Part 2

As for the policy of our Government, it has been that of a world power from the start. Almost our first important act as a government was to cast in our lot with France, for the express purpose of disturbing the balance of power in Europe. And that purpose was realized. In December, 1776, Congress sent out a fleet of privateers which became a scourge to our enemies on the high seas. As early as 1777, we had commissioners, who soon became ministers, at Paris, taking active and important part in a conference of the powers. Five years later, Franklin, John Adams and Jay sat in the congress at Paris, "almost as arbiters," a contemporary record says, so powerful was their voice in the conference.

Washington's much-talked-of proclamation of neutrality, says Professor Bushnell Hart, was never intended to keep the United States from contact or entanglement with European powers, but only so wisely to shape our course (at that time) that we should be free to fight or keep the peace as our interest should dictate.

It was the United States which first ventured to send a fleet to the Mediterranean to suppress the Barbary pirates--an act from which all the civilized world benefited. Indeed, it is within the limits of truth to say that the period of our liveliest intercourse with foreign powers was the identical period of "the fathers" who are so often and so falsely quoted as urging the policy of isolation that would sooner or later reduce us to the condition of the Chinese Empire.

Our interests in the far East began as early as 1785, when the ship _Empress of New York_ came home from her first Chinese voyage to enrich her owners with the traffic in furs and ginseng. It is a fact too soon forgotten that our title to Oregon was founded upon the early establishment on that remote coast of a trading-post for our Chinese trade.

As long ago as 1851, the native rulers of Hawaii begged--nay, even insisted--that our government annex those islands, whose people had already been familiar with our flag for years. Annexation did not take place until nearly half a century later, but the episode suffices to prove that even at that early day we were a world power in all that the term implies.

Three years later--in 1854--Oliver Hazard Perry, Commodore of the United States navy, battered down the gates of Nagasaki, and by the method which England so successfully employed toward China, established "treaty relations" between the Yankees of the East and of the West.

This brings us, after a view necessarily imperfect and cursory, very nearly to the War of the Rebellion. That struggle, and the absorbing internal questions which led up to it, kept us very busy at home, though both the North and the South, appreciating the importance of foreign sympathy and moral support, kept their emissaries constantly at the various courts of Europe. The international episodes of the war may be said in one sense to afford the most interesting chapters in its history. Certainly they should suffice to convince us that, even in the heat of that internal struggle, our affairs formed a part of the business of the outside world; so complete is the interdependence of nations. Nor need it be recalled that the war was scarcely at an end before Mr. Seward had occasion to warn Napoleon III. out of Mexico, and thus topple over a scheme of aggression involving at least two of the great powers of Europe.

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It has been necessary to pass over with greater haste than I could have wished these arguments of the anti-expansionists, because there are other phases of the question which, to my mind at least, are of vastly greater importance; for I do not deny that there are obstacles in the path of territorial expansion.

Assuming the present war of subjugation to be brought to a successful issue; that the Filipinos acknowledge both the hopelessness of their cause and the justice of ours, as in the end they must, our difficulties are not yet finished. We have still to consider the remoteness of the archipelago, the savagery of many of the native tribes, the tropical climate, and the dregs of four centuries of Spanish misrule.

The average temperature in the Philippines, according to the imperfect statistics collated by the Spanish at Manila, is much too high for the comfort of any man accustomed to the climate of our so-called temperate zone. Professor Dean Worcester, of our Philippine Commission, who spent three and a half years in the islands as a naturalist, says that in all that time he never experienced a day in which a white man could work hard for many hours together in comfort, or even in safety. The coolest months are December and January, but the lowest temperature known at this period of mid-winter is 71 degrees. During the remainder of the year the mercury often mounts above 90 degrees, and not infrequently to 100 degrees. The effects of the heat, moreover, are aggravated by the humidity of the atmosphere, so that it saps the vitality and enfeebles the stoutest constitution.

These conditions are arduous, but by no means intolerable. White men _do_ live in the islands and steadily work without impairing their health. The absence of sudden changes enables one to dress for the climate without fear of catching cold. Herein the climate is preferable to that of some of our larger cities, such as New York or St. Louis, where intense heat with humidity alternate with sudden chills.

