, 
 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
THE NEW AMERICA 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE GREAT FUR COMPANY. Two vols. 
 Crown 8vo. i8.r. 
 
 "The interest of the narrative is maintained to the end, and on 
 laying down the book the reader feels that the main facts and 
 outlines of North-Eastern development have very definitely 
 impressed themselves on his mind. To say this, is to say that 
 Mr. Beckles Willson has known how to surmount one of the 
 greatest difficulties of Colonial history and has made his subject 
 generally attractive. Times. 
 
 "In the singular mixture of exploration, dominion, commerce, 
 and adventure, extending over two centuries, there is to be 
 read a story of national development and of a slowly extending 
 civilization, which can scarcely be matched in any other part 
 of the world." Edinburgh Review. 
 
 " From beginning to end, the book is worth reading. It is well 
 written, clearly arranged, and fortified with many documents. 
 To romance there succeeds a record of practical endeavour 
 and efficient organization and . . . we refer our readers to 
 Mr. Willson s book with perfect confidence." Spectator. 
 
 THE TENTH ISLAND. Second and Revised 
 Edition, February, 1901. 
 
 "Turns the theme of a hundred dull blue-books into a living 
 nineteenth-century romance. It is a vivid, almost pathetic 
 picture of a sturdy British community fighting for the breath 
 of freedom." Daily Chronicle. 
 
 "The social life and commercial characteristics of an island, 
 which, considering its geographical position as a stepping- 
 stone between the Old World and the New, is strangely 
 isolated, are admirably set before us in these pages." 
 Standard. 
 
 " As full of variety, of sympathy, of light and shade, of touches of 
 character, and of fascination, as even the most interesting 
 among novels." Daily Mail. 
 
 THE STORY OF LOST ENGLAND. 
 
 LORD STRATHCONA : THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. 
 
 LEDGER AND SWORD : A HISTORY OF THE 
 EAST INDIA COMPANY. {Shortly. 
 
THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 A STUDY OF 
 THE IMPERIAL REPUBLIC 
 
 BY 
 
 BECKLES WILLSON 
 
 " If you have an Empire you will have an Emperor, not perhaps in the 
 Old World form of a man crowned and sceptred, yet in the shape of a 
 centralized and practically autocratic power." GOLDWIN SMITH. 
 
 "Continual sweeping changes cannot but be disastrous; but where 
 needs shift rapidly as they do here, where we often live in one year what 
 Europe does in ten, we need reapplication of established principles to changed 
 conditions." THEODORE ROOSEVELT, September ^^nd^ 1902. 
 
 AAAa fjLrjv, r\v y tyu fls ixavbs yevdpevos, ir6\iv 
 TOUT eirtTeAeVat TO vvv airia-Tov/jifva. PLATO, Rep. VI. 
 
 LONDON: CHAPMAN fc? HALL, LD. 
 1903 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IN these pages it will be my aim to point out broadly 
 some of the new conditions and tendencies which 
 appear f to me to prevail in the United States of 
 America, in its external and domestic politics, in its 
 commerce, its society, its literature. 
 
 Commentaries .on conditions which pertained a 
 decade or two ago bear an almost ludicrous disparity 
 to the" facts of 1902 ; and no recent writer has been 
 more keenly conscious of this embarrassing mutability 
 than Mr. Bryce, who declared, in the opening chapter of 
 his " American Commonwealth," that " America changes 
 so fast that every few years a new crop of books is 
 needed to describe the new face which things have 
 put on, the new problems that have appeared, the 
 new ideas germinating among the people, the new 
 and unexpected developments for evil as well as for 
 good of which her established institutions have been 
 found capable." 
 
 224861 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 Enormous popular migration following on increased 
 railway facilities ; reform in politics and in the Civil 
 Service ; restriction upon free alien immigration ; the 
 growth of the system of commercial Trusts ; the revival 
 of the Monroe doctrine ; the war with Spain ; territorial 
 expansion ; an increased Army and Navy ; the growing 
 power of the federal administration ; an enormous 
 material prosperity ; and a wholesale participation in 
 the world s markets ; all these causes have, as may 
 easily be believed, altered greatly the whole character 
 of American society. Indeed, for the first time in her 
 history, America shows a united front to the world 
 which it were disingenuous for us not to acknowledge. 
 
 Ten years ago the republic was split up into sections 
 of opinion, each having little sympathy with the other ; 
 now the " solid South " is shattered ; State rights are 
 fast dwindling into the rights possessed by English 
 counties, or at most, Crown Colonies ; a standing 
 army of 80,000 men has arisen, and a great fleet and 
 mercantile marine are materializing. 
 
 Briefly, it may be said that the States have been 
 a century in labour, and have put forth a nation. 
 
 In 1892 !to have adumbrated the present role of 
 America in Welt politik would have excited derision. 
 Since that date, we have, however, seen an American 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 Empire arise ; alien and distant races now bow the 
 knee to an American ruler. America s accents, though 
 brusque and untrained, are beginning to be heard 
 respectfully in the concert of nations. 
 
 Perhaps little apology, then, is needed for the 
 matter contained in this book. It is written from 
 the standpoint of a Canadian (and therefore British) 
 observer, who has passed several years across the 
 southern boundary of his country. 
 
