Chapter VIII: Preface (7)

With Mr. Bryan denunciation of the gold bug and the banker is largely a mere form of intellectual entertainment; but with Mr. Watson it represents an almost ferocious conviction. Someone has said that Mr. Watson like Mr. Tillman, is an embodied retribution on the South for having failed to educate the cracker, the poor white who gives him his strength. It would ill beseem any dweller in cities of the North, especially any dweller in the city of Tammany, to reproach the South with having failed to educate anybody. But Mr. Watson is certainly an awkward man for a community to develop. He is infinitely more in earnest than is Mr. Bryan. Mr. Watson’s followers belong to that school of southern Populists who honestly believe that the respectable and commonplace people who own banks, railroads, dry-goods stores, factories, and the like, are persons with many of the mental and social attributes that unpleasantly distinguished Heliogabalus, Nero, Caligula, and other worthies of later Rome. Not only do they believe this, but they say it with appalling frankness. They are very sincere as a rule, or at least the rank and file are. They are also very suspicious. They distrust anything they cannot understand; and as they understand but little this opens a very wide field for distrust. They are apt to be emotionally religious. If not, they are then at least atheists of an archaic type. Refinement and comfort they are apt to consider quite as objectionable as immorality. That a man should change his clothes in the evening, that he should dine at any other hour than noon, impress these good people as being symptoms of depravity instead of merely trivial. A taste for learning and cultivated friends, and a tendency to bathe frequently, cause them the deepest suspicion. A well-to-do man they regard with jealous distrust, and if they cannot be well-to-do themselves, at least they hope to make matters uncomfortable for those that are. They possess many strong, rugged virtues, but they are quite impossible politically, because they always confound the essentials and the non-essentials, and though they often make war on vice, they rather prefer making war upon prosperity and refinement.

Mr. Watson was in a sense born out of place when he was born in Georgia, for in Georgia the regular Democracy, while it has accepted the principles of the Populists, has made war on their _personnel_, and in every way strives to press them down. Far better for Mr. Watson would it have been could he have been born in the adjacent State of South Carolina, where the Populists swallowed the Democrats with a gulp. Senator Tillman, the great Populist or Democratic orator from South Carolina, possesses an untrammelled tongue any middle-of-the-road man would envy: and moreover Mr. Tillman’s brother has been frequently elected to Congress upon the issue that he never wore either an overcoat or an undershirt, an issue which any Populist statesman finds readily comprehensible, and which he would recognize at first glance as being strong before the people. It needs a certain amount of mental subtlety to appreciate that it is for one’s interest to support a man because he is honest and has broad views about coast defenses and the navy, and other similar subjects; but it does not need any mind at all to have one’s prejudices stirred in favor of a statesman whose claim to the title rests upon his indifference to the requirements of civilized dress.

Altogether Mr. Watson, with his sincerity, his frankness, his extreme suspiciousness, his distrust of anything he cannot understand, and the feeling he encourages against all the elegancies and decencies of civilized life, is an interesting personage. He represents the real thing, while Bryan after all is more or less a sham and a compromise. Mr. Watson would, at a blow, destroy all banks and bankers, with a cheerful, albeit vague, belief that thereby he was in some abstruse way benefiting the people at large. And he would do this with the simple sincerity and faith of an African savage who tries to benefit his tribe by a sufficiency of human sacrifices. But Mr. Bryan would be beset by ugly doubts when he came to put into effect all the mischievous beliefs of his followers, and Mr. Sewall would doubtless be frankly miserable if it ever became necessary for him to take a lead in such matters. Mr. Watson really ought to be the first man on the ticket, with Mr. Bryan second; for he is much the superior in boldness, in thorough-going acceptance of his principles according to their logical conclusions, and in sincerity of faith. It is impossible not to regret that the Democrats and Populists should not have put forward in the first place the man who genuinely represents their ideas.

However, it is even doubtful whether Mr. Watson will receive the support to which he is entitled as a vice-presidential candidate. In the South the Populists have been so crushed under the heel of the Democrats, and have bitten that heel with such eager venom, that they dislike entering into a coalition with them; but in the south the Democrats will generally control the election machinery. In the far West, and generally in those States where the Populist wing of the new alliance is ascendant, the Populists have no especial hatred of the Democrats. They know that their principles are substantially identical, and they think it best to support the man who seems to represent the majority faction among the various factions that stand behind Bryan.

