The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-02-23
WASHINGTON, EXPANSIONIST.
sCHURMAN SPEAKS AT BANQUET OF
UNION LEAGUE CLUB.

Spoke of the COuntry's Growth and
the Necessity for Our Further Ex-
pansion-Must Build Up Trade
With the Orient.
Chicago, Feb. 22.-At the club house OF
the Union League on Jackson Boulevard
this evening the annual Washington day
banquet of the club was held with more
than usual success.
The annual celebration of the birth of
| George Washington is the chief
event in the year of the I'm
ion League Club. No pains are
spared to make it a success, and to-nights
| celebration was one of the most brilliant
| affairs of its kind ever he'd in Chicago.
! The banquet proper began at o'clock,
and it was two hours later when President
| Eugene Carey of the club called the 800
members and guests 10 order, and in
neat speech introduced DR.. Jacob G.
Sohurman, president of Cornell University
who delivered the address of rthe after
noon in the Auditorium. Dr. Schurman
replied to the. toast, The Orator of the
| Day."
President Schurman, after a beautiful
tribute to Washington, said the greatest
expansionist of the last century was
Washington himself
Scientists tell us of the reversion or
| organic beings after the lapse of genera
| tions, to the form or habits of an earlier
| type. If this law of biology holds good
in politics, as l believe it does. then our
present chief magistrate in his policy of
| expansion would seem to have been pos
sessed by the spirit of Washington, who eX-
sl,a al in, fro haA ?
| lantic to the Mississippi, or of jefferson,
who, impelled by the same imperious in
| stinct, trampled under foot his dearest
political theories and secured for the
Union that vast territory beyond the Mis-
sissippi, where the flag now waves over
the prosperou~ and intelligent citizens of
a dozen populous states-states whose
trade and wealth converging on the shores
of this lake. have made possible the
greatest miracle on the American CONT
nent-the rapid-rising fast-growing, inn
mense, rushing, roaring, powerful and
magnificent city of Chicago. ss
Chicago is the index of the modern
world. 1t is the most conspicuegs exam
pie and the most concentrated abstract
Of that expansive movement which char
acterizes the nineteenth century.
Chicago is the product of the nine
tenth century. And if this latest birth
of time is an amazing and unparalleled
phenomenon, so also is the epoch which
produced it. This century is unlike all
the centuries that have gone before. Our
most distinguished scientists has chris
tened 1t 'the wonderful century," And
so indeed ii is not merely in the free hy-
perbole of popular speech, but in the Sc
we're exactitude of scientific description.
For miracle is departure from estab-
lished ways, and the whole history of
mankind shows nothing that could have
argued the intellectual and material
achievements of the last three generations.
What is the token of this wonderful CEN
| fury? l say, in a word, expansion-a
boundless extension of human knowledge
and vast enlargement of human power.
In this century, for the first time, the
might of intellect has given dominion over
the forces of nature. The miracle of the
nineteenth century is the systematic har-
Messing of all the powers of nature The
nineteenth century, is the mountain OF
| TRANSPORTATION for progressive humanity
The last three generations have learned
more about the universe in which we live
than all the earlier generations of man
kind.
President Schurman then referred to the
marvellous inventions the century has
i originated and said nowhere have the
mechanic developments of the country
been fuller and richer, nowhere have the
results of them been more astonishing
than in the United States. The nineteen IN
y, ne Sdtu, udS DteH century
of expanding knowledge, a century of
Astounding invention, a century of amazing
increase in the means of communication
and transporta ton"
He referred to enormous increase of the
power of production in the United States
and the universal cry for new markets
for American products and continued:
'In addition TO the home market we
now need the markets of the world
Science invention and manufacturing
have all expanded together. Our power Of
production having outrun our capacity 10
consume and being all the time on the in
| crease and the old markets of the world
being glutted by the products of all civil
lied nations, what new outlet are there
for our waxing productivity, what new
| fields for the reception of the surplus
commodities we multiply so rapidly and
| at a constantly declining cost? The life
of the nation in no small degree depends
on the answer The only peoples who
have not reached the manufacturing sta ge,
the only peoples who do not compete with
| us in their own markets, are the vast pop
ulations of South America, Africa, and es-
| pecially of Asia. Great Britain and Ger
| many have got ahead of us in the mar
| kets of South America, but if our manu-
| facturers will follow foreign example in
| adapting their products TO local tastes
| and needs, | see no obstacle in the way
of our securing fair share-and that will
| he the lions share-ot that hitherto
undeveloped and neglected business. AS
| to Africa, the case is different We have
allowed i'm our blind idolatry of the Mon
roe doctrine, in our devotion to the stay
at-home policy of the eighteenth century,
in our intense desire to avoid all inter
national obligations, great nations OF Eu-
rome TO partition out Africa among them
| selves and exclude American products by
means of discriminating tariffs devised TO
| secure for their own manufacturers mo-
| nopoly of the new markets. l say we
stood unconcernedly by and remained ST.
lent while these vast possibilities of ex-
| handing trade were one by one extinguish-
ed For justification we cited some alb
stract theory of non-intervention in the
| affairs of the Old World; and no one
could pretend that Africa was in our hem
isphere Our blunder which was little less
| than a crime was in our failure 10 rec
ognize that science and invention and
steam and electricity have, since the days