Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1900-09-08
JEFFERSON WAS THE
PIONEER INPERIALIST
EXTRACTS FROM REMARKS OF
HON. G. ". STEWART OF NEVADA
IN DAILY CONGRESSIONAL REQ.
ORD, FEBRUARY l6, 1900.

Why should not the present genera
tlon enjoy opportunities similar to those
furnished u fathers by the ACQUISITION
OF Louisiana, Florida, Texas. New
mexico n California? Why should
not the wealth, power and enterprise OF
the American people be increased and
encouraged? May not the acquisition OF
cif1c wrested from Spain place the limit
ed States in the lea future foremost as
a manufacturing, commercial, naval
and political power?
Inc suggestion that the ACQUISITION
OF territory Is Imperialism is refuted nv
the fact that neither Jefferson. Monroe
jackson, Polk, nor any of their asso,
ciates are regarded as imperialists. The
Imperialism they advocated made
homes for patriotic, liberty-loving,
selI,respecting citizens, whose loyalty
10 the government Of the United States
Is unsurpassed by the people of any of
the thirteen original states,
III to assist the people of the Philin-
pines to establish local self-government
after the plan adopted by jefferson is
imperialism, then Jefferson was the
pioneer imperialist of the United
States. The Philippines will never be
dependent colonies. They will be allow
ed to conduct their own affairs with the
assistance of such officers as 1t may be
necessary to appoint to aid them in es-
tablishing local self Thev
VIII not have a voice in the legislative
of the nation until congress
shall ascertain and determine that their
ADMISSION Would be desirable. Not
Withstanding the treaty of Guadalupe
f1ldalgo promised to make states Of the
territories acquired from Mexico, New
Mexico is still a territory. The sugges-
tion That we must not trust the future,
that los who will come after us will
admit the Philippines as states, wheth-
er qualified or not, is an assumption
that u system of republican govern
ment is a failure and that patriotism
VIII become extinct when the seats in
this chamber are filled by our success !
sors.
NO person occupies a seat here to-day
myself who was a member of. the /
senate in the thirty-eighth, thirty |
NINTH, fortieth, forty-first and forty |
second congresses. I vas impressed |
during that time with the anxiety of I
many senators for the future and their /
of calamities which they
commended would necessarily follow If
the opponents of the Union in the civil
war were again allowed to participate
IN the government Of the country. They
assumed in their arguments that future
congresses could not be trusted, and
that the government was in danger of
being utterly subverted. How they
nisjudged the future let the heroic pa
and valOr Of the soldiers from
svery state i'm the Union in the late war
Spain and in the far-off Philip
lines bear witness. The patriotism and
to the interests of the whole
exhibited in both houses of
congress by members from the south
IS we'll as from the north prove that a
eunited people now enjoy a more per-
ect union than ever before. I have
IN my country and In the Ameri-
an people that they can extend a help
ng hand to the Filipinos and enable
hem to peacefully assemble and per-
ect in due time local self-govsrnment,
Vhere life and property will be as Sc
ure as 1t now Is in any state of this
Union. I have seen order grow out of
in that vast territory ac-
uired from Mexico until the govern
lents Of the far west are as efficient in
rotecting life, liberty and property as
he be~st-governed state of the east.
No one pretends that the Filipinos
re now fit for statehood, but I repu-
late the suggestion that they are not
t for just such government as Jeffer-
on extended to the Louisiana purchase
III NAOiIOC " Tile dCQuISiLIOI VI rlOT-
la. There may not be enough Ameri-
ans In that country to organize a state &
overnment without congressional or n
action, Us in the case of Cal -
ornia; but II the same congressional y
nd executive care that were extended
all other acquisitions of territory ex- s
,pt California are extended to the
they will progress-it may 8
slowly, but they will progress in '
out good government for
lemselves and security for life and a
roperty, which will bring prosperity !"
I'd progress to them and great COM q
ercial and political advantages to us. 1