The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1900-07-27

absurd though the fears Of men like
Quincy seem to us now, they are no more
absurd than the real or pretended fears Of
our opponents will seem not a score of
years hence. Picture to yourselves the
dreadful calamity that it would have been
had our nation in 1871 listened to the
counsels of the shortsighted and weak
hearted; if California, Texas and Florida
had been left as Spanish speaking COM
munities, and if all the magnificent re-
gion from the Mississippi to the Pacific
had been turned over to be quarreled for.
either by local Indian tribes or by Euro
pean nations. Hardly less would be the
calamity if we now turn our backs upon
our duty and, with craven and abjeet
shrinking from responsibility, abandon
Our Part in the Worlds Work
and incur the deserved contempt Of hui
mainly by deliberately refusing to take
our place among the great nations Of
mankind.
"Remember that expansion does
not bring war; it ultimately brings
peace. 1t is of advantage to all,
and especially to the people lifted
ont of AavaGery. We should hail the
advance of every civilized nation
over barbarOus peoples. so long as
that advance Is not made in some
form prejudicfal to the rest of civil
lied mankind.
IT wonder how many Of this audience
are aware that up to 1880 the United
States paid tribute to Algiers to secure
immunity for our sailors and our COM
merce from the Algerian corsairs? Tho
reason we did not pay tribute after that
date was because in that year France
began to expand over Algiers. War fol-
lowed and lasted a number OF years, and
thee were foolish people who then wrote
in praise of Algerian independence, just
exactly as there are foolish people now
who. talk about Aguinaldian independence.
But lasting peace, the first for many CEN
turies, came to Algiers through the
French conquest, as it will come to tho
Philippines through our refusal to aban-
don the. islands. So Russia has advanced
over Ttrkestan and brought peace in her
train. So it is good thing for Germany
to begin to play her part abroad; and the
patriotic way in which the German peo-
pie have upheld the German policy Of
building navy and seeing that Ger
many's citizens are protected and Ger
many's trade rights throughout the world
guaranteed is an excellent lesson to US
here.
II
pie means not war but peace.
Until we had expanded over this coun-
try the border warfare between the white
man and the red and between the differ
ent tribes Of red men was unceasing, but
now that we have expanded, peace has
come; exactly as peace has been brought
to Algiers, to Turkestan and the Soudan,
by the great peoples of Europe. Every
such instance Of expansion has been Of
unreasonable benefit to mankind, and
more and more the civilized peoples are
beginning to realize that they can work
| hand in hand with one another See what
| is happening in China to-day. Read the
| notes issued by Won Buelow, speaking for
! Germany, and John Hay, speaking for
| ourselves, and see how absolutely alike
! are the policies therein outlined. We are
! taking the only course consistent with our
| material self-interest, our national SELF
! respect, and above all with the well-being
| Of mankind at large. The best Of all
| things is where new nation can be
| brought into the circle Of civilization, as
| Japan has been brought, and where such
| is the case America will ever be foremost
to greet the new civilized power@apd to
| work with her as we now work with
! Japan. But to refrain from doing our
duty in the world would be merely ulu-
mately to invite
The Fate of China.
! ''The Chinese policy has always
consistently been against expansion
and she offers today the best. ex-
| ample of the fruits of such n policy
when logically carried out.
! "Nominally her policy has been one Of
peace, and in reality 1t has simply been
| one which invited aggression from with
out and melted her own people to fero-
| cious and hideous barbarism. The So
| called anti-expansionist. when logical,
insists upon our. abandoning the Ameri-
| cans, missionaries and laymen alike, who
! are in China to their dreadful fate with
| out an effort to rescue them, and insists
| that America shall take no legitimate
| step to secure for our merchants, farmers
! and wageworkers the benefit of the open
market.
'ExpansiOn means in the end not
war, hut peace. But like every other
| great good it can normally be
>achieyed only by effort mt the out
set. Woe to Us If we shrink from
such effort! Woe If we fail to do our
duty because the hrst step seems
hard to the weakling and the men
| of little heart! If we are to retain
the respect of mankind we must do
no wrong ana must n OF euneH wrong
from others.
I'VE must strive with earnest good
faith to secure the steady betterment Of
the populations over which we assume
control We must show ourselves anx-
ious to work in spirit Of frank and
open friendship with other civilized ma
tons. But we must no more shrink from
introducing orderly liberty and a just
and stable government in the islands to
which our new duty has called US than
we shrunk in the past from the various
kinds of expansion which carried US from
Florida and New Mexico to Alaska.
This election is more important than
any that this country has seen, save only
the election Of "a, and we have the right
to appeal to every man worthy to call
himself good citizen that he shall stand
by us in this contest for upright and
honest legislation and administration at
home, and abroad for the upholding Of
the flag and the great privilege of doing
the worlds work as beseems a great
world power.
Study the Kansas City Platform
and you cannot help realizing that their
policy is the policy Of lnfamy, that their