Carl Schurz

“ It would certainly not teach its readers to shirk their moral obligations in private life by such quibbles and subterfuges as those by which the statement quoted seeks to justify the taking and keeping by the United States of Cuba and the other Spanish colonies after the resolution adopted by Congress. It has evidently fallen a victim to the craze, and will, I trust, soon join in the prayer that if these are to be the effects of the new “consciousness” and “mission” and “destiny” upon the moral sense of the American people, the Lord in his mercy may speedily deliver us from the evil. ”

“ Does any one believe that if we annex the Spanish colonies Bosses Croker and Platt will lose their power, and New York City will send Joseph Choate and Seth Low to Congress instead of Sulzer and Quigg? We have heard much of the Sugar Trust exercising great influence in Congress. The first effect of the annexation of the Spanish colonies would be likely to add to the Sugar Trust a Manila combine and a Cuba and Porto Rico ring working to get favorable legislation from Congress for their own enrichment. I certainly do not despair of the purification of our politics. ”

“ By denying access to the ultimatum, Spain not only freed us from it, as to her, but also launched war on us, in a way to make the injury of our whole country her program, and our disablement of her at every point both our opportunity and our right. ”

“ The word went forth that the nation had suddenly “come to consciousness”; that the United States must accept the “new mission”; that it is no longer the mere “United States of America,” but “Imperial America” ”

“ It is remarkable how the moral sense as well as the reasoning faculties of persons who are otherwise quite upright and judicious, may sometimes become obscured or confused by the influence of those violent currents of opinion which, in popular parlance, we call “crazes.” ”

“ If it is my moral duty to rescue the girl, it does not follow that, after I have knocked down the old tyrant and rescued the girl, it will also, if she cannot take care of herself, be my moral duty to marry her, or to adopt her as a daughter and take her into my own household as a permanent member of my family ”

“ We were told that the larger responsibility for so great a city as that would be, would arouse the citizens from their apathy to a firm determination that only the best and wisest men should be in the high places thereof. ”

“ A similar phenomenon we have had occasion to observe since the day of Dewey's brilliant victory in Manila harbor, which seemed to put in our power a group of several hundred islands with a population of over 8,000,000 souls, about 9,000 miles away from our western coast, thus giving us an important position in those distant seas, in which the colonizing Powers of Europe are busily maneuvering for predominance. ”

“ It will be likely to make itself very much felt, if not in the Congressional elections of this year, then certainly in the Presidential election two years hence, when the bills will have begun to come in and the people will have gained. ”