The Topeka state journal., 1909-01-19
AN INSPIRATION.
That's What Roosevelt Says NJ
E. Church Is to Him
In an Address at African Dla'
mOnd Jubilee Mass Meeting.
BY BISHOP CRANSTON.
He Is introduced as "ApOstle OF
the Square Deal.
He Touches on the Subject OF
the big Stick"
BY BISHOP CRANSTON.

welt in an address last night at the
African diamond jubilee mass meet
ing held in the Metropolitan Mem
oriaI Methodist church which the
late President Mckinley attended de-
cIared that he would not come before
a Methodist gathering if he had not
attempted to give the square deal
I'm addition to the square deal IN
our own country he continued
want the Methodists and others to
help me give the square deal 70
Japan 1 will see to it that in DONG
this our own citizens are protected.
''You know l am not mere SEN
tfrnentalist l am not in the least
afraid of invoking the big stick II II
is necessary but l should De aShaHeu
to invoke it unless it was necessary
and 1 want to see US. while Insisting
on justice being done us, equally care
full to do justice to others"
The president declared that the
Methodists of the country had been
an inspiration to him during the
seven and a half years of his
I'm the crisis through which I
have passed. he asserted, land during
the time between crises, l have found
myself touching elbows almost con-
stantly with members of the Methodist
church"
The president spoke in part as fol-
lows:
'"rhere is one feature in the expan-
sion of the peoples of white, or Euro
pean, blood during the past four cen
turies which should never be lost sight
of, especially by those who denounce
such expansion on moral grounds. on
the whole, the movement has been
fraught with lasting benefit to most of
the people already dwelling in the
lands over which the expansion took
place. Of course any such general
statement as this must be understood
with the necessary reservations. HUI
man nature being what it IS, no move
ment lasting for four centuries and
extending in one shape or another over
the major part of the world could go
on without cruel injustices being done
at certain places and in certain times.
Occasionally, although not very fire.
quently, a mild and kindly race has
been treated with wanton, brutal, and
ruthless inhumanity by the white in
truders. Moreover, mere savages,
whose type of life was so primitive as
to be absolutely incompatible with the
existence of civilization, inevitably died
out from the regions across which
their sparse bands occasionally fitted,
when these regions became filled with
dense population; they died out
when they were kindly treated as
quickly as when they were badly
treated. for the simple reason that they
were so little advanced that the con-
dltions of life necessary to their ex-
1stence were incompatible with any
form of higher and better existence.
Brings Discomfort.
"It is also true that even where
great good has been done to the al
ready existing inhabitants, where they
have thriven under the new rule it
has sometimes brought with it dis
content from the very fact that it has
brought with it a certain amount of
well-being and a certain amount of
knowledge, so that people have learn
ed enough to feel discontented and
have prospered enough to be able to
show their discomfort. Such ingrati-
tude is natural, and must be reckoned
with as such; but it is also both rn-
warranted and foolish, and the fact of
it's existence in any given case does
not justify any change of attitude on
our part.
"Of course the best that can han
pen to any people that has not already
n high civilization of its own is to as
simulate and profit by American or
European ideas. the ideas of civiliza-
tion and Christianity. without submit
ting to allen control; but such con-
troll, in spite of all its defects. is in a
very large number of cases the pre-
requisite condition to the moral and
material advance of the peoples who
dwell in the darker corners of the
earth. Where the control is exercised
brutally; where it is made use of
merely to exploit the natives without
regard to their physical or moral we'll
bing; il should be unsparinglv cri+i-
cised, there should be resolute insist
ence on amendment and reform. But we
must not. because of occasional wron o
doing, blind ourselves to the fact that
on the whole the white administrator
and Christian missionary have exer-
cised a profound and wholesome in
fuence for good in savage regions
Let me illustrate what I mean nv
particularly alluding to three cases AL
giers, India, and the Philippines The
North African coast was mere nest o4
pirates during the first decades of the
nineteenth century. Punitive exnefIi-
tlons were sent against these pirates
again and again. but they could NOT he
permanently suppressed by such expedi-
tions, and all the great commercial ma
tIons. were forced to pay them a more n,
less thinly disguised tribute or bIacIr
mail. The United States was amonp
the number 1t was the French con
quest of AlgierS which put a final s+or
to this blackmail: and it also put a stor
to the unspeakable barbarisn1 ana cr,,
city inevitably attendant upon the sIaVe
hunting piracy of the dWellers in +be
Independent North African states Tn
other words, the independence of tbasa
states was menace to every DeacafI,i
people. and incidentally it meant dread
full wrong and injustice within the s+ata,
themselves Algiers is far better OF in
every way under French rule +bar :.
was so years ago, before the Fre1cL
came into the land. and it is far betta1
off in every way than is the neighborine
state of Morocco at the present time,
and this simply and solely because t1e
neighboring state of Morocco continues
TO enjoy much the same kind of indie
pendent self-government that Algiers
enjoyed until the French went there.
Points to India.