The Outlook: Uncle Sam's Place and Prospects in International Politics Part 1

The Outlook: Uncle Sam's Place and Prospects in International Politics.

by Newton Macmillan.

IT is exactly a year and a day since Oswego, responding to the President's call, sent away her modest quota of citizen-soldiery to the war with Spain. A novel and inspiring scene, whose meaning, perhaps, we did not wholly take in at the time: the flag of the Republic borne away from the precincts of the city at the head of a body of men of peaceful pursuits, destined, as we supposed, to invade the soil of an alien foe.

The event proved otherwise. Our neighbors were not to pa.s.s the boundaries of their native land, but with equal gallantry they were to perform the part of those who "also serve," although they "only stand and wait." Their part was not to scale the awful hill at San Juan, to give their bodies to the noisome vermin of the Cuban chaparral, or to lie down in death upon the fever-stricken rice-fields of Luzon.

Nevertheless they partook in the glory of those victories won by their more fortunate comrades, to the honor and credit of the entire army of the United States. Theirs also is an equal part in the renown which all the world now accords to that new and formidable factor in warfare--the American Volunteer.

Truly a May day long to be remembered. Even as we followed the flag to the confines of the town news came from a distant land where that same beloved standard had been carried to victory and undying glory. In the far-away harbor of Manila a gallant officer had awaked that morning unknown to fame, but before he slept he had written the name of George Dewey upon the imperishable scroll with that of Drake, and Nelson, and Perry, and Farragut; destroyed the power and prestige of Spain in the East--a fabric four centuries in building, but toppled over in as many hours; annexed a new and splendid territory to our domain, and--most important of all--launched the Republic upon a new and greater career.

A wonderful day indeed, and the first of many that were to make the twelvemonth just concluded one of the most, if not the most important in our history. He is a dull citizen of the Republic, indeed, who does not see in this swift succession of events a significance wide and deep. An ancient regime has been swept from our hemisphere and relegated to the rubbish heap of nations. Our flag flies not only in the Antilles but in mid-Pacific, by token that that illimitable ocean is now to us an inland lake. Our army and navy, posted at China's doorway to uphold our place in the perennial struggle for mastery in the East, is a notification to the great powers that henceforth they have to reckon with another as formidable--perhaps, also, as rapacious--as themselves. "You must understand," said Mr. Speaker Reed the other day to a distinguished British visitor, "that we have burst our swaddling-clothes." And in that jocular epigram lies a meaning almost beyond words to express.

If we ourselves fail to take in the full significance of these recent events--and it would appear that some of us do--our neighbors in Europe and Asia are not so dull. Five and twenty years ago Von Moltke turned away from our civil war as unworthy the study of a soldier. It was, he said contemptuously, "a conflict of armed mobs."

But mark the instructive power of our recent victories. A surviving countryman and colleague of Von Moltke, discussing the progress of our arms in Manila, the courage, intelligence and perfect discipline of our "raw militia," uttered recently this truly significant warning: "Here is a new power with which we all must reckon--a new giant, as yet ignorant of his strength. He can, if need be, muster ten millions of men, who in three months will be veteran soldiers, the equals if not the superiors of the best troops in Europe. It is a menace to the world's peace."

And, "It would be absurd," writes an English military officer who looked on as a critic and student of war at the charge up San Juan hill, "to compare with those men the finest soldiers in Germany, France, Russia or England. Their equals do not exist."

Are we indeed a "menace to the world's peace," or only to those who would disturb that peace? The Europeans speak from their own point of view as jealous rivals, set to watch each other and match force with force, controlment with controlment. It is a saying of diplomacy that in the division of labor between the powers of Europe, Russia is to watch Northern Asia, England to guard India, and Germany to preserve the balance of power on the continent of Europe.

Are we to have part or lot in this complex a.s.signment of duties? That is but one of many questions that rise before us as we contemplate the events of the past year. No other year in our history, perhaps, has been so rich in performance, so crowded with great and significant events.

What of the year to come? What of the years that stretch out before us as we approach the threshold of the new century? Are we entered in the international handicap for the grand prize of empire and world-wide ascendancy? Or have we but made a dash out of our safe retreat, only to return to our historic isolation as a second-cla.s.s power--one of the little, not of the great of earth?

