Frederic Bancroft and William A. Dunning

“ On the 11th of April McKinley's message was sent to Congress recommending intervention for the single purpose of ending the disorders and suffering in Cuba. Though war with Spain was clearly contemplated, the President's tone was wholly pacific and humane, and offered no suggestion of imperialistic ambition. Schurz thanked him for his “excellent message,” and added: “I have no doubt that the people will sustain you in your efforts for peace.” ”

“ Schurz drafted the call and made the chief address at the conference on August 18th. His speech was an earnest and eloquent development of the suggestions made to the President in the letter of June 1st. Expansion was opposed on grounds of morals and honor, of institutional policy and of commercial interest. The question of morals was put by the orator, suo more, in the foreground: “It may be somewhat old-fashioned, but I still believe that a nation, no less than an individual man, is in honor bound to keep its word ... that honesty is and will remain the best policy. ”

“ What thinking American who has the future of the Republic at heart will not stand appalled at such a prospect?”
On the question of our commercial interest, he argued with much statistical data that we should get far better results in direct and open competition with other nations than in monopolizing the trade of the islands taken from Spain. Porto Rico, like Cuba, should be made an independent republic, and the Philippines, under a guarantee of economic freedom, should be turned over to some such state as Holland or Belgium for political administration. ”

“ A craving for war and territorial expansion, as the conclusive demonstrations of self-conscious national power, was shown by many signs to have firm possession of the popular mind. In the spring of 1898 the Cuban situation furnished sufficient occasion, and war with Spain ensued.
The events that led to intervention in Cuba were followed by Mr. Schurz with positive mental distress. From personal experience he could clearly foresee the sufferings that war would entail; he despised the agitators, journalistic and political, who were most conspicuous in inflaming the popular mind against Spain ”

“ I ask them whether as patriotic men they really think it will become or profit this great American republic to stand before mankind as a nation whose most solemn professions cannot be trusted.”
His argument on the effect of expansion upon our political institutions was the same that he had employed in the Santo Domingo debate and on many an occasion since. He dwelt on the practical certainty that the islands, if annexed, would be proposed for admission as States of the Union. The acquisition of Porto Rico would lead, he prophesied, to that of Santo Domingo, Hayti and probably Cuba. ”

“ In a short speech supporting these resolutions he pictured the frightful scenes he had witnessed among the wounded at Gettysburg, and declared that while he was not for peace at any price, he was equally opposed to the idea of war at any price. He used all of his never great influence with the President to stiffen Mr. McKinley's sincere but ineffective preference for peace. On April 1st he wrote to the President: “The conservative and unselfishly patriotic sentiment of the country stands behind your peace policy with confidence, gratitude and admiration. ”

“ The breach with the semi-independent and semi-reforming Roosevelt and the association with the protectionist and intensely partisan Hoar alike illustrate the strength of Schurz's conviction that all other political issues had become subordinate to that of expansion. As the presidential campaign of 1900 approached he feared that his unpopular views on imperialism might irreparably damage the cause of civil-service reform. ”

“ 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 Nicaraguan 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. ”

“ Bryan to become a triumphant champion of insular independence. The Kansas City convention gave a serious shock to his hopes. Here the Democracy, nominating Bryan, did indeed take a strong position against imperialism and did in terms pronounce this the paramount issue; but it coupled with these satisfactory declarations a formal reiteration of the extreme free-coinage doctrine of 1896; and Mr. Bryan, during the campaign, devoted to the silver question an amount and kind of attention that repelled all voters who thought the currency issue still vital. ”

“ It makes it impossible to support you ... I cannot tell you, remembering our long and sincere friendship, how painful it is for me to be obliged to say this.”
The announcement of his opposition to Roosevelt brought Schurz scores of regrets and reproaches from old associates in reform movements in the State. They regarded Roosevelt as the peculiar champion of anti-machine politics and administration in State affairs; Schurz regarded him as primarily a candidate for the Presidency of the United States on a platform favoring conquest and annexation. ”

“ Thus, also, our trade would receive its utmost expansion with the minimum risk, and our republican institutions would escape the peril that lies in political connection with alien and inferior peoples.
Schurz urged McKinley to make strong and repeated representations to the American people and to the world in the sense of this policy and thus lead the public conscience to insist upon its adoption. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Schurz with increasing anxiety and alarm. Secretary Blaine's “vigorous” policy in respect to the Latin-American states and the Behring Sea seal fisheries contributed much to the sum total of his dislike for the Harrison administration. The peremptory suppression by Cleveland of the project for the annexation of Hawaii elicited his warm approval, though the President's cautious and guarded statement as to his attitude was hardly on the level demanded by Schurz's uncompromising hostility on principle to tropical expansion. ”