The imperialists answer that it is no disgrace to have been patriotic to our Fatherland; the national honour requires us, indeed, to remain for the present in the Philippines, and not to take down the flag which we have hoisted so triumphantly. We should not flee before a few disaffected races living in those islands. Then the other side replies, you have not protected the honour of your nation, but you have worked its disgrace. The honour of America has been the moral status of its army; it was America’s boast that its army had never lost the respect of an enemy, and that it had held strictly aloof from every unnecessary cruelty. But America has learned a different lesson in the Philippines, and such a one as all thoughtful persons have foreseen; for when a nation accustomed to a temperate climate goes to the tropics to war with wild races which have grown up in cruelty and the love of revenge, it necessarily forgets its moral standards, and gives free rein to the lowest and worst that is in it. The American forces have learned there, to their disgrace, to conquer by deception and trickery; to be cruel and revengeful, and so return torture for torture.
Then the imperialists say that this is not a question of the army which was landed in the tropical islands, but of the whole American people, which undertook new duties and responsibilities for the islands, and wished to try, not only its military, but also its political, economic, and social powers along new lines. A people also must grow and have its higher aspirations. The youthful period of the American nation is over; manhood has arrived, when new and dangerous responsibilities have to be assumed. To this the anti-imperialists reply, that a nation is surely not growing morally when it gives up the principles which have always been its sole moral strength. If it gives up believing in the freedom of every nation and carries on a war of subjugation, it has renounced all moral development, and instead of growing it begins internally to decay. But this, the imperialists say, is absurd—since, outwardly, at least, we are steadily growing; our reputation before other nations is increasing with our military development; we have become a powerful factor in the powers of the world, and our Philippine policy shows that our navy can conquer even in remote parts of the earth, and that in the future America will be a power to reckon with everywhere. But, on the contrary, say the others, our nation held a strong position so long as, in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine, it was able to keep any European power from getting a foothold on the American continents, and so long as we made the right of self-government a fundamental principle of our international politics. But the instant we adopted a policy of conquest and assumed the right to subjugate inferior peoples because our armies were the stronger, the Monroe Doctrine became at once and for the first time an empty phrase, if not a piece of arrogance. We are no better than the next nation; we have no right to prevent others from acting like ourselves, and we have sacrificed our strong position, and shall be led from war to war, and the fortunes of war are always uncertain.
The imperialists reply somewhat more temperately:—Ah, but the new islands will contribute very much to our trade. Their possession means the beginning of a commercial policy which will put the whole Pacific Ocean at the disposal of the American merchant. Who can foresee what tremendous developments may come from availing ourselves of regions lying so advantageously? When Congress in 1803 started to buy the great Province of Louisiana from France, there were also narrow-minded protests. At that time, too, anti-imperialists and fanatics became excited, and said that it was money thrown away; the land would never be populated. While to-day, a hundred years later, the world prepares to celebrate the anniversary of the purchase of Louisiana by a magnificent exposition at St. Louis—a transaction which has meant for the country a tremendous gain in wealth and culture. America is destined to be the mistress of the Pacific Ocean, and as soon as the canal is built across the isthmus the economic importance of the Philippines will appear more clearly every day. The anti-imperialists deny this. The financial statement of the entire war with Spain to the present moment shows that $600,000,000 have been wasted and ten thousand young men sacrificed without any advantage being so much as in sight. Whereto the imperialists reply:—There are other advantages. War is a training. The best thing which the nation can win is not riches, but strength; and in the very prosperity of America the weakening effect of luxury is greatly to be feared. The nerves of the nation are steeled in the school of war, and its muscles hardened. But the other side says that our civilization requires thousands of heroic deeds of the most diverse kinds, more than it needs those of the field of battle; and that the American doctrine of peace is much better adapted to strengthen the moral courage of the nation and to stimulate it than the modern training of war, which, in the end, is only a question of expenditure and science. What we chiefly need is serious and moral republican virtue. The incitements toward acquisition and the spirit of war, on the other hand, destroy the spirit of our democracy, and breed un-American, autocratic ambitions. War strengthens the blind faith of the leaders in their own dictatorial superiority, and so annihilates the feeling of independence and responsibility in the individual; and this is just the way for the nation to lose its moral and political integrity. The true patriotism which our youth ought to learn is not found in noisy jingoism, but in the silent fidelity to the Declaration of Independence of our fathers.
Thus the opinions are waged against one another, and so they will continue to be. We must emphasize merely again and again that that majority which to-day is on the side of the imperialists believes at the same time enthusiastically in the international movement for peace, and quite disinterestedly favours, as far as possible, the idea of the peace tribunal. Most of all, the treatment of Cuba certifies to the honourable and peaceful tendencies of the dominant party. That which was done under Wood’s administration for the hygiene of a country which had always been stricken with yellow fever, for the school and judicial systems of that unfortunate people, is remarkable; and the readiness with which the new republic was afterward recognized, and with which, finally, by special treaties extensive tariff reductions were made to a people really dependent on trade with America, makes one of the most honourable pages in American history. And all this happened through the initiative of these same men whose Philippine policy has been styled in the Senate Napoleonic. Thus the fact remains that there is an almost inexplicable mixture in the American nature of justice and covetiveness, conscience and indifference, love of peace and love of war.
