Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-01-11
Relations to Dependencies.

At the recent meeting Oh tIe <aiiiti i'hii
Political Science Association at Providence
new section, called the section 1or the
study of the government of dependencies,
was formed for the study of the questions
which have recently arisen in the minds
of the American people because of our ter.
ritorial expansion. Courses for tie study of
these questions in their soclologlcal ana
economic aspects. and in their political as
meet so far as the details of local govern
ment are concerned, have recently been es-
tablished in the University of Chicago, the
University of Wisconsin and some other IN
stitutions. 1t does not appear that any IN
stitution is devotng attention to the politl-
cal and legal relations between US ana our
insular possessions. That branch OF IN
quiry has thus far been left to the law Oh
ficers of the government and the supreme
Court of the United States The formation
of the new section of the Political Science
Association will probably lead to the DIS
cusson of the political and legal problems
as well as those of social ana economical
Importance.
Mr.. Alpheus H. Snow of Washington, who
has for several years been a student and
writer on the political and legal aspect OF
this relationship, read paper before TINS
newly formed section, the subject assigned
to him being The Question of Terminoi-
ogy." This question was, What shall our
newly acquired territories in the West In
dies and the Pacific be called? How shali
we scientifically describe them in political
and legal terms? Can they be called, con-
sistenty with American principles, colo
MES or dependencies" Are they posses
sions?" Does the American Union, with
them, constitute an ''empire?
Mr.. Snow, baSing his argument on the
philosophy of the American revolution, as
declared in the Declaration of 1ndepend-
ence concluded that Porto Rico, the Phil
ippines, Hawaii and Guam are free states
and not colonies that they are in con
nection' with the American Union, and not
dependent upon the Union, and that the
| to, oh lind TO i
tute union of a different kind from that
which exists among the forty-ive states of
our Union, so that the present American
Union, with the free states connected
and united with it, constitute a greater
American Union, different from our present
Union.
The Theory of the Declaration.
The argument of the declaration, as Mr..
Snow asserted, is briefly this: There Is, &C
cording to the law of nature and of ma
tons (which the revolutionary statesmen
accepted as ''self-evdentD q universal
right of human equality arising from
equal creation by a personal Creator Qhe
doctrine of the reformation. as enlarged
by William Penn being made the basis Of
the American SYSTEM: that from human
equality and equal human needs arise a
universal unalienable right of life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness; that from
these unalienable rights there arises a uni
secure these unalienable rights; from the
right to such government arises the uni
versal right of all communities within prop
limits for forming a just public senti-
ment. to be free states-that is. to express
themselves through a government insti-
tuted either from within or without, with
a proper degree of freedom from external
control-free statehood being necessary to
educate public sentiment so that it may be
just; that the right of free statehood i'm
plies that all relationships with other free
states must be by Connection, that is,
through a common government acting on
principles of law, and not by dependency"
which implies external government act
ing according to its mere will. and that
connection through a common government
in order to be effective must take the form
of union" for the common purposes.
Early American Claim.
The American conception of the relation
between the colonies and Great Britain,
according to Mr.. Snow, was that they were
free states in union with the state of Great
Britain, and that that state was the COM
mon government of the British American
Union, with power not to legislate for the
American free states, but to adjudcate the
questions arising out of the political con-
nection and union according to the princ-
Piles of the law of nature and of nations"
AS this power was neither legislative, eX-