As a consequence of this curious condition of affairs there are several interesting possibilities open. The electoral college consists of the men elected at the polls in the various States to record the decrees of the majorities in those States, and it has grown to be an axiom of politics that they must merely register the will of the men who elected them. But it does seem possible that in the present election some of the electors may return to the old principles of a century ago and exercise at least a limited discretion in casting their votes. In a State like Nebraska, for instance, it looks as though it would be possible that the electoral ticket on the anti-Republican side would be composed of four Bryan and Watson men and four Bryan and Sewall men. Now in the event of Bryan having more votes than McKinley--that is, in the event of the country showing strong Bedlamite tendencies next November--it might be that a split between Sewall and Watson would give a plurality to Hobart, and in such event it is hardly conceivable that some of the electors would not exercise their discretion by changing their votes. If they did not, we might then again see a return to the early and profoundly interesting practice of our fathers and witness a President chosen by one party and a Vice-President by the other.

I wish it to be distinctly understood, however, that these are merely interesting speculations as to what might occur in a hopelessly improbable contingency. I am a good American, with a profound belief in my countrymen, and I have no idea that they will deliberately lower themselves to a level beneath that of a South American Republic, by voting for the farrago of sinister nonsense which the Populistic-Democratic politicians at Chicago chose to set up as embodying the principles of their party, and for the amiable and windy demagogue who stands upon that platform. Many entirely honest and intelligent men have been misled by the silver talk, and have for the moment joined the ranks of the ignorant, the vicious and the wrong-headed. These men of character and capacity are blinded by their own misfortunes, or their own needs, or else they have never fairly looked into the matter for themselves, being, like most men, whether in “gold” or “silver” communities, content to follow the opinion of those they are accustomed to trust. After full and fair inquiry these men, I am sure, whether they live in Maine, in Tennessee, or in Oregon, will come out on the side of honest money. The shiftless and vicious and the honest but hopelessly ignorant and puzzle-headed voters cannot be reached; but the average farmer, the average business man, the average workman--in short, the average American--will always stand up for honesty and decency when he can once satisfy himself as to the side on which they are to be found.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] _Review of Reviews_, September, 1896.

X

HOW NOT TO HELP OUR POORER BROTHER[18]

After the publication of my article in the September _Review of Reviews_ on the vice-presidential candidates, I received the following very manly, and very courteous, letter from the Honorable Thomas Watson, then the candidate with Mr. Bryan on the Populist ticket for Vice-President. I publish it with his permission:

HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT:

It pains me to be misunderstood by those whose good opinion I respect, and upon reading your trenchant article in the September number of the _Review of Reviews_ the impulse was strong to write to you.

When you take your stand for honester government and for juster laws in New York, as you have so courageously done, your motives must be the same as mine--for you do not need the money your office gives you. I can understand, instinctively, what you feel--what your motives are. You merely obey a law of your nature which puts you into mortal combat with what you think is wrong. You fight because your own sense of self-respect and self-loyalty compels you to fight. Is not this so?

If in Georgia and throughout the South we have conditions as intolerable as those that surround you in New York, can you not realize why I make war upon them?

Tammany itself has grown great because mistaken leaders of the southern Democracy catered to its Kellys and Crokers and feared to defy them.

The first “roast” I ever got from the Democratic press of this State followed a speech I had made denouncing Tammany, and denouncing the craven leaders who obeyed Tammany.

It is astonishing how one honest man may honestly misjudge another.

My creed does _not_ lead me to dislike the men who run a bank, a factory, a railroad or a foundry. I do _not_ hate a man for owning a bond, and having a bank account, or having cash loaned at interest.

Upon the other hand, I think each should make all the profit in business he fairly can; but I do believe that the banks should not exercise the sovereign power of issuing money, and I do believe that all special privileges granted, and all exemption from taxation, work infinite harm. I _do_ believe that the wealth of the Republic is practically free from federal taxation, and that the burdens of government fall upon the shoulders of those least able to bear them.

If you could spend an evening with me among my books and amid my family, I feel quite sure you would not again class me with those who make war upon the “decencies and elegancies of civilized life.” And if you could attend one of my great political meetings in Georgia, and see the good men and good women who believe in Populism, you would not continue to class them with those who vote for candidates upon the “no undershirt” platform.

In other words, if you understood me and mine your judgment of us would be different.

The “cracker” of the South is simply the man who did not buy slaves to do his work. He did it all himself--like a man. Some of our best generals in war, and magistrates in peace, have come from the “cracker” class. As a matter of fact, however, my own people, from my father back to Revolutionary times, were slave owners and land owners. In the first meeting held in Georgia to express sympathy with the Boston patriots my great-great-grandfather bore a prominent part, and in the first State legislature ever convened in Georgia one of my ancestors was the representative of his county.

My grandfather was wealthy, and so was my father. My boyhood was spent in the idleness of a rich man’s son. It was not till I was in my teens that misfortune overtook us, sent us homeless into the world, and deprived me of the thorough collegiate training my father intended for me.

At sixteen years of age I thus had to commence life moneyless, and the weary years I spent among the poor, the kindness I received in their homes, and the acquaintance I made with the hardship of their lives, gave me that profound sympathy for them which I yet retain--though I am no longer poor myself.