 September 25th, 1902. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE UNITED STATE 1 
 
 II. THE GROWTH OF PRESIDENTAL POWER . . . .14 
 
 III. EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 28 
 
 IV. IMPERIAL RESPONSIBILITIES 42 
 
 V. THE NEW CONSTITUTION AND LAWS 54 
 
 VI. THE NEW DIPLOMACY 70 
 
 VII. THE MONROE POLICY 86 
 
 VIII. THE NEW COMMERCE 97 
 
 IX. THE AMERICAN ARMY 118 
 
 X. THE NEW SHIPPING ........ 136 
 
 XL TRUSTS AND COMBINES 153 
 
 XII. THE NEW IMMIGRATION 166 
 
 XIII. THE NEGRO PROBLEM . . . . . . . .175 
 
 XIV. THE NEW POLITICS 188 
 
 XV. His EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT 204 
 
 XVI. EDUCATION AND SCIENCE 212 
 
 XVII. THE NEW LITERATURE 220 
 
 XVIII. PROGRESS AND CHARACTER 231 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 1. THE NATIONAL TITLE 251 
 
 II. THE NEW TRUSTS AND THEIR MAKERS .... 258 
 
 INDP:X 265 
 
THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 EEKATA 
 
 Page 222, line 9, for " creatures known " read " creatures unknown." 
 243, 4, after " spirit of commercialism " follows " the development, 
 
 etc.," in line 6. 
 
 245, 22, for "bodily "read "boldly." 
 246, 1 7, /or" breed "read 1 breathe." 
 249, 5, /or" tracts "read" re-acts." 
 
 "THE NEW AMERICA." 
 
 A, -*- 
 
 revolution. Here, developing in a theatre of operations 
 relatively small, the scattered island realms from Kent 
 
 1 " Thus, after a century and a half, was gradually established in Britain 
 what has been called the Heptarchy. But this terra is incorrect ... if the 
 smaller and dependent ones are reckoned, the number must be considerably 
 increased." In 827 the States were thirteen in number and "were nominally 
 united into one State. 1 v. Hume, "History of England." 
 
 2 " The entire country was divided into thirteen lots, the descendants of 
 Joseph governing the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh had each a portion 
 assigned to them, while the tribes of Levi were given the forty-eight cities 
 and the tithes of the whole land for a maintenance." E. Ledrain, " Histoire 
 d Israel." 
 
 1 B 
 
THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE UNITED STATE 
 
 IN the beginning, like the kingdom of England, 1 and 
 the kingdom of Israel, 2 the American republic was in 
 the possession of thirteen tribes. We see, in reviewing 
 the political histories of these countries, that the process 
 of integration follows certain laws ; that the capital, 
 whether it be Jerusalem or London or Washington, 
 draws to itself power and authority for the whole ; 
 that the centripetal and synthetic forces which are at 
 work in every such State, pause only when they have 
 achieved a unit, or, as sometimes happens, met with a 
 revolution. Here, developing in a theatre of operations 
 relatively small, the scattered island realms from Kent 
 
 1 " Thus, after a century and a half, was gradually established in Britain 
 what has been called the Heptarchy. But this term is incorrect ... if the 
 smaller and dependent ones are reckoned, the number must be considerably 
 increased." In 827 the States were thirteen in number and "were nominally 
 united into one State." v. Hume, " History of England." 
 
 2 " The entire country was divided into thirteen lots, the descendants of 
 Joseph governing the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh had each a portion 
 assigned to them, while the tribes of Levi were given the forty-eight cities 
 and the tithes of the whole land for a maintenance." E. Ledrain, " Histoire 
 d Tsrael." 
 
 B 
 
AMERICA 
 
 to Connaught become united kingdoms, and, finally, 
 the United Kingdom of to-day. 1 
 
 Again, the great nation which has, in recent times, 
 risen to note under the title of Germany, consisted in 
 the eighteenth century of nearly three hundred small 
 and despotic states. Any national sentiment was less 
 encouraged by the loose bonds of German Empire than 
 by a national literature then in its birth-throes. As 
 far as the general politics of Europe were concerned 
 the petty German States were a negligible quantity. 2 
 Compare their condition with the modern united State 
 of Germany. 
 
 The case of America, therefore, is only peculiar in 
 this : that it shows on a larger scale than ever before 
 witnessed on the globe, human nature and inherent 
 tendencies battling with hard and fast political theories ; 
 struggling, and not unavailingly, against a written 
 National Constitution which it has outgrown. 
 
 It is peculiar and it is of universal interest because 
 we see here human nature, which craves ornament and 
 prestige and expansion and centralization, and abhors 
 rigidity, is slowly but surely winning the battle against 
 the eighteenth-century doctrinaires and the demagogues. 
 
 After the war of separation from the mother State 
 
 1 Although England was not firmly cemented into one State under 
 Egbert, as is usually represented, yet the power of this monarch and the 
 union of so many provinces opened the prospect of future tranquillity ; and it 
 appeared more probable that the Anglo-Saxons would thenceforth become 
 formidable to their neighbours, than be exposed to their inroads and 
 devastations." Hume, chap. iii. A passage of modern applicability. 
 
 2 " The union of the Germans has produced, under the name of an empire, 
 a great system of a federative republic. In the frequent and at last the 
 perpetual institution of diets the national spirit was kept alive and the powers 
 of a common legislature are still exercised by the three branches or colleges 
 of the electors, the provinces and the free and imperial cities." Gibbon. 
 
