New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1899-12-20
EXPANSION AND PEACE
THINGS THAT ARE WORSE THAN WAR
DUTIES OF CIVILIZATION.
r Rnnsavelt In The Indenendent.

Governor Roosevelt, In Inc independent.
Peace Is a great good; and doubly harmful there
fore is the attitude Of those who advocate It in
terms that would make 1t synonymous with selfish
and cowardly shrinking from warning against lne
existence of evil The wisest and most far seeing
champions of peace will ever remember that, IN
for unrghteous and cowardly peace may be worse
than any war-and in the second place. that II can
often be obtained only at the cost of war Let me
take two Illustrations:
The great blot upon European international mo-
rallty in the closing decades of this century has
been not a war but the infamous peace kept by
the 16 action Of b6 6he sFe of SSr 3
outrage upon the men, women and children or de-
Kept: but what peace! Infinitely greater human
misery was inflicted during this peace than In the
Turkey, and this misery fell. not on armed men,
but upon defenceless women and children, upon
the head of the family: and it came not in the
mere form Of death or Imprisonment but OF tort
horrible to reiateNtortures Of which it Is too terri
BILE even to think. Moreover. no good resulted from
OF course. our whole National history has been
we expanded westward to the Mississippi; under
on & nsT Monroe hs We G
into Florida and then into Texas and Catherine
Seward, into Alaska; while under every admnistra-
tion the process OF expansion In the great plains
and the Rockies has continued with growing ra-
pidity. While we had a frontier the chief feature
Of frontier life was the endless war between the
occasion for the to be found In the con-
duct OF the whites and sometimes in that of the
reds, but the ultimate cause was simply that We
in contact with country held by savages
II half-savages. Where abut Canada there
is no danger Of war nor IS there any danger where
we abut the we'll settled regions Of Mexico. But
elsewhere had to continue until we expanded
over the country Then It was succeeded at once
by n peace which has remained unbroken to the
present day. In North America, elsewhere
throughout the entire world. the expansion OF a
civilized nation has invariably the growth Of
the In which peace is normal throughout the
world
The same will be true OF the Philippines. II the
who have counselled National degradation
National dshonor, by urging us 70 leave the Philip
pines and put tho Aguinaldan oligarchy In control
of those islands could have their way, we should
merely turn them over to rapine and bloodshed
until some stronger, manlier Power stepped in TO
do the task we had shown ourselves fearful OF
performing. But II Is. this country will keep
the islands and will establish therein stable and
orderly government, so that fair spot Of
the worlds surface shall have been snatched from
the forces of darkness. fundamentally the cause
of expansion is the cause OF peace.
1t Is only the warlike power of civilized people
that give peace to the world. The Arab wrecked
the civilization OF the Mediterranean coasts: the
Turk wrecked the civilization OF Southeastern Eu-
rope, and the Tartar desolated from China to Rus
STA and TO Persia, setting back the progress of the
world for centuries: solely because the civilized ma
tions opposed to them had lost the great fighting
qualities. and in becoming overpeaceful. had lost
the power OF keeping peace with a strong hand