The San Francisco call., 1899-01-29

itself heard, it will be neglected and
abused This is why every body of
people under the American flag must
nave snare In the American govern
ment. When colony knows what good
government is it ceases to be a colony
and can take care of itself
To do what England does we must
take lessons of England's methods.
Toward the English system we must
approach more and more closely IF we
are to deal with foreign interests in
large fashion. The town meeting idea
must give way to Capitalization Of
power We must look away from our
own affairs, neglect them even, until
the pressure of growing expenditure
forces us to attend to them again more
carefully than we ever yet have done.
One reason England Is governed we'll is
that misgovernment anywhere on any
large scale would be fatal to her credit
and fatal to her power. She must call
her best men to her service because
without them she would perish. Our
government must be changed for our
changing needs. We must give up our
whole protective system at the demand
of commerce. I, for one, shall never
weep at that. But We must abandon
our childish notions that America is
q world of herself, big enough to maine
tain a separate basis Of coinage, free
mans scale Of wages or social order
of her own.
We must give up the checks and bal
ances in our constitution. 1t is said
that our great battleship Oregon can
turn about, end for end, within her own
length. The dominant nation must have
the same power. She must be capable
of reversing her action in a minute, or
turning around within her own length
This "our prate of statutes and Of
state" makes impossible. We shall re-
ceive many hard knocks before we
W T6aPh
it If we are to work nightly in the
affairs Of the other nations. If we are
to deal with crises in foreign affairs we
must hold them with a steadier grasp
than that with which we have held the
Cuban question. The Spanish Peace
Commission knows well that it Is no
empire with which 1t has to deal. An
empire knows its own mind and never
yields a point AS matters are now
President, Senate and House check
each others movements, and the State
falls over it's own feet.
The question is not whether Great
Britain or the United States has the
better form Of government or the nobler
civic mission. There is room in the
world for two types of Anglo-Saxon
nations, and nothing has yet happened
to show that civilization would gain If
either were to take up the function of
the other We may not belittle the tre-
mendous services of England in the en-
forcement Of laws amid barbarism. We
may not deny that every aggression of
hers on weaker nations results in good
to the conquered, but we insist that our
own function Of turning masses into
men, of knowing men by name" is as
noble as hers. Better for the world that
the whole British empire should be dis
solved, as it must be late or soon, than
that the United States should forget
her own mission in a mad chase Of
emulation. He reads history to little
purpose who finds in imperial dominion
a result, cause or even a sign of ma
tional greatness. Infinitely stronger for
the cause of freedom, says Justice
Brewer, than the power of our armies,
is the force of our example"
We may have a navy and coaling
stations to meet our commercial needs
without entering on colonial expansion.
1t takes no war to accomplish this hon.
orably. Whatever land we may need
in our business we may buy in the open
market as we buy coal. If the owners
will accept our price 1t needs no i'm
, perialism to foot the bills. But the
question of such need is one for COM
mercial experts, not for politicians. Our
decision should be in the interest of
commerce, not of sea power. We need,
no doubt, navy enough to protect US
, from insults, even though every battle
ship, Charles Sumner pointed out fifty
years ago, costs as much as Harvard
, COuSSe, ana tI1OuSH SCHOOlS, uOI DdCllS-
ships make the strength OF the United
States.
Some great changes in our system
are inevitable, and belong to the course
of natural progress. Against these
have nothing to say. Whatever our part
in the affairs of the world, we should
play 1t manfully. 1 make no plea for
sufficiency, Indifference, or isola-
tion for isolations sake. To shirk the
world-movements or to drift with the
current would be alike unworthy Of our
origin, our history and our ideals.
In closing let me repeat what seem
to me the three main reasons for oppos-
ing every step toward imperialism.
First, dominion is brute force. To fur
nish such power we shall need colon
ial bureau, with it's force of extra-na-
tional police A large army and navy
must justify itself by doing something.
An army and navy. we must maintain
for our own defense, but beyond that
they can do little that does not hurt,
and they must be used If they would
be kept alive.
The other reasons concern the integ-
rity of the republic itself. This was
the lesson of slavery, that no republic
can endure half slave and half free"
The republics of antiquity fell because
they were republics Of the free only.
for each citizen rested on the backs of
nine slaves. A republic cannot be an
control we adopt, we shall be in fact
slave drivers, and the business of slave
driving will react upon US. Slavery
itself was disease which came to US
from the British West Indies. 1t breeds
in the tropics like yellow fever and
leprosy. Can even an imperial republic
last, part slave, part free?
Meanwhile, the real problems of civil
lization develop and ripen. They care
nothing for the greatness of empire or
the glitter of imperialism. They must
be solved by men, and each man must
help solve his own problems. The de-
velopment of republican manhood is
Just now the most important matter
that any nation in the world has on
hand We have been fairly sue
cessful thus far, but perhaps only
fairly Our government is careless,
wasterful and unjust, but our men are
growing self-contained and wise. De-
spite the annual invasion Of foreign IL
literacy, despite the degeneration of
congested cities, the individual intel
ligence of men stands higher in Amer
lea than in any other part of the world
Tho haarinP Of the DeODle AT large in