only, that while in 1893 our exports exceeded our imports a little less than $100,000,000-ninety-nine million dollars and odd-in 1894 they rose to $148,000,000, in 1895 dropped down to $23,000,000, in 1896 rose to $324,000,000, in 1897 to $357,000,000, and in 1898 we exported $621,000,000 more than we imported.

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS OF MERCHANDISE FOR THE YEARS 1893 TO 1898.

Why is all this? Take our consular reports, Senators, and examine them, especially those issued during the last few years, and you will find that American. enterprise and American ingenuity are compelling attention everywhere. You will find evidences to this effect in the heart of enterprising Germany, in the center of enlightened England, in the midst of cultivated France. You encounter such manifestations everywhere, and day by day, hour by hour, as our people are better understood and their skill and the merits of their goods more accurately estimated, and as we become more careful regarding our consuls and the retention of those who know something about their business, our trade expands.

We appropriate by these civilized methods the profits heretofore enjoyed by other countries. We are drawing these vast benefits to our pockets. We are becoming great. No little area is ours. Our domain is mighty. This is not a nation to be held in the hollow of even the imperialistic hand. With a population less than one-fourth per square mile of that of the islands of the Philippine group which I first

enumerated, with vast territory yet untouched, with boundless resources, susceptible of utilization and destined for our benefit and for that of our posterity— with all of these great advantages, this glorious prospect, this magnificent possibility, at our own doors, under our immediate civilization-should we not hesitate before forming new alliances?

When

Witness our territorial greatness. Think what we may do when our population is several times its present number. Look at the victories of peace which may be ours, the contests in the courts of honor which we may win, the contributions to civilization which we may furnish! Are not these more worthy prizes than the spoils of war? Our schools and our churches rise in every township, in every spot where mankind. throng. In the paths of mining, agriculture, and manufacture, in the domain of science and art mark our success and observe the boundless field. our future can thus be rationally anticipated, when we are actually about to possess the choicest blessings of the earth, our conquests won without blood and producing treasure-victories gained honestly, the rewards of intelligence, brought forth under the vivifying and electrifying stimulation of free government— when we have thus succeeded in promoting our Republic to its proud and, in a sense, truly imperial position, we are told that we must follow that delusive stranger, "our destiny," and must depart from our tried and incomparably successful policy-thus adopting that which is destructive to others in preference to that which makes us really great.

Talk about the obligation that we owe to the Philippines, to England, to France, to China, or to any nation or state or set of nations in the world. Do we not owe more to ourselves? Are not those who are near and dear to us-ought not our country to be

dearer to us than any momentary triumph or the flitting shouts of the battlefield? Are we to relinquish the substantial and change our century-sanctified plans in a night because our Navy has been victorious, our Army militant in a contest far from equal? Because we fought a war wherein we lost in actual battle (eliminating subsequent sickness and wounded fatalities) 280 men, must we raise great armies and aver "no power can defeat us?" I know that the sword must sometimes be drawn and that many issues are thus solved, and solved well. But the lessons of time admonish us that all combats to the death are irrational. Civilization occasiona springs from the gory field, but I do not wish my na to participate in any effort that will result in aught at the building up and strengthening of her claim to be the ideal republicliving to spread virtue and freed by the mild processes of truth and reason.

Who invites us to these new fields of conquest? The nations with whom we have been contending in this peaceful and soon to be determinative struggle; the nations whose manufacturing we are taking away; the nations whose resources are yielding to the policy of this emancipated Government. They seek to allure us, and they display before us the alleged choice blessings, as they call them, of "benevolent assimilation." India is selected as a typical case. In the dull and ambitionless abode of the Hindoo is found convincing proof of crushed manhood. England, the nation with whom we so lately disputed concerning the Monroe doctrine, is now our mentor and example.. Why this sudden change? Is it rational? I want none of this. I know it is not always popular to seek to restrain the impetuous march of those who see or think they see glory ahead, but I believe it is the duty.