Malarial fever is one of the curses of the Philippines; but this disease is found in all countries imperfectly tilled and drained, and there, as elsewhere, it disappears in the face of cleanliness and intelligent sanitation. Some cities and districts which at one time were almost wholly uninhabitable have been freed entirely of malaria by thorough drainage. The Spanish, with characteristic indolence, have as a rule endured the ravages of the disease rather than incur the cost and labor of preventive measures. Weyler--the dreadful, blood-drinking Weyler--who was for a time Captain-General of the Philippines, at one time lost the greater part of his army from a fever which might have been averted with proper care. Cholera is not epidemic in the Philippines; neither is smallpox, though both diseases have at different times swept through cities and districts in the train of filth and carelessness.

As for the natives, Professor Worcester gives them, on the whole, a fairly good character. The aboriginal tribes, Negritoes, or "little niggers," are, like our own Indians, nearly extinct. The pagan Malays are bold, warlike, treacherous, but they are not numerous, being confined largely to the northern islands, and even the Spaniards were able, by keeping firearms out of their reach, to prevent them from becoming seriously dangerous. The Mohammedan Malays are more formidable. To the fierceness and treachery of their pagan congeners, their faith has added a savage fanaticism which takes the form of special hatred for the Christian. They are fatalists, and hence fearless in battle, and their priests teach them that for every Christian slain they will be rewarded with a new peri in paradise.

There are forty thousand Chinese in the islands, including some coolies, but the greater part are engaged in retail trade, which in some districts they entirely monopolize. Scarcely any village is without its Chinese shop.

The most numerous and important portion of the population is the half-caste element--Malay-Chinese and Malay-Caucasian, generally Spanish. The creole Spaniards affect to despise these "half-cousins," especially the friars, though it is said that the friars are responsible for the existence of most of them. As a matter of fact, however, the half-castes constitute the great "middle classes" of the population, and are far and away the most tractable, intelligent, and in every way promising for the purposes of a civilized government. Not a few of them are intelligent and fairly educated. Aguinaldo himself is said to be a Malay-Chinese. The Spaniards, never violently addicted to labor, allowed these people to do the greater part of such work as shop-tending, bookkeeping, etc., so that, in the opinion of Professor Worcester, they would be available for the minor positions of government, under the direction of American chiefs.

Much will depend on how these half-castes are treated. Senor Nicholas Estevanez, at one time Spanish Minister of War, gives friendly warning to the Americans, not to copy the mistakes of his own countrymen in taking for granted the inferiority of the native Filipinos. This was one stumbling-block to the peacefulness of Spanish rule in the islands, though not, of course, the only one. In a very interesting article in the _North American Review_, Senor Estevanez tells of the trials and injustices endured by these really patient and peaceful people at the hands of "impure priests and merchants without a conscience." Disraeli said, "Race is the key to history." But race distinctions can be overworked, and if our people enter upon the government of the islands too strongly prepossessed with the idea of their own superiority, they will simply be making unnecessary trouble for themselves.

In one respect at least we shall start with a great advantage over the Spanish. It is not easy to picture American rulers oppressing a subject race on the score of religion. The Spanish, on the other hand, made baptism the test of loyalty from the very start. "They wanted," says Senor Estevanez, "no subjects who would not begin by having water poured on their heads." The natives, on the other hand, were willing to submit in all else, but insisted on retaining their religion. "So, for the sake of a few drops of water, we had three centuries of war."

Such a people is not devoid of sterling qualities. Troy itself stood out for only ten years against the Greeks; Mindanao resisted the Spaniards for three hundred years. If we profit by the example of our predecessors we may accomplish in a few months what they failed to do in all that long period.

The game is well worth the candle. All authentic accounts of the islands agree that they are rich beyond computation in natural resources--forest, mine, and soil. The Spaniards have, even in their slothful, unskilled and clumsy fashion, taken out untold wealth; but they only scratched the field; most of what remains is practically virgin soil. True, there is lack of all civilized methods; railroads must be built and labor is hard to find. But such difficulties have never yet daunted a virile race, and they will not for long deter the Americans.

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The difficulties of which I have spoken thus far are material; there are others much deeper in their origin and more apt to give pause to this giant enterprise. I refer now to what might be called the subjective obstacles to success; the qualities inherent in ourselves and in our own government which rise up now to impede the pathway to success.

"Providence protects little children and the United States," is a saying in the diplomatic world, referring to the good luck, as some call it, or the special gift for rising to sudden emergencies, as we ourselves prefer to say, which in many difficult crises has kept us safe from harm or helped us to success. But now, as Speaker Reed said the other day, "we have burst our swaddling-clothes." We have, let us hope, put away childish things and put on the garment of national manhood. As one of the great powers we must no longer rely upon child-luck. The great task before us calls for the strength, soberness and consistency of the adult.