THE UNITED STATE 3 
 
 and prior to the adoption of the Constitution in 1787 
 there were thirteen small republics scattered along the 
 Atlantic seaboard, each with distinct possibilities of 
 nationhood, each with the germs within it of a separate 
 North American race. 1 How widely the colonies differed 
 has often been described. Bear in mind that communi 
 cation was rendered difficult by distance and bad roads 
 or no roads. It took as long to travel from Boston to 
 Charleston as it would then take a European to go 
 from Paris to St. Petersburg or from London to New 
 York. What a field for speculation is thus afforded to. 
 the historical student by a contemplation of these states 
 in embryo. While homogeneity now seems to be the 
 law and destiny of those peoples sprung originally from 
 the same ethnic stock, it may be retarded for centuries 
 by the creation of national frontiers, by difference of 
 language, of climate, of diet, of occupation, of chance 
 conditions of existence. Differences far greater than 
 those which could ever have distinguished the Angles 
 from the Jutes, the Saxons from the Mercians, could 
 they have maintained their petty boundaries for five 
 hundred years, were inevitable for the Virginians, the 
 New Yorkers, and the men of Massachusetts. 
 
 It is hard not to let the fancy dwell on the Virginian 
 or Carolinian planter, with his high spirit, his feudal 
 interests, his slaves, and his estates, gradually building 
 up a form of government closely resembling that which 
 was just then developing in the kingdom from which 
 he had emigrated. There were boisterous demagogic 
 spirits in Massachusetts, but the leaders, such as John 
 
 1 In 1777, the form was "The United States of New Hampshire, Mas 
 sachusetts Bay, Rhode Island," etc. 
 
4 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 Adams, were not of this type. They were monarchists, 
 as Washington was, and knew nothing and cared less 
 about republics. But it was an unfortunate juncture 
 for the conservative spirit in America. We do not 
 need to be told now that it was not the fault of 
 George III. and his ministers that the colonies revolted. 
 If the king and Lord North of that day had been as 
 wise and prudent as King Edward VII. and Mr. 
 Chamberlain in our own time, human nature would 
 have had its way. The colonist was baffled in his 
 desire for power, he was cut off from England by slow 
 sailing ships, he had lost touch with the old land, and 
 the sentiment of loyalty languished. There were no 
 fast ocean steamers, no electric telegraphs, no cheap 
 international postal system, there was not even any 
 popular press or popular literature to foster understand 
 ing between the old land and the new. But, above all, 
 human nature in America wanted change, it wanted 
 excitement, it wanted war. People who cannot under 
 stand this kind of doctrine, may be helped to it by a 
 contemplation of the quickened sense of community in 
 Australia and Canada since their participation in the 
 hostilities in Africa of increased contentment with 
 political relationship, more self-reliance, a wider out 
 look, more local spirit. 
 
 The question for a long time before the people of 
 the former colonies was whether they would be a united 
 State or a set of separate commonwealths. They long 
 tried to be both ; but the issue has now been settled 
 politically and economically by the unity and cohesion of 
 the people, by their new responsibilities and possessions, 
 by their international relations, by their commercial 
 
THE UNITED STATE 5 
 
 prosperity, by the astounding growth of the federal 
 power. 1 
 
 Look at the embryo republic ; it was divided into 
 the nation makers and the nation doubters, between 
 the advocates of consolidation and the advocates of 
 State sovereignty. 2 It was urged that a strong central 
 government endangered both the rights of the States 
 and the liberties of the individual citizen. Massachu 
 setts and New York, in particular, were jealous of 
 national power which might belittle their own pre 
 tensions. Indeed, it is the opinion of historians that 
 had the decision been left to the people voting at a 
 plebiscite, the principle of consolidating the States into 
 a nation would have been defeated. Probably the 
 real impelling power which carried the federal consti 
 tution was the dread of foreign powers, i.e. Spain and 
 England. France, which had lately held territories to 
 the north of them in Canada, and to the south and 
 west of the Mississippi, was no longer feared. 3 
 
 1 " The confederation ought to be settled before the declaration of Inde 
 pendence," said Dickinson " of Pennsylvania in 1776." 
 
 " Foreigners will think it most regular ; the weaker States will not be in 
 so much danger of having disadvantageous terms imposed upon them by the 
 stronger. . . . Upon the whole when things shall be thus deliberately rendered 
 firm at home and favourable abroad, then let America, At tollens humeris 
 fomomet fata nepotum, bearing up her glory to the destiny of her descen 
 dants, advance with majestic steps to assume her station among the sovereigns 
 of the world." 
 
 2 " Instead of feeling as a nation, a State is our country. We look with 
 indifference, often with hatred, fear, and aversion to the other States." 
 Fisher Ames, 1782. 
 
 3 The fear of foreign interference, the sense of weakness both on sea and 
 on land against the military monarchies of Europe, was constantly before the 
 mind of American statesmen, and made them anxious to secure at all hazards 
 a national government capable of raising an army and navy, and of speaking 
 with authority on behalf of the new Republic. Bryce, " American Common 
 wealth." 
 
6 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 Washington having boldly given it as his opinion 
 that the ill-made league of States was " no better than 
 anarchy," a convention therefore met in 1787, and 
 after five months labour and much diversity of opinion, 
 natural amongst a people so heterogeneous, produced a 
 Constitution which 39 out of the 55 delegates signed. 1 
 
 Well, the Constitution was presented, and, in spite 
 of much opposition, endorsed by the people of the 
 States. But there was yet no strong nation born : it 
 was more a federal pact, a league of neighbour common 
 wealths. There was nothing, for instance, in the Con 
 stitution to prevent any State withdrawing from the 
 Union. A bloody war was to establish solidarity. 
 
