Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-12-23
LsIM~x
EXPANSION AND PEACE.
some ihinSs That Are Much Worse
Than War

Coy. Roosevelt, in the Independent
Peace IS a great good: and doIhly harm
full, therefore, is the attitude, OF those VIII,
! advocate it in terms that would make il
I synonymous with selfish and cowardly
shrinking from warning against the ex-
lS'ehce OF evil. The wiSest and most far
I seeing champions Of peace will ever re-
member that, in the first place. 10 be good
II must be rlshteous-for unrighteuuS and
coWardly peace may be worse than any
War-and, in the second place. that it can
OFTEN he obtained only al the cost Of war.
Let me take two Illustrations:
The great blot upon European interpa-
tionai morality in The closing decades of
TINS century has been not a war but the
infamous peace kept by the Joint action of
me great powers while Turkey inflicted
The last horrors Of butchery. torture and
outrage upon the men. women and children
OF despairing Armenia. War was avoided
peace was kept; but what a peace In
hnltely greater human misery was inflicted
during this peace than in the late wars of
Germany with France, Of Russia with
turkey, and this misery fell not on armed
men, Dut upon defenseless women and chill
ufen, upon the graybeard and the stripping
no less than upon the head of the family;
and 1t came not in the mere form of death
or Imprisonment, but Of fortunes upon men
and above all upon women, too horrible TO
Felate-tortuFes OF which il is too terrible
even to think Moreover, no good resulted
from the bloodshed and misery. often this
IS the case in a war, but often it is not the
case.
OF course. our whole national history has
been one Of expansion. Under Washington
ana Adams We expanded westward To the
mississippi: under Jefferson we expanded
across the continent to the mouth of the
Columbia; under Monroe we expanded into
Florida, and then into Texas and Califor-
MA; and finally, largely through the in
Strumentality of Seward. into Alaska. while
tndtar. "a in sJr
expansion in the great plains and the Rock
les has continued with growing rapidity
W nile We had frontier the chief feature
OF frontier life the endless war be-
tween the settlers and the red men Some
times the immediate occasion for the war
was to be found in the conduct of the
whites and sometimes in that of the reds
out the ultimate cause was simply that we
were in contact with a country held nv say
ages or half-savages. Where We abut on
canada there is no danger of war nor is
there any danger where we abut on the
well-settled regions of Mexico Rut eIae-
where war had TO continue until we ex-
banded over the country Then it was
succeeded at once by peace which has re-
maincd unbroken to the present day. In
North America. as elsewhere throughout
the entire world. the expansion of a civil
lied nation has invariably meant the
growth of the area in which peace is nor
NAL throughout the world
The same will be true of the Philinnines
If the men who have counseled national
degra dalton. national dishonor. by urging
US to leave the Philippines and put the
Agufnaldan oligarchy in control OF those
islands could have their way. we should
merely turn them over to rapine and blood
shed until some stronger, manlier power
stepped in to do the task we had shown
ourselves fearful of performing. But as II
Is. this country will keep the islands and
will establish therein a stable and orderly
government, so that one more fair snot OF
the worlds surface shall have been snatch
ed from the forces of darkness Funda-
mentally the cause of expansion is the
cause of peace
1t is only the warlike power of a civilized
people That can give peace to the world
Inc Arab wrecked the civilization of the
mediterranean coasts: the Turk wrecked
the civilization of southeastern Europe and
the tartar desolated from China to Russia
and to Persia, setting back the progress OF
lne world for centuries; solely because the
civilized nations opposed to them had lost
the great lighting qualities. and. in becom-
ing overpeaceful. had lost the power OF
Keeping peace with a strong hand.