The story of the War with Spain has been well told. But it fails to impress its moral if you miss the master hand of President McKinley in fixing forever the unity of the Union. He appointed to the command of American soldiers those who had commanded with ability, either North or South, in the Civil War. And they proved his sagacity, for—without exception—they quit them like men. They were strong. The flag of Washington at Valley Forge, of Gates at Yorktown, of Jackson at New Orleans, of Perry on Lake Erie, of Lawrence, and Fremont, and Grant was the one banner about which they rallied. They won the war. And they brought no honor to either North or South—but brought it all HOME.
This cannot well be overestimated. The time had come when the Republic must advance from the formative stage to the stature of a power of the world. It could not do so divided. Through the skillful use of possibilities placed in his hands by the war, President McKinley at a stroke, and within a week from that night in February when Havana harbor heaved with the heaving of a treacherous stroke, made his people one.
Then they were ready!
Swiftly came the knocking of Hawaii for admission to the national fold. It needed no war. No cannon, no circling sword or plunging bayonet was in demand. The thousands of lives sought citizenship in the Republic, and the material millions offered themselves for the nation’s enrichment. And in a day the United States of America held half the ocean as its own.
No need of recapitulating. The Ladrones, Porto Rico, and the Philippines, an empire wider than Ferdinand knew, a region richer in wealth and more pregnant with possibility than Carthage conquered, was added to the Republic in a year. The nation which had insisted on a home market, had taken command of the markets of the world. The nation which had only insisted that no foreign power interfere on this side the Atlantic, stretched the arm of might and the word of command into the camps of kings—and secured obedience.
Nothing that occurred in the United States could in any way have produced the events which took place in China. The Boxer rebellion was a local event, due solely to conditions existing there. American interests—of merchant and missionary, of ambassador and traveller, of scientist and scholar—were all affected by those massacres which amazed the world. Imagine, if you will, what would have been the result had the Republic been in 1900 what it was in 1890. Then we had no army in the Philippines. The nations of Europe, hurrying in response to that cry for help from the hundreds in the legation, had small thought of America. Well, American merchants had been massacred, American property destroyed, American missions burned and American consuls assailed. But to the European of 1890 there would not have been a suggestion of America appearing on the scene with force of arms.
But the America of 1900 providentially had a force at hand. The fact had already been established that the Republic was a world power, and must be considered as such. And when General Chaffee marched from Tien Tsin to Pekin, he was not regarded as an intruder. He was not looked upon with cold superciliousness. The king’s men knew there was no place on the face of the earth where the Republic might not appear. They knew it had the right to appear at any point where its interests were menaced, or where honor called. And they knew it had the power to go, to do, and to return with laurels.
Perhaps the Republic’s influence over the king’s men at Pekin was the greatest evidence of President McKinley’s masterly administration. That influence checked the looting. It preserved native rights. It assisted in a just retribution, and then stayed the mailed fist of unchristian vengeance. It prevented the partition of China, and insured the integrity of that ancient empire. And it loomed before the world as a nation strong enough to take care of itself at home or abroad, and wise enough to be just. It was an exhibition that did more for the good fame of the Republic than any other act imaginable.
And not a detail of it could have happened had not the army been in Luzon. Not a detail could have happened in 1890!
It is not easy for a little man to change his mind. The small man must be “consistent,” because he can see nothing but small things; because he can not appreciate the changes which inevitably come in the world. But the world does change; and he who tries to make the clothes of yesterday fit the occasion of to-day makes utter failure. Not many men who followed Major McKinley, the protectionist, could easily grasp the purpose of President McKinley, the supporter of the gold standard. Not all who indorsed him in his financial policy could appreciate the swift changes which succeeded each other in the world policies from 1898 to 1901. Yet each was necessary in its place, and if the President had failed to grasp the situation, if he had failed to take at its flood that tide in the affairs of nations, the Republic that mourns him to-day would be but a hermit Union, refusing to employ its majestic powers and of no more consideration in the assembly of nations than is the navy of Switzerland in a marine exhibition.