Ralph W. Page

“ From Berlin to Bagdad, from Cairo to Cape Town, from Samarkand to Bombay, the whole planet has witnessed the assimilation, benevolent and otherwise, of every inferior, that is to say weaker people, under the sun, excepting only the monumental Chinese.
Searching back among the intricate and devious national jealousies and heroic figures of a century of diplomacy in the Orient for the cause of this phenomenon, we come upon a strange spectacle; two Americans, one in command of the Chinese Army, and the other, ambassador from China to the entire world. ”

“ But I am consoled by the reflection that, while nothing but severest retribution is due to them, the surrender, under existing circumstances, is but simply doing right—simply proving faithful to our own ideas and traditions under strong temptation to violate them—simply giving to England and the world the most signal proof that the American nation will not, under any circumstances, for the sake of inflicting just punishment on rebels, commit even a technical wrong against neutrals. ”

“ This left Paris and France at the mercy of a mob-rule whose frightfulness has become a byword for all time. No man's life was worth a song. Where kings are killed and beautiful young queens murdered, what chance for an alien and hostile ambassador?
It was at this juncture that Morris established the precedent and tradition of staying by his diplomatic post in time of danger, which has since been the infallible custom of the service—and particularly in Paris. ”

“ The war in which the present proposition might engage us, should that be its consequence, is not her war, but ours. Its object is to introduce and establish the American system of keeping out of our land all foreign powers—of never permitting those of Europe to intermeddle with the affairs of our nations. It is to maintain our own principles, not to depart from it. * * * With Great Britain withdrawn from their scale and shifted into that of our two continents, all Europe combined would not undertake such a war, for how would they propose to get at either enemy without superior fleet? ”

“ One was that the pretention of the United States that affairs in America were her sole concern was an impertinence and a dead letter, not to be recognized by an omnipotent sovereign holding dominion under high heaven; another was that a "debating society," that ridiculous form of govermnent, a democracy, which by its very existence was an insult to Majesty, should be taught the respect due a legitimate queen-regent. And the third was the familiar axiom that no affair of importance should be undertaken anywhere in the world without consulting the German Army and the German Kaiser. ”

“ The public apathy in regard to our foreign policy and the cheerful indifference shown by the majority of our people towards the Diplomatic Service has had a baleful influence upon our country. Even since the disclosures of Germany's designs in the world war have turned attention violently towards the realm of world politics, and thrust the slumbering questions of our international rights and duties into the glare of newspaper headlines, the discussion thus aroused in our press and in our legislatures has revealed a comprehensive ignorance of the first principles of our foreign relations. ”

“ The fact that public opinion in the United States was in a fever heat cannot be given as a legitimate casus belli by a statesman, and the fulminations of senators and representatives have never in our history been a safe guide to foreign policy. If these last had been any criterion we should have invaded and annexed Cuba long ago without any other reason than that it was manifestly placed there by the Lord to be owned by us. ”

“ Under the savage attacks of the rising terror, ministers and cabinets fell in a day, and craven flight or the knife severed the hosts of false friends or staunch adherents from the side of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, darling of the romancers. And so it came that the last of the great feudal kings was sorely in need of an honest man, a keen counsellor, and a fearless friend. ”

“ To his Majesty, the Emperor of America, its adjacent dependent provinces and coasts, and wherever his government may extend, our noble friend, the support of the Kings of the Nation of Jesus, the pillar of all Christian sovereigns, the most glorious among the princes, elected amongst many lords and nobles, the happy, the great, the amiable James Madison, Emperor of America (may his reign be happy and glorious, and his life long and prosperous) , wishing him long possession of the seal of his blessed throne, and long life and health. ”

“ Very much as certain of his kind are now working to damage the United States in war from that same body.
The demand of Lord Lyon and the ancient American doctrine on the one hand, and the people flushed with triumph, a new hero and the human booty on the other—this was the problem of seven days for Seward.
The records of the time, including the public press, the thunder of Congress, the innumerable speeches before assemblies, and the diaries and biographies of the many historic figures on the stage reveal only one man quite calm and placid through it all. ”

“ Unless they would instantly support a revolution, such a proceeding would be suicidal. If the United States proposed to take the zone anyway, the Revolution would be superfluous. Being astute as well as honourable he was aware that under no circumstances could he acquire his information directly, or get the slightest assurance or encouragement from the government. He had a higher opinion of Theodore Roosevelt and John Hay than many of their countrymen—who say that they instigated the revolt—have since evinced.
On this impossible errand he went to Washington. ”

“ It is sufficient evidence of the impotency of old dogmas that the legend of "no entangling alliances" should have been disregarded to the saving of our very existence in the first treaty ever made—and now 140 years later again regarded for the safety of our first friend. For although it is not down on paper, no honest American can doubt that the old compact holds reciprocally to-day, and that we are bound to "maintain effectually the liberty, sovereignty, and independence" of France, and conclude no separate truce or peace with the Teuton. ”

“ The respectful esteem that I bear toward that brave people who so well defend their liberty under your conduct has induced me to form a plan concurring in this great work, by establishing an extensive commercial house, solely for the purpose of serving you in Europe, there to supply you with necessaries of every sort, to furnish you expeditiously and certainly with all articles—clothes, linens, powder, ammunition, muskets, cannon, or even gold for the payment of your troops, and in general everything that can be useful for the honourable war in which you are engaged. ”

