Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1899-08-10
IMPERIALISM DEFINED.
Views of an Old Democrat Who Be-
Iieves I'm Extending Amer
lean Lines.

Inc ulu say lIdJ tHe
idiosyncrasy of the last century was
liberty and that the idosyncrasy of
the coming century will be markets.
But, surely, in this it did not imply
that freedom is to be sacrificed to COM
merce. 1t meant simply that the bat
tie for constitutional government
among people called civilized has been
fought and won; that feudaltsm dead
and mankind measurably self-govern-
ing, liberty, in the sense that Mira
beau conceived it and Washington
fought for it, is not uppermost in the
worlds mind, but that overcrowded
populations and labor-saving machin-
cry have revolutionized human condi-
tions, producing necessities that seek
their satisfaction in the undeveloped
regions of Asia and Africa and the
islands of the Pacific ocean. In this
connection we undertook to show how,
with a short cut to the Pacific, the cot
ton states of the south occupy geo.
graphic position of great advantage,
and, seeking to have them profit by
this, and that as speedily and as fully
as possible, we ventured to deprecate
the unconsidered outcry against the
policy of national expansion, which, as
far as it relates to the Pacific, is but
another name for the development of
the south.
The Times-Democrat calls this the
''imperial idea" and says that we are
in love with it. If it be the idea that
led George Rogers Clark across the
forest and the prairie to find new
home for liberty in the empire of kas-
kaskia; if it be the idea that led Hous-
ton to raise the standard of freedom
and to erect dwelling for free men in
Texas; if it be the idea that led Pike
and Lewis and Clark and Fremont over
the Rocky mountains to enlarge the
boundaries of civilization in what was
then but is no longer the far west; nay,
if it be the idea that led Jefferson, with
out any authority of law, to put his
hand in the treasury, to abstract there
from $15,000,000 of the peoples hard
earned money, and to give this to the
tyrant Bonaparte for the Louisiana
territory, French, Spaniards, Creoles,
niggers, and what not, without saying
pN NOuI ltdNt Vi DidSl NOuI eyes
or any other politeness-nor yet forget
ting Jackson's performances in Florida
then we are afraid that we must adj
NIT our esteemed contemporary dire
impeachment Ecce signum! Except
for this later circumstance we had
wanted our esteemed contemporaries
company around the ample board OF
American journalism; and for that, at
least, let us be thankful and honor the
memory of jefferson!
But the Times-Democrat says that
all this is repdblicanism. 1t thinks that
because we follow in the footsteps OF
Jefferson we are headed hell bent, or
words to that effect, for the republican
party. Alas! these five and twenty
years the Courier-Journal has so otter
had to meet this accusation in its eff
forts to tell the people of the south
the plain, sober, oft-unpalatable truth
that we are used to it and do not much
mind it. In the meantime, we would
have the democratic party-which, not
withstanding our esteemed contem-
porary's ungracious sally, is still the
party OF our hope-capture the policy
of expansion, and, having recovered
possession of the government, it could
then regulate the future of the coun-
try at home and abroad upon Jetfer-
sonian lines. In casting itself across
the highway of that country's and the
worlds progress it will, we fear, throw
away the substance of all power for
good merely to grasp at the shadow of
barren deality.-Louisville Courier
Journal Den).