Carl Schurz

“ Holding fast to this principle we shall gain commercial opportunities of so great a value that they will more than compensate for the cost of the war; we shall have won high prestige by a remarkable display of National strength, valor and spirit, as well as magnanimity, and we shall have done our full duty to the cause for which we took up arms—and all this without breaking our plighted faith; without giving the world any reason to say that we have become hypocrites by turning a professed war of liberation and humanity into a war of conquest ”

“ It may be answered that we might prevent such evil results by not admitting any of the Spanish colonies as States, by governing them as subject provinces. That we can do this as far as the power of Congress to make all needful regulations concerning the territory of the United States is concerned, I do not question. But I affirm that we cannot permanently govern by arbitrary power millions of people as subject populations without doing ruthless violence to the spirit of our Constitution and to all the fundamental principles of democratic government. ”

“ If our Government insists upon Spain altogether with drawing her power from this hemisphere, or even from all of her colonies, there will hardly be much dissent among us. The serious differences of opinion begin with the question whether those colonies or any of them shall be annexed to the United States, or whether they shall be made independent, to govern themselves, or whether other arrangements shall be made to provide for their future. ”

“ If American diplomacy, having, after our successful war, the decisive voice in regard to those islands, is not skillful enough to bring about such results in the final settlement, it would certainly not be skillful enough to handle the more thorny problems which it would surely have to deal with in case all those islands should pass into our full possession. And as to coaling-stations and naval depots, can we not have as many as we need without owning large and populous countries behind them? Must Great Britain own Spain in order to hold Gibraltar? ”

“ These are precepts laid down in Washington's Farewell Address, a document which, I grieve to say, is in our days sometimes spoken of with supercilious flippancy as a bundle of old-fogyish notions—although while following its teachings the American people have won the greatness, power, prosperity and happiness they now enjoy. I am probably not wrong in believing that the statesmen of this generation are not much wiser than George Washington was; I fear even that some of the loudest of them are not as wise. ”

“ That would bring us another lot of about 13,000,000 of Spanish-Americans mixed with Indian blood, and perhaps some twenty Senators and fifty or sixty Representatives, with seventy to eighty votes in the Electoral College, and with them a flood of Spanish-American politics, notoriously the most disorderly, tricky and corrupt politics on the face of the earth. What thinking American who has the future of the Republic at heart will not stand appalled at such a prospect? ”

“ Those who think so overlook the momentous fact that if we annex those islands, we shall not only have them, but in a very important sense they will have us too. The policy I recommend of making with them the suggested agreements concerning the rights of American citizens in them, and then letting them carry on governments of their own, would offer us all that is to us really desirable in them, without their having us too. ”

“ And can we permit ourselves to forget the fact that in tropical regions there is always a strong tendency, under the plea of necessity, to use for the exploitation of the resources of those countries people of colored races, black or yellow, often under systems of contract labor which in various ways are akin to temporary slavery—at any rate entirely incompatible with our principles as to the freedom and dignity of labor and hostile to its interests? ”

“ Hence it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. Harmony, and a liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. ”

“ The problem of the future of the Philippines is no doubt much more complicated, and I should hesitate to form an opinion upon several phases of it without more definite information as to local conditions. But as to the main point that concerns the United States, I say that the same principle should be adhered to as in the case of Cuba and Porto Rico—that is, we should obtain, by means of agreement, the greatest possible facilities for commerce and civilizing influences with the least political responsibilities and entanglements ”

“ The United States offices there will be simply like colossal Indian agencies, with opportunities and temptations infinitely greater than any Indian agent in this country ever dreamed of. Can anybody doubt what the effect upon our public morals will be?
RACE DIFFICULTIES.
These are not all the troubles the possession of those islands would bring us. We have now race problems on our hands in this country, the solution of which is exceedingly problematical. We have still to atone for our long toleration of slavery. The ills we thus have we must bear as best we can. ”

“ In order to bring about important changes in that respect by immigration, it must be immigration in mass; and people of Germanic blood will not immigrate in mass to the tropics. The bulk of the population, that is, the decisive element in democratic government, consists everywhere of the laboring people; and all efforts to get men of Germanic blood to become the bulk, or even a large part, of the laboring force of any tropical country, have utterly failed. ”

“ If we once fairly begin to slide down on that inclined plane, what brakes will be strong enough to stop us before we have reached bottom? And reaching bottom means the moral ruin of the Anglo-Saxon republic. If we are to stop, we must stop before annexing Porto Rico. ”

“ They will be Spanish-American governments, somewhat tempered and mitigated, perhaps, by the influence which American enterprise may carry there. But those governments will, at any rate, be their own, and if they become disorderly and corrupt, they will at least not infect with that disorder and corruption this Republic of ours. There are people who think that the annexation to the United States of such countries as Porto Rico and Cuba, and whatever else, is as simple a transaction as the acquisition by a rich farmer of a few more acres to enlarge his farm. ”

