Similar misrepresentation is the one weapon of our opponents in regard to our foreign policy, and the way the Navy has been made useful in carrying out this policy. Here again all that we ask is that they truthfully state what has been done, and then say whether or not they object to it; for if continued in power we shall continue our foreign policy and our handling of the Navy on exactly the same lines in the future as in the past. To what phase of our foreign policy, and to what use of the Navy, do our opponents object? Do they object to the way in which the Monroe Doctrine has been strengthened and upheld? Never before has this doctrine been acquiesced in abroad as it is now; and yet, while upholding the rights of the weaker American republics against foreign aggression, the Administration has lost no opportunity to point out to these republics that those who seek equity should come with clean hands, and that whoever claims liberty as a right must accept the responsibilities that go with the exercise of the right. Do our opponents object to what was done in reference to the petition of American citizens against the Kishineff massacre? or to the protest against the treatment of the Jews in Roumania? or to the efforts that have been made in behalf of the Armenians in Turkey? No other Administration in our history, no other Government in the world, has more consistently stood for the broadest spirit of brotherhood in our common humanity, or has held a more resolute attitude of protest against every wrong that outraged the civilization of the age at home or abroad. Do our opponents object to the fact that the international tribunal at The Hague was rescued from impotence, and turned into a potent instrument for peace among the nations? This Government has used that tribunal, and advocated its use by others, in pursuance of its policy to promote the cause of international peace and goodwill by all honorable methods. In carrying out this policy, it has settled dispute after dispute by arbitration or by friendly agreement. It has behaved toward all nations, strong or weak, with courtesy, dignity, and justice; and it is now on excellent terms with all.
Do our opponents object to the settlement of the Alaska boundary line? Do they object to the fact that after freeing Cuba we gave her reciprocal trade advantages with the United States, while at the same time keeping naval stations in the island and providing against its sinking into chaos, or being conquered by any foreign Power? Do they object to the fact that our flag now flies over Porto Rico? Do they object to the acquisition of Hawaii? Once they “hauled down” our flag there; we have hoisted it again; do they intend once more to haul it down? Do they object to the part we played in China? Do they not know that the voice of the United States would now count for nothing in the Far East if we had abandoned the Philippines and refused to do what was done in China? Do they object to the fact that this Government secured a peaceful settlement of the troubles in Venezuela two years ago? Do they object to the presence of the ship-of-war off Colon when the revolution broke out in Panama, and when only the presence of this ship saved the lives of American citizens, and prevented insult to the flag? Do they object to the fact that American warships appeared promptly at the port of Beirut when an effort had been made to assassinate an American official, and in the port of Tangier when an American citizen had been abducted? and that in each case the wrong complained of was righted and expiated? and that within the last few days the visit of an American squadron to Smyrna was followed by the long-delayed concession of their just rights to those Americans concerned in educational work in Turkey? Do they object to the trade treaty with China, so full of advantage for the American people in the future? Do they object to the fact that the ships carrying the national flag now have a higher standard than ever before in marksmanship and in seamanship, as individual units and as component parts of squadrons and fleets? If they object to any or all of these things, we join issue with them. Our foreign policy has been not only highly advantageous to the United States, but hardly less advantageous to the world as a whole. Peace and goodwill have followed in its footsteps. The Government has shown itself no less anxious to respect the rights of others than insistent that the rights of Americans be respected in return. As for the Navy, it has been and is now the most potent guarantee of peace; and it is such chiefly because it is formidable, and ready for use.
When our opponents speak of “encroachments” by the Executive upon the authority of Congress or the Judiciary, apparently the act they ordinarily have in view is Pension Order No. 78, issued under the authority of existing law. This order directed that hereafter any veteran of the Civil War who had reached the age of sixty-two should be presumptively entitled to the pension of six dollars a month, given under the dependent pension law to those whose capacity to earn their livelihood by manual labor has been decreased fifty per cent, and that by the time the age of seventy was reached the presumption should be that the physical disability was complete; the age being treated as an evidential fact in each case. This order was made in the performance of a duty imposed upon the President by an act of Congress, which requires the Executive to make regulations to govern the subordinates of the Pension Office in determining who are entitled to pensions. President Cleveland had already exercised this power by a regulation which declared that seventy-five should be set as the age at which total disability should be conclusively presumed. Similarly, President McKinley established sixty-five as the age at which half disability should be conclusively presumed. The regulation now in question, in the exercise of the same power, supplemented these regulations made under Presidents Cleveland and McKinley.
