Every American patriot recollects with feelings of pride and admiration the great voyage of the U. S. battleship Oregon, the noblest floating citadel of the nineteenth century, during the spring of the year 1898, from the Golden Gate to Jupiter, Florida, a distance of over 14,000 miles. With only five first-class battleships to its credit, it was of paramount importance for the U. S. government to secure the services of the Oregon to join in the volcanic welcome that awaited the arrival of Admiral Cervera’s squadron in the Caribbean sea.
The memory of that eventful voyage will remain vivid in the recollections of more than one generation. After the noble vessel had rounded the turbulent waters of Magellan and her stout prow pointed north, anxiety for her safety increased at every knot she covered. The Spanish phantom, at that critical period of the war, looked like a towering mountain, an elevation, however, which was designed to be soon transformed, by subsequent events, into a mole-hill.
One bright afternoon, while steaming in latitude 30° south and in longitude 40° A Saucy Little Yankee Craft. west, shortly before touching at Rio Janerio, the great Oregon spoke an insignificant, one-masted little schooner, a mere shell, tossing upon South Atlantic billows, with a crew of two men. The fact that the diminutive sail boat proudly unfurled at her masthead the glorious flag of America, was the sole feature, in her case, that saved her from utter insignificance. The Oregon displayed signals, asking the captain of the little vessel if he had spoken any Spanish war-vessels adding, as a matter of information, that war had been declared between Spain and the United States of America.
It happened that this was the first intimation the captain of the schooner had received that a state of war existed between the two countries above named. In reply he promptly signalled to the Oregon that he had not seen any Spanish men-of-war, and, being somewhat of a Yankee humorist, added, that if war had been declared, the best thing that they could do would be “to keep together for mutual protection.”
“LET US KEEP TOGETHER FOR MUTUAL PROTECTION.”
This anecdote of the recontre of the Oregon and the tiny schooner illustrates aptly the conditions that ruled in 1999 and during several preceding decades. In that year was witnessed a grand union of all the peoples of the Western Hemisphere under the starry banner of America. The little Republics of Central and South America were heartily glad to seek the protection of the Great Leviathan of the North, and, gathered into one great Republic, The United States of the Americas, they stood together one and indivisible, “for mutual protection.”
In 1999 the world beheld the imposing spectacle of a United America, a nation in magnitude and power that eclipsed any previously known confederation of States, invincible in war and unrivalled in arts, sciences and industry. The Americas were all under the protection of the same stars and stripes, employing the same legal tender and coinage and in 1999 the English tongue had been adopted officially by every Central and South American State.
The first Republic that knocked at our gates for admission into the grand union of Mexico makes the First Break. the Americas, was Mexico. In the year 1520, the Spaniards, under Cortes, that valiant and most intrepid of Castillian warriors, had already crushed that most dreaded of all barbarian monarchs, Montezuma, and had reduced the Aztec Empire into vassalage and slavery. In 1898, by a series of the most brilliant victories, American prowess and arms, coupled with dare-devil bravery and resolute fighting, had in turn driven out the Spanish hordes from the Americas. With this turn in the tide of history, nothing could be more fitting than the incorporation of Mexico as a State in our Federal Union. Could they have witnessed our brilliant American victories against Spain in 1898, Montezuma and his Aztec warriors would have arisen from their graves and shouted for joy at the knowledge that at last their wrongs at the hands of Spain had been avenged by the sword of America and their Spanish oppressors of 1520 had at last been hurled back to the Castillian haunts from whence they had emerged under Columbus and Cortes.
Mexico added a new star to our flag in 1912, just one hundred years after England and America crossed swords. These swords have been sheathed in their scabbards, never again in the world’s history to be unsheathed against one another.