and Connecticut are more populous and immensely more wealthy than any one of several of these Spanish-American countries.

The following is a table of the comparative areas of some of the alleged Spanish-American Republics :

From this it will be seen that eleven of them combined are not as large as the Territory of Alaska, and not more than sixty per cent larger than the State of Texas.

When it is reflected that most of these countries are in continual revolution, and that their wars with one another or with other powers are frequent, the absurdity of the multiplicity of alleged sovereignties is manifest. There is not and cannot be any unity of purpose or action among them touching the general welfare of them all. It is as if every cog wheel were revolving independently, with cranks, levers, pulleys, and belts all in a jumble, instead of being blended into one harmonious whole, constituting an effective machine. This does not imply that a central government should assume the functions of the respective local governments. Quite the contrary, the people should be educated as rapidly as possible to manage their local governments by the free use of the elective franchise, and their autonomy preserved.

But there are many vast responsibilities which would devolve upon a central government. In its hands should be the military power. The building of railroads, not only locally, but those vast systems which ought to span the continent, should be under its exclusive supervision. In short, the central government should exercise those general powers which the government of the United States has with reference to the several States and the territories under its control.

What shall be the final destiny of these countries no man can tell. What part the United States is to take in the mighty onward march of affairs is likewise shrouded in the future. But any reasonable man must see clearly that the present condition of anarchy cannot continue indefinitely in Spanish America. It is not they alone who suffer, but the whole world; and not they alone, but the whole world, would be benefited by the United States taking possession of them.

CHAPTER XII

THE ETERNAL MARCH OF PROGRESS MUST GO ON

For if happy circumstances bring it about that a powerful and enlightened people form themselves into a republic which by its very nature must be disposed in favor of Perpetual Peace this will furnish a centre of federative union for other States to attach themselves to, and thus to secure the conditions of liberty among all States, according to the idea of the Right of Nations. And such a union would extend wider and wider in the course of time, by the addition of further convictions of this kind. - IMMANUEL KANT, 1795.

T

I

HE social philosopher must look at all sides of every proposition. He must divest himself of all prejudices and predilections, and weigh the causes and effects which control the destinies of human organizations, with the same spirit and exactness that Adams and Le Verrier calculated the location of Neptune.

I have shown, by a thousand facts and arguments, that the barbarisms of Haiti, Santo Domingo, Central America, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia are outrages on the civilization and progress of the human race; that they are utterly devoid of internal elements of regeneration; that the only hope for betterment lies in the influence of exterior civilization; that the Monroe Doctrine has stood as a wall of fire for a century between savagery and the possibility of outside help; that this state of affairs is a disgrace to the world; that it is incumbent on civilization to wipe out this black spot on the face of the earth; and that the United States, in virtue of its geographical location, self-interests, and moral and physical power, is the one nation of all the world to undertake this task.

I have pointed out in a general way the marvellous expansion of the European powers in the nineteenth century, greater by far than the world movements of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, or even of the eighteenth century, wherein the English have spread over the entire northern part of India, have absorbed Burmah, established a protectorate over Egypt, developed the greatest commercial port of the world at Hong Kong; wherein the French have settled Tunis and Madagascar and Tonkin; wherein Russia has annexed nearly all of Central Asia, and even Japan has made a colony of Formosa and established a protectorate over Corea; wherein Germany has extended its power, not

only by the Prussianization of States adjacent to it, but also by pushing out its tentacles of commerce in every direction; wherein the continent of Africa has been partitioned among the great powers and is now on the road to civilized development; - and our studies have led us to see that this overflow from civilized powers into the barbarous countries must continue, because the enormous increase of population in civilized powers continues and the area of the earth's habitable surface is limited.

II

But one question still remains to be considered, — a question of supreme importance. It is the problem of good faith, the thought as to whether the people of the United States would go into Central and South America to govern honestly and develop them; to establish manufacturing, agriculture, industry, commerce, education, good government, as the English have done in India; or whether we would go there to exploit them and provide jobs for our own thieving politicians, as Spain did.

Better that Latin America should remain barbarous, that it should be governed by its own insufferable military bandits, than that a foreign tyranny be established under rulers as corrupt as their own!

Is the history of the United States such that a discussion of this question can be considered impertinent? By no means! The carpetbag governments established by the United States in the Southern States at the close of the Civil War stand as a monstrous reminder of the doctrine of total depravity. This fratricidal struggle, to my mind the greatest crime in all history, brought on by a handful of lunatics on both sides, and made possible by an almost universal fanaticism and the entire abdication of Reason, had left the heroic people of the South prostrate before overwhelming force. They had fought with unparalleled bravery for a construction of the Constitution of the United States which their ablest men honestly maintained. With incredible valor they had written their deeds on the page of history, a record of glory, suffering, and daring. And the end had come; the Lost Cause was forever lost. That great general and noble American, Robert E. Lee, had surrendered his army to that noble American and great general, Ulysses S. Grant. Grant had received it with the magnanimity of a great soul. In that act the

hatred and vindictiveness of the war should have rolled away, and brother should have again clasped brother in a happy reunion of a mighty family.

