Finally take the case of Venezuela in 1895. I believe I am not mistaken when I say that, during the twenty-five preceding years, Venezuela had undergone almost as many revolutions. It certainly had not enjoyed a stable government. Through disputes over questions of boundary, Great Britain proposed to confer that indisputable blessing upon a considerable region. We interfered under a most questionable extension of the Monroe Doctrine, and asserted the principle of "Hands-off." Having done this,—having in so far perpetuated what we now call the scandal of anarchy,—we did not establish "tutelage," or a protectorate, ourselves. We wisely left Venezuela to work out its destiny in its own way, and in the fullness of time. That policy was far-seeing, beneficent, and strictly American in 1895. Why, then, make almost indecent haste to abandon it in 1898?
Instead, therefore, of finding our precedents in the experience of England, or that of any other European power, I would suggest that the true course for this country now to pursue is exactly the course we have heretofore pursued under similar conditions. Let us be true to our own traditions, and follow our own precedents. Having relieved the Spanish islands from the dominion of Spain, we should declare concerning them a policy of "Hands-off," both on our own part and on the part of other powers. We should say that the independence of those islands is morally guaranteed by us as a consequence of the treaty of Paris, and then leave them just as we have left Hayti, and just as we left Mexico and Venezuela, to adopt for themselves such form of government as the people thereof are ripe for. In the cases of Mexico and Venezuela, and in the case of Hayti, we have not found it necessary to interfere ever or at all. It is not yet apparent why we should find it necessary to interfere with islands so much more remote from us than Hayti, and than Mexico and Venezuela, as are the Philippines.
In this matter we can thus well afford to be consistent, as well as logical. Our fundamental principles, those of the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Monroe Doctrine, have not yet been shown to be unsound—why should we be in such a hurry to abandon them? Our precedents are close at hand, and satisfactory—why look away from them to follow those of Great Britain? Why need we, all of a sudden, be so very English and so altogether French, even borrowing their nomenclature of "imperialism?" Why can not we, too, in the language of Burke, be content to set our feet "in the tracks of our forefathers, where we can neither wander nor stumble?" The only difficulty in the way of our so doing seems to be that we are in such a desperate hurry; while natural influences and methods, though in the great end indisputably the wisest and best, always require time in which to work themselves out to their results. Wiser than the Almighty in our own conceit, we think to get there at once; the "there" in this case being everlasting "tutelage," as in India, instead of ultimate self-government, as in Mexico.
The policy heretofore pursued by us in such cases,—the policy of "Hands-off," and "Walk alone," is distinctly American; it is not European, not even British. It recognizes the principles of our Declaration of Independence. It recognizes the truth that all just government exists by the consent of the governed. It recognizes the existence of the Monroe Doctrine. In a word, it recognizes every principle and precedent, whether natural or historical, which has from the beginning lain at the foundation of our American polity. It does not attempt the hypocritical contradiction in terms, of pretending to elevate a people into a self-sustaining condition through the leading-string process of "tutelage." It appeals to our historical experience, applying to present conditions the lessons of Hayti, Mexico, and Venezuela. In dealing with those cases, we did not find a great standing army or an enormous navy necessary; and, if not then, why now? Why such a difference between the Philippines and Hayti? Is Cuba larger or nearer to us than Mexico? When, therefore, in future they ask us what course and policy we Anti-Imperialists propose, our answer should be that we propose to pursue towards the islands of Antilles and the Philippines the same common-sense course and truly American policy which were by us heretofore pursued with such signal success in the cases of Hayti, Mexico, and Venezuela, all inhabited by people equally unfit for self-government, and geographically much closer to ourselves. We propose to guarantee them against outside meddling, and, above all, from "tutelage," and make them, by walking, learn to walk alone.
This, I submit, is not only an answer to the question so frequently put to us, but a positive policy following established precedents, and, what is more, purely American, as distinguished from a European or British, policy and precedents.
I remain, etc.,
Charles Francis Adams.
Hon. Carl Schurz,
16 E. 64th Street, New York City.