The San Francisco call., 1899-04-30
IMPERIALISM A GREAT WRONG
hEFUBL1CANISM SHOULD NOT
BE SUPPLANTED.
Manifest Destiny" Docs Not Mean
That Weaker Peoples Are TO Be
Subjugated by Over
whelming Force.
Special Dispatch to The Call.

ST. LOUIS, April 29.-The Westliche
Post will tomorrow print an article in
the English language defining the pol
icy Of all German American papers in
this country regarding Americanism
against Imperialism. The article in
part follows:
Nime and again the attempt has been
made to supplaht American republicanism
with Imperialism. Time and again Ameri-
can patriotism and that high and far
seeing love of mankind which unites men
of all countries in a common brotherhood
of humanity have rallied and won against
IT. When, half a century ago, we had the
same cries of manifest destiny" the
"conquering Saxon" Expansion" and all
the rest we are hearing over again now,
Americans as radically opposed to each
other in most things as were Calhoun and
Corwin Joined with Clay, Webster, Lowell,
Clayton and Clemens against it.
What American can read this without
an indignant refusal to consent that the
blood of those once our allies shall sat
urate the soil' on which they were born
that we may be praised by the London
Times for our noble work for progress"
in furthering British plans for dismem-
bering and robbing China?
What is there in stalwart Americanism
QtS native Amer1caniSm, If you wild eX-
cept what German-Americans are saying
1t was in declaring that they gave up
home and friends and came thousands of
miles to an unknown country for the love
not of British colonialism but of Ameri-
can republicaniSm. To that they are loyal
now and always To Americanism, not to
the British commercialism Of the bayOnet;
to Americanism, to liberty, to progress; /;
to freedom from militariSm, TO the eNpeC-
tattOn of d time TO come when the world
viii be no longer shackled by imperial
( m wi h.NnnptS TO
COMMUNICATIONS who renounced i'm
perialism in Europe are devoted now as
they were fifty years ago, when they lis
tened to Seward, as he said OF these
same "eXpansionists" Sir, they have
sent the American eagle abroad, bearing
not the olive branch but a shackle in his
talons." The flag of this great republic
stands now, not for what the London
Times approves but for what 1t meant
when Seward stood under it TO utter this
immortal sentence.
Such repuhICansm as that was not his,
nor is it that of any local German-Amer-
lean, or of any other American who is
loyal to his i1ag and to his country. May
heaven forbid that ii ever should be. May
the time never come when the American
people will applaud those who drabble a
flag dedicated 10 freedom and human
progress in the blood of men who die on
{ their own soil resisting the same pr1ncl-
pie of British imeprlal1sm, against which
Americans triumphed at Yorktown and
New Orleans.
OuCll Iu6etS VIII AttNC4 plCNeill III <Ailltl
lea Any party which commits itself TO
them viii be wiped out of existence. Any
leader who attempts to check civilization
and progress and American institutions
and American principles will be repudiat-
ed and disgraced; any foreign nation
which, for its own selfish purposes, at
temptS to use the American people as a
catspaw in schemes of fraud and vio-
lence will find itself the victim of the re-
actions of its own violent schenfing. JUS
tice liberty, progress through justice and
liberty, until the whole world is elevated
by our national life as it has been by the
Individual life of Washington-that is the
! flag stands and for that German-Ameri-
cans are willing now as they have always
been, to stake everything, knowing that
when issues are made against liberty and
in favor of imperialism everything is at
! stake for them, the American flag and for
all that is worthy of survival in the world