 At the outset of the Republic s career we see the 
 two forces ; the forces which are at play in every 
 government amongst every people in the world, even 
 amongst the Chinese. Alexander Hamilton, statesman 
 and an aristocrat by choice, represented the desire for 
 nationhood, for power ; the monarchical tendency ; 
 Thomas Jefferson, a great thinker and a greater dema 
 gogue, stood for decentralization, State sovereignty and 
 futility. 2 
 
 How clearly it is seen now that to the Jeffersonian 
 doctrine was immediately due the secession of South 
 
 1 " By adopting this Constitution," urged the delegate from Pennsylvania, 
 " we shall become a nation ; we are not now one. We shall form a national 
 character : we are now too dependent on others." 
 
 2 " To balance," declared Hume, " a large State or society, whether 
 monarchical or republican, on general laws, is a work of so great a difficulty 
 that no human genius, however comprehensive, is able by the mere dint of 
 reason and reflection to effect it. The judgments of many must unite in the 
 work ; experience must guide their labour ; time must bring it to perfection, 
 and the feeling of inconvenience must correct the mistakes which they 
 inevitably fall into, in their first trials and experiments." Essays, " The 
 Rise of Arts and Sciences." 
 
THE UNITED STATE 7 
 
 Carolina and its sister States in 1860, which plunged 
 the country into civil strife. What more interesting 
 feature of the history of the American Republic than 
 this internal struggle of the forces making for nationality 
 and solidarity against opposing tendencies ? 
 
 The two movements are for ever warring, the 
 impetus in either direction being furnished by events. 1 
 After Washington s death the band between the States 
 becomes loosened ; the novelty of the federal pact has 
 gone ; 2 Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, New York 
 and Virginia have but little in common. The States 
 have no literature ; there are no national politics ; there 
 is no national purpose. What happened in 1860 would 
 have happened a decade sooner if the principles of 
 Jefferson and disintegration had not been suddenly 
 checked by the war of 1812. There was only one 
 rallying point for all the States, and that was hatred 
 of England, " a good robust family hatred." The cry 
 of war brought the States together again : the federal 
 power was exalted for a time, and the States were duly 
 depressed. 
 
 On the heels of this war, which produced pride in 
 the Army and Navy, followed boastfulness and State- 
 consciousness. Again the aggregation of States yearned 
 
 1 Mr. Bryce reminds us that a large part of the history of Europe consists 
 of a struggle, often involving the use of force, to make the peoples give up 
 their local prejudices and privileges for the sake of national requirements. 
 
 2 " Sir, I confess it," said Josiah Quincy in Congress in 1811, "the first 
 public love of my heart is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. There is 
 my fireside ; there are the tombs of my ancestors." Putnam s " American 
 Orations," i. p. 168. A majority of the people, we are told by Mr. Cabot 
 Lodge, at the outset "turned longingly back towards the days of a shattered 
 confederacy and sovereign states, and looked with morbid suspicion on every 
 thing, no matter what, which tended to lend strength or dignity to the Central 
 Government." 
 
8 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 for nationhood and international prestige. They were 
 tired of standing aloof and inert ; and the Monroe 
 doctrine, of which our British statesman, Canning, made 
 them a free gift, they seized upon with pleased alacrity. 
 Again were the national tendencies in the growth of 
 a central power checked in 1828 by Jackson ; but they 
 broke out anew in 1848 with the war with Mexico. 
 This war was, however, in the interests of the South ; 
 and the southern planters, having tasted of the sweets 
 of power, were not long in wishing it for them 
 selves. 
 
 For by this time the artificial ties which kept the 
 sections of America together had grown irksome. At 
 the outbreak of the Civil War there was really little in 
 common between the people of the northern and southern 
 States ; or between East and West. But the federal 
 bond and federal power, which had grown weak, was 
 strengthened in the majority of States by the war. 
 Now we shall see how it has been strengthened to 
 such a pitch in all the States that the term State 
 really suggests little except a geographical boundary. 
 To speak of America, as Mr. Bryce does somewhere, 
 as a union of partially sovereign States is to cite an 
 historical, but not an actual, fact. 1 We might as well 
 speak of United Cantons of Switzerland, or the United 
 Counties of England, or the United Departments of 
 France, as of the United States of America, otherwise 
 than in a purely official and nominal sense 2 (see 
 Appendix A). 
 
 1 Mr. Bryce makes clear elsewhere, however, that the "political im 
 portance of the States is no longer what it was." " The truth is that the State 
 has shrivelled up." " American Commonwealth," vol. ii. p. 189. 
 
 2 All this was prophesied in the Convention. " The destruction of the 
 
THE UNITED STATE 9 
 
 After the war there came what is inevitable in public 
 opinion, reaction. 
 