Behind a wall of our own building we have in recent years waxed fat and rich, not to say sordid and corrupt. As we have been, shall we so continue?

It is a trite saying that no war leaves a nation where it finds it. A little more than a year ago our Uncle Samuel shouldered his musket and set forth to rid his southern doorway of a certain yellow, yelping cur which for years had been a nuisance if not a menace to his peace. The dog is dead and its carca.s.s kicked out of sight. But is that all? We learn--some of us with surprise or even consternation--that certain responsibilities attach to the use of firearms on the high seas and in the international preserves. Can we dodge those responsibilities? Ought we to do so if we can? Will it even pay?

We have discovered--once more with something like surprise--that war, even if undertaken in the "sacred cause of humanity," is something more than mere burning of powder. Whatever our original purpose, we have new territory on our hands. We cannot kick Spain out of Cuba, even in the cause of philanthropy, and leave the island to Cuban savagery, for that is no better than the savagery of Spain.

Similarly in the Philippines. If Admiral Dewey, after sinking Montojo's fleet a year and a day ago, had sailed away, as some Americans seem to think he ought to have done, he would have merited court-martial for himself and the world's scorn, contempt and execration for his country.

He had no license to burn American powder and pour out American blood to further the ambitions of Aguinaldo, or win colonies in the far East for Germany. Dewey's real victory was won, not on that spectacular first of May, but in the weary, dreary months following, when, with infinite patience, unsleeping watchfulness and the tact of true genius, he kept the peace in the waters that rolled above the sunken Spanish fleet; whispered words of friendly warning in the ear of the amiable German, Von Diederichs, and--greatest of all--captured Manila without bloodshed.

Let us never cease to thank the G.o.d of Battles that in the Admiral of our Asiatic fleet we have had a man as well as a fighter--a modest, earnest, fearless man, who could not only conquer an enemy but, greater still, conquer himself, control his natural resentments and bring his pa.s.sions in subjection to his conscience. What might have befallen us before now without such a guardian of our interests on the scene, it is neither pleasant nor profitable to speculate.

But the conflict is not yet over--perhaps it has not yet even fairly begun. a.s.suming, as I suppose we may, that Aguinaldo is ready to treat for peace, there still remain the allies of that patriot--in Asia and Europe, even here in America. The Philippine chieftain has fought hard and with splendid prodigality of patriot blood--not, however, his own.

But three months' experience with the "white devils" who fight without resting, and especially with "devils" like Funston and his wild westerners, who "eat bullets" and swim turgid rivers under fire--three months of such experience has caused the Filipinos to revise the estimate of white man's warfare formed upon their acquaintance with Spain.

Still remain, however, the watchful Europeans in the East, who, despite the diplomatic protestations of their respective governments, would be only too ready to take advantage of our first misstep or sign of weakness.

Remain also those peculiar patriots here at home who have found interest or duty in affording aid and comfort at long range to their country's foes. Of these American Filipinos there are several breeds. First, there is the political breed, who, under the leadership of a distinguished westerner, are gallantly fighting the administration with a view to the possibilities of 1900. Of these patriots it is to be observed that their political instincts have already taught them much. Not for the first time, they realize that they have misjudged the public temper.

Treachery, in whatever guise, has never been lovely to the American eye, and I think we may a.s.sume that the Bryan Filipinos will presently discover that they are on the wrong tack. They will not figure largely in the events of the future.

A more troublesome, insistent factor is the Atkinson breed of Filipinos.

This will do as a generic name for a species of patriots that has never been entirely wanting at any stage of our national progress. They were called Tories when they first appeared, to oppose the patriot revolt from Great Britain. During the War of the Rebellion they earned the name of Copperheads, from the similarity of their tactics to those of the snake in the gra.s.s which strikes without warning. These tactics the Atkinsons are renewing now, without apparent hope of reward or success, but merely from that perversity of nature, that inborn contrariness whose existence is to be explained only on the theory that "it takes all kinds of people to make a world."