The latest phase in expansion has been toward the south. America has assumed control of Panama. Constitutionally, the case is somewhat different here. Panama belonged to the Republic of Colombia, and when the government of Colombia, which conducts itself for the most part like the king and his advisers in a comic opera, tried to extort more money than was thought just from Washington before it would sign the treaty giving the United States a right to build a canal through Panama, and at first pretended to decline the treaty altogether, a revolution broke out in the part of the country which was chiefly affected. Panama declared itself an independent state, and the United States recognized its claim to independence, and concluded the canal treaty, not with Colombia, but with the upstart government of Panama. This was really part and parcel of the general imperialistic movement. We need not ask whether the American government encouraged Panama to secede; it certainly did nothing of the sort officially, although it is perfectly certain that the handful of people in Panama would not have had the slightest chance of escaping unpunished by Colombia if it had not been for American protection; indeed, it seemed to feel sure beforehand that the United States would keep Colombia at bay. And in fact, the baby republic was recognized with all the speed of telegraph and cable, and the treaty was signed before Panama had become quite aware of its own independence; while at the same time Colombia’s endeavour to bring the rebellious district into line was suppressed with all the authority of her mighty neighbour.
It is not to be denied that this transaction called into play new principles of international politics; nor can it be excused on the ground that new governments have been quickly recognized before. Never before had the United States declared a rebellion successful so long as the old government still stood, and the new one was able to hold out only by virtue of the interference of the United States itself. It is to be admitted that this was an imperialistic innovation, as was the subjugation of the Filipinos. But we should not be so narrow as to condemn a principle because it is new. All past history makes the expansion of American influence necessary; the same forces which make a state great continue to work through its later history. America must keep on in its extension, and if the methods by which the present nations grow are necessarily different from those by which the little Union was able to stretch out into uninhabited regions a hundred years ago, then, of course, the expansion of the twentieth century must take on other forms than it had in the nineteenth. But expansion itself cannot stop, nor can it be altered by mere citations from the Declaration of Independence, or pointings to the petty traditions of provincial days. The fight which the anti-imperialists are waging is thoroughly justified in so far as it is a fight against certain outgrowths of such expansion which have appeared in the Philippines, and most of all when it is against the loss to the Republic, through expansion, of its moral principles and of its finer and deeper feelings through the intoxication of power. But the fight is hopeless if it is waged against expansion itself. The course of the United States is marked out.
It requires no special gift of prophecy to point out that the next expansion will be toward the north. Just as the relations in Panama were fairly obvious a half year before the catastrophe came, the suspicion cannot be now put by that at a time not far hence the Stars and Stripes will wave in the northwestern part of Canada, and that there too the United States will be unwilling to lower its flag.
A newspaper is published in Boston which announces every day, at the top of the page, in bold type, that it is the first duty of the United States to annex Canada. On the other hand, one hears the opinion that nothing could be worse for the United States than to receive this immense, thinly populated territory even as a gift. There are the same differences of opinion on the other side of the boundary; some say that the Canadians are glad to be free from the problems which face the United States, from its municipal politics, its boss rule in political parties, and from the negro and Philippine questions, and that Canadian fidelity to the English Crown is not to be doubted for a moment. While others admit quite openly that to be annexed to the United States is the only natural thing that can happen to Canada. The immediate future will probably see some sort of compromise. It is wholly unlikely that the eastern part of Canada, in view of all its traditions, will prove untrue to its mother country; whereas the western part of Canada is under somewhat different economic conditions; it has so different a history, and is to-day so much more closely related to the United States than to England that the political separation will hardly continue very long. The thousands who have gone from the United States across the Canadian frontier in order to settle the unpeopled Northwest will, in the not distant future, give rise to some occasion in which economic and political logic will decree a transfer of the allegiance of Western Canada, with the exception of a narrow strip of land along the Pacific Coast. The area of the United States would then include a new region of about 250 million acres of wheat lands, of which to-day hardly two millions are in cultivation.
The Canadian problem, of course, arose neither to-day nor yesterday. The first permanent colony in Canada was a French colony, begun in the year 1604. Frenchmen founded Quebec in the year 1608, and French settlements developed along the St. Lawrence River. In the year 1759 General Wolfe conquered Quebec for the English, and in the following year the whole of Canada fell into their power. English and Scotch immigrants settled more and more numerously in Upper Canada. The country was divided in 1791 in two provinces, which were later called Ontario and Quebec; and in 1867, by an act of the British Parliament, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were made into one country. A short time thereafter the government of the new country bought the possessions of the Hudson Bay Company, and soon afterward the large western region called Manitoba was organized as a distinct province. In 1871 British Columbia was taken in, and in the eighties this extensive western land was divided into four provinces. During this time there were all sorts of interruptions, wars with the Indians, and disputes over boundaries; but there has never been open warfare between Canada and the United States. The many controversies that have arisen have been settled by treaty, and a court of arbitration met even recently in London to settle a dispute about boundaries which for many years had occasioned much feeling. It was a question whether the boundary of the Northwest should lie so as to leave to Canada a way to the coast without crossing United States territory. The boundaries were defined by the treaties as lying a certain distance from the coast; was this coast meant to be mainland, or was it coastline marked out by the off-lying groups of islands? This was a question of great economic importance for a part of Canada. The court decided in favour of the United States, but the decision does not belong on one of the most honourable pages of American history. It had been agreed that both England and the United States should appoint distinguished jurists to the court of arbitration; and this the English did, while the United States sent prejudiced politicians. This has created some embitterment in Canada, and the mood is not to-day entirely friendly, although this will doubtless give way in view of the great economic development which works toward union with the United States.