 The centrifugal forces broke out anew from 1876 
 to 1888, with a brief lapse or two, covering a portion 
 of Mr. Arthur s administration. It must be understood 
 that manifold causes and incidents which do not 
 affect the laws or the Constitution play their part in 
 influencing public opinion. Thus Mr. Garfield s long- 
 illness by arousing universal sympathy kept the eye of 
 the nation focussed on the dial-plate of national power. 
 The country is so vast and the population so scattered, 
 local politics so turbulent, the passion for money-getting 
 so absorbing, that it needed these factitious aids to 
 keep the public eye on the Federal capital. An era of 
 peace, an unepisodical administration such as that of 
 Grant or Hayes, and the centripetal forces waver and 
 weaken. The egregious Venezuelan manifesto of Presi 
 dent Cleveland was certainly a factor in national uni 
 fication. The whole country thrilled at finding itself 
 through the action of its chief executive shaking- 
 its fist at Great Britain. But the most dramatic 
 of all these unifying factors has been the recent 
 war with Spain. The most dramatic not, perhaps, 
 the greatest. There are many causes for America s 
 rapid, political, social, economic, and intellectual 
 homogeneity within the present generation. Chief 
 amongst these I am inclined to place the marvellously 
 increased means of communication. 
 
 States as commonwealths is assured. The Central Government will gradually 
 encroach upon their powers ; it will use the federal army to overcome their 
 resistance ; will supplant them in the respect of their citizens ; will at last 
 swallow them up." " The creation of a despot in the person of the Presi 
 dent " was also confidently predicted (see " Elliott s Debates "). 
 
io THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 Consider the following passage from Sir John Seeley 
 in its application to America : 
 
 "Perhaps," he wrote, "we are hardly alive to the vast 
 results which are flowing in politics from modern mechanism. 
 Throughout the greater part of human history the process of 
 State-building has been governed by strict conditions of space. 
 Tor a long time no high organization was possible, except in 
 very small states. In antiquity the good States were usually 
 cities, and Rome herself, when she became an empire, was 
 obliged to adopt a lower organization. In medieval Europe 
 states sprang up which were on a larger scale than those of 
 antiquity, but for a long time these, too, were lower organisms, 
 and looked up to Athens and Eome with reverence as to the 
 homes of political greatness ; but through the invention of the 
 representative system these states have risen to a higher level. 
 We now see States with vivid political consciousness on terri 
 tories of 200,000 square miles, and with populations of thirty 
 millions. A further advance is now being made. The Federal 
 system has been added to the representative system, and at 
 the same time steam and electricity have been introduced. 
 From these improvements has resulted the possibility of highly 
 organized States on a yet larger scale. Thus Eussia in Europe 
 has already a population of nearly eighty millions on a territory 
 of more than two millions of square miles, and the United 
 States will have by the end of the century a population as 
 large for a territory of four millions of square miles." 1 
 
 "We must not blind ourselves to the possibility of 
 reaction, of repeated vacillations, of haltings, of retro 
 cessions on the part of the American nation in its move 
 ment towards integration, solidarity, and world-power. 
 Centralization certainly means one-man power: but 
 even in America the political economists seem agreed 
 that this is by no means an unmixed evil. Nowhere 
 in the universe has one-man power attained, at least in 
 
 1 " Expansion of England," Lecture VIII. 
 
THE UNITED STATE n 
 
 party politics, in commerce and industry, to such heights 
 as it presents in America. But whether the theorists 
 agree to disagree with Jefferson and his fellow-democrats 
 or not, it is none the less certain that human nature, 
 its needs and aspirations, will have its way. Even that 
 arch-radical Leigh Hunt, who was himself half an 
 American, and was sent to prison for his passing freedom 
 of speech, had this to say at the close of a long life 
 
 "May royalty exist as long as reasonableness can outlive 
 envy, and ornament be known to be one of nature s desires. . . . 
 Peaceful and reasonable provision for the progress of mankind 
 towards all the good possible to their nature, from orderly good 
 manners up to disinterestedness sentiments, is the great desi 
 deratum in government ; and thinking this more securely and 
 handsomely maintained in monarchies than republics, I am for 
 English permanence, in this respect, in preference to French 
 mutability and American electiveness." 
 
 But, after all, the fact is obvious, America has 
 altered her front to the world. There is scarcely any 
 department of her national life which has not been 
 metamorphozed. Whether we read the literary remains 
 of the early Americans, or the comments and descrip 
 tions of foreigners, such as De Tocqueville, the Trollopes 
 (mother and son), even of Mr. Bryce, we are equally 
 astonished at the changes which are revealed to-day. 
 
 Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and the rest thought 
 they were laying the foundation of a fabric, the like of 
 which had never been contemplated by man since Eden. 
 Its simplicity, its sanity, its purity, its quiet, sober 
 strength, its aloofness and loftiness were to shame the 
 effete countries of Europe. How ridiculous now sounds 
 Benjamin Franklin s phrases to Lord Howe : " Britain s 
 
12 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 pride and unwisdom, her fondness for conquest, her lust 
 of dominion, her thirst of monopoly," etc. Is it any 
 wonder Europe laughs ? And yet Franklin was a wise 
 man fit for Plato s republic ; but hardly for the one 
 in the middle regions of North America. 
 
 Then take Jefferson s tiresome platitudes about the 
 people, his view of the Presidency, his view even of 
 the Federal Government. Jefferson said that the Federal 
 Government would never be anything " more than the 
 American department of foreign affairs." 
 
 " Many considerations," said Madison, 1 " seem to place 
 it beyond doubt that the first and most natural attach 
 ment of the people will be to the governments of their 
 respective States." They were all wrong, these men : 
 all but a handful of seers like Washington and Hamilton ; 
 but they might have been right if America had continued 
 to be the United States of their day, if America had 
 even continued to be the Massachusetts of young- 
 Emerson s and Thoreau s day before the shrieking 
 Abolitionites came to set everybody by the ears, and 
 the Irish came to replace the New England husbandmen 
 and mechanics, and to manage their politics. 
 
