Evening star., 1900-10-20
1HEs,DEAL REPUBLIC
Jug =
National Dishonor, Free Secession and
Confessed Impotence
cAENoi BE ITS FOUNDATIONS
On SoH'dhMoney, Devotion to the
/ s7ie
Flag,iExpansion and Prosperity
THIS UNION WILL BE BASED
III.

From another point of view the anti
imperialist pronunciamento is not dec
laration of independence, but Of national
decadence and impotence. 1t proclaims
that through American incapacity and
criminal folly the national house Is appar-
entity hopelessly afire and that only Bryan's
patent anti-imperial fire extinguisher can
| save it from the flames. The Kansas City
platform declares:
mo nation can long endure half repuo-
lie and half empire. and we warn the Amer,
lean people that imperialism abroad Will
lead quickly and inevitably to despotism
at home. = The burning issue Of i'm
perialism growing out of the Spanish war
involves the very existence of the repuphc
| and the destruction of our free insttu-
tions. - Our most cherished insutu-
| tionS are in great peril: the very existence
of our constitutional republic Is at stake.
The government of Louisiana for nine
| years was not based upon the consent OF
the governed consequently it was a tyran-
ny. The United States during that period
imposed upon it's people a government of
force, consequently the United States sub
stituted methods of Imperialism for those
of republic, and Louisiana was an empire
and not a republic.
We are told that the nation cannot exist
half republic and half empire. When
Louisiana was annexed more than half of
the territory of or belonging to the United
States was ruled without the consent of
the governed under the forms of imperial
ism by the government at Washington rep
resenting the smaller territorial fraction.
Then, If ever. the United States was half
republic. half empire. Yet the republic
has endured to this day.
The republic of 1903, recently formed,
lacking national unity, consisted in the
main of long thin line of settlements
along the Atlantic coast. within fifty miles
of the ocean, a chain broken by numerous
uninhabited gaps. To these settlements
are to be added the colonies across the AL
leghenies, isolated hopelessly separated
from the Atlantic coast by many miles of
mountains and forest. Diversity of inter-
est. jealousies and sectional prejudices rem
dered the bond between the states extreme
ly weak. This feeble republic, apparently
almost ready to fall apart from internal
dissensians was required to rule arbitrarily
with imperial ,power vast tract of coun-
try, far larger than that included within
the states which constituted the governing
territory. Cnharmed the nation exercised
this rule denounced as unconstitutional
imperial and marking its ruin. Thus the
union of states even in the weakness Of
it's troubled Infancy, when its own people
had little confidence In 1t, successfully re-
sisted the. dangerous tendency toward real
Imperialism. arising from it's arbitrary gov
ernment, of vast Louisiana. The republic
and not the empire survived.
And now, when the republic. after cen
tury Of life, IS through its wonderful Vitaii-
ty and under the care of a protecting Provi-
dence, homogeneous and powerful q Union
physically and. in spirit; when It is knit to-
gether from ocean to ocean and from Ber-
ing sea to the Gulf of Mexico by national
sentiment which moves seventyfive mil
lions of people, as unit; when the republic
covers, over three millions of square nj les
and ''the empire OF the Philippines only
about one hundred thousand square miles,
we are told that our government totters to
its fall corrupted by the Imperialism of its
control Of few Asiatic islands,, that 1t is
now impotent TO apply effectively and safe
ly the same imperial methods which it has
employed in the first stages of government
of all its previous acquisitions. How the
republic must have degenerated!
A Declaration of Decadence.
Our ancestors. divided among themselves,
weak in the republican faith, successfully
sustained the republic against the fierce as
saults of temptations to empire; We their
descendants multiplied fifteen-fold in aum-
Der, occupying and devOting to republican
interests vast continent, instead of grow
ing in strength and governing capacity, are
so puny, s6sdecadent. that the exercise of
these semi-imperial functions Ito which we
ought to have grown accustomed from our
previous dealing with national territory
proves too much for our feeble. nerveess
hands, even if the scene of their application
is in some Islands Of comparatively inSis-
nificant size, hardly per cent of the le-
publfc's total area, on the other side of the
world
The Union annexed and has governed for
thirty-three years without the consent OF
the inha bitants. $4,000 square miles of nom
contiguous Alaska, vast territory not ac
auired to be carved into states, and whose
people have never been promised statehood.
and probably will never attain it. This
Imperialism has not 1t IS conceded. cor
rupted the nation. Why, then. must the
republic totter to it's ruin If it exercises pre-
cisely similar imperial powers over 1140OO
square miles of the Asiatic tropics?
The problem of governing the more
numerous natives of the distant Philippines
introduces elements of practical difficulty
In the task of supplying good government
there which did not exist to the same ex-
tent in our other acquisitions. But it Is
impossible to find any difference In the
principles of the government proposed for
the Philippines and that actually given in
the corresponding period to Louisiana and
to Alaska =
The character of government does not
turn on the number Of the persons to
whom 1t is applied. There Is as much of
and government without their consent of a
hundred Louisianans or Alaskans as of
thousand Tagalogs.
Imperialism in the tropics is no more con-
taminating than Imperialism In the frigid
zone.
Every one who has examined the Philip
pines problem knows that 1t Is full OF dff1-
culties to be overcome. as well full OF
magnificent and. honorable rewards for
faithful accomplishment OF the task.
The American government and people are
called upon to tread a difficult path to a
glorious eonsuEnmauon.
Warnings concerning the obstacles to be
avoided or overcome are patriotic and to be
welcomed, But any one who procaims that
the peEformanse7o of this task endangers the
republic sbelittlss the American people. II
is an insignificant labor for the nation
which was not oyerthrown by the empire
of Louisiana ..Or the empire OF Alaska.
Bryan pFOnonpces. dastards those who
doubted the power of America to double
the value Of silver over the whole world.
They are,f double dastards who doubt the
power of seventy-five millions of Americans
to rule with, safety on paternal principles
the little philippines, when their ancestors
readily disposed of far more serious tasks
of q precisely similar kind.
The repuPlici,has withstood the shock OF