The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-02-23

ita1 have been scarcely less noteworthy.
So long as men were isolated such com
binations were difficult, even if they
were often possible. But as soon as
steam and electricity made every man
the npighbor of every other, there came
to be common realization everywhere
in the world that in union there is
strength. All telegraph lines were COM
bined into one; short railways united
and formed large corporations; huge
factories took the place of small in
dustries. even the small shopkeepers
are having now to fight for their lives,
as the business seems to be irrisistibly
shifting into the department. stores,
Cannot He Restrained.
Even omnibus lines run regularly
from the stations to some of these great
caravanseries of trade. 1t is not my
purpose here either to commend or to
condemn this tendency; but 1 content
myself with simply pointing out the
fact that up to the present time at least
the tendency has been stronger than
any effort of men to resist or restrain il,
Now, what has not often been OBJ
served, and I know not whether the
matter has been called ito public atten-
ton, is the fact that something like
this irresistible and universal tendency
in Industrial affairs seems to be taking
place in International affairs. In West
ern Europe, thanks to the doctrine of
the balance of power and international
agreements which protect the smaller
nationalities, the process of absorption
of the smaller nations by the larger has
been prevented. But outside the zone
of this protection the tendency has been
going on with something like Irresistible
force. Recall what has taken place
since Russia was baff1ed by the Grim
can war in her ambition to plant her.
self on the Mediterranean. She has add
ed to her domain in the East territories
nearly as large as the territory of the
United States. Germany has more than
million square miles in Africa. France
has domain of about the same size
Great Britain has quite as much and
Portugal and Holland have also secured
their share. Let us not be in too great
haste to condemn these expansions, for
they have not been very different from
the processes by which the United
States have expanded since the adop-
ton of the constitution. Few of them
have been the result of a deliberate
purpose of conquest. They have come
from the impact of more civilized with
less civilized peoples, and the less civ
ilized have been obliged to give way.
The Fruits of Victory.
I'VE find ourselves in possession of
insular dependencies as the unexpected
fruits of victory. We made war upon
none of them. The question was sim
ply whether we should allow Spain to
keep them. / have never heard of any
body who was in favor of such course.
Shall we give them to some other ma
ton? have never heard anybody adj
vocate that We are reduced, then, to
the alternative Of either giving them to
the inhabitants of the islands or of
keeping them ourselves and Of fitting
them, as rapidly as we can, for the
methods and the responsibilities of self
government. That is the only question
concerning them that is now before the
American people. 1t is a question about
which there may well be difference of
opinion. But this must be conceded by
everybody. So far as Spanish islands
have been schooled at all in the way
of government they have been schooled
in the worst political methods known
since the fall OF Rome. I suppose that
not one in hundred thousand of the
Filipinos has even the shadow of an
idea of the real character of civil in
stitutions."
Professor Adams advocated colonial
system such as that of England. by