 After all, the fabric as designed by the architects 
 of the Constitution has not stood as they meant it to 
 stand : it has not kept to the original plan. The build 
 ing has gone on, and the work, as so far completed in 
 this year of grace 1902, seems to us to bear a very 
 strong resemblance to other and older institutions of 
 the kind. More and more, faster and faster, does the 
 process and assimilation go on until we now rub our 
 astonished eyes and behold an American empire arisen, 
 
 1 Federalist, No. XLIII. 
 
THE UNITED STATE 13 
 
 with alien races, bowing the knee to a ruler who sits 
 at Washington, lacking the crown and sceptre it is true, 
 because the wisdom of symbols, although dimly grasped, 
 is not yet practised in the newer state. All the old 
 theories are flung to the winds ; all the old pretensions 
 to simplicity. Such luxury as was never heard of in 
 Imperial Rome is practised universally in America : the 
 luxury and improvidence of carelessly gained wealth. 
 An aristocracy, not as ungenerously charged, merely of 
 money, but of manners and culture, is growing, and 
 class distinctions are widely and properly recognized. 
 Slowly a National Church arises from the dead level 
 of Baptistery and Methodism. Poverty as hideous as 
 any in the old world slinks in the slums of the great 
 cities. Homicide and crime is commoner than in 
 Europe. Yet, side by side with these conditions, there 
 are the correlatives of highly organized states : scholar 
 ship, munificence, art and letters, a widespread desire 
 for leisure and moral culture. 
 
 Briefly, then, after a long period of backwoods 
 seclusion, of introspection of quarantine, shall we say ? 
 America emerges more tolerant and to us more 
 tolerable. The rough edges are being worn from her 
 character ; fifty years ago she spurned the cup as an 
 unholy thing, but now she drinks deep of the draught 
 of Europe, and gives the old lands that flattery which 
 is the sincerest of all flattery, and promises us the 
 other nations of the earth a boon companionship. 
 
CHAPTEE II 
 
 THE GROWTH OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER 
 
 "!F," Mr. G-oldwin Smith tells the Americans, "you 
 have an empire, you will have an emperor, not perhaps, 
 in the Old World form of a man crowned and sceptred, 
 yet in the shape of centralized and practically autocratic 
 power." " There are only two absolute monarchies in 
 the modern world," remarks M. Bourget, " Russia and 
 America." 1 
 
 Let us look into this matter of the growth of Presi 
 dential power. We are all of us to-day democrats 
 and aristocrats bound hand and foot by those feudal 
 definitions. An emperor means merely the ruler of an 
 empire : a king (according to Professor Skeat) is only 
 the elected chief of a people : a monarch is the supreme 
 ruler. May not president) so simple, so innocent in its 
 origin, yet come to signify arbitrary power ? 2 
 
 1 The base wretch who murdered President McKinley declared, " I shot 
 him because he was the ruler, and held such power as I do not think any man 
 should have." 
 
 2 Boundless power is not incompatible with the absence of personal pomp 
 and even of titular distinction. The Americans are only following the example 
 of the Romans. "The kingly power in the United States of Australia," 
 remarks Sir Robert Stout, " is less than the President s power in the United 
 States of America. Practically, the kingly power is a mere name. It has 
 no . actuality . . . practically the Parliament of the Commonwealth in its 
 limited legislative sphere is supreme. It is true there is a veto power in the 
 
 14 
 
THE GROWTH OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER 15 
 
 When the founders of the republic divided what 
 Jefferson held to be a necessary evil, the national 
 government, into the three branches, the legislative, 
 executive, and judicial, they intended that while each 
 of these three branches should be independent of each 
 other, in Congress, as representing the people, was to 
 reside the major power. 
 
 How little they would have credited the prophet who 
 should have told them that the President would become 
 the most important factor in the government ! l 
 
 Yet slowly, but surely, the powers of the executive 
 have evolved, until the President has for some time had 
 ascendency over the legislative and judicial. Now the 
 office and its occupant have taken a stride further. Let 
 us see what the President s position is at present based 
 upon 
 
 1. His command of the Army and Navy. 
 
 2. His command of the administrative system, in 
 cluding control of the offices and the initiative of 
 administrative work. 
 
 3. His veto power. 
 
 4. The fact that by the elimination of any independent 
 
 Governor-General: but the Governor-General must act even in vetoing a 
 Bill, as he is advised by his ministers." On the other hand, " The kingly 
 power of the United States of America is very much in evidence, and this 
 has been recognized by Americans." See " Abolition of the Presidency," by 
 H. C. Lockwood. 
 
 1 " A king for the United States when they first established themselves 
 was impossible. A total rupture from the Old World and all the habits 
 became necessary for them. The name of a king, or monarch, or sovereign 
 had become horrible in their ears. Even to this day they have not learned 
 the difference between arbitrary power retained in the hand of one man, such 
 as that now held by the Emperor over the French, and such hereditary hard 
 ship in the States as that which belongs to the Crown in Great Britain." 
 Anthony Trollope, Xor- h America. 
 
1 6 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 action by the presidential electors he has become the 
 direct agent of the national popular will. 
 
