Show THE UNITED STATES SIIOULD BUY TUE ANISfI ISLANDS I l By Frank Ti If ord Financial and Political Leader f Washington Jan 12Il we can acquire ac-quire the ownership oC the Danish West India Islands the best Interests of tho Republic will be thyrebypromoled Tho sum for which tho newspapers say Denmark is willing to part with them is nol unreasonable and In large national transactions of this character It does not become a great country to higgle and haggle as If it were an ordinary commercial matter between private in dlvldualn One of the fathers of tho Tlcpubllc said that In the long run a nation gained by establishing a reputation reputa-tion for liberal dealing that meanness In the matter of expenditure reflected on the character the whole people I should therefore be Inclined to accept Denmarks estimate of the value of the i Islands and take them off her hands I In a strategic point of view they are of Immense Importance That is the I opinion of all our naval and military experts and indeed it requires no TPii I q it 1 I Il I I I j II iIuL1 I 4 technical skill or special information to be convinced on that point Any man of ordinary understanding is capable of forming a judgment with respect to it by single glance at the map There can be no question now that we shall connect tho IWQ great oceans by a canal That splendid work which was the dream of the early Spaniards wIlL make the Gulf of Mexico and all the waters of the West India Islands as important im-portant if not more so than are any other waters in the world As the scene on which will be moved a large proportion of the commerce of all nations on its way to and from tho far East the western coast of South America aud our own magnificent Pacific Pa-cific epipire tlie control of every one of Iho e Islanfls becomes of paramount Interest In-terest to the United States Porto Rico I I Is J ours forever and Its annexation was I believe one of the wisest steps that ve have taken Jeff ei son COcted Cuba He declared that he thought it I would be the most interesting addition that could be made to our system and was willing to go to war io save it from falling Into the possession of England lie prophetically I foresaw that Spain could not JvoJd it in perpetuum that she would 1 lose it as she lost her continental I conti-nental colonies and that In the end Cuba would probably give herself voluntarily to us If this dream of the third President shall be realized I the possession of the three islands will be a potent factor in the direction of I universal peace All the nations of the I world combined would be powerless as against not only in the West Indies but on the Pacific It is true that Great Britain holds Jamaica but we could cosily take care of any force that she might have there and to reinforce it In 1 the event of war would be an almost al-most hopeless task I am of course supposing that we shall continue our present judicious policy of building and sustaining a firstclass navy with the supplemental policy yet to be formu mated of developing 31 great commercial 1 marine i I have always regarded as unfortunate I unfor-tunate that President Grant did not succeed In his great measure of securing I secur-ing control of the Bay of Samana Charles Sumner was mainly responsible I for the allure of that project What wero the grounds of his opposition f Looking back to them at the distance of nearly a generation we can see how utterly Impracticable his ldeas were 1 They were briefly that all the West I I India Islands were set apart in the Divine J Di-vine plan as the future home of the i black race to which they would ml grate from the Southern States and in I I which they should work out a clvlllza I Uon of their own in one grnnd negro republic The scheme was in a certain sense fascinating It appealed to the pllanthropic sentimentality and humanity hu-manity of many of the leading Republicans Repub-licans of that period the men who had led In the great antislavery struggle and so the Sumner theory prevailed Not one white man in a million believes that a black republic ispossible and the blades themselves seem to have no aspiration In that direction That the negroes are advancing morally socially so-cially and industrially I is Indisputable but their destiny appears lo bo with not apart from the while race Had Gen Grants San Domingo policy prevailed pre-vailed the condition of that country would be immeasurably Jm rove < lilt I the present time for the attrition with our civilisation even ina small parti of tho Island could not fail to prOduce beneficent effects All these islands naturally belong to the American svslem that Is i they should be either hId peUmm1 or like Porto Rico be a part of our territory terri-tory In the hands ot European powers bristling with for tsr rofjuippcd vvllh coaling stations and floating docks they are a menace and a danger I want to see every foreign flag disappear disap-pear from this continent and from the islands iu the waters that wash Its shores CCopyright 1001 l > y The Cos mographlc Co PRANK TIIFORD |