Of these gentry and their kind, I have only to say that they may thank their lucky stars that they live and practice their treacherous devices in a country where the jealousy for free speech and a free press sometimes permits liberty to fall into license. The wanton Copperhead may for the present shelter himself behind the good nature of the people. I say for the present, for I do not believe that such treasonable conduct as inciting troops under arms to resist lawful authority can forever go unpunished; but in the end it will be treated as it deserves.[1]

[1] This was written before Mr. Atkinson's treasonable pamphlets had been stopped in the mails by the Post Office Department.

I do not deny to any American citizen the right to entertain his own opinion as to the wisdom of any public policy, including that of the administration toward the Philippines. Nor do I deny that there may be Americans of undoubted patriotism who conscientiously oppose that policy. But there are times and occasions for all things; and there are occasions when open criticism of the Government amounts to treason. So there are times when it is the duty of every patriot to support the Government, without regard to private difference of opinion. As for the present, it is one of those occasions when the patriot should say, with Winthrop: "Our country, however bounded or described--still our country--to be cherished in all our hearts; to be defended by all our hands!"

There is an hour for debate and there is time for argument, wherein the Government may easily be shown to be in the wrong. But in the hour of battle, so long as any armed foe of the flag is above the sod, the patriot can only exclaim: "My country--may she never be in the wrong; but right or wrong, my country!"

While we may safely leave to the Government the subjugation of its enemies at home or abroad, there can be no harm in discussing here some of the arguments that have been advanced in all honesty against the policy now generally known as "imperialism," or "territorial expansion."

The anti-expansionists honestly opposed the annexation of Hawaii; but Hawaii is already annexed, and as truly a part of the national domain as Ma.s.sachusetts or New York. In like manner Porto Rico is ours, for better, for worse, till death or dissolution shall us part. As for Cuba, we hold it in trust for the Cubans, against the time when those enigmatical patriots shall prove their ability and worthiness to rule themselves or their country. When is that time to come? We ourselves are to be the judges. I am not a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I hold it to be vastly significant that the majority of intelligent Cuban _civilians_ seem to look forward, not with pleasure but with dread to that much-talked-of millennium, "Cuba for the Cubans."

The tendency of the times, in government as in commerce, is clearly centripetal, not centrifugal. There is not an island in the West Indies whose condition would not be improved by annexation to this Republic; and, after all, self-interest is the main-spring of all national policies. I would rather predict that Canada and British America, Mexico and the Central American states are destined for ultimate (and peaceful) admission to this Union, than that we are to take a single backward step along the lines so clearly laid down by the war with Spain.

But the Philippines present to the eye another and a broader question.

Here is an archipelago removed from our center of population by one-half the circ.u.mference of the globe; peopled by a race--or, rather, races--wholly alien to any hitherto admitted to our citizenship, and--most important of all--plunged into the very vortex of that boiling cauldron known as the Eastern question.

What is to be our policy toward those remote islands?--to retain them or to let them go?

The objections that have thus far been raised to our retention of the Philippines come chiefly under these heads: 1, Const.i.tutional; 2, Our "historic policy;" 3, Utility or self-interest.

And first as to the const.i.tutional questions involved. For so young a nation the United States has already pa.s.sed through numerous crises, chiefly arising over the acquisition of new territory, and it is noteworthy that in each of these the policy of the Government has been opposed by a conscientious minority on the plea of alleged unconst.i.tutionality. Once more we are warned, in the present crisis, that the acquisition and proposed retention of the Philippines are without warrant in the const.i.tution of the United States.

Far be it from me to breathe disrespect for a doc.u.ment so respectable, but there can be no treason in pointing out the perfectly obvious fact that no const.i.tution, and especially no written const.i.tution, can be stronger than the men who made it; it cannot be--it is not--so strong as the men for whom it is made, because in them is vested the power to amend or even to annul it.

The fathers of the Republic were wise in their generation; rarely, if ever, has a country been so blessed in the character of its founders as ours. But they were human, and hence fallible; mere men, and therefore not endowed with the gift of prophecy. They themselves would have been the first to disclaim such an attribute. They drafted a const.i.tution admirably suited for the needs of thirteen colonies stretched along the Atlantic coast, recently liberated by the bravery of their own citizens from the tyranny of a stupid and stiff-necked English monarch and ministry. And then, proud, serene and happy in the consciousness of duty well done, they were gathered to the bosom of their fathers.