 It is worthy of note that in none of the wars in 
 which America has been engaged, has the President been 
 so directly concerned with the movements of the armies 
 and fleets as in the conflict with Spain. In that war, 
 for the first time in American history, the President 
 realized in practice the constitutional provision that the 
 President shall actually lead and command in war. At 
 all times, throughout the few brief weeks of hostilities, 
 the President was in telegraphic touch of both land and 
 naval forces. In the concentration of war-ships and 
 transports, and mobilization of armed battalions at 
 points on the sea-board or in the disembarkation of 
 American troops on foreign soil, both were never beyond 
 his instant control. Although thess facilities for imme 
 diate communication between the Commander-in- Chief 
 of the active fighting force were not absolutely new or 
 novel, since they have been applied by Great Britain in 
 many of her colonial wars, yet the practice awakened 
 the rapturous enthusiasm of the Americans. 1 
 
 By virtue of what is termed the war-powers of the 
 Constitution, the President has become as powerful as 
 any living monarch, the autocratic ruler of hundreds of 
 thousands of people in Cuba and of millions of people 
 
 1 " The great Caesar at the head of his invincible legions tramped over 
 most of the known world of his day in his career of conquest. The great 
 Bonaparte from his snow-white battle-steed surveyed the field and met and 
 delivered the wager of conflict. The foremost citizen of this republic, 
 McKinley, from his official residence at the American capital, at the touch 
 of a button put in motion fleets which in a few brief hours changed the maps 
 of two continents, and placed a nation, for centuries the foremost in the world, 
 prostrate and powerless at his feet ! " I extract this gem of rhetoric from the 
 pages of a popular American magazine. 
 
THE GROWTH OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER 17 
 
 in the Spanish possessions of the Orient. To paraphrase 
 those invidious personal charges contained in the Declara 
 tion of Independence concerning George III. 
 
 He has appointed and removed officials without 
 asking the co-operation of the Senate. 
 
 He has framed tariff schedules independently of 
 Congressional action. 
 
 He has established Governments at his own will and 
 pleasure. 
 
 He has exerted undue pressure upon the people s 
 representatives to force them to do his will. 
 
 He has issued public mandates " By the authority of 
 the President " contrary to the Constitution, etc. 
 
 In brief, " the pivot," exclaims one patriot, " upon 
 which we as a nation revolve is no longer the Capitol, 
 where the people s representatives assemble, but the 
 White House, where one man sits in almost supreme 
 power." * 
 
 Congress seems to have abdicated. The laws promul 
 gated by the American authorities 2 in the Philippine 
 Islands declared that they were enacted "by the 
 authority of the President of the United States," a 
 phrase up to then unknown in American History. 
 
 In 1898 the President declared that no privateering 
 would be resorted to by the nation. Whence did the 
 President derive his authority ? not from the Constitu 
 tion, which declared that Congress alone has the power 
 " to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, 
 and make rules concerning captures on land and sea." 
 
 Two years earlier President Cleveland called upon 
 
 1 H. L. West, The Forum, March, 1901. 
 
 2 Report of the Taft Commission. 
 
 C 
 
1 8 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 Congress to provide at once for an independent American 
 Commission to fix the true boundary between Venezuela 
 and British Guiana. From what source did the President 
 derive his power to induce Congress to comply with his 
 demand ? Not from the Constitution. 
 
 The growing power of the President is a thing long 
 foreshadowed. Even Jefferson, who feared Washington 
 might desire to be made King, and who believed in 
 always following the initiative of the people, achieved a 
 very bold and arbitrary thing in purchasing Louisiana. 
 But after its purchase he did not attempt to govern 
 the newly acquired territory without a delegation of 
 authority from Congress. "With this precedent in view, 
 it was suggested in 1898-99 that similar legislation be 
 enacted to legalize the action of President McKinley ; 
 but the suggestion was promptly quashed by the friends 
 of the executive ; and it was not until the burden of 
 governing became onerous that the President felt com 
 pelled to ask Congress for relief. 
 
 Yet subsequently Congress " refused to restrain the 
 importation of liquor into those islands " a traffic then 
 assuming enormous proportions because the executive 
 authority was admitted to be supreme. 
 
 But in the case of war abnormal conditions arise. 
 The people, in the present case, more than ever absorbed 
 in commercial affairs, and more than ever disposed to 
 place confidence in the President, acquiesced without a 
 murmur. The results of the war with Spain may, with 
 out exaggeration, be said to have intoxicated the nation, 
 to have opened such a new and brilliant vista of world- 
 power before their eyes that they would not have 
 protested had the executive gone to even greater lengths. 
 
THE GROWTH OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER 19 
 
 Nay, they would have taken pride in it. 
 
 It is already, as we shall see, a recognized axiom in 
 Congress, and particularly in the Senate, " that it is 
 futile to oppose a President and his administration." 
 
 But it must not be supposed by the inquirer into 
 the phenomena of the New America, that the increased 
 power of the ruler is an abnormal condition, that it 
 is wholly confined to the rare periods of war. The 
 domination of the President has extended and is extend 
 ing by reason of causes which operate daily in times of 
 peace. 
 
 It has been remarked that the lines along which the 
 legislative, executive, and judicial divisions of the 
 Government were laid down are no longer equal to 
 themselves or parallel to each other. The legislative 
 and judicial are merging towards the executive. I am 
 strongly inclined to think that those who have diagnosed 
 the situation, while enumerating some of the causes, 
 have not been at pains to seek out the chief cause, 
 which I have already hinted at and desire to make 
 plainer later on in this chapter. 
 
