Part 6

“In the case of Porto Rico, where the people have as yet expressed no desire for independent government, we might with propriety declare our willingness to annex the island, if the citizens desire annexation, but the Philippines are too far away and their people too different from ours to be annexed to the United States, even if they desired it.”

In making this statement, and in his subsequent active support of the treaty, Mr. Bryan’s course was again opposed to the wishes and advice of many of his close political friends. In fact, before Mr. Bryan took his firm stand probably the majority of Democratic leaders in and out of Congress were opposed to the ratification of the treaty because of its Philippine clause. But Mr. Bryan, while as strongly opposed to this clause as anyone, was anxious to see the war finally ended. He knew that for the Senate to reject the treaty would prolong the war perhaps a year or more, and, further, that it might lead to endless and unpleasant complications. Once the war was ended, he held, the American people themselves could dispose of the Philippine question.

Largely owing to the aid extended the administration by Mr. Bryan, the treaty was ratified by the Senate. Those senators who were opposed to the imperial policy of President McKinley supported the “Bacon resolution” as a declaration of this nation’s purpose toward the Philippines and Filipinos. This resolution declared:

“The United States hereby disclaim any disposition or intention to exercise permanent sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said islands, and assert their determination, when a stable and independent government shall have been erected therein, entitled in the judgment of the government of the United States to recognition as such, to transfer to said government, upon terms which shall be reasonable and just, all rights secured under the cession by Spain, and to thereupon leave the government and control of the islands to their people.”

The Democratic policy, as outlined by Mr. Bryan, was the support of the treaty and of the foregoing resolution. The treaty was ratified, but the resolution, though supported by practically the solid Democratic, Populist, and Silver Republican strength in the Senate, and by a number of Republican senators who were opposed to the imperial policy, was defeated by the deciding vote of Vice-President Hobart. Had the resolution been adopted, and the Philippines been given the same promise of independence and self-government as had already been given Cuba, it is believed that the long, bloody, and costly war in the Philippine Islands might have been averted, and the abandoned old-world heresy of the right of one man to rule another without that other’s consent would not now have regained a footing on the soil of the great American Republic.

In the meantime the President’s proclamation of December 21, 1898, to the Filipinos, asserting the sovereignty of the United States over them and theirs had provoked a veritable hurricane of indignation among that people.

The characteristic that distinguishes the Filipinos from all other Asiatic races is their fierce, inherent love for liberty. For three hundred years they had been intermittently battling with the Spaniard to regain what they had lost, and the palm of victory was within their eager reach on the day that Dewey’s guns first thundered across Manila bay. Knowing as they did that the United States had gone to war to secure liberty for the Cubans, why should they doubt the securing of their own liberty as well?

The President’s proclamation came like a thunder clap. General Otis, who was commander-in-chief of the American forces in the Philippines, reported its effect as follows:

“Aguinaldo met the proclamation by a counter one in which he indignantly protested against the claim of sovereignty by the United States in the islands, which really had been conquered from the Spaniards through the blood and treasure of his countrymen, and abused me for my assumption of the title of military governor. Even the women of Cavite province, in a document numerously signed by them, gave me to understand that after all the men are killed off they are prepared to shed their patriotic blood for the liberty and independence of their country.”

The revulsion was complete. Before the proclamation was issued, it is true, there had been growing among the Filipinos a feeling of distrust of the Americans, and of doubt whether, after all, they were to be conceded their independence. For, at the surrender of Manila, although its capture had been impossible without the aid of the insurgents, they were studiously excluded from any share of the honor, and thus given the first intimation of the final treachery of the administration. Later the Filipinos were refused a hearing at Washington, and again before the Peace Commission which was to dispose of them like chattels.

Actual hostilities broke out February 4, 1899, and are thus referred to by President McKinley in his message to Congress December 4, 1899: “The aggression of the Filipinos continually increased, until finally, just before the time set by the Senate of the United States for a vote upon the treaty, an attack, evidently prepared in advance, was made all along the American lines, which resulted in a terribly destructive and sanguinary repulse of the insurgents.”

The report of General Otis, reads as follows (page 96): “The battle of Manila commenced at half past eight o’clock, on the evening of February 4 (1899), and continued until five o’clock the next evening. The engagement was strictly defensive on the part of the insurgents, and one of vigorous attack by our forces.”

Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, in a letter to the Springfield (Mass.) _Republican_, January 11, 1900, is responsible for this statement regarding the first battle: “The outbreak of hostilities was not their fault, but ours. We fired upon them first. The fire was returned from their lines. Thereupon it was returned again from us, and several Filipinos were killed. As soon as Aguinaldo heard of it he sent a message to General Otis saying that the firing was without his knowledge and against his will; that he deplored it, and that he desired hostilities to cease, and would withdraw his troops to any distance General Otis should desire. To which the American general replied that, as the firing had begun, it must go on.”

Thus began the War in the Philippine Islands. It has cost thousands of lives and millions of treasure. It has burned the homes and uprooted the fields of a frugal, intelligent, and industrious people in whose minds and hearts have been seared the ringing words of Patrick Henry: “Give me liberty or give me death!” It has not brought to the United States either riches or glory, but, on the contrary, lost to us much in taxes on our people, more in the death of our youth, and most of all in the sullying of the noble and lofty ideals which animated the Fathers of the Republic and made their lives sublime. An American soldier writing to the Minneapolis _Times_, in describing a captured city, thus simply sets forth the enormity of our national offense:

“Every inhabitant had left Norzagaray, and no article of value remained behind. The place had probably been the home of fifteen hundred or two thousand people, and was pleasantly situated on a clear mountain stream in which a bath was most refreshing. It was not a city of apparent wealth, but in many houses were found evidences of education. In a building which probably had been used as a schoolhouse were found a number of books, and a variety of exercises written by childish hands. Pinned to a crucifix was a paper upon which was written the following in Spanish: ‘American soldiers—How can you hope mercy from Him when you are slaughtering a people fighting for their liberty, and driving us from the homes which are justly ours?’ On a table was a large globe which did not give Minneapolis, but had San Pablo (St. Paul) as the capital of Minnesota. On a rude blackboard were a number of sentences, which indicated that the teacher had recently been giving lessons in the history of the American revolution.”

The demoralizing effect of this war against liberty on the American conscience became early apparent. If it were permissible to make war on the Filipinos because they would not yield to our government, it was no far cry to withhold from the Porto Ricans the protecting aegis of the Constitution, to levy a discriminating tariff against them, and to tax them without their consent. And it of course became impossible for the United States to express sympathy for the Boers in their war against British aggression, or even to maintain neutrality between the two. As a consequence horses, mules, arms, and ammunition were permitted to be freely shipped from our ports for the use of British soldiers, while British ships were permitted to intercept and capture American ships laden with American breadstuffs, when consigned to the Boers. In fact, an “Anglo-Saxon alliance” was more than hinted at by John Hay, then United States Ambassador to Great Britain, and later Secretary of State, when he said at London, on April 20, 1898, speaking of England and the United States:

“The good understanding between us is based on something deeper than mere expediency. All who think can not but see that there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world. We are bound by ties we did not forge, and that we can not break. We are joint ministers in the sacred work of freedom and progress, charged with duties we can not evade by the imposition of irresistible hands.”

To this sentiment Joseph Chamberlain, the British Secretary of the Colonies, replied in kind on May 13, at Birmingham, saying:

“I would go so far as to say that, terrible as war may be, even war itself would be cheaply purchased if, in a great and noble cause, the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack should wave together over an Anglo-Saxon alliance. At the present time these two great nations understand each other better than they ever have done, since, over a century ago, they were separated by the blunder of a British government.”

So we come to the close of the recital of the most salient events which gave rise to the greatest issue save that of independence, and later, of slavery, with which the American people have ever stood face to face.

Contemporaneous with the growth of the question of imperialism, and allied to it, another great issue arose,—the problem of the trusts.

A “trust” may be defined as an industrial combination of such huge proportions as to enable it not only arbitrarily to fix the price of the finished product in which it deals, through the stifling of competition, but frequently to determine alone the price of the raw material it uses and to fix the rate of wages of those whom it employs. Of these great and dangerous combinations there were formed, during the years 1897 to 1900, a number exceeding all those already in existence. That this was permitted to be done with the Sherman anti-trust law on the Federal statute books has puzzled many. Its explanation may be found in the following candid admission made by Dr. Albert Shaw in the _Review of Reviews_ for February, 1897:

“The great sound-money campaign of 1896 was carried on by money contributed by corporations—money voted by the directors out of the funds held by them in trust for the stockholders. Nobody, probably, would even care to deny that this is literally the truth.”

When the “great sound money campaign” was concluded, it was but fair, of course, that those who had given so lavishly should be allowed to replenish their depleted coffers. And so neither anti-trust laws, supreme court decisions, nor the cry of protest rising from the people was allowed to stand in the way of those generous corporations to whom President McKinley owed so much.