“ The Revolutionists had their minions in the cabinet, their brigands in the street, and their spies at every keyhole. At the risk of his life, Morris, at this juncture, undertook the impossible task of coaching the hereditary despot to play the republican—the mind moulded in the form of arbitrary will to adopt the wiles of the politician and the forms of democratic cajolery and practice so familiar to the authors of the American Revolution. ”

“ Bigelow used both methods. If there exists one characteristic distinctly and pre-eminently French it is the honour of country, what might be called a national chivalry. The glory and the good name of their native land is an exalted mania with all Frenchmen. Let them know the facts, and not even the Emperor would dare further to countenance actions that would reflect upon the good name of France. This was Bigelow's opinion. ”

“ Public opinion in the country would no longer stand such a pitiful attitude. And when the patriarch of these enslaved mariners from Boston wrote, "Your Excellency will perceive, that the United States has at present no alternative, than to fit out with the greatest expedition thirty frigates and corsairs in order to stop those sea robbers in capturing American vessels," the navy of the United States was born. ”

“ It would seem that if Spain would offer Cuba a genuine autonomy—a measure of home-rule which, while preserving the sovereignty of Spain, would satisfy all national requirements of her Spanish subjects—there should be no just reason why the pacification of the island might not be effected on that basis. ”

“ And there were no boats afloat in America that could keep these dragons of the deep in harbour once they were ready to sail. There remained but one power to restrain them. The sense of justice. Not the Emperor's, for he had none. Not that of his ministers, for he controlled them. But the sense of justice of the people of France.
When a consul starts to go behind the government to which he is accredited and appeals in the name of a foreign power to the citizens of a country, he takes his reputation in his hands, and starts upon the forbidden paths that usually lead to disgrace and recall. ”

“ Nurtured by the aggressive spirit of our public men from the Civil War to the Spanish War and by politicians anxious about the Irish and the German vote—as well as by a false sense that patriotism demanded an hereditary and always-vanquished enemy—an uninformed public has held the belief that the victory of Yorktown ended the horrid British rule in America and set this country free fully equipped to sail a new and better sea. ”

“ If the opposite school is to prevail, if you are to use coercion against that great people, then who are to exercise the coercion, whose forces are you to use, whose views are you to establish? You see the very attempt to carry out any such tyrannical policy would involve not only China, but would involve you in bloody wars with each other. ”

“ Great Britain is the one nation which can do us the most harm of any one, on all the earth; and with her on our side we need not fear the whole world. With her, then, we should most sedulously cherish a cordial friendship and nothing would tend more to knit our affections than to be fighting once more, side by side, in the same cause. ”

“ There could be no revolution without a warship. Also, there could be no warship without a revolution. Very well, the United States had been sufficiently informed that there was going to be a riot on November 3rd. ”

“ A superior nation has the right, if not the duty, of compelling an inferior nation to adopt such ideas of government, justice, and customs as it may decree, and to open its territories to the use, and its resources to the benefit of the superior nation. Particularly the latter. The creed is that "manifest destiny" makes such physical and political domination inevitable in the interests of civilization, and "progress." ”

“ Not an unreasonable expectation either, that fatal summer of 1792, when bloody revolution ran riot through the streets of Paris, and the guillotine worked overtime to prove the equality of men. Some Americans still harbour the belief that the berth of the American diplomat is a sinecure. The opinion is prevalent among the smart dilettanti at home, that he lacks polish and power to deal with the corps of trained statesmen at the seats of the mighty. ”

“ In our security of to-day it is impossible to conceive of the import of the situation, and the responsibility thus thrown in a few words upon the shoulders of the consul. It seemed possible that the fate of a nation was in his hands. It would have been scarcely more urgent if he had discovered a practical and imminent plot to blow up half of Grant's army in the moment of attack.
A revolution had just taken place in the art of building ships of war. The discovery of the ironclad ram had rendered the navy of the United States as obsolete as the triremes of Greece. ”

“ He told them that he could promise, offer, and answer for nothing, and that he was merely acting as a well-disposed individual; but that he believed France wished them well and that he would give them the advantage of his large acquaintance in Paris, to insure any requests they might have to present at court.
Thereupon, our forefathers decided to send an agent into the nest of intrigue at Versailles to get what they could from the French. Our forefathers were the most straightforward men to be found in any capital in the world—at this or any other time. ”

“ The second warning the United States received of German ambitions was more direct and more dangerous. It recalled the archaic but more frank declaration of the regal combination of 1823, when the King of Prussia had joined with the Emperors of Europe for the avowed purpose of suppressing all republics in general, and those in South America in particular. That "convention" we never held up against the Kaiser, because it was an insanity prevalent at the time in all Europe, and the natural hang-over from the era of absolute monarchs from which that continent was just emerging. ”

“ In spite of the doctrine of blood and iron and the playful maxims of an all-conquering destiny so artfully and universally spread through the German Empire by its princes, evidence is not lacking to-day that the people of that empire may be distinguished from its rulers in their aims and purposes and ideas of the war now raging. ”

“ Although there remains no sane American who does not devoutly thank heaven for the success of the Union and the end of the withering system of slavery, there are many to whom it is not at all self evident that a sympathy and agreement with the cause of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in 1862 is conclusive proof of total depravity. ”