lation multiplies, when millions of our citizens lack roof and raiment, to say that there is an overproduction of the necessaries of life is both an economic absurdity and an arraignment of our American civilization at the bar of humanity and justice.

The attempt is made to fire the imagination of the people with much talk of the opportunity now presented to us of becoming a "world power." Why, my friends, what is it to be a "world power?" Is it not to be a power in the world; and if so, where is there a greater "world power" than the United States, or than she has been for more than a hundred years? During all that time America has carried the torch that has lighted the pathway of liberty for the nations of the earth. Our reaction upon Europe has crumbled. dynasties to dust and above the graves of privilege has reared republics and parliaments. Within that century nearly 500 constitutions have been born, none of which would have been possible but for ours. The South American Republics, not coddled into perpetual infancy, but defended in natural, self-taught, and therefore sure progress, have risen up and called us blessed. Wherever representative government has been planted, wherever new guaranties of personal security and political rights have been won, wherever religious liberty has widened and the freedom of the press increased, there has been witnessed the force of American example, which, though gentle as the "sweet influence of the Pleiades," speaks louder than the thunder of our guns and moves with more resistless might than armies.

And what can empire offer us for this? A rivalship with swaggering kingdoms seeking loot and license of their weaker neighbors, snatching our share of plunder that we do not need, marching back three centuries

over the fallen and shattered idols of our storied progress, earning the fear of every victim and the jealous hatred of every rival, where we might have retained the love of the one and at least the respect of the other.

One of the last of the sage observations of the great Bismarck was elicited by the prospect of the Spanish war. Said he:

The result of the war can not be wholesome to Europe or America. The United States will be forced to adopt an intermeddling policy leading to unavoidable friction. * • The American change of front means retrogression, in the high sense of civilization. This is the main regrettable fact about the war.

If, my friends, we do not resist and conquer the forces that are now setting toward an American empire in the eastern tropics, with its inevitable resultant imperialistic modification of our domestic institutions, the prophecy of Bismarck will surely become the judgment of history. It will be ours eternally to bear the odium of having stopped the car of progress and turned it backward. From so melancholy a reproach as that, it is, in my judgment, the duty of every true American to strive to the uttermost to save his country. To such high resolves, what time could give so deep and strong a sanction as the birthday of Washington? He was an American in every fiber of his being, devoted absolutely to his country, hopeful of her future, and profoundly attached to the Union under the Constitution. He believed in the legitimate. growth of the United States, gave much time to the study of routes and waterways to the westward, along which he knew the tide of civilization was sure to set, and his prophetic vision foresaw the gradual assimilation of the continent by the spreading settlements from the earlier centers of population. Has the movement yet reached its limit? Is congested humanity

crowding us into the sea? Why, my friends, opportunities greater than all the orient, richer than "barbaric pearl and gold," await our enterprise, when it shall be disenthralled, within the present limits of the Republic. And when that shall have been subdued, the rest of this vast continent is ours by a law as certain in its result as it will be peaceable in its accomplishment. Were Washington alive to-day he would be to that extent an "expansionist;" but we may be sure that he who left to posterity the priceless political testament of the "Farewell Address" would as certainly and steadily have opposed imperialism in the form of a distant colonial dependency as he turned his back upon the offer of kingly power and "put away the crown."

As to the unavoidable accompaniment of an imperial policy in the way of alliances with other powers, his views have been left us in singular completeness and deliberation. The reasons on which they were based are as valid now as when he penned them. His utterance seems strangely prophetic of our present situation, and, though familiar from frequent citation, can not be recalled too often:

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican govern

ment.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial reiations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, 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.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly

hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interests, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit. our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?

peace and

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.

Ages and ages ago from the plains of Asia our Aryan forefathers turned their faces westward and entered upon that world-march whose record is the story of human progress. Their institutions grew as their journey lengthened, until at last we, their descendants, standing by the great sea from beyond whose farther shore their earth-round course began, are dowered with priceless constitutional liberties von by the struggles and sacrifices, the strenuous strife of muscle and brain and spirit, of six thousand years.

My friends, as we cross that ocean returning toward our ancestral home, what shall be our message to the peoples that were left behind? Shall it be peace or war, the cruelty and bondage of the empire or the friendship and freedom of the republic?

[Extract of address delivered on Washington's Birthday, 1899, at University of Michigan.]

CHAPTER XXVII.

ANNEXATION DANGEROUS TO LABOR.

BY HON. HORACE CHILTON,

UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM TEXAS.

The pending treaty of peace between the United States and Spain, which has been made public by order of the Senate, contains three main articles. By Article I Spain relinquishes all claim of title to Cuba. By Article II Spain cedes to the United States the Island of Porto Rico and other islands under Spanish sovereignty in the West Indies and the Island of Guam in the Ladrones. By Article III Spain makes like absolute cession of the archipelago known as the Philippine Islands and the United States agree to pay Spain $20,000,000.

There are other dependent articles, the most important of which is, probably, Article VII, by which the two Governments relinquish all claim for indemnity on the part of either Government or its citizens against the other Government arising out of the troubles in Cuba, and in which the United States agree to settle such claims on the part of our citizens against Spain. This may develop into an obligation of many millions against our Government. The amount has not been ascertained nor even estimated with any approximate accuracy.

The first two articles of the treaty present no difficulties. We are satisfied with a relinquishment of Cuba to its own people. Few Senators object to taking a cession of Porto Rico, which lies in the Western