Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1900-09-01

in the veins Of our people have colon
lied any portion of the globe within
twenty-five degrees of the equator.
American enterprise and Anglo-Saxon
thrift seek the region in the northern
hemisphere or the southern hemis-
phere between the thirtieth and fifty
| fifth degree of north or south latitude.
They abide where the frost chills
mans blood and where clothing made
of the wool of the sheep helps to keep
him warm. j think it can be estab-
lished as a proposition which cannot
be refuted that self-government and
Independence and high civilization are
only mbraced by people who find it
| necessary to wear warm clothing and
who feel the Jingle of the frost in their
veins during a portion of the year.
For a century the United States has
held position in relation to the other
nations of the world different from
that of any other nation that ever ex-
| sted.
So great has been the moral force
| of this grand position that no Ameri-
| can can travel in the Asiatic country
without being constantly reminded of
| it. No American can travel in these
countries without being constantly as
sured that he is welcome, that his
nation is admired, and when you seek
the reason you are told that it is be-
cause the United States recognizes and
respects the rights of other nations
and is not engaged 10 a career of con-
test.
The people of China and Japan fear
ENGLAND, fear hussia, fear Germany,
but they love and respect the United
States. Shall we break down this
splendid position? Shall we abandon
the policy OF century?
Where Is our longtime boast that
government derives it's just powers
from the consent of the governed?
Some one says that it is an old-fogy
notion. r. Il is not; it is new. That
idea is only hundred years old. and
while nations are thousands and thou
sands of years old, all of them before
we established that principle enun-
right. Is it to be abandoned in its
youth? Is this government to recede
from that splendid position and to
take its first step in wrong, in crime,
as a people, by overturning the doc
Just powers from the consent of the
governed, and without the consent Of
those people force them 70 become
part of the union?
Around this doctrine a the ides that
comes along with it-that wherever
our flag is planted there It shall for
ever remain. That sounds well. 1t
is good Fourth-of-July stock. thst
whenever the American soldier has
fallen and been buried that region shall
become part of this country.
But this government is maintained
for the living. not for the dead. What
can we do to contribute to the happi- !
ness and prosperity and comfort of
our people alive? is the problem for
US to solve.
1t is this cry of manifest destiny"
which causes the guns of Great Brit
ain to echo daily around the world |
and excuses the massacre and assas-
sination of the weaker people of the
earth. During the last seven years
she has killed twenty or thirty thous-
and of the people of Africa, bonn
barded towns filed with women aud
children, and herself has lost in the
contest but seven men-all
this in the name of manifest des-
tiny"
But Great Britain today, with her
mighty power and her vast possess
sions, has not conferred upon the peo-
pie of England the comfort and salts
faction and happiness which should
come with proper and honest na-
tional policy.
One-tenth of her people are pau
pers. Two out of three of her labor
ers who reach the age of 60 years