New Iberia enterprise. (New Iberia, La.) 1885-1902, 1898-07-23
THE DAWN OF IMPERIALISM.

WIFI WLaC enthusiasm a large M
jority of the press of this count1
have fallen into the advocacy {
abandoning the old and we'll settle
principles on which the America
republic was founded, and of estal
fishing an empire with vast outly
ing colonies peopled by mongr,
breeds utterly incapable of Sc
government or of any gOvernmer
free in its spirit.
We are told that the Unite
States have grown to such an exten
that our exigencies and interest
imperatively demand expansion
and that we should become a mem
Der of the great family of nation
and fall into their methods. Tha
nation as vast in territorial di
mensions with population o
eighty millions of people canno
proceed on the principles an,
theories Of a small and compare
lively insignificant country such a
the Uitned States were when oul
Constitution was framed.
This is pernicious fallacy. W.
might as well say that when chilt
has grown to a mature age it mus
abandon the early teachings OF
honor, virtue and truth learned al
it's mothers knee and in manhood
become a thief or a swindler, or in
womanhoOd prostitute.
The forces of progress are in the
original principles of States and
nations, and so long as the princi
pies on which governments are
instituted are adhered to, and those
principles are wise, there will be
development and progress. When
these principles are ignored and
new lines Of action are established,
whatever the ultimate result may
be, there must be temporary retro
gression, il not decay. A people
habituated to mOnarchial govern
ment will never become a race
of freeman, nor a pros
porous and happy people under
a despotism. France has never
been more and never will be more
than the mockery of republic,
and Spain is utterly unfit for any
other sort of government than that
under which she exists now. The
greatness of a nation, like that of
a flower or fruit, is in the seed.
If the seed be sound, the fruit will
be rich, otherwise not.
The fathers or founders of our
UPuU11c rfnuc1 ouvou r1rv,U p1.av.
pies, and their purpose was to found
a republic on principles entirely
different from those that constitu-
ted the basis of any other nation or
republic that ever existed on the
face of the globe. They had stud
led history to good effect. They
the history of Greece
and Rome and knew that spoliation
and conquest were their undoing;
and, hence, Washington and JEFF
ferson and Hamilton and Madison
solemnly warned the American
people that, if they desired and
hoped to maintain their free Con-
stitution and the liberties and
of the country, they
should have no entangling ALLAN
,es with other nations. Mr.. JEFF
ferson specifically warned us to
seek no extensions of territory that
could not be defended without a
navy, and later Andrew jackson
was equally earnest and emphatic
IN his warnings to our people to
beware of new territories, of stand
ng armies and navies.
But, say these imperialistic
statesmen, Washington, jefferson
md jackson, were men Of a past
age; they lived and acted in diff
ferent times and conditions and
could not foresee the situation that
prevails in this age. Narrow de-
usion. They were all sages and
and with a clear and un-
ken they saw the very con-
litions that surround us now.
They apprehended that the time
would come when sound and con-
,ervative theories would yield to
luman weakness when greed and
.mbitiOn and folly would assert
themselves precisely on the lines
IN which they are moving to-day
md, hence, their solemn and re-
Deated warnings. The fathers Of
,ur republic lived, it is true, under
lifferent conditions, but their vision
was clearer than is that Of the pop
Dinjay, pOthonse demagOgues and
iingoes of to-day who do not blush
20 call themselves American states
men.
The "new policy" may not, as
We have said before, mean at once
. throne and scepter, but it does
mean a brutal and selfish despotism
n the very near future. The de-
BASED citizens of Rome, long after
heir wives and children, their
their liberties and their
ives were at the nod Of the emper-
,r, were foolish enough to talk of
the republic" and its glories J;
md, in the course Of time, the
'ame degraded populace came to
owe the fiercest Of the brutal en-
oerors because these emperors plum
lered the treasury, the provinces
md the wealthy classes to amuse
he mob with shows and supply
hem with free corn. When Rome
n her madness, the same kind of
madness that now infects the Ameri-
IAN people, abandoned her time
lonored policy of Italian unity and
ldopted that of conquest and col
,nial possessions, her liberty was
doomed, and the seeds Of the folly
ripened into the deadliest and
.ruelest desDOtism that has ever