The Savannah morning news., 1901-06-19

an ignoble rancor for past differences De-
tween the two great members of the An
glo-Saxon race, with common blood,
common history, common freedom of
religion, a common liberty of conscience,
and g common literature, and the spec
tacle will present the INCAPABLE crime
of the ages. Nor are these contingent
cies of the future merely conjectural. The
empire of the Great White Gar now in
cludes all of that territory of the worlds
surface where were Matched those de-
Vouring swarms from the Northern Hive.
which in ages past, have often changed
the fate of nations and the maps of Asia
and of Europe.
The physical power of Russia is COM
mensurate with the vast schemes of ag-
grandizement of its government, and If
equaned at all is equalled alone by the
cornbine development of all the Eng
fish speaking peoples. Writing in 1872
Alison predicted that in 1900 Russia would
have population of 120OOO,OOO In 1900
its population was 136.0000O0. 1t has been
little more than two hurried years since
Peter the Great mounted the throne OF
Russia. This is burt a brief span in his
tory
with all the wealth and might of the
great American republic our statesmen
cannot afford indifference to the aggres-
sions OF this gigantic Asiatic power Yes,
gins at the Pyrenees," and we may add
that Asia extends to the banks of the
Nlemen and TO the mouths of the Danube
Said Napoleon, "Grattez lie Russo ct
trouverez lie Tartare' ('Scratch Russian
and you find Tartar'D. Men speak of
the traditional friendship of Russia with
the United States.
1t is. and has ever been meretricious
The cords that bind us have been ropes
ic ~
tween individual liberty and absolutism.
between autocracy and representative
government. Even now the most serious
blows to our commerce have of late been
aimed by the Russian ministry, and had
the territories of the United States been
accessible to them, our fair land of free
dom would have been harried and raw
aged by the soldiers of the Car, in whose
hands the machine gun and the breech-
loader have been substituted for the lance
of the Cossack and the sword and bow
OF the Scythian, unless indeed the daunt-
less soul and strong arm of the sons Of
America had hurled them back shattered
and bleeding to their regions of ices and
SHOWS Nor should the statesmen of
America fail to perceive that If Russia
shall succeed in the domination of China,
the organization and control of it's four
hundred millions of people. not only must
American commerce decay, but American
liberty may be no longer secure. With
the great steam troopships and gigantic
transports of modern marine architecture
crossing the ocean, with incredible speed
of steam and electricity, transferring
thousands of troops in each vessel, our
Pacific coast is little farther from Vladi-
vostock and Port Arthur than were the
shores of Kent from that bleak peninsula
jutting into the North Sea, the original
home of the Anglo-Saxon race, and the
Pacific can be as readily crossed by Chi
nese and Russian armadas as were the
waters of the North Sea by the warships
of the Vikings or the rude vessels bear
ing the white horse standards of Henghist
and Horsa.
If these be the possibilities of re-
mote future, at least the danger to our
commerce is here. Who can doubt that
in the interest of her own manufacturers
and merchants, that Russia will exclude
from the seventeen millions of Manchu-
ria the manufactured products of Amer
lea. especially those products of South
ern cotton mills which from that terri
tory alone in 1899. brought $4,000, 600 for
distribution among tn Southern people.
The danger to our liberty will not come
in our own times, it may not come for
generations, but that patriotism is short
sighted which does not outlive the brief
limits of our own lives and which does
not repose with deep sensibility upon the
future of our descendants. Such was not
the patriotism of the Trainers of our i'm
mortal Constitution Theirs was the
purpose to secure the blessings of lib
erty to ourselves and to our posterity
But may we not devoutly believe that
there is a divine intelligence loftier than
dll human conceptions which, despite the
wranglings and janglings of parties, is
guiding in higher and safer attitudes the
destinies of our beloved land.
In the inevitable conflicts of the future
the Importance of these insular posses
sions in the Pacit1c cannot be overstateti.
Said Capt. Mahan. perhaps the highest
authority in the world on naval warfare
and strategy: TOO much stress can not
be laid upon the manifest disadvantage
to us of any maritime enemy having a
! coaling station well within twenty-five
| hundred mics of every point of our coast
line from Puget Sound to Mexico. There
is. however, but one. Shut out from the
Sandwich Islands a coaling base, an
! enemy is thrown back for supplies and
| fuel distance of thirty-five hundred or
! four thousand miles, or between seven
| thousand and eight thousand going and
! coming. on impeachment to sustained mar
| thine operations well nigh prohibitive 1t
IS rarely that so important factor in
the ettaclS or defense of coast line of a
! sea 1ionllef Is concentrated in single
position" Said Senator Thurston: I'm the
whole Pacific ocean from the equator on
| the south to Alaska on the north, from
the coast of China and Japan on the west
10 the American continent on the east
there is but one spot where a ton of COAL
pound of bread or gallon
Of water can be obtained by a
passing vessel and that spot is
Hawaii" And says Admiral Walker: "It
should not be forgotten that Pearl Har-
Dor offers strategically and otherwise the
finest site for a naval and coaling station
to be found in the whole Pacific" And
what of the Philippines? l remember
reading when boy in the Voyages of
Capt. Cook where he declared in sub
stance, that the power which controlled
j Manila, Guam and San Francisco would
dominate the commerce of the Pacific
over all of these now float the Stars and
Stripes. That marvellous archipelago the
| Philippine Islands extending as far as
from the north of Scotland to the south
of Italy, is the property of the United
States of America by a title as clear as
that which we have to Florida, TO New
Orleans and to every foot of land to the
westward of the Mississippi. Its princi-
pal city Manila is only 62S miles from
Hong Kong, about the distance from Sa-
vannah to New York. It is Sl2 miles near
er China, than Singapore the nearest