Pardon the liberty I take in intruding this letter upon you. I have followed your work in New York with admiring sympathy, and have frequently written of it in my paper. While hundreds of miles separate us, and our tasks and methods have been widely different, I must still believe that we have much in common, and that the ruling force which actuates us both is to challenge wrong and to fight the battles of good government.

Very respectfully yours,
(Signed) THOS. E. WATSON.

THOMPSON, GA., August, 30, 1896.

I intended to draw a very sharp line between Mr. Watson and many of those associated with him in the same movement; and certain of the sentences which he quotes as if they were meant to apply to him were, on the contrary, meant to apply generally to the agitators who proclaimed both him and Mr. Bryan as their champions, and especially to many of the men who were running on the Populist tickets in different States. To Mr. Watson’s own sincerity and courage I thought I had paid full tribute, and if I failed in any way I wish to make good that failure. I was in Washington when Mr. Watson was in Congress, and I know how highly he was esteemed personally by his colleagues, even by those differing very widely from him in matters of principle. The staunchest friends of order and decent government fully and cordially recognized Mr. Watson’s honesty and good faith--men, for instance, like Senator Lodge of Massachusetts, and Representative Bellamy Storer of Ohio. Moreover, I sympathize as little as Mr. Watson with denunciation of the “cracker,” and I may mention that one of my forefathers was the first Revolutionary Governor of Georgia at the time that Mr. Watson’s ancestor sat in the first Revolutionary legislature of the State. Mr. Watson himself embodies not a few of the very attributes the lack of which we feel so keenly in many of our public men. He is brave, he is earnest, he is honest, he is disinterested. For many of the wrongs which he wishes to remedy, I, too, believe that a remedy can be found, and for this purpose I would gladly strike hands with him. All this makes it a matter of the keenest regret that he should advocate certain remedies that we deem even worse than the wrongs complained of, and should strive in darkling ways to correct other wrongs, or rather inequalities and sufferings, which exist, not because of the shortcomings of society, but because of the existence of human nature itself.

There are plenty of ugly things about wealth and its possessors in the present age, and I suppose there have been in all ages. There are many rich people who so utterly lack patriotism, or show such sordid and selfish traits of character, or lead such mean and vacuous lives, that all right-minded men must look upon them with angry contempt; but, on the whole, the thrifty are apt to be better citizens than the thriftless; and the worst capitalist cannot harm laboring men as they are harmed by demagogues. As the people of a State grow more and more intelligent the State itself may be able to play a larger and larger part in the life of the community, while at the same time individual effort may be given freer and less restricted movement along certain lines; but it is utterly unsafe to give the State more than the minimum of power just so long as it contains masses of men who can be moved by the pleas and denunciations of the average Socialist leader of to-day. There may be better schemes of taxation than those at present employed; it may be wise to devise inheritance taxes, and to impose regulations on the kinds of business which can be carried on only under the especial protection of the State; and where there is a real abuse by wealth it needs to be, and in this country generally has been, promptly done away with; but the first lesson to teach the poor man is that, as a whole, the wealth in the community is distinctly beneficial to him; that he is better off in the long run because other men are well off; and that the surest way to destroy what measure of prosperity he may have is to paralyze industry and the well-being of those men who have achieved success.

I am not an empiricist; I would no more deny that sometimes human affairs can be much bettered by legislation than I would affirm that they can always be so bettered. I would no more make a fetish of unrestricted individualism than I would admit the power of the State offhand and radically to reconstruct society. It may become necessary to interfere even more than we have done with the right of private contract, and to shackle cunning as we have shackled force. All I insist upon is that we must be sure of our ground before trying to get any legislation at all, and that we must not expect too much from this legislation, nor refuse to better ourselves a little because we cannot accomplish everything at a jump. Above all, it is criminal to excite anger and discontent without proposing a remedy, or only proposing a false remedy. The worst foe of the poor man is the labor leader, whether philanthropist or politician, who tries to teach him that he is a victim of conspiracy and injustice, when in reality he is merely working out his fate with blood and sweat as the immense majority of men who are worthy of the name always have done and always will have to do.

The difference between what can and what cannot be done by law is well exemplified by our experience with the negro problem, an experience of which Mr. Watson must have ample practical knowledge. The negroes were formerly held in slavery. This was a wrong which legislation could remedy, and which could not be remedied except by legislation. Accordingly they were set free by law. This having been done, many of their friends believed that in some way, by additional legislation, we could at once put them on an intellectual, social, and business equality with the whites. The effort has failed completely. In large sections of the country the negroes are not treated as they should be treated, and politically in particular the frauds upon them have been so gross and shameful as to awaken not merely indignation but bitter wrath; yet the best friends of the negro admit that his hope lies, not in legislation, but in the constant working of those often unseen forces of the national life which are greater than all legislation.

