Just a few excerpts,
JANUARY 4. 1899.
The Convocation Address, delivered on the occasion of the Twenty-seventh Convocation of the University of Chicago, BY THE HON. CARL SCHURZ.
It is proposed to embark this republic in a course of imperialistic policy...
...Then came the Spanish War. A few vigorous blows laid the feeble enemy helpless at our feet...According to the solemn proclamation of our government, the war had been undertaken solely for the liberation of Cuba, as a war of humanity and not of conquest. But our easy victories had put conquest within our reach, and when our arms occupied foreign territory, a loud demand arose that, pledge or no pledge to the contrary, the conquests should be kept, even the Philippines on the other side of the globe, and that as to Cuba herself, independence would only be a provisional formality.
Why not ? was the cry. Has not the career of the republic almost from its very beginning been one of territorial expansion? Has it not acquired Louisiana, Florida, Texas, the vast countries that came to us through the Mexican War, and Alaska, and has it not digested them well ? Were not those acquisitions much larger than those now in contemplation? If the republic could digest the old, why not the new? What is the difference?
...When the question is asked whether we may hope to adapt those countries and populations to our system of government, the advocates of annexation answer cheerily, that when they belong to us, we shall soon "Americanize" them.
...More markets? Certainly. But do we, civilized beings, indulge in the absurd and barbarous notion that we must own the countries with which we wish to trade ?
"But the Pacific Ocean," we are mysteriously told, "will be the great commercial battlefield of the future, and we must quickly use the present opportunity to secure our position on it.
The visible presence of great power is necessary for us to get our share of the trade
of China. Therefore, we must have the Philippines."... but does the trade of China really require that we should have the Philippines and make a great display of power to get our share ?
And in order to increase our trade there, our consuls advise us to improve our commercial methods, saying nothing of the necessity of establishing a base of naval operations, and of our appearing there with war ships and heavy gtms.
At any rate, to launch into all the embroilments of an imperialistic policy by annexing the Philippines in order to snatch something more of the Chinese trade would be for us the foolish est game of all.
"But we must have coaling stations for our navy! "Well, can we not get as many coaling stations as we need without owning populous countries behind them that would entangle us in dangerous political responsibilities and complications ? Must Great Britain own the whole of Spain in order to hold Gibraltar ?
"But we must civilize those poor people! "Are we not ingenious and charitable enough to do much for their civilization without subjugating and ruling them by criminal aggression?
The rest of the pleas for imperialism consist mostly of those high-sounding catch-words of which a free people when about to decide a great question should be especially suspicious. We are admonished that it is time for us to become a "world power." Well, we are a world power now, and have been for many years. Is it necessary for a world power, in order to be such, to have its finger in every pie ?
Must we have the Philippines in order to become a world power? To ask the question is to answer it.
....You may tell me that this is all very well, but that by the acts of our own government we are now in this annexation business, and how can we get decently out of it?...
I repeat the question whether anybody can tell me why the declaration of Congress that the Cubans of right ought to be free and independent should not apply to all of them?
It is objected that they are not capable of independent government. They may answer that this is their affair and that they are at least entitled to a trial. I frankly admit that if they are given that trial, their conduct in governing themselves will be far from perfect. Well, the conduct of no people is perfect, not even our own. They may try to revenge themselves upon their tories in their Revolutionary War.
But we, too, threw our tories into hideous dungeons during our Revolutionary War and persecuted and drove them away after its close
They may have bloody civil broils. But we, too, have had our Civil War which cost hundreds and thousands of lives and devastated one-half of our land; and now we have in horrible abundance the killings by lynch law, and our battles at Virden.
They may have troubles with their wild tribes. So had we, and we treated our wild tribes in a manner not to be proud of.
They may have corruption and rapacity in their government, but Havana and Ponce may get municipal administration almost as good as New York has under Tammany rule; and Manila may secure a city council not much less virtuous than that of Chicago.
Our attention is in these days frequently called to the admirable and in many respects successful administrative machinery introduced by Great Britain in India.
But it must not be forgotten that this machinery was evolved from a century of rapine, corruption, disastrous blunders, savage struggles, and murderous revolts, and that even now many wise men in England gravely doubt in their hearts whether it was best for their country to undertake the conquest of India at all, and are troubled by gloomy forebodings of a calamitous catastrophe that may some day engulf that splendid fabric of Asiatic dominion.
No, we cannot expect that the Porto Ricans, the Cubans, and the Filipinos will maintain orderly governments in Anglo-Saxon fashion. But they may succeed in establishing a tolerable order of things in their own fashion.
Re: Cuban Protests - Patria y Vida — homeland and life
Originally Posted by Lord Thesaurian
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