“ This statement, which is amply borne out by statistics, shows that we have made wonderful progress in selling goods abroad, not only without possessing colonies and without owning the respective markets, but competing with nations which do possess colonies and do own the markets we invaded. It seems, therefore, that the possession of colonies on our part is not necessary to open markets for our goods, and that, on the other hand, the possession of colonies by other nations does not altogether protect their markets from the invasion of our goods. ”

“ There are multitudes of Americans who say now that if they had known what a sorry lot the Cubans are, we would never have gone to war in their behalf. However that may be, the same Americans should at least not permit those same Cubans to take part in governing us. ”

“ India, long under British rule, shows in a population of 300,000,000 hardly more than 200,000 Englishmen, many of whom are in the employ of the Government, and very few of permanent residence. The Hawaiian Islands, having of tropical climates probably the best, and having invited American immigration for many years, have, in a population of over 100,000, hardly more than 3000 Americans. It is true, some persons of Germanic blood will go to the tropics some merchants and their employees to found or run mercantile establishments ”

“ And shall we not be exposed to such chances infinitely more than ever before, when our interests, our pride, our ambitions and jealousies are engaged in complicated enterprises far away? And are not such chances especially fraught with danger in a democracy, in which public sentiment, when nervously excited, does sometimes run away with sober judgment and may precipitate great conflicts which calm and patient reason, acting only on full and trustworthy information, would avoid? ”

“ When we consider that this result has been reached with comparative ease, in spite of added impediments to United States exports, in the form of discriminations of various kinds, and notwithstanding that organized effort to reach foreign markets for our manufacturers is as yet in its infancy, the ability of the United States to compete successfully with the most advanced industrial nations in any part of the world, as well as with those nations in their home markets, can no longer be seriously questioned. ”

“ Being once fairly started in the career of aggrandizement regardless of consequences, our imperialists will find an open ear when they tell us that our control of the Nicaragua canal cannot possibly be safe unless that canal be bordered on both sides by United States territory, and that therefore we must have the whole country down to that canal and a good piece beyond. ”

“ And such votes are then to come from a population which in language, in traditions, habits and customs, in political, social and even moral notions are utterly unlike our people and can, under the tropical sun at least, never be assimilated. It will be a good deal of a force when party politicians begin to bargain and traffic with them to win their support.
Nor will those seven Porto Rico votes be the only ones we shall have to reckon with. Looking at the map you will find that the islands of San Domingo, with Hayti, and Cuba, are situated directly between Porto Rico and the United States. ”

“ Thus we shall deserve and possess the increased confidence of mankind, and enhance the credit of republican government by showing how an intelligent democracy can, unseduced by vulgar ambition, remain true to itself. ”

“ Govern yourselves first. If you are not fit to govern yourselves, you are certainly not fit to take part in governing us.” Will this be uncharitable? Charity begins at home. To perpetuate our institutions is our first duty. ”

“ It is, therefore, by no means idle talk when I say that when we are once plunged into the vortex of the competition of the Old-World powers for colonial expansion, especially in the Far East, the danger of war—not excluding unnecessary or foolish war—will be constantly near us. ”

“ In this way we shall do our full duty to them without disregard of the superior duty which we owe to our own Republic. We shall have delivered them from Spanish misrule and given them a chance to govern themselves. The governments they then receive will indeed not be ideal governments. ”

“ There may be men who have ceased to care much about those democratic institutions, and who confess themselves tired when we talk about the government of the people, by the people and for the people, preferring that a debate like this should be confined to matters commercial. ”

“ Perpetual unrest and the maintenance of big naval and military armaments imposing immense burdens upon the people—heavier here in proportion than anywhere else, owing to our habitual administrative wastefulness—not to forget a pension-roll without calculable limit—all this producing militarism of the most prodigal kind. ”

“ But would it not be sinful folly to add to them tenfold by the incorporation in our body-politic of millions of persons belonging partly to races far less good-natured, tractable and orderly than the negro is? ”

“ They will either have to become States of this Union, on an equal footing with the other States, or they will have to be governed as subject provinces. These are questions which concern not only our commercial interests, but which touch the working and perhaps even the very existence of our democratic institutions. ”

“ And all these forces are to work together in far-away countries, remote from home observation, among more or less ignorant people for whose rights and interests Anglo-Saxon respect is not always the most scrupulous ”

“ That will be a political force five times as great in the Senate and nearly as great in the Electoral College as that of the State of New York—a force, if sticking together, strong enough frequently to hold the balance of power and to dictate its terms to the traders of our political parties. ”

“ They may improve economic and social conditions somewhat in and around the places where they go, but they will not change the general character and the political capabilities of the population at large in any essential degree. ”

“ Its sales of manufactured goods have continued to extend with a facility and promptitude of results which have excited the serious concern of countries that, for generations, had not only controlled their home markets, but had practically monopolized certain lines of trade in other lands. ”