It is but rarely that great advances in general social well-being can be made by the adoption of some far-reaching scheme, legislative or otherwise; normally they come only by gradual growth, and by incessant effort to do first one thing, then another, and then another. Quack remedies of the universal cure-all type are generally as noxious to the body politic as to the body corporal.

Often the head-in-the-air social reformers, because people of sane and wholesome minds will not favor their wild schemes, themselves decline to favor schemes for practical reform. For the last two years there has been an honest effort in New York to give the city good government, and to work intelligently for better social conditions, especially in the poorest quarters. We have cleaned the streets; we have broken the power of the ward boss and the saloon-keeper to work injustice; we have destroyed the most hideous of the tenement houses in which poor people are huddled like swine in a sty; we have made parks and play-grounds for the children in the crowded quarters; in every possible way we have striven to make life easier and healthier, and to give man and woman a chance to do their best work; while at the same time we have warred steadily against the pauper-producing, maudlin philanthropy of the free soup-kitchen and tramp lodging-house kind. In all this we have had practically no help from either the parlor socialists or the scarcely more noxious beer-room socialists who are always howling about the selfishness of the rich and their unwillingness to do anything for those who are less well off.

There are certain labor unions, certain bodies of organized labor--notably those admirable organizations which include the railway conductors, the locomotive engineers and the firemen--which to my mind embody almost the best hope that there is for healthy national growth in the future; but bitter experience has taught men who work for reform in New York that the average labor leader, the average demagogue who shouts for a depreciated currency, or for the overthrow of the rich, will not do anything to help those who honestly strive to make better our civic conditions. There are immense numbers of workingmen to whom we can appeal with perfect confidence; but too often we find that a large proportion of the men who style themselves leaders of organized labor are influenced only by sullen short-sighted hatred of what they do not understand, and are deaf to all appeals, whether to their national or to their civic patriotism.

What I most grudge in all this is the fact that sincere and zealous men of high character and honest purpose, men like Mr. Watson, men and women such as those he describes as attending his Populist meetings, or such as are to be found in all strata of our society, from the employer to the hardest-worked day laborer, go astray in their methods, and are thereby prevented from doing the full work for good they ought to. When a man goes on the wrong road himself he can do very little to guide others aright, even though these others are also on the wrong road. There are many wrongs to be righted; there are many measures of relief to be pushed; and it is a pity that when we are fighting what is bad and championing what is good, the men who ought to be our most effective allies should deprive themselves of usefulness by the wrong-headedness of their position. Rich men and poor men both do wrong on occasions, and whenever a specific instance of this can be pointed out all citizens alike should join in punishing the wrong-doer. Honesty and right-mindedness should be the tests; not wealth or poverty.

In our municipal administration here in New York we have acted with an equal hand toward wrong-doers of high and low degree. The Board of Health condemns the tenement-house property of the rich landowner, whether this landowner be priest or layman, banker or railroad president, lawyer or manager of a real estate business; and it pays no heed to the intercession of any politician, whether this politician be Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile. At the same time the Police Department promptly suppresses, not only the criminal, but the rioter. In other words, we do strict justice. We feel we are defrauded of help to which we are entitled when men who ought to assist in any work to better the condition of the people decline to aid us because their brains are turned by dreams only worthy of a European revolutionist.

Many workingmen look with distrust upon laws which really would help them; laws for the intelligent restriction of immigration, for instance. I have no sympathy with mere dislike of immigrants; there are classes and even nationalities of them which stand at least on an equality with the citizens of native birth, as the last election showed. But in the interest of our workingmen we must in the end keep out laborers who are ignorant, vicious, and with low standards of life and comfort, just as we have shut out the Chinese.

Often labor leaders and the like denounce the present conditions of society, and especially of our political life, for shortcomings which they themselves have been instrumental in causing. In our cities the misgovernment is due, not to the misdeeds of the rich, but to the low standard of honesty and morality among citizens generally; and nothing helps the corrupt politician more than substituting either wealth or poverty for honesty as the standard by which to try a candidate. A few months ago a socialistic reformer in New York was denouncing the corruption caused by rich men because a certain judge was suspected of giving information in advance as to a decision in a case involving the interests of a great corporation. Now this judge had been elected some years previously, mainly because he was supposed to be a representative of the “poor man”; and the socialistic reformer himself, a year ago, was opposing the election of Mr. Beaman as judge because he was one of the firm of Evarts & Choate, who were friends of various millionaires and were counsel for various corporations. But if Mr. Beaman had been elected judge no human being, rich or poor, would have dared so much as hint at his doing anything improper.