The fathers and founders died, but the Republic lived on. Year by year it grew and waxed greater. No student of our history need be told that every instance of expansion of our territory presented unsolved problems beyond the apparent scope of the parchment const.i.tution; or that as each of these occasions arose, arose also a party to declare that the const.i.tution _could not_ be stretched to meet the demand. Yet the growth continued and the const.i.tution survived.

I do not presume to read the const.i.tution of the United States for this or any other audience--that is a work beyond my powers, and, I apprehend, beyond those of many who consider themselves of the "const.i.tutional party." But there may be instruction in recalling a few of the instances in our history in which the const.i.tutionally impossible has been nevertheless accomplished, and that, too, without harm to the Republic.

Thomas Jefferson, being a democrat and "strict constructionist,"

demanded an amendment to the const.i.tution to confirm the Louisiana purchase; but not, it will be remembered, until after the purchase had been made, const.i.tution or no const.i.tution.

Andrew Jackson, another democrat, has never been rebuked by posterity for marching into Florida, arresting and hanging Ambuster and his fellow spies on what was then Spanish territory; yet in so doing President Jackson thrust his hob-nailed Tennessee boots clean through the sacred parchment. It has been well said that success is an unwritten law seldom reversed by the courts. Certainly neither the courts nor Jackson's fellow strict-constructionists have ever rebuked him for the "unconst.i.tutional act."

Pa.s.sing over the Mexican war and the acquisition of Texas, California and New Mexico, a series of acts very damaging to the dignity of the const.i.tution, let us come at one step to the most conspicuous breach of the const.i.tution in all our history--the War of the Rebellion.

There is not a line in the const.i.tution expressly permitting the secession of a state, though so eminent an authority as the late Judge Thomas M. Cooley, himself a Northerner and a Union man of undoubted loyalty, plainly intimates in his "Const.i.tutional Limitations" that at least historical precedent was on the side of secession. But neither is there authority in the const.i.tution for the invasion of a state by the federal army, unless at the request of the state authorities; yet the Southern states seceded, and President Lincoln marched the Northern armies whithersoever secession and rebellion showed their heads. Still more recently, President Cleveland sent federal troops into Illinois to quell riotous strikers, against the protest of the Governor; yet posterity sustains both presidents in their acts--perhaps even thanks them for the precedent--whatever the cost to the const.i.tution.

As for the repression of the rebellion, posterity, including many of the seceding "strict constructionists," now concede that equity, common sense and the instinct of self-preservation amply justified any possible breach of the const.i.tution committed for the preservation of the Union.

A federation of states holding together only at the will of all its component parts would hardly have been worth saving; so that if the const.i.tution was on the side of the seceders, why--so much the worse for the const.i.tution.

It was during the War of the Rebellion, too, that a legislature of Virginia met in Alexandria and pa.s.sed a law cutting the state in two, to erect the new state of West Virginia. Now, article 4, section 3, of the United States const.i.tution expressly declares that "no state shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state, nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned and of the Congress." Yet the state of West Virginia is a historical, political and geographical fact, notwithstanding that the precedent thus established is a dangerous one, and the division wrought great injustice to the Old Dominion in throwing upon her shoulders the entire debt of the original state. Here was not only a violation of the const.i.tution, but a "historical crime;" yet both const.i.tution and the crime remain to vex the souls of the strict constructionists and to remind us all how weak a thing is any const.i.tution when it blocks the way of a popular demand.

There is no need to multiply instances, though there are many others--notably during the period of "reconstructing" the conquered states after the war. The const.i.tution offers no more substantial obstacle to the acquisition of territory in the Philippines than it did in the other cases cited, provided only that public expediency and the demand of the people are on the other side.

Scarcely less importance is attributed by the anti-expansionists to our alleged "historical _policy of isolation_," which, we are told, would be violated by thrusting our hands as a nation into the larger affairs of international politics. For some reason the idea seems to prevail that George Washington and other statesmen of his period designed the Republic for a remote, parochial career, hedged about by a Chinese wall, excluding all foreign influence from our affairs and retaining our own energies within our own boundaries. "America for the Americans," is the shibboleth of this school of political philosophers, and they really seem to believe that the Republic will in some way be happier and richer if we keep aloof entirely and forever from the rest of the world.