It will not, for example, be consistent with the character of a world power to apply to the government of new colonies the same methods, or lack of method, that has prevailed in the government of our cities and some of our states. We cannot hope for success if we carry the spoils system into the difficult administration of foreign lands and people. Colonial work calls for special fitness in the civil service, for long and careful training. Shall we turn it over to the politicians, who have thus far, with some honorable exceptions, monopolized our diplomatic service. As a rule, our consuls and ministers, and even our ambassadors, have been patriots with "claims upon the administration"--not based upon special education and fitness, but for political service rendered. As a result, many--perhaps even a majority--of our representatives abroad have distinguished themselves and their country by such antics as were explained or forgiven only because the men _were_ Americans, and therefore protected by that "special providence" of which I have spoken. Is it imagined that we can administer colonies after this method? If so, a great and painful surprise is in store for us.

For the present administration it must be said that the President's choice of men for work in the new colonies inspires the hope of better things. In the Philippine Commission, for example, every man has justified his selection by special ability or experience, or both. If this course be followed to the end the nation is relieved at the start of a grave anxiety. Let us hope that it is so.

But with even the best intentions we have difficulties to face that are not due to any fault of our own, but are rather inherent in our institutions, in our form of government. Ours is a democracy, with all the virtues and all the defects of that form of government. It is obvious that such work as is now to be done in the East calls for a strong central executive force. Russia has been able to fortify her position in the East not only because she is rich and powerful, but because her form of government is an autocracy. Germany is, in name at least, a constitutional monarchy, but it is because her government owns and administers the railroads, and a powerful and perfectly organized militarism permeates the whole fabric, that she has been able to make such advance as a world power since she became an empire at Versailles. There is no time here to elaborate these propositions, but they are obviously true.

Our government, on the other hand, is designedly weak in the executive and strong in the legislative department. When we broke away, at the beginning of our history, from a monarchy and from a monarch who was impatient of legislative interference, the pendulum swang to the other side, carrying us to the opposite extreme. We safeguarded ourselves against the possibility of a central power of overweening strength. And all our history has been the history of a powerful legislative and a comparatively weak executive. To us bureaucracy is hateful. We protest as a people against an office-holding class. Every citizen feels that he too may become an office-holder--is looking forward, possibly, to that consummation. This may explain the indulgence with which we regard the faults of those actually in office. If at the end of its term in office an administration is able to account in some way for all the money it has handled, no further questions are asked. As to the quality of the service rendered for the money, that is a matter not to be dwelt upon with painful emphasis.

Such laxity will hardly suffice for the administration of colonies planted amidst remote peoples of another race, requiring delicate handling and the tactful management which can come only from special knowledge and training. Nor is such special knowledge to be gained in the brief term of one administration's power. Much less can the matter be left to the national luck or even the national cleverness. "There are some difficulties," said one of our public men recently, "that do not yield to mere enthusiasm." We must have a strong administrative arm to the government, and the question is, how such an adjunct is to be fitted upon the existing institutions, theories and traditions of our government. I do not doubt that it _will_ be; simply point out that here is a matter for profound thought and honest endeavor along new lines. "There is no form of government," said Dr. Franklin to his colleagues in the federal convention, "that may not be a blessing if it is well administered." There is no legitimate task or emergency to which our government may not prove adequate if wisely and liberally directed. We cannot throw overboard the wisdom of our fathers, but we are bound to construe the precepts they laid down in the light of new emergencies as they arise. The words of Lincoln, uttered in 1860 at Cooper Union, when the extension or repression of slavery was before the country as an issue, are equally applicable to the issue which confronts us now:

"I do not say that we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do that would be to discard the lights of current experience, to reject all progress, all improvement. What I do say is that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of the fathers in any case, we should do so on evidence so conclusive that even their great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand."

I firmly believe that we shall be able to develop for our new colonies an administrative branch sufficiently strong for the successful conduct of their affairs and yet preserve all the essentials of republican government.

It may be conceded that the viceregal office, with its regal functions and authority, is essential to British rule in India. Yet, properly considered, England is as truly a democracy as the United States.

Indeed, there is both education and inspiration for us in the study of the British rule in India. Not by any means that it is perfect--what human institution is perfect? Man is selfish, thoughtless, cruel. The opium traffic, both in India and China, and the introduction of the whiskey "peg" among a "heathen" race, which, with all its faults, preserved for so many centuries the virtue of temperance--these are blots--big, dark, indelible blots--on the good name of England. Nor is it wholly without reason that the complaint is so often made that legislation for India is too often inspired by the desires of Birmingham and Manchester, rather than by the needs of Hindustan.