Something can be done by good laws; more can be done by honest administration of the laws; but most of all can be done by frowning resolutely upon the preachers of vague discontent; and by upholding the true doctrine of self-reliance, self-help, and self-mastery. This doctrine sets forth many things. Among them is the fact that though a man can occasionally be helped when he stumbles, yet that it is useless to try to carry him when he will not or cannot walk; and worse than useless to try to bring down the work and reward of the thrifty and intelligent to the level of the capacity of the weak, the shiftless, and the idle. It further shows that the maudlin philanthropist and the maudlin sentimentalist are almost as noxious as the demagogue, and that it is even more necessary to temper mercy with justice than justice with mercy.

The worst lesson that can be taught a man is to rely upon others and to whine over his sufferings. If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others; he must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow-men a responsibility which is not theirs.

Let me say in conclusion, that I do not write in the least from the standpoint of those whose association is purely with what are called the wealthy classes. The men with whom I have worked and associated most closely during the last couple of years here in New York, with whom I have shared what is at least an earnest desire to better social and civic conditions (neither blinking what is evil nor being misled by the apostles of a false remedy), and with whose opinions as to what is right and practical my own in the main agree, are not capitalists, save as all men who by toil earn, and with prudence save, money are capitalists. They include reporters on the daily papers, editors of magazines, as well as of newspapers, principals in the public schools, young lawyers, young architects, young doctors, young men of business, who are struggling to rise in their profession by dint of faithful work, but who give some of their time to doing what they can for the city, and a number of priests and clergymen; but as it happens the list does not include any man of great wealth, or any of those men whose names are in the public mind identified with great business corporations. Most of them have at one time or another in their lives faced poverty and know what it is; none of them are more than well-to-do. They include Catholics and Protestants, Jews, and men who would be regarded as heterodox by professors of most recognized creeds; some of them were born on this side, others are of foreign birth; but they are all Americans, heart and soul, who fight out for themselves the battles of their own lives, meeting sometimes defeat and sometimes victory. They neither forget that man does owe a duty to his fellows, and should strive to do what he can to increase the well-being of the community; nor yet do they forget that in the long run the only way to help people is to make them help themselves. They are prepared to try any properly guarded legislative remedy for ills which they believe can be remedied; but they perceive clearly that it is both foolish and wicked to teach the average man who is not well off that some wrong or injustice has been done him, and that he should hope for redress elsewhere than in his own industry, honesty, and intelligence.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] _Review of Reviews_, January, 1897.

XI

THE MONROE DOCTRINE[19]

The Monroe Doctrine should not be considered from any purely academic standpoint, but as a broad, general principle of living policy. It is to be justified not by precedent merely, but by the needs of the nation and the true interests of Western civilization. It, of course, adds strength to our position at this moment to show that the action of the national authorities is warranted by the actions of their predecessors on like occasions in time past, and that the line of policy we are now pursuing is that which has been pursued by all our statesmen of note since the republic grew sufficiently powerful to make what it said of weight in foreign affairs. But even if in time past we had been as blind to the national honor and welfare as are the men who at the present day champion the anti-American side of the Venezuelan question, it would now be necessary for statesmen who were both far-sighted and patriotic to enunciate the principles for which the Monroe Doctrine stands. In other words, if the Monroe Doctrine did not already exist it would be necessary forthwith to create it.

Let us first of all clear the question at issue by brushing away one or two false objections. Lord Salisbury at first put in emphatic words his refusal in any way to recognize the Monroe Doctrine as part of the law of nations or as binding upon Great Britain. Most British statesmen and publicists followed his lead; but recently a goodly number have shown an inclination to acquiesce in the views of Lord Salisbury’s colleague, Mr. Chamberlain, who announces, with bland indifference to the expressed opinion of his nominal chief, that England does recognize the existence of the Monroe Doctrine and never thought of ignoring it. Lord Salisbury himself has recently shown symptoms of changing ground and taking this position; while Mr. Balfour has gone still farther in the right direction, and the Liberal leaders farther yet. It is not very important to us how far Lord Salisbury and Mr. Chamberlain may diverge in their views, although, of course, in the interests of the English-speaking peoples and of peace between England and the United States, we trust that Mr. Chamberlain’s position will be sustained by Great Britain. But the attitude of our own people _is_ important, and it would be amusing, were it not unpleasant, to see that many Americans, whose Americanism is of the timid and flabby type, have been inclined eagerly to agree with Lord Salisbury. A very able member of the New York bar remarked the other day that he had not yet met the lawyer who agreed with Secretary Olney as to the legal interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. This remark was chiefly interesting as showing the lawyer’s own limitations. It would not have been made if he had met the Justices of the Supreme Court, for instance; but even on the unfounded supposition that his remark was well grounded, it would have had little more significance than if he had said that he had not yet met a dentist who agreed with Mr. Olney. The Monroe Doctrine is not a question of law at all. It is a question of policy. It is a question to be considered not only by statesmen, but by all good citizens. Lawyers, as lawyers, have absolutely nothing whatever to say about it. To argue that it cannot be recognized as a principle of international law, is a mere waste of breath. Nobody cares whether it is or is not so recognized, any more than any one cares whether the Declaration of Independence and Washington’s farewell address are so recognized.

