The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1900-09-20

blood flows in the veins Of Our
people have colonized any portion
of the globe within twenty-five de-
grees of the equator. American
enterprise and Anglo-Saxon thrift
seek the region in the Northern
Hemisphere or the Southern Hem
isphere between the 3oth and 55th
degree of north or south latitude.
They abide where the frost chills
mans blood and where clothing
made of the wool of sheep helps to
keep him warm, think it can be
established as proposition which
cannot be refuted that that self gov
ernment and independence and high
civilization are only embraced by
people who find it necessary to wear
warm clothing and who feel the
tingle of the frost in their veins
during a portion of the year.
For a century the United States
has held a position in relation to the
other nations of the world different
from that Of any other nation that
ever existed.
SO great has been the moral force
of this grand position that no
American can travel in any Asiatic
country without being constantly
reminded OF it. No American can
travel in these countries without be-
ing constantly assured that he is
welcome, that his nation is admired,
and when you seek the reason you
are told that it is because the Unit
ed States recognizes and respects
the rights Of other nations and is
not engaged in a career Of conquest.
The people Of China and Japan
fear England, fear Russia, fear Ger
many, out they love and respect the
United States. Shall we break
down this splendid position? Shall
we abandon the policy Of a century?
Where is our longtime boast that
government derives Its just powers
from the consent of the governed?
Some one says that this is an old
fogy notion. 1t is MOTT is new.
That idea is only hundred years
old, and while nations are thous-
ands and thousands of years old all
Of them before we established that
principle enunciated the doctrine
that might makes right. Is it to
be abandoned in its youth Is this
government to recede from that
splendid position and to make its
first step in wrong, in crime, as a
people, by overturning the doctrine
that governments derive their Just
powers from the consent of the gov
erned, and without the consent of
those people force them to become
part of the Union?
Around this doctrine is the idea
that comes along with it-that
wherever our flag is planted there
it shall forever remain. That
sounds well; it is good Fourth-of-
July stock that wherever the Ameri-
can soldier has fallen and been
buried that region shall become
part of this country.
But this government is maintain
ed for the living, not for the dead.
What can we do to contribute to
the happiness 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
Britain to echo daily around the
world and excuses the massacre and
assassination of the weaker people
OF the earth. During the last seven
, years she has killed twenty or thirty
thousand of the people of Africa,
, bombarded towns filled with women
and children, and herself has lost in
} the unequal contest but seven men
= all this in the name of manifest
r destiny"
= But Great Britain to-day, with
all her mighty power and her vasl
possessions, has not conferred upon
: the people of England the comfor
: and satisfaction and happines.
e which should come with proper