But there are spots on the sun of a splendid performance. There are seven thousand miles of "black water" between the British Isles and Hindustan. The population of the former is thirty-five millions; of the latter, two hundred and fifty millions--one-fifth of the human race. Yet this vast peninsular is held in absolute subjection by the people of those "tight little isles" so far away. In the whole civil and military establishment of British India there are but one hundred thousand whites, as against nearly twice that number of natives. How small a numerical force to rule those teeming millions! And yet, year by year the British element grows smaller and the native element larger and more potent in the government of India. "The English," says Mr. G. W. Steevens in a recent letter to the London _Mail_, "are still the dominant race, but the real ruler of India is the Babu."

If the natives were a peaceful, intelligent, or even a homogeneous race, the story would still read like a fairy tale. Far from it. Three-fourths of the number are Hindus of many races, sects and schools, but there are sixty million Mohammedans (more than the total population of the Sultan's domain), besides Sikhs, Janis, Parsees, etc.,--a score or more races of more or less turbulent savages, many of them ready at a moment's notice to cut the throat of any white man, if they only dared.

The climate, at least during the hot season, is almost death to white men, and certain death to white children. The English accordingly send their children "home" to be educated and spend their tender years. This means not only the anguish of separation but also a heavy expense, which, in the present depreciated state of the rupee, is hardly borne.

The native princes, great and small, ignorant for the most part, idle, bigoted, superstitious, and naturally jealous of white rule, do what they can to block the wheels of progress and embarrass the government. Herein they have the eager co-operation of the priests, who are jealous of foreign influence and often able to inflame the people into open resistance to the most wholesome orders and regulations. Popular ignorance and superstition lend themselves readily to such mischievous designs. A mutiny may be started by a government order to build a sewer or to vaccinate the inhabitants of a village. It is easy for the priests to persuade their docile charges that vaccination is witchcraft and an instrument of the devil. The policy of the government is tender of native sensibilities, and humors religious and caste distinctions; but the smallest accident or mistake may precipitate a riot or undo the good work of years.

Those who have read Kipling's stories of native Indian life have a picture more than photographically accurate of "paternal government" under difficulties. Nor is it inconsistent with perverse human nature that much of the government's trouble comes from the well-meant but pernicious interference of globe-trotting M. P.'s and parochial statesmen who have solved the problem from afar and come out to India to fan the discontent of pampered natives or aggravate the perplexities of overworked civil servants, held up to execration as the "overpaid and aristocratic favorites of a wasteful government." England, as well as America, has her anti-imperialists.

Yet, in spite of these and a thousand other difficulties and discouragements, a great and really good work goes on, making steadily for the moral and material uplift of the unthankful blacks. Popular education struggles forward against the bigotry and deep-rooted folly of ages. Public roads and other improvements lessen the tremendous distances between field and market, and so lessen the chances of famine. Rivers are deflected and canals built to irrigate waste places and make the desert blossom and bear fruit. Folly and extravagance are restrained in high places; system is established in place of chaos, and the hereditary pauper is taught the blessings of self-support. In something like a century much has been done to reform abuses which, like the pedigree of a rajah, run back through many centuries. True, much still remains to be done; but take it by and with, good and bad together, I know of no other chapter in history so creditable to the race as this.

As I have said, here is a lesson to us, teaching some of the difficulties we must encounter in the Philippines; but is it not also an inspiration, showing what may be done by patient persistence and a high ambition to do our part, in order that we may leave the world better--if only a little better--than we found it? Such an aim is no less praiseworthy in a nation than in an individual; is it not especially worthy of a nation which already, in its short career, has furnished a model of good government and a plea for human rights the world over?

But nations, once more like individuals, do not stand alone in the world, apart from their fellows--independent, isolated, self-sufficient. Each is part of a group, scheme or family, and all are interdependent for help, growth, for their very existence. The Philippines, rich and desirable as they are in themselves and for what they contain, strike the eye of intelligence with much greater force as a part of that complex and highly important system generally known as "the East." At this immediate juncture they are to all the great powers an object of desire and ambition, by reason of their nearness and close relation to the great Empire of China. In the hands of Spain this phase of the islands' importance was nearly or quite eclipsed, for Spain has no part in the great game of empire which engrosses the virile and progressive powers.