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Show I 07. Geo. F. iloar, U. S. Senator j ' I i j ,lis SPcech Reviewed by Robert Ellis Thomps3n-.-Com- j pared with Such Statesmen as Webster, , i Sumner and Lincoln. I I - . - - ' ' - j j It Is not often that a speech gives I I e the feeling tnat the speaker has 'j 5 I Jeft nothing: unsaid that is needed to t ln? fu'l statement of liis ease. Hut in j Mr. Hoar's speech on the rhiipine f """mission bill one has just this sat- , isfaction. It is the greatest 1 think) v i lie senate has heard since "Webster left it- Mr. Hoar no doubt would disclaim i -any compliment at the expense or Mr. I! Sumner. And perhaps of others. Hut I the truth is that Mr. Sumner's speeches I reached and appealed to a very limited 1 range of hearers. He never was eapa- I hie of the self-restraint ami the so- 1'iiety which inspire confidence in an I orator's good sense. Mr. Lincoln was a I master there, and so is Mr. Hoar. The ; plain people, who do not care for epi grams or flights of rhetoric, but who like a man who can come to the point, heard Mr. Lincoln as a man who was not taking any. unfair advantage of thm: and Mr. Hoar impresses one in just the same way. He resembles Mr. Lincoln also In tak-f tak-f ing a broad view of the situation, and in insisting on an attention to first principles. He falls short of him somewhat in clear enforcement of his own points. I doubt if every reader will do Justice to Mr. Hoar's dilemma, which he suggests: "Are we at war I with the Filipinos or not? If we are at H war, v hen did congress exorcise the ; j power vested in it by the constitution to declare war? If we are not, why i' these warlike preparations, enlist- mcnts, proclamations, discussions of belligerent rights, and the like?" For ; in truth the constitution has been left I' out of sight in the whole business by two presidents and three congresses, ,1 , and what was expected to safeguard V- our peace at homeland with all nations V has been treated as.-a dead letter. Be- cause European executives wage war 1 as they please, and merely ask the na-v I; tional legislature to pay the bill, it j has assumed that this is the American j procedure also. . ' p Not less startling is his challenge to Jj the majority to state the objects of the k 1 t war. The enemy has never been told p ' what they are. "Was it ever heard be- I fore that a civilized, humane and Christian nation made war upon a I people and refused' to tell them what I they wanted of them? You refuse to I tell these people this year or next year or perhaps for twenty years whether f you mean in the end to deprive them j of their independence or no. You say I you want them to submit. To submit I to what? To mere military force? But I for what purpose or for what end is I that military force to be exerted? You I decline to tell them. Not only you I decline to say what you want of them. I except bare and abject surrender, but I you will not even let them tell you I what they ask of you." j The Americanism of the speech is 1 admirable. Mr. Hoar is no cosmo- politan and no Mugwump. He believes 1 in his country more heartily than do f; those who talk of "never hauling down ' the flag" and other ' such rubbish. T Which of them can speak of the flag . with such power of feeling and beauty, f of expression as he "the ' American! Ii Ha-, beautiful as a flower to those who 'j love it, terrible as a meteor to those vho hate it." He has the fine sen-jitiveness sen-jitiveness of an early Are ' lean as to the honor of his couiti- i feeling f somewhat blunted in tl.t-s- Jays of our , t preponderance, when thJt- who were i our bitter critics have turned flunkies, and stand hat in hand before our pow- ' rr and prosperity. He justly insists that imperialism is un-American and j therefore unpatriotic an aping of the vile practices of the European powers to the denial of the rights of nationality- and freedom. His use of the documents recently brought to light which exhibit the real origin of the Monroe Doctrine, is finely patriotic. He shows that England's original plan was to have America support her in some sort of declaration, declara-tion, which would prevent the Holy Al-uonr'-n fi-niii riosine the norts of Central I and South America to our commerce by m-onquering the Spanish "colonies" for Spain. Some of those who advised President Mcnroe were inclined to agree to this, and even Mr. Jefferson was not indisposed to the plan. It was Mr John Quincy Adams, the secretary of slate, who successfully resisted it, and persuaded Mr. Monroe to W him act independently of England in notify-- notify-- ' ing Russia that we did not regard the 4 principles of Ihe Holy Alliance as hav- V? ing anv application to the affairs of )! this continent. He did not. he said, want his country to "go in as a cockboat cock-boat of a British man-of-war. -And his subsequent attempt to unite the American publics in peace and commerce com-merce bv the Panama Congress, showed show-ed that "he well appreciated Mr. Madison's Madi-son's doubt that "the movement on tho part of CJreat Britain was impel ed more by her interest than by a principle prin-ciple of general liberty." What this last phrase meant in the mouths of our statesmen of eighty-rears eighty-rears ago is shown by the declaration which Mr. Adams drafted and which ho read to the Russian minister vith , Mr. Monroe's approval: uto "The governm-nt of the Lnited Mates of American is essentially 'n,1'1'1' 1! J'.v thHr constitution it is provided that ! -tiio United States shall guar;. n ee to i every state in the Union X form of government, and shall piotcct S , tbom fron, invasion.' The principles of I 1 this policy are: 1. That the "1S''1"" 1 lion of government to be lawful must, 1,- paciffc, that is. founded upon, he j f? cogent and by the agreement oMboFe , e , m ho re governed : and 2. that each na- j !. ' Hon is exclusively the Judge of the ? government best suited to itself, and I that no other nation can ,n. " i fere by force to impose a diffe rent f rnment