The Monroe Doctrine may be briefly defined as forbidding European encroachment on American soil. It is not desirable to define it so rigidly as to prevent our taking into account the varying degrees of national interest in varying cases. The United States has not the slightest wish to establish a universal protectorate over other American States, or to become responsible for their misdeeds. If one of them becomes involved in an ordinary quarrel with a European power, such quarrel must be settled between them by any one of the usual methods. But no European State is to be allowed to aggrandize itself on American soil at the expense of any American State. Furthermore, no transfer of an American colony from one European State to another is to be permitted, if, in the judgment of the United States, such transfer would be hostile to its own interests.

John Quincy Adams, who, during the presidency of Monroe, first clearly enunciated the doctrine which bears his chief’s name, asserted it as against both Spain and Russia. In the clearest and most emphatic terms he stated that the United States could not acquiesce in the acquisition of new territory within the limits of any independent American State, whether in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere, by any European power. He took this position against Russia when Russia threatened to take possession of what is now Oregon. He took this position as against Spain when, backed by other powers of Continental Europe, she threatened to reconquer certain of the Spanish-American States.

This is precisely and exactly the position the United States has now taken in reference to England and Venezuela. It is idle to contend that there is any serious difference in the application of the doctrine to the two sets of questions. An American may, of course, announce his opposition to the Monroe Doctrine, although by so doing he forfeits all title to far-seeing and patriotic devotion to the interests of his country. But he cannot argue that the Monroe Doctrine does not apply to the present case, unless he argues that the Monroe Doctrine has no existence whatsoever. In fact, such arguments are, on their face, so absurd that they need no refutation, and can be relegated where they belong--to the realm of the hair-splitting schoolmen. They have no concern either for practical politicians or for historians with true historic insight.

We have asserted the principles which underlie the Monroe Doctrine, not only against Russia and Spain, but also against France, on at least two different occasions. The last and most important was when the French conquered Mexico and made it into an Empire. It is not necessary to recall to any one the action of our Government in the matter as soon as the Civil War came to an end. Suffice it to say that, under threat of our interposition, the French promptly abandoned Maximilian, and the latter’s Empire fell. Long before this, however, and a score of years before the Doctrine was christened by the name Monroe even the timid statesmen of the Jeffersonian era embodied its principle in their protest against the acquisition of Louisiana, by France, from Spain. Spain at that time held all of what is now the Great West. France wished to acquire it. Our statesmen at once announced that they would regard as hostile to America the transfer of the territory in question from a weak to a strong European power. Under the American pressure the matter was finally settled by the sale of the territory in question to the United States. The principle which our statesmen then announced was in kind precisely the same as that upon which we should now act if Germany sought to acquire Cuba from Spain, or St. Thomas from the Danes. In either of these events it is hardly conceivable that the United States would hesitate to interfere, if necessary, by force of arms; and in so doing the national authorities would undoubtedly be supported by the immense majority of the American people, and, indeed, by all save the men of abnormal timidity or abnormal political short-sightedness.

Historically, therefore, the position of our representatives in the Venezuelan question is completely justified. It cannot be attacked on academic grounds. The propriety of their position is even more easily defensible.

Primarily, our action is based on national self-interest. In other words, it is patriotic. A certain limited number of persons are fond of decrying patriotism as a selfish virtue, and strive with all their feeble might to inculcate in its place a kind of milk-and-water cosmopolitanism. These good people are never men of robust character or of imposing personality, and the plea itself is not worth considering. Some reformers may urge that in the ages’ distant future patriotism, like the habit of monogamous marriage, will become a needless and obsolete virtue; but just at present the man who loves other countries as much as he does his own is quite as noxious a member of society as the man who loves other women as much as he loves his wife. Love of country is an elemental virtue, like love of home, or like honesty or courage. No country will accomplish very much for the world at large unless it elevates itself. The useful member of a community is the man who first and foremost attends to his own rights and his own duties, and who therefore becomes better fitted to do his share in the common duties of all. The useful member of the brotherhood of nations is that nation which is most thoroughly saturated with the national idea, and which realizes most fully its rights as a nation and its duties to its own citizens. This is in no way incompatible with a scrupulous regard for the rights of other nations, or a desire to remedy the wrongs of suffering peoples.

