There was a great public outcry when President Cleveland took the Dolphin for his private use, and the fact that public money was voted for a new Presidential yacht shows the great change in public opinion in ten years in America.

More power will come: a government with everincreasing interests and responsibilities cannot be "carried on by negatives." It is absurd to expect that the head of an administrative system should sit with folded hands waiting upon the pleasure of a the pleasure of a body made up of persons not responsible in any way for that administration, and each acting under strong pressure from local and private interests.

The Americans are great time-savers, and the President can prepare and promulgate laws more promptly than Congress, which occupies too much time in adjusting conflicting questions. He can, in the same manner, instantly remedy any defects-a process which could not be achieved by Congress without tedious delay.

"It is easy to foresee the result," says Mr. Gamaliel Bradford,' speaking of a noisy and intriguing Congress. "A military Dictator will arise and sweep it away." "Our one hope of escape," he adds, "is by strengthening the executive."

If only the executive could realize, in times of crisis, that the greater evil to the commonwealth lies in the non-exercise of the power reposed in him by the people! 1 "American Politics," vol. ii. p. 522.

CHAPTER III

EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM

THE year 1898 was one of the epoch-marking years in the history of America.

In that annus mirabilis was decided the momentous question whether the United States were to continue their policy of political isolation, or were, as a united State, to take up a position amongst the world-powers, and, in the language of one native writer, "assume the unselfish obligations and responsibilities demanded by the enlightened civilization of the age.1

Prestige, we do not need to be told, is as highly valued by nations as by individuals. It was absurd to suppose that the inherited racial instincts, the restless activities and the aggressive enterprise of the American

1 During that fateful year the introspectiveness of Americans and the appeals of the articulate ones, such as politicians and editors, became pathetic. Take, at random, such a cri du cœur as this, which I cull from a prominent organ of public opinion: "Will our own people never learn that we are a nation? Have we shed vast quantities of blood and spent countless treasure in vain? Are we still to stand manacled before the world by the doctrine that we are a confederacy of sovereign states? The writer then proceeds to quote the Supreme Court's dictum that "the United States are a sovereign and independent nation, and are vested by the Constitution with the entire control of international relations and with all the powers of government necessary to maintain that control and to make it effective."

people would for ever remain content with political and commercial isolation.1

As to the war with Spain, it was, beyond all question, sprung on the nation at large with dramatic suddenness. In the first instance, the Senate, according to Senator Platt, was evidently bent on bringing about a war; that body was backed up by the politicians who anticipated the usual effect on the coming elections; then there was the Yellow Press, and lastly, and perhaps the most important factor, the destruction of the Maine." This lamentable episode fired the popular heart and precipitated a conflict. The cry: "To hell with Spain ! Remember the Maine!" swept through the land. The rest was inevitable.

It has been said that when the Revolutionary War broke out men did not dream of independence; that at

1 Mere expansionism, however, is hardly a new policy with America. She has been acquiring new territory ever since the first Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, when we renounced all jurisdiction over what afterwards became the North-West Territory. In 1803, Napoleon ceded, for twelve million dollars, the Territory of Louisiana. Spain ceded Florida in 1819. Oregon was claimed by discovery, and Spain acknowledged the claim in the lastmentioned year. Texas was annexed in 1845, and three years later, California, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and parts of Arizona were forcibly acquired from Mexico. Horse-shoe Reef in Lake Erie was weakly ceded by Great Britain in 1850. The Navassas and other Guano islands in the Pacific were occupied by discovery. Alaska was acquired by purchase from Russia in 1867, and Hawaii was annexed in 1898.

2 Mr. Goldwin Smith, who enumerates these causes, thinks the De Lome letter may also have played a part.

Yet one cannot justify America's conduct in the long struggle before the war. Spain failed to put down the rebellion in Cuba, because the insurgents were liberally supplied with money and armaments from America. That distinguished diplomat, Mr. E. J. Phelps, said: "The rebellion in Cuba would long ago have perished from exhaustion had it not been supported and supplied by continual expeditions from this country in violation of our own neutrality laws and treaty obligations."

the beginning of the Civil War no man thought of abolishing slavery. Wars rarely keep within projected bounds. Personal ambition, national self-seeking, are the factors which control the issue of events.

Dewey's victory at Manilla changed the attitude of America before the world. The Americans had, as we have seen, entered into the war blindly; they had worked themselves up into a furious anger against Spain, or certain of their newspapers1 had done it for them, and they resolved to put an end to the Cuban "atrocities." But they had no apprehension of whither their declaration of war would lead them. In the chaste language of one of their backwoods philosophers, they had "bitten off more than they could chew." For a moment, when the realization of their achievement came, the nation was embarrassed. But he who knows the American character will hardly need to be told that the embarrassment was of brief duration. The mastication was begun, but, alas! mastication is followed by another and more difficult process: digestion.

It is said that after the signing of the Treaty which ceded the Philippine Islands to America, Senor Sagasta, the Spanish Premier, exclaimed, "Now is Spain avenged." The remark was significant.

The Philippines have already cost America nearly 500,000,000 dollars.2

1 Mr. C. F. Adams, a leading American publicist, admits that the discussion of vital, national questions has been left almost wholly to "the professional journalist and the professional politician." He adds that in the Congressional debates for nearly fifty years, which he remembers, it is impossible to recall 66 a single utterance which has stood the test of time, as marking a distinct addition to mankind's intellectual belongings." This is a severe indictment: but is it not true?-See "Lee at Appomatox," 1902.

2 The expansions and dominations, now almost encircling the globe,

The numerous seaboard cities cannot be fortified under 30,000,000 dollars. The army of occupation distributed throughout the island cannot safely be reduced to less than 30,000 men, costing 45,000,000 dollars per

All this was costly, both in money and men, but it was nothing to the moral shock given to the country by the adoption of " Imperialism."

Let us have a few home definitions of Imperialism at random from both sides of public opinion:

1. A theory of national policy in accordance with which the United States is to add to its territorial possessions for the purpose of extending American trade and American political influence.

2. We are to change our traditional policy of independence and non-participation in the general politics of the world, and to adopt a policy of territorial expansion, of wide contact and control.

entered upon by Congress have cost the people of America a very great expenditure of blood and treasure, and a severe shock to the ideas of liberty, self-government, and equality, which used to be thought fundamental, and which we professed (sincerely, it is to be hoped) when we declared war against Spain."-Senator Edmunds.

1 "There is but slight encouragement to believe that the actual force of about 45,000 men now there can be soon materially reduced, and none to hope that the resources of the country, so greatly impoverished by many years of war, will ever be adequate to do more than support its own Civil list and constabulary. Therefore, there is entailed on the United States the heavy burden of about 67,500,000 dollars per year, merely for police purposes in a country which evidently cannot become more than self-supporting."-Major J. H. Parker, Civil Administrator in the Philippines.

"Doubtless the American people will be sorry to be assured that a permanent army of 40,000 soldiers will be required to hold the Philippines; but conservative officers on the spot are convinced that this view of the situation is correct."-General Wesley Merritt.

The Governor-General, Judge Taft, told the Senate that it "would have been better had we never gone there."