The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-07-06
The National Policy Of the Future.

In a recent interview, published in
the New York Herald, Henry Waiter
son said:
"To surrender territory acquired by
the outlay of 80 much blood and treas
ure would be a wanton and cowsrdly
abandonment of obligations and oppor-
tunities literally heaven-sent, for they
were not originally contemplated by
anybody. We cannot remand the
Philippines to Spain, or commit them
to a population incapable of self-gov-
eminent, to become a prey of European
diplomacy. Neither can VIZ sell them
to some purchasing power. We are
bound to keep Porto Rico, if for moth
ing else than a coaling-station, in case
we get it.. Look at the map of the
West Indies. See where Cuba lies
right across our Southern water front.
Will any ane nan say that we should
ever permit it, once acquired, to pass
out of our control?
"The traditional stay-at-home and
Observation-Disclosures policy laid
down by Washington was wise for a
weak and struggling nation, and, if it
could be adhered to, would be wise for
every people. But each of the centur-
les has its WI tale of progress to tell,
each raises up its W problems to be
solved. The difference between a
scattered population, fringing the east
Atlantic seab0ard, and eighty millions
of people, occupying and traversing the
continent from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, is too great to admit of contrast.
GAS no preceding cycle the i%nterven-
ing century has revolutionized the
world. Another century may witness
the transfer of human ambitions and
activities from Europe and America to
Asia and Africa. The Pacific, and not
the Atlantic, may become the wash
basin of the universe. Can the United
States stand apart and aside while these
movements of mankind, like a run
ing stream, pass them by, an isolated
and helpless mass of accumulated and
corrupting riches? We could not if we
would and we should not if we could.
"We must adapt ourselves to the
changed order. We must make a new
map. The vista, as it opens to our
sight, is not so great as would have been
the vista of Texas and California,
Florida and Alaska to the eye of Wash
ington. For all his wisdom, the
Father of His Country could not forsee
electricity, nor estimate the geographic
%contractions it would bring. Already
the old world is receding. Another
world is coming into view. The states
manstip of the twentieth century must
address itself to this and will be largely
constructive in it's character. The
cloth has been already partly cut out.
1t remains for statesmen to put it to-
gether so that the world may wear it.
"The United States from now on is
destined to be a world power. Hence
forth its foreign policy will need to be
completely reconstructed. The mar
who would cling to the traditions of
| Washington is as one who would reject
the railway and travel by the stage
coach, or, d~isdaining the highway,
would strike through the woods. .
"From a nation of s%hopkeepers we
become a nation of warriors. We es-
cape the menace and peril of socialism
and a~grarianism, as England has es-
capped them, by a policy of colonization
and conquest. From a provincial
huddle OF petty sovereignties held to-
gether by a rope of sand we rise to the
dignity and prowess of an imperial re-
public incomparably greater than Rome.
sit is true that we exchange domes-
tic dangers for foreign dangers; but in
every direction we multiply the oppor-
t~unities of the people. We risk Cesar
ism, certainly; but even Cesarism is
preferable to anarchism. We risk wars,
but a man has but one time to die, and,
either in peace or war, he is not likely
to die until his time comes. Sufficient
unto the day is the evil thereof. In
short, anything is better than the pace
we were going before these present
forces were started into life. Already
the young manhood of the country is
as a goodly brand snatched from the
burning, and given a perspective re-
plete with noble deeds and elevating
IDEAS"