The United States ought not to permit any great military powers, which have no foothold on this continent, to establish such foothold; nor should they permit any aggrandizement of those who already have possessions on the continent. We do not wish to bring ourselves to a position where we shall have to emulate the European system of enormous armies. Every true patriot, every man of statesman-like habit, should look forward to the day when not a single European power will hold a foot of American soil. At present it is not necessary to take the position that no European power shall hold American territory; but it certainly will become necessary, if the timid and selfish “peace at any price” men have their way, and if the United States fails to check at the outset European aggrandizement on this continent.

Primarily, therefore, it is to the interest of the citizens of the United States to prevent the further colonial growth of European powers in the Western Hemisphere. But this is also to the interest of all the people of the Western Hemisphere. At best, the inhabitants of a colony are in a cramped and unnatural state. At the worst, the establishment of a colony prevents any healthy popular growth. Some time in the dim future it may be that all the English-speaking peoples will be able to unite in some kind of confederacy. However desirable this would be, it is, under existing conditions, only a dream. At present the only hope for a colony that wishes to attain full moral and mental growth, is to become an independent State, or part of an independent State. No English colony now stands on a footing of genuine equality with the parent State. As long as the Canadian remains a colonist, he remains in a position which is distinctly inferior to that of his cousins, both in England and in the United States. The Englishman at bottom looks down on the Canadian, as he does on any one who admits his inferiority, and quite properly, too. The American, on the other hand, with equal propriety, regards the Canadian with the good-natured condescension always felt by the freeman for the man who is not free. A funny instance of the English attitude toward Canada was shown after Lord Dunraven’s inglorious _fiasco_ last September, when the Canadian yachtsman, Rose, challenged for the America cup. The English journals repudiated him on the express ground that a Canadian was not an Englishman and not entitled to the privileges of an Englishman. In their comments, many of them showed a dislike for Americans which almost rose to hatred. The feeling they displayed for the Canadians was not one of dislike. It was one of contempt.

Under the best of circumstances, therefore, a colony is in a false position. But if the colony is in a region where the colonizing race has to do its work by means of other inferior races the condition is much worse. From the standpoint of the race little or nothing has been gained by the English conquest and colonization of Jamaica. Jamaica has merely been turned into a negro island, with a future, seemingly, much like that of San Domingo. British Guiana, however well administered, is nothing but a colony where a few hundred or few thousand white men hold the superior positions, while the bulk of the population is composed of Indians, Negroes, and Asiatics. Looked at through the vista of the centuries, such a colony contains less promise of true growth than does a State like Venezuela or Ecuador. The history of most of the South American republics has been both mean and bloody; but there is at least a chance that they may develop, after infinite tribulations and suffering, into a civilization quite as high and stable as that of such a European power as Portugal. But there is no such chance for any tropical American colony owned by a Northern European race. It is distinctly in the interest of civilization that the present States in the two Americas should develop along their own lines, and however desirable it is that many of them should receive European immigration, it is highly undesirable that any of them should be under European control.

So much for the general principles, and the justification, historically and morally, of the Monroe Doctrine. Now take the specific case at issue. Great Britain has a boundary dispute with Venezuela. She claims as her own a territory which Venezuela asserts to be hers, a territory which in point of size very nearly equals the Kingdom of Italy. Our government, of course, cannot, if it wishes to remain true to the traditions of the Monroe Doctrine submit to the acquisition by England of such an enormous tract of territory, and it must therefore find out whether the English claims are or are not well founded. It would, of course, be preposterous to lay down the rule that no European power should seize American territory which was not its own, and yet to permit the power itself to decide the question of the ownership of such territory. Great Britain refused to settle the question either by amicable agreement with Venezuela or by arbitration. All that remained for the United States, was to do what it actually did; that is, to try to find out the facts for itself, by its own commission. If the facts show England to be in the right, well and good. If they show England to be in the wrong, we most certainly ought not to permit her to profit, at Venezuela’s expense, by her own wrong-doing.

We are doing exactly what England would very properly do in a like case. Recently, when the German Emperor started to interfere in the Transvaal, England promptly declared her own “Monroe Doctrine” for South Africa. We do not propose to see English filibusters try at the expense of Venezuela the same policy which recently came to such an ignominious end in the Transvaal, in a piece of weak, would-be buccaneering, which, it is perhaps not unfair to say was fittingly commemorated in the verse of the new poet-laureate.

It would be difficult to overestimate the good done in this country by the vigorous course already taken by the national executive and legislature in this matter. The lesson taught Lord Salisbury is one which will not soon be forgotten by English statesmen. His position is false, and is recognized as false by the best English statesmen and publicists. If he does not consent to arrange the matter with Venezuela, it will have to be arranged in some way by arbitration. In either case, the United States gains its point. The only possible danger of war comes from the action of the selfish and timid men on this side of the water, who clamorously strive to misrepresent American, and to mislead English, public opinion. If they succeed in persuading Lord Salisbury that the American people will back down if he presses them, they will do the greatest damage possible to both countries, for they will render war, at some time in the future, almost inevitable.