The men who fought for union and for liberty in the years from 1861 to 1865 not only saved this Nation from ruin, but rendered an inestimable service to all mankind. We of the United States owe the fact that to-day we have a country to what they did; and the Nation has decreed by law that no one of them, if disabled from earning his own living, shall lack the pension to which he is entitled, not only as a matter of gratitude, but as a matter of justice. It is the policy of the Republican party, steadily continued through many years, to treat the veterans of the Civil War in a spirit of broad liberality. The order in question carried out this policy, and is justified not merely on legal grounds, but also on grounds of public morality. It is a matter of common knowledge that when the average man who depends for his wages upon bodily labor has reached the age of sixty-two his earning ability is in all probability less by half than it was when he was in his prime; and that by the time he has reached the age of seventy he has probably lost all earning ability. If there is doubt upon this point let the doubter examine the employees doing manual labor in any great manufactory or any great railroad, and find out how large is the proportion of men between the ages of sixty-two and seventy, and whether these men are still employed at the highly paid tasks which they did in their prime. As a matter of fact, many railroads pension their employees when they have reached these ages, and in nations where old-age pensions prevail they always begin somewhere between the two limits thus set. It is easy to test our opponents’ sincerity in this matter. The order in question is revocable at the pleasure of the Executive. If our opponents come into power they can revoke this order and announce that they will treat the veterans of sixty-two to seventy as presumably in full bodily vigor and not entitled to pensions. Will they now authoritatively state that they intend to do this? If so, we accept the issue. If not, then we have the right to ask why they raise an issue which, when raised, they do not venture to meet.
In addition to those acts of the Administration which they venture to assail only after misrepresenting them, there are others which they dare not overtly or officially attack, and yet which they covertly bring forward as reasons for the overthrow of the party. In certain great centres and with certain great interests our opponents make every effort to show that the settlement of the Anthracite Coal Strike by the individual act of the President, and the successful suit against the Northern Securities Company—the Merger suit—undertaken by the Department of Justice, were acts because of which the present Administration should be thrown from power. Yet they dare not openly condemn either act. They dare not in any authoritative or formal manner say that in either case wrong was done or error committed in the method of action, or in the choice of instruments for putting that action into effect. But what they dare not manfully assert in open day, they seek to use furtively and through special agents. It is perhaps natural that an attack so conducted should be made sometimes on the ground that too much, sometimes on the ground that too little, has been done. Some of our opponents complain because under the anti-trust and interstate commerce laws suits were undertaken which have been successful; others, because suits were not undertaken which would have been unsuccessful.
The Democratic State Convention in New York dealt with the Anthracite Coal Strike by demanding in deliberate and formal fashion that the National Government should take possession of the coal fields; yet champions of that convention’s cause now condemn the fact that there was any action by the President at all—though they must know that it was only this action by the President which prevented the movement for national ownership of the coal fields from gaining what might well have been an irresistible impetus. Such mutually destructive criticisms furnish an adequate measure of the chance for coherent action or constructive legislation if our opponents should be given power.
So much for what our opponents openly or covertly advance in the way of an attack on the acts of the Administration. When we come to consider the policies for which they profess to stand we are met with the difficulty always arising when statements of policy are so made that they can be interpreted in different ways. On some of the vital questions that have confronted the American people in the last decade, our opponents take the position that silence is the best possible way to convey their views. They contend that their lukewarm attitude of partial acquiescence in what others have accomplished entitles them to be made the custodians of the financial honor and commercial interests which they have but recently sought to ruin. Being unable to agree among themselves as to whether the gold standard is a curse or a blessing, and as to whether we ought or ought not to have free and unlimited coinage of silver, they have apparently thought it expedient to avoid any committal on these subjects, and individually each to follow his particular bent. Their nearest approach to a majority judgment seems to be that it is now inexpedient to assert their convictions one way or the other, and that the establishment of the gold standard by the Republican party should not be disturbed unless there is an alteration in the relative quantity of production of silver and gold. Men who hold sincere convictions on vital questions can respect equally sincere men with whose views they radically differ; and men may confess a change of faith without compromising their honor or their self-respect. But it is difficult to respect an attitude of mind such as has been fairly described above; and where there is no respect there can be no trust. A policy with so slender a basis of principle would not stand the strain of a single year of business adversity.