upon it. The first of the p n !ples may be designated as the P n- j: cipje of liberty, the second as the pun- 1 ciple of national independence; they are both principles of peace and of good will to men. A necessary consequence conse-quence of the second of these principles prin-ciples is that the United States recognize recog-nize in other nations the right which they claim and exercise for themselves of establishing and modifying their own K'verniT!ents, according to their own "judgments and views of their interests, in-terests, not encroaching upon thv rights of others." Thse were the principles on which we based the Monroe doctrine, and in that declaration we arrayed American respect for nationality and liberty against European greed for conquest and territory. It would have been utter- ly unfitting for us to have united with England in any declaration on the subject. sub-ject. Her treatment of Ireland and of India put her as far from us in Internationa' Interna-tiona' policy as was Russia or Austria. It is her position we are substituting for that of Madison, Monroe and Adams when we undertake to force our rule upon unwilling peoples. We thus undermine under-mine the Monroe doctrine by leaving it without any moral foundation. The imperialists object that we did abandon it in purchasing the Mississippi Missis-sippi valley from France and Alaska from Russia. The objection shows the want of any political sense in the men who make it. The Ixuisiana purchase was of h great territory, unoccupied by any one except the French in and around New Orleans and by feeble French settlements, little more than villages, at St. Louis. Kankashia and a feu- other joints. For their political liberty the fullest provision was made in. the treaty -with France. Alaska had not even this. It had 56.000 natives scattered over an area.. as bifr as so much of our own country as lies, east -of- Mississippi and north of Alabama. i As Mr. Hoar says: "THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE." j "It was never denied that we could acquire territory, and that we could i govern it after it was acquired. The doctrine was that if the territory be in-! in-! habited by that vital and living being j we call a people, as distinct from a few j scattered and unorganized inhabitants, I neither controlling it nor governing themselves, that people have a right to govern themselves and to determine their own destiny after their own fashion. This is the American exposition exposi-tion of the law of nations. Thomas Jefferson never departed from it. He regarded the Louisiana territory as something not worth taking. He declared de-clared that it would not be inhabited for a thousand years. He only wanted New Orleans. The rest of the territory was forced upon him by Napoleon. There was no people, in the sense of the law of nations, either in New Orleans Or-leans or in the Louisiana territory. There was no people there that could make a government or a treat y. Mr. Sumner again and again declared that there was nothing in Alaska which could be called a people, and that if there were the United States would never be. willin gto acquire them without with-out their consent, and that we would never take Canada, if we could get it. except with the full approbation of her people." Very fine and patriotic was the contrast con-trast the Massachusetts senator drew between our seemingly American treatment treat-ment of Cuba and our European policy toward the Philippines. And he also indicated that our imitation of England Eng-land imperialism has shut our mouths from protesting against anything she does: "We Ijp.ve sold out the right, the old American rignt, to speak out the sympathy sym-pathy which is in our hearts for people who are desolate and oppressed everywhere every-where on the face of the earth. Has there ever been a contest between power and the spirit of liberty, before that now going on in South Africa, when American senators held their peace because they thought they were ' timlsr n n -Hli Ta tinn In tlif nation in thf wrong for. not interfering with us? I have heard that it turned out that we had no great reason for gratitude of that kind. But I myself heard an American senator, a soldier of the civil war. declare in this chamber that while he sympathized with the Boers, he did not say so because of our obligation to Great Britain for not meddling with us in the war with Spain. Nothing worse thr that was said of us in old slavery days." Mr. Hoar is an American of the old sort. He has been to school to Washington. Wash-ington. Madison, John Quincy Adams and Lincoln, and he has been saved from being sophisticated by new theories of international duty and rights, which we have imported from Europe. He has neither been Bis-marckized Bis-marckized nor Chamberlainized by this evil time. And he has confidence that the country is still loyal to its principles. prin-ciples. OTHER ND BETTER COUNSELS WILL, YET PREVA1 L. '.Other and better counsels will yet prevail. The hours arc long in the life of a great people. The irrevocable step is not vet taken. Let us at least have this to sav: Wc. too. have kept the faith of the fathers. We look Cuba by the hand. We delivered her from her age-long bondage. We welcomed her to the familv of nations. AVe set mankind an example never Jeheld before of moderation, in victory. V e led hesitating hesi-tating and halting Europe to the deliverance de-liverance of their beleaguered ambassadors ambassa-dors in China, We marched through a hostile eountry-a country cruel and barbarous-without anger or revenge. We returned benefit for injury and pit for cruelty. We made the name of America beloved in the east as in the west. We kept faith with the Philippine' Philip-pine' Iople. We kept faith with out own history. We kept our national honor unsullied. The flag Inch w- ' J received without a rent we handed down without a stain.' His speech should help to realize this hopeful prophesy. It speaks the language lan-guage of truth, with the authority of truth. |
