To this argument Mr. Bryan replied:

Our opponents, conscious of the weakness of their cause, seek to confuse imperialism with expansion, and have even dared to claim Jefferson as a supporter of their policy. Jefferson spoke so freely and used language with such precision that no one can be ignorant of his views. On one occasion he declared: "If there be one principle more deeply rooted than any other in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest." And again he said: "Conquest is not in our principles; it is inconsistent with our government."

The forcible annexation of territory to be governed by arbitrary power differs as much from the acquisition of territory to be built up into States as a monarchy differs from a democracy. The Democratic party does not oppose expansion when expansion enlarges the area of the republic and incorporates land which can be settled by American citizens, or adds to our population people who are willing to become citizens and are capable of discharging their duties as such.

The acquisition of the Louisiana territory, Florida, Texas, and other tracts which have been secured from time to time enlarged the republic and the Constitution followed the flag into the new territory. It is now proposed to seize upon distant territory more densely populated than our own country and to force upon the people a government for which there is no warrant in our Constitution or our laws.

All these brilliant presentations of the pros and cons of imperialism were made during the earlier

stage of the Presidential campaign. Later, as the contest raged with greater fury, Mr. Bryan was seen to be laying stress upon other questions. His firm position on these other issues during the convention had already alienated the support of many influential men who would otherwise have supported his anti-imperialist attitude, no matter how much they might personally have preferred Mr. McKinley. The injection into the campaign of questions other than imperialism doubtless decided many such men to throw their support to Mr. McKinley. The issues of the campaign were, therefore, confused. There are Americans who deny that "imperialism" was in effect the "paramount" issue. Many writers say that if Mr. Bryan had clung to the sole issue of imperialism, the American people, who at heart have always been anti-imperialist, would have supported him. The result of the election was, therefore, in no definite sense, the expression of a desire of the American people permanently to retain the Philippines.

But whatever difference of opinion there might be among Americans as to what the American people really meant to express when they placed the Republicans again in power, outside of America there was a unanimity of opinion that the result of the election meant the adoption by the United States of an imperialistic policy. "Let the para

mount issue for Americans be what it might," said Goldwin Smith," "for the world at large it was and is that between the commonwealth and empire. Shall the American republic be what it has hitherto been, follow its own destiny, and do what it can to fulfil the special hopes which humanity has founded on it; or shall it slide into an imitation of European imperialism, and be drawn, with the military powers of Europe, into a career of conquest and domination over subject races, with the political liabilities which such a career entails? This was and is the main issue for humanity. Seldom has a nation been brought so distinctly as the American nation now is to the parting of the ways. Never has a nation's choice been more important to mankind."

• Goldwin Smith, Commonwealth or Empire, p. 1.

CHAPTER VII

THE STRUGGLE OVER A LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

HE opponents of Philippine retention were

TH

not dismayed at the result of the 1900 election. They took courage and continued their agitation, not only because they maintained, with reason, that the result of the election was not a categorical expression of the American people on the Philippine question, but also because they knew that all their work was not in vain.

The American people were now coming to the period of second sober thought. They were beginning to realize the tremendous responsibility they had assumed. America of 1898, drunk with Dewey's victory, dreaming of the imperial days when the vast oceans should be sprinkled with American colonies, was no longer the America of 1901 with millions of her money spent in the war of subjugation, and with 80,000 of her soldiers in the wilds of the Philippines engaged in daily skirmishes with insurrectos.1

1 Mr. Bryce, in his American Commonwealth, p. 579, speaks of this stage of American imperialism as the "sudden imperialistic impulse of 1898-1900."

The powerful appeals of men of such unblemished political character as George F. Hoar, Carl Schurz, and many others, who were unwillingly forced to oppose the Philippine policy of their beloved party because they were convinced that their sense of justice and morality would not permit them to do otherwise, could not fail to impress many of their countrymen.

The following retrospect of the Philippine situation by Senator Hoar is worthy of a serious perusal, being one of the most illuminating presentations of the Philippine cause:

When Aguinaldo said he did not want the war to go on, and that it went on against his wish, he was told by our general that he would not parley with him without total submission. My friend from Wisconsin declared in the Senate that we would have no talk with men with arms in their hands, whether we were right or wrong. The responsibility of everything that has happened since, which he must have foreseen if he knew something of history and human nature, rests upon him. and the men who acted with him.

We cannot get rid of this one fact, we cannot escape it, and we cannot flinch from it. You chose war instead of peace. You chose force instead of conciliation, with full notice that everything that has happened since would happen as a consequence of your decision. Had you made a declaration to Aguinaldo that you would respect their title to independence, and that all you desired was order and to fulfil the treaty and to protect