Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1899-05-25
FATE OF SOUTH AMERICA.
Cecil Rhodes Prediction Criticised by
an English Writer.

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for his own hand, but his speculations
as TO the future are usually interest
ing. He always thinks on the large
scale-indeed. there must be a curious
vein of dreaminess running through
his otherwise self-seeking character
he is troubled by no scruples and dis
mayed by no fears, and he fixes his
regard exclusively on what Carlyle
called the nights of man. What a
man or race can protitably do, that
he conceives will be done, and right
and wrong may take care of them
selves. This concentration of view
often deceives, but it lends to his pre-
dictions the interest one often finds in
the prophesies Of fanatic. You can
see a narrow point further through
a tube than without one.
Mr.. Rhodes has been prophesying to
an interviewer about the future of
the United States, and certainly no
one can accuse his anticipations of
being small. He regards the con-
quest of the Philippines as a bagatelle,
a mere incident in the march of
expansion, and predicts that within
a century the United States will con-
quer all the republics between Texas
and TERRA del Fuego-that is. the
entire Spanish and Lusitanian world
within the western hemisphere. They
will conquer them, he says plainly
by force of arms" and will take
charge of the barbarrias," Spaniards,
Portuguese. half-breeds and Indians
that is, will govern them from above
through great colonial service,
which he says, the union can organize
as easily as new and powerful navy.
That is bold speaking-We should be
sorry if Mr.. Rhodes appeared in Cadiz,
Mexico. Valparaiso or Buenos Ayers
to guarantee his life-and at first sight
it appears to be in accord with many
visible facts.
AS the American people grow thick
upon the land they will feel the land
hunger as they did when they bought
Louisiana and Florida, conquered
Texas and compelled the Cession of
California. Their path of empire"
seems to point southwark, where lie
half-derelict states like Brazil, of
value which Europe as yet does not
adequately appreciate, and where the
existing occupants have no solid
means of resisting domination. They
are few, they are not homogeneous
for though all the Indians in Span
ich boyC Ipnn1I,
paniolized' they remain separate still
and they neither develop strength
nor attract strength sufficient to drive
back the terrible rush of intelligent
force which, if the United States ever
grows crowded will inevitably be
driven upon them.
Many Americans say they will
never atetmpt such task, but we do
not greatly believe in the humility of
any race, and see no reason in history
to fancy that any of the great white
races if sorely tempted will shrink
from conquest, and especially the
conquest of peoples with whom they
are barred off by the impossible
barrier of color 1t is quite con
ceivable that fifty years hence, when
the union contains 120,000,000 white
men eager for physical we'll being, Mr..
Rhodes dreams may be reproduced
as curiously accurate prophecies.
And yet things may go so very diff
ferently The verdict of history, to
begin with. is not in favor of world
wide Nominations, and the mastery of
the two Americas would be the domi-
nation of separate world. Conquer
ing energy, like every other energy,
has its limits.
Something scarcely perceptible bar
red the march Of the phalanX, which
ought to have reached Bengal, if not
Ceylon. and arrested as by divine fiat
the fight of the Roman eagles, which
ought at least to have reached the
debouchure of the Euphrates. A com
paratiyely small body of mail-clad
men under Charles Martel stopped for
ever the northWard rush OF the Arab
and handful of Slav cavalry under
Sobieski turned back the Turk from
the west. The Tartar torrent, which
threatened TO drown Europe lost its
momentum as it spread round the
Caspian and into Russia, and after
drowning those regions for two cen
turics dried up, one scarcely can per-
ceive why. Inc resistance of small
peoples is sometimes very formidable,
or Switzerland would not be a re-
public, and the energy of the Ameri-
cans may not prove persistent enough
for The vast task of conquest and oc-
cupation which Mr.. Rhodes sets be-
fore them. Their system, it must be
remembered, though it produces men
of ability, is probably not favorable to
the development of meteorc genius
and without a man OF that kind the
work would hardly he done rapidly.
Eating up South America like an
artichoke, state by state, would be
task to over strain any people even
the American. Brazil alone would take
twenty years to subjugate and fifty
to fill. even If the union settled her
colored races over the malarious sec
ton OF the vast republic. The work