At the end of each coming century, and for many centuries, no one can foresay how many, millions on millions in the Americas and in Europe will unite in rendering tribute of praise to the enthusiast and adventurer whose limited ambitions for himself were never realized, but who opened to mankind the opportunity to found states freed from the domination of the church and churches freed from the domination of the state.
We do not deceive ourselves, when we claim for the United States the first place among the states on this continent. We are the first of American states in population, in wealth, in our system of public instruction, in our means of professional and technical education, in the application of science to the practical purposes of life, and finally, in experience and success in the business of government.
It should not be forgotten by any of us, nor should the fact be overlooked or neglected by the young that these results have been gained by the labors and sacrifices of our ancestors, and we should realize that the task of preserving what has been won, is the task that is imposed upon the generations as they succeed each other in the great drama of national life. Vain and useless are all conjectures as to the future. The coming century must bring great changes—equal, possibly, to those that have occurred since 1792. At that time our territory did not extend beyond the Mississippi River, our population was hardly four million, our national revenues were less than four million dollars annually, manufacturing industries had not gained a footing, for agricultural products there was no market, the trade in slaves from Africa was guaranteed in the Constitution, the thirteen States had not outgrown the disintegrating influence of the Confederation, the Post-Office Department was not organized, and the National Government was not respected for its power, justice or beneficence, of which the mass of people knew nothing.
In this century our territory has been enlarged fourfold, our population is eighteen times as great as it was in 1792, our revenues have been multiplied by a hundred, and the convertible wealth of the people has been increased in a greater ratio even. The railway, the telegraphic, the telephonic systems have been created. The dream of Shakespeare has been realized—we have put a girdle round about the Earth in forty minutes.
More than all else, and as the culmination of all else, we have demonstrated the practicability of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. All this has been made possible by and through a system of universal public education—a system which taxes the whole people, and educates the whole people in good learning, and in the cardinal virtues which adorn, dignify and elevate the individual man and furnish the only security for progressive, successful, illustrious national life.
This is the inheritance to which the generations before us are born. A great inheritance—a great inheritance of opportunity, a great inheritance of power, a great inheritance of responsibility, from which the coming generations are not to shrink.
XLV IMPERIALISM AS A PUBLIC POLICY
This paper is introduced upon two grounds mainly. It sets forth with a reasonable degree of fulness the views that I have entertained for three years in regard to President McKinley's policy in the acquisition and control of the islands in the Caribbean Sea and in the Pacific Ocean, and it presents a history of my relations to political movements through a long half century.
SPEECH DELIVERED AT SALEM, MASS., OCTOBER 18, 1900, IN REPLY TO A SPEECH MADE BY THE HONORABLE WILLIAM H. MOODY, M. C.
A truthful statement that I have been inconsistent in the opinions that I have held and advocated upon questions of public concern, would not disturb me by day, nor consign me to sleepless nights.