But no. In a fell hour the gentlest and purest heart of this nation was stricken by the hand of an insane assassin. This calamity, shocking to the North, was black and irreparable to the South. Lincoln had stood, with charity towards all, with malice towards none, ready

to work with the old Commander to re-establish happiness and prosperity in the beautiful and desolate South.

The people of the South were not to blame for Lincoln's assassination, but every thief and cut-throat, every murderous mountebank, every rascally politician throughout the country, saw in this tragedy his opportunity for loot. A hundred thousand bayonets were placed at the command of unfeeling men; many negroes, brutalized and rendered bold and desperate by the encouragement of their alleged protectors, gloated over their fallen masters and raped their wives and daughters. Outrages beyond conception or description, under the pretence of law and under the authority of the United States government, were perpetrated, not upon aliens and oppressors, tyrants and enemies, but upon our own brothers, their wives and daughters, upon a race of men who in splendid valor, pride, superb daring, patient long-suffering, and personal honor, has never been surpassed. It is not believed, however, that such a history can ever be repeated.

The strongest guaranty that the government of the United States will never again become the oppressor lies in the fact that a great section of our country realizes from bitter experience how intolerable is oppression; and it must be remembered that this outrageous tyranny, the carpet-bag governments, grew out of an attempt on the part of the United States to relieve another form of oppression no less intolerable, that of slavery.

There are security and stability in justice, and in justice alone. Let us therefore be just; let us be true to all men, and play our part in the drama of life without fear.

III

We must, therefore take possession of these countries and govern them; there is no help for it. We may not wish to do this; we are compelled. We must do it in order to escape greater perils to ourselves and to them. We cannot blind our eyes to the fact that there is not and cannot be any civilization in them; that there is no good faith in them; that good faith is the very corner-stone of civilization, and that no civilization is possible without it. They are a frivolous people, and the great mistake which the United States has made is that it has taken them seriously for so long a time.

There is no good faith in Central or South America, as Bolívar truly said, neither in their governments nor among their citizenship. Every enterprise is destined to be blackmailed to death in the worst of these countries, such as Venezuela and Colombia. The individual despoiler sees the government take the lead, and he loses no time in following the example set. What is to come of all this? The United States must take possession of the worst of those countries their sake, for our own sake, and for the sake of the world.

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We must grow morally and materially, individually and nationally, internally and externally. Cessation of growth means the beginning of decay and ultimate death. We are bounded on the north by a free people and the eternal snows; we can go no further there. On the east the three hundred millions of Europe stand like an adamantine wall. No less civilized than ourselves, they likewise are seeking outlets for their surplus millions. To the west the hordes of Asia forever bar the path of our progress. To the south the finger of destiny points. My tale is told. The naked, horrible, dreadful truth I have laid bare without mercy and without fear. And yet the reality is worse than the picture; the shadows are deeper and more fearful than their portrayal. The surgeon's knife alone can remove the ulcers of Latin America; they are too deep for remedies, too widespread for caustic.

What will he do- I refer to the Great American Voter in view of this diagnosis so laboriously performed for him? Are we Americans so ignoble that we will permit without dread rebuke the wrongs herein described? Have we no spirit, no sense of honor, no manliness? Shall we have received the priceless heritage of liberty, of good government, of high ideals, and with craven spirits wallow in the mire of political pestilence? Are we so weak that no insult or outrage can stir us? If we have not manhood enough to resent brutal extortion practised on our own countrymen, ought we not at least to blush when the Flag of Freedom is dishonored?

I have known men who were men. When they saw the acts of these tyrants, when they saw women and children driven into the woods like wild beasts; when they saw men loaded with chains, with sunken cheeks and hollow chests, and the death glaze in the eyes; when they saw waste places covered with grinning skulls and ghastly white bones and blackened ruins, then I have seen the blood rise, the teeth set hard, the face black as a thundercloud and livid with rage.

Oh that we had Americans who were Americans, offspring of those who fought at Bunker Hill, at New Orleans, at Monterey, at Gettysburg! The roar and thunder of this army, of this multitude, will yet arise from near where the heart of this nation beats. The wellgroomed, fed, contented East, with its bags of gold and bundles of bonds, will never institute a reform or a genuine advance, unless it is pushed with many a jolt and set-back from the ranks of the working masses. But if I had a message to the Great United States, I would stand upon the highest, most rugged peak of the Alleghanies, and shout the sentences into the splendid West, the glorious South. The splendid South, the glorious West! - there are the real brains and heart of the American nation.

The wonderful, tremendous West and South, in peace placid and gentle, but when oppression galls and outrage makes bitter, how