In the last six months of 1898 the movement toward centralization that meant monopoly was most alarmingly pronounced. During this time there were filed articles of incorporation by more than one hundred companies of abnormal capitalization. The most important trusts were:

CAPITAL Gas trusts $ 432,771,000 Steel and iron 347,650,000 Coal combines 161,000,000 Oil trusts 153,000,000 Flour trust 150,000,000 Electrical combinations 139,327,000 Sugar 115,000,000 Cigarettes and tobacco 108,500,000 Alcoholic 67,300,000 Telephone 56,700,000 Miscellaneous 1,349,250,000 ——————— $2,717,768,000

Among those classed as “miscellaneous” were trusts in leather, starch, lumber, rubber, dressed beef, lead, knit goods, window glass, crockery, furniture, crackers, sheet copper, paper, acids and chemicals, wall paper, typewriters, axes, bolts and nuts, salt, saws, rope, twine, thread, stock yards, matches, refrigerators, potteries, marbles, packing and provisions.

After the formation of each trust the first step was almost invariably to limit production by shutting down a portion of the mills controlled by the combination, thus reducing the number of wage earners. And almost as invariably the next step was to increase prices. By thus reducing expenses and increasing receipts the result was, though much of the trust property had been put in at an enormously inflated valuation, the watered stock yet earned exceedingly large dividends. The evil was not only that these unnatural dividends were earned at the expense of the laborer and the consumer, but that concentration of profits was leading to congestion of capital in certain sections of the country at the expense of other sections.

The great friend and helper of the trust-promoter was, of course, the high protective tariff. Without the tariff, to shut out competition from abroad, it would be impossible for the domestic concerns to form a close corporation and arbitrarily to fix prices. But Congress, instead of attempting to remedy the evil by lowering the tariff, deliberately raised it, being particularly careful to see that the percentage on trust-controlled goods was made sufficiently high to render foreign competition impossible. This led the Philadelphia _Ledger_, a Republican newspaper, to remark:

“If Congress had any genuine regard for the interests of the people, or if it were sincere of purpose respecting their common welfare, or in regard to the proper protection of labor, it would promptly transfer to the free list every product controlled by a conscienceless and predatory trust which reduces production, cuts off working people from work and wages, and increases prices to the tens of millions of consumers.” The correctness of this view was testified to, before the United States Industrial Commission, in June, 1899, by no less a personage than Henry O. Havemeyer, president of the sugar trust, who said:

“The existing [tariff] bill and the preceding one have been the occasion of the formation of all the large trusts with very few exceptions, inasmuch as they provide for an inordinate protection to all the interests of the country—sugar refining excepted. All this agitation against trusts is against merely the business machinery employed to take from the public what the government in its tariff laws says it is proper and suitable they should have. It is the government, through its tariff laws, which plunders the people, and the trusts, etc., are merely the machinery for doing it.”

The showing regarding trusts made in the “Commercial Year Book” for 1899 was startling. Its salient features may be thus tabulated:

1899 1898 Number of trusts 353 200 Stock $5,118,494,181 $3,283,521,452 Bonded debt 714,388,661 378,720,091 Stock and bonds 5,832,882,842 3,662,241,543

This shows an increase for the year of 76 per cent. in the number of institutions and of 60 per cent. in stock and bonded debt. But it shows more than this. According to the census of 1890 the entire capital employed in manufacturing and mechanical industries was $6,525,000,000. A comparison of this figure with the stock and bonds of trusts for 1899 shows that the capitalization of these gigantic combines was equal to 90 per cent. of the entire manufacturing investments of 1890.

It was such significant figures as these that woke the country to a realization of the imminence and great importance of the trust problem. It was felt that the most stupendous industrial revolution in the history of the world was on, because it was realized how closely our industrial system had approached to complete absorption under monopolistic control. Industry at large was becoming organized into a system of feudalized corporations. Each was stifling competition, discouraging enterprise, and padlocking the gates of opportunity. Together they were in absolute mastery of the industrial field.

The menacing danger of the situation was early realized, and the “anti-trust” movement progressed side by side with the opposition to imperialism. The fight was to be one of individualism against a gigantic and arrogant plutocracy, the forces of individualism contending for the doctrines of liberty and equal opportunity as against the reactionary tendencies of which trusts and imperialism were the supremest manifestations. In this Titanic struggle it was but fitting that the Jeffersonian hosts should be marshaled under the leadership of the brave, aggressive, eloquent, and inspired evangel of the doctrines of the Fathers—William J. Bryan.