Such a war we would deplore; but it must be distinctly understood that we would deplore it very much more for England’s sake than for our own; for whatever might be the initial fortunes of the struggle, or the temporary damage and loss to the United States, the mere fact that Canada would inevitably be rent from England in the end would make the outcome an English disaster.

We do not in any way seek to become the sponsor of the South American States. England has the same right to protect her own subjects, or even in exceptional cases to interfere to stop outrages in South America, that we have to interfere in Armenia--and it is to be regretted that our representatives do not see their way clear to interfere for Armenia. But England should not acquire territory at the expense of Venezuela any more than we should acquire it at the expense of Turkey.

The mention of Armenia brings up a peculiarly hypocritical plea which has been advanced against us in this controversy. It has been solemnly alleged that our action in Venezuela has hampered England in the East and has prevented her interfering on behalf of Armenia. We do not wish to indulge in recriminations, but when such a plea is advanced, the truth, however unpleasant, must be told. The great crime of this century against civilization has been the upholding of the Turk by certain Christian powers. To England’s attitude in the Crimean War, and after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, the present Armenian horror is primarily due. Moreover, for six months before the Venezuelan question arose England had looked on motionless while the Turks perpetrated on their wretched subjects wrongs that would blast the memory of Attila.

We do not wish to be misunderstood. We have no feeling against England. On the contrary, we regard her as being well in advance of the great powers of Continental Europe, and we have more sympathy with her. In general, her success tells for the success of civilization, and we wish her well. But where her interests enlist her against the progress of civilization and in favor of the oppression of other nationalities who are struggling upward, our sympathies are immediately forfeited.

It is a matter of serious concern to every college man, and, indeed, to every man who believes in the good effects of a liberal education, to see the false views which seem to obtain among so many of the leaders of educated thought, not only upon the Monroe Doctrine, but upon every question which involves the existence of a feeling of robust Americanism. Every educated man who puts himself out of touch with the current of American thought, and who on conspicuous occasions assumes an attitude hostile to the interest of America, is doing what he can to weaken the influence of educated men in American life. The crude, ill-conditioned jealousy of education, which is so often and so lamentably shown by large bodies of our people, is immensely stimulated by the action of those prominent educated men in whom education seems to have destroyed the strong, virile virtues and especially the spirit of Americanism.

No nation can achieve real greatness if its people are not both essentially moral and essentially manly; both sets of qualities are necessary. It is an admirable thing to possess refinement and cultivation, but the price is too dear if they must be paid for at the cost of the rugged fighting qualities which make a man able to do a man’s work in the world, and which make his heart beat with that kind of love of country which is shown not only in readiness to try to make her civic life better, but also to stand up manfully for her when her honor and influence are at stake in a dispute with a foreign power. A heavy responsibility rests on the educated man. It is a double discredit to him to go wrong, whether his shortcomings take the form of shirking his every-day civic duties, or of abandonment of the nation’s rights in a foreign quarrel. He must no more be misled by the sneers of those who always write “patriotism” between inverted commas than by the coarser, but equally dangerous, ridicule of the politicians who jeer at “reform.” It is as unmanly to be taunted by one set of critics into cowardice as it is to be taunted by the other set into dishonesty.

There are many upright and honorable men who take the wrong side, that is, the anti-American side, of the Monroe Doctrine because they are too short-sighted or too unimaginative to realize the hurt to the nation that would be caused by the adoption of their views. There are other men who take the wrong view simply because they have not thought much of the matter, or are in unfortunate surroundings, by which they have been influenced to their own moral hurt. There are yet other men in whom the mainspring of the opposition to that branch of American policy known as the Monroe Doctrine is sheer timidity. This is sometimes the ordinary timidity of wealth. Sometimes, however, it is peculiarly developed among educated men whose education has tended to make them over-cultivated and over-sensitive to foreign opinion. They are generally men who undervalue the great fighting qualities, without which no nation can ever rise to the first rank.

The timidity of wealth is proverbial, and it was well illustrated by the attitude taken by too many people of means at the time of the Venezuela trouble. Many of them, including bankers, merchants, and railway magnates, criticised the action of the President and the Senate, on the ground that it had caused business disturbance. Such a position is essentially ignoble. When a question of national honor or of national right or wrong, is at stake, no question of financial interest should be considered for a moment. Those wealthy men who wish the abandonment of the Monroe Doctrine because its assertion may damage their business, bring discredit to themselves, and, so far as they are able, discredit to the nation of which they are a part.