Will you remember that we do but what our fathers did— we but pitch the tents of liberty farther westward, farther southward-we only continue the march of the flag. The march of the flag! In 1789 the flag of the republic waved over 4,000,000 souls in thirteen states, and their savage territory, which stretched to the Mississippi, to Canada, to the Floridas. The timid minds of that day said that no new territory was needed, and, for the hour, they were right. But Jefferson, through whose intellect the centuries marched; Jefferson, whose blood was Saxon, but whose schooling was French, and therefore whose deeds negatived his words; Jefferson, who dreamed of Cuba as a state of the Union; Jefferson, the first imperialist of the republic-Jefferson acquired that imperial territory which swept from the Mississippi to the mountains, from Texas to the British possessions, and the march of the flag began! The infidels to the gospel of liberty raved, but the flag swept on! The title to that noble land out of which Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana have been carved was uncertain; Jefferson, strict constructionist of constitutional power though he was, obeyed the Anglo-Saxon impulse within him, whose watchword then and whose watchword throughout the world to-day is, "Forward," another empire was added to the republic, and the march of the flag went on! Those who deny the power of free institutions to expand urged every argument, and more, that we hear to-day; but the people's judgment approved the command of their blood, and the march of the flag went on! A screen of land from New Orleans to Florida shut us from the gulf, and over this and the Everglade peninsula waved the saffron flag of Spain. Andrew Jackson seized both, the American people stood at his back, and, under Monroe, the Floridas came under the dominion of the republic, and the march of the flag went on! The Cassandras prophesied every prophecy of despair we hear to-day, but the march of the flag went on! Then Texas responded to the bugle-calls of liberty, and the march of the flag went on! And, at last, we waged war with Mexico, and the flag swept over the southwest, over peerless California, past the Gate of Gold, to Oregon on the north, and from ocean to ocean its folds of glory blazed. And now, obeying the same voice that Jefferson heard and obeyed, that Jackson heard and obeyed, that Monroe heard and obeyed, that Seward heard and obeyed, that Ulysses S. Grant heard and obeyed, that Benjamin Harrison heard and obeyed, William McKinley plants the flag over the islands of the seas, outposts of commerce, citadels of national security, and the march of the flag goes on! Bryan, Bailey, Bland, and Blackburn command it to stand still, but the march of the flag goes on! And the question you will answer at the polls is, whether you stand with this quartet of disbelief in the American people, or whether you are marching onward with the flag. Distance and oceans are no arguments. The fact that all the territory our fathers bought and seized is contiguous, is no argument. In 1819 Florida was farther from New York than Porto Rico is from Chicago to-day; Texas, farther from Washington in 1845 than Hawaii is from Boston in 1898; California, more inaccessible in 1847 than the Philippines are now. Gibraltar is farther from London than Havana is from Washington; Melbourne is farther from Liverpool than Manila is from San Francisco. The ocean does not separate us from lands of our duty and desire the oceans join us, a river never to be dredged, a canal never to be repaired. Steam joins us; electricity joins us-the very elements are in league with our destiny. Cuba not contiguous! Porto Rico not contiguous! Hawaii and the Philippines not contiguous! Our navy will make them contiguous. Dewey and Sampson and Schley have made them contiguous, and American speed, American guns, American heart and brain and nerve will keep them contiguous forever. But the opposition is right-there is a difference. We did not need the western Mississippi valley when we acquired it, nor Florida, nor Texas, nor California, nor the royal provinces of the far Northwest. We had no emigrants to people this imperial wilderness, no money to develop it, even no highways to cover it. No trade awaited us in its savage fastnesses. Our productions were not greater than our trade. There was not one reason for the land-lust of our statesmen from Jefferson to Grant, other than the prophet and the Saxon within them. But to-day we are raising more than we can consume. To-day we are making more than we can use. To-day our industrial society is congested; there are more workers than there is work; there is more capital than there is investment. We do not need more money-we need more circulation, more employment. Therefore we must find new markets for our produce, new occupation for our capital, new work for our labor. And so, while we did not need the territory taken during the past century at the time it was required, we do need what we have taken in 1898, and we need it now. Think of the thousands of Americans who will pour into Hawaii and Porto Rico when the republic's laws cover those islands with justice and safety! Think of the tens of thousands of Americans who will invade mine and field and forest in the Philippines when a liberal government, protected and controlled by this republic, if not the government of the republic itself, shall establish order and equity there! Think of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who will build a soap-and-water, common-school civilization of energy and industry in Cuba, when a government of law replaces the double reign of anarchy and tyranny. Think of the prosperous millions that empress of islands will support when, obedient to the law of political gravitation, her people ask for the highest honor liberty can bestow, the sacred Order of the Stars and Stripes, the citizenship of the Great Republic! What does all this mean for every one of us? It means opportunity for all the glorious young manhood of the republic-the most virile, ambitious, impatient, militant manhood the world has ever seen. It means that the resources and the commerce of these immensely rich dominions will be increased as much as American energy is greater than Spanish sloth; for Americans henceforth will monopolize those resources and that commerce. In Cuba alone there are 15,000,000 acres of forest unacquainted with the ax. There are exhaustless mines of iron. There are priceless deposits of manganese, millions |