Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-05-01
IMPERIAL POLICY DENOUNCED
Continued from First Page.

anu QOI human DeluSS-lduu tudI WdS
part of our inheritance But now fol-
lowing the lead Of our great capitalists
and trust lords we buy at one stroke
ten million human beings, beings who
live in another hemisphere, who differ
from us in every way, who dwell in a
climate that is fatal to the white man,
who can be of no advantage whatever
to us, but who, if we persist in holding
them, will involve us in the most seri-
Gus difficulties and dangers. A war OF
conquest is in contradiction with our
fundamental principles of government,
! it is opposed to all our traditions. The
thought of ruling over subject peoples
is repugnant to our deepest and noblest
sentiment We have room for three
or four hundred million of human be-
ings. If more are required and we are
true to ourselves, British America will
come to us without there being need of
| firing a gun. We have money enough
already and our wealth is rapidly In
creasing. What we have to learn is how
to live, how to distribute our money,
how to take it from its mastery over
us and make it our servant
"Our capital is fast becoming the
most inhuman, the most ipiquitous ty-
rant the world has ever known. Its
tyranny is
A BLIGHT AND A CURSE
to those who exercise it as well as to
the multitude who are its victims.
Commercial and manufacturing compe-
tition is becoming a struggle for exist
ence fiercer than that which makes ma
ture red with tooth and claw. Whereas
the tendency of true civilization and re-
ligion is to convert the struggle for life
into cooperation for life, into work OF
all for all that all may have those in
ner goods which make men wise, holy,
beautiful and strong; whereas this is
the tendency of right civilization, our
greed, our superstitious belief in money
as the only true God and Savior of man.,
hurries us on with increasing speed in
to all the venalities. dishonesties and
corruptions; into all the tricks and
trusts, by which the people are dis
heartened and impoverished. We are
hypnotized by the glitter and glare, the
pompous circumstance of wealth, and
are becoming incapable of a rational
view of life. We have lost faith for
simple things and simple ways. We
fee from the country as from desert
and find self-forgetfulnes only amid
the noise and rush of great cities, where
high thought and pure affection are
WELL NIGH IMPOSSIBLE.
How far we have drifted from that
race of farmers who threw off the
yoke of England and built the noble
ter than money, freedom than luxury
and display. There plain democratic
republic is no longer good enough for
us. We have become imperial. We
must have mighty armies and navies
which shall encircle the earth to bring
into subsection weak and unprotected
savages and barbarians. Why? For
glory? No. That is a standpoint we
have left behind. For humanity?
Wholesale murder is not humanity.
Why? For money, more money, money
without end. We are the victims of
commercialism. We have caught the
contagion of the insanity that the rich
est nations are the worthiest and the
most enduring. We have lost sight of
the eternal principle that all freedom
riches are akin to fear and death, that
by the soul only can nation be great.
ct has been our hope that in the
latest birth of time, we the favored chill
dren of Heaven, were to be providen-
TALLY
GUIDED TO NOBLER ISSUES,
that here the many should become what
but a few have ever been-wise. self
contained, generous, helpful and loving.
But this hope is no longer cherished,
this idea lures us no more. We have
become believers in destiny. and des-
tiny knows nothing of wisdom and
goodness-it is natures fatal sway, pit
iless, blind, destroying, to rise above
which has been the ceaseless effort of
all the heroes, saints and sages by
which the race has been blessed and
ennobled.
eff it is our destiny to become an
empire, it is not our destiny to endure
as a republic. Empire and imperial
ism are associated with kingly and
arbitrary rule, with militarism and con-
quest. Was not the Roman Empire
built on the ruins Of the Republic?
Was it not made possible by the gen.
eral loss of virtue and patriotism, by
the luxury and corruption which the
stolen wealth of a hundred cities had
spread through Rome? 1t is only when
the inner sources of life run low that
men rush madly to gain possession of
external things. When the real good