course
Like other Spanish communities in
America, Mexico then passed through
succession of revolutions. from which it be-
came apparent the people were not in a fit
condition for sehgovernment. Neverthe-
less, sternly insisting on non-interference
by outside powers, We ourselves wisely left
that country to work out its own salvation
in its own way.
In 1868, when the United States was in
volved in the war of the rebellion, the Eu-
rOpeans took advantage of the situation to
invade Mexico, and to establish there a
protect that people against themselves, and
to erect for them a species of protectorate
such we now propose for the Philippines
AS soon as our war was over we insisted
upon the withdrawal of Europe from Mex
leo. What followed is matter of recent his
tory. 1t is unnecessary to recall it. We did
not reduce Mexico into a condition of
'tuteage or establish over it a 'protec-
torate' of our own. We, on the contrary,
insisted that it should stand on its own
legs, and, by so doing, learn to stand firmly
on them, just as child learns to walk by
being compelled to try to walk, not by be-
| ing kept everlastingly in leading strings
This was the American. as contradistin-
guished from the European policy; and
Mexico today walks firmly.
Instead. therefore, of finding our prece-
| dents in the experience of England that
of any other European power, would sug-
gest that the true course for this country
now to pursue Is exactly the course we
have heretofore pursued under similar con-
ditions. Let us be true to our own tradi-
tiCns, and follow our own precedents. Hav-
ing relieved the Spanish islands from the
dominion Of SPAIN we should declare con-
cerning them policy of 'hards off, beth on
our own part and on the part of other DOW