RENOMINATION

When the result of the great presidential contest of 1896 was made known, Mr. Bryan’s political enemies, both in and out of the Democratic party, loudly proclaimed that “Bryanism”—or “Bryanarchy,” as a green-eyed relict of Mr. Cleveland’s second cabinet terms it—was dead and buried. Some said it was “too dead to bury.” And Bryan himself, they gleefully asserted, had died with the death of ideas to which he was wedded. Doubtless many of them believed this. The fierce and determined onslaught of the silver men in that memorable campaign had so wrought upon the fears of the class of Americans of whom Marcus A. Hanna and Pierpont Morgan are representative, that, in their nervous hysteria after their narrow escape, they were in a frame of mind where but little evidence was required to induce great faith. And, moreover, the decisive defeat which Bryan had suffered, considered in its probable effect on his disorganized following, was such as naturally gave birth to the hope that to the outstretched palms of the repudiated and disowned leaders of the party, such as Mr. Cleveland, might soon be restored in contrition the insignia of power and authority.

But even those who most sincerely believed and uproariously heralded the death of Bryanism and of Bryan continued their flagellations of both as earnestly as of yore. To them the good old Latin rule “_De mortuis nihil nisi bonum_” was obsolete and cobwebby.

And so, for almost three years succeeding Mr. McKinley’s election, the funeral notices of Democracy’s leader were daily published and his requiems daily sung. But, through all this time, the faith of the allied forces of reform that their leader was still of the living abode with them, and, firm in the belief, they were neither faltered nor dismayed, and never a man broke ranks.

And it was not long before faith that was of the spirit gave way to that certainty which comes of knowledge that is of the brain and senses. The first evidence was the remarkable sale and popularity of “The First Battle.” Another was the increasing demand for Mr. Bryan’s services as lecturer and public speaker, and the rapturous enthusiasm with which he was received, excelling, if possible that which greeted the Presidential candidate. Then, when he fearlessly took a stand against imperialism, which seemed to be sweeping the country like a great forest fire, and at once, in response to his appeal, the great Democratic party lined up against that policy, it became clearly evident that the powers of the great popular leader had not waned; neither had his influence over the minds and hearts of the people been lost. Finally, just as he was the first great public man of the United States to raise his voice in protest against the abandonment of the Republic, so he was the first to propose a definite and coherent remedy for the overshadowing evil of the trusts. This again demonstrated his natural fitness for leadership. Mr. Bryan first outlined his views at the Anti-Trust Conference held in Chicago in 1899. Because of its importance, as well as because it was the first tangible remedy proposed, it is here reproduced:

“I believe we ought to have remedies in both state and nation, and that they should be concurrent remedies. In the first place, every state has, or should have, the right to create any private corporation, which, in the judgment of the people of the state, is conducive to the welfare of the people of that state. I believe we can safely entrust to the people of a state the settlement of a question which concerns them. If they create a corporation, and it becomes destructive of their best interests, they can destroy that corporation, and we can safely trust them both to create and annihilate, if conditions make annihilation necessary. In the second place, the state has, or should have, the right to prohibit any foreign corporation from doing business in the state, and it has, or should have, the right to impose such restrictions and limitations as the people of the state may think necessary upon foreign corporations doing business in the state. In other words, the people of the state not only should have a right to create the corporations they want, but they should be permitted to protect themselves against any outside corporation.

“But I do not think this is sufficient. I believe, in addition to a state remedy, there must be a Federal remedy, and I believe Congress has, or should have, the power to place restrictions and limitations, even to the point of prohibition, upon any corporation organized in any state that wants to do business outside of the state. I say that Congress has, or should have, power to place upon the corporation such limitations and restrictions, even to the point of prohibition, as may to Congress seem necessary for the protection of the public.

“Now, I believe that these concurrent remedies will prove effective. To repeat, the people of every state shall first decide whether they want to create a corporation. They shall also decide whether they want any outside corporation to do business in the state; and, if so, upon what conditions; and then Congress shall exercise the right to place upon every corporation doing business outside of the state in which it is organized such limitations and restrictions as may be necessary for the protection of the public.”

The legislation to be enacted by Congress Mr. Bryan roughly outlined as follows:

“Suppose that Congress should say that whenever a corporation wants to do business outside of the state, it must apply to and receive from some body, created by Congress for the purpose, a license to do business. Suppose the law should provide three conditions upon which the license could be issued:

“1. That the evidence should show that there was no water in the stock.