 But, at the same time, it is as well to capitulate 
 some of the popular and more obvious factors in the 
 executive power. The first of these is the recourse 
 which the President has to the national treasury. 
 Nothing is clearer than that the hand which is able 
 to distribute thousands of offices, involving millions of 
 pounds sterling, is the hand of power. The lavish 
 distribution of places for which President Jackson s 
 
 1 As one journalist puts it : " The pathway of national politics is strewn 
 with the corpses of men who have attempted the fatal task of opposing a 
 President of the United States." 
 
20 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 administration became notorious was but trivial in 
 comparison with the patronage in the gift of a President 
 to-day. 
 
 To the President of the United States is given the 
 opportunity to divert this stream where and whither 
 he will into the pockets generally of his personal 
 friends, but invariably to the financial benefit of his 
 political supporters. If money is the lever that rules 
 the world, the President can dispense it with a largesse 
 that is startling. 
 
 " Picture, for instance, the President standing beside 
 the public vaults, with one arm plunged elbow-deep 
 into the overflowing treasury, while the other is dis 
 tributing the golden store to a greedy horde of eager 
 men ! " For this dazzling image, I hasten to add that 
 I am indebted to Mr. Litchfield West, a personal friend 
 of the late President McKinley, whose admiration for 
 the man did not, he assures us, make him less alive 
 to the fearful terrors of one-man power. Postmasters, 
 collectors of custom, revenue officials, marshals, attorneys, 
 consuls, foreign ministers all these and more are among 
 the recipients of the President s bounty. That we may 
 not be accused of dealing in loose generalities, if we 
 turn to the records of the various administrative depart 
 ments at Washington, we may ascertain the actual 
 number of offices which are directly filled by the Presi 
 dent, with the amount of the annual salaries attached 
 thereto. 
 
 State, Department, 318 consular and diplomatic ap 
 pointments ... ... ... ... $1,000,000 
 
 Treasury Department, 743 customs, revenue, marine, 
 
 hospital, etc. ... ... ... ,,. 617,355 
 
THE GROWTH OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER 21 
 
 Post Office Department, 4015 postmasters ... $6,931,000 
 
 Interior Department, 747 pension officials, land office 
 
 agents, etc. ... ... ... ... 1,997,640 
 
 Department of Justice, judges, attorneys, marshals, 
 
 etc. ... ... ... ... ... 1,126,000 
 
 With regard to the latter, it deserves to be noted 
 that the appointment of the federal judiciary is entirely 
 in the hands of the President, but, what is more to the 
 purpose, instances abound of late where the tenor of a 
 forthcoming legal decision has been accurately predicted 
 through a knowledge of the political complexion of the 
 Court. 
 
 In 1901 the Senate did not scruple to confirm the 
 appointment of a son of an Associate Justice of the 
 Supreme Court as Attorney-General of Porto Rico, at 
 a time when the Court had under consideration a 
 decision of vital concern to the administration. At 
 the same time the son of another Justice of the Supreme 
 Court found little difficulty in obtaining his promotion 
 in the Army over the heads of many of his fellow-officers. 
 Is it surprising to be told that these favours yield their 
 fruit ? We in monarchical countries are accustomed to 
 instances of family patronage : we do not observe any 
 flagrant public disadvantage arising from the practice ; 
 but in America the fact that it is unusual creates a 
 conscious condition of its usefulness, and its very 
 novelty disturbs the morale of the public service. Such 
 a condition will naturally tend to adjust itself, until 
 the rule that the son of a minister has greater claims 
 than other men to office, will obtain tacit recognition. 
 Noblesse oblige is a motto not yet understood in 
 America. 
 
22 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 To return to the President s patronage. The total 
 sum involved for departments named is between 
 $11,000,000 and $12,000,000 annually, the whole of 
 which goes into the pockets of the persons whom the 
 ruler personally selects, or whose appointment, solicited 
 by senators and representatives, he approves. But how 
 insufficient is this sum when we have as yet omitted 
 entirely the war and navy departments, which offer 
 fewer opportunities for obtaining the precise figures. 
 It will be enough to say that, within the last few years, 
 the President has been authorized to make enormous 
 additions to the list of army and navy officers whose 
 pay will reach into the millions of dollars. On the 
 whole, a moderate estimate taking into consideration 
 the $12,000,000 above specified and added thereto the 
 military and naval list (for the President is Commander- 
 in- Chief of the Forces), the unclassified appointments and 
 new offices created annually of the total distribution 
 effected by the President would reach the sum of 
 $20,000,000. I have seen it given as $30,000,000; 
 but, in any case, the total distribution during his term of 
 office would not foil short of $80,000,000, or 16,000,000 
 sterling. 
 
 Patronage, it need hardly be urged, on such a scale 
 is an engine of tremendous political power. Whether 
 this engine has been or could be employed to achieve 
 definite results desired by an American President I will 
 leave the student of recent history in the republic to 
 decide for himself. It is alleged that certain definite 
 results have been achieved, certain exhibitions of personal 
 power which an English king or Prime Minister might 
 envy. When, for example, President Cleveland took 
 
THE GROWTH OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER 23 
 
 office in 1893 he found that Congress had passed a law 
 which provided for the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces 
 of silver each month. The President took it into his 
 head to secure the repeal of this Statute. He did not 
 confine his interests in this repeal to the message which 
 he delivered to Congress at an opening of the extra 
 ordinary session of that body which he convened. 
 That, it was observed, was his constitutional limitation ; 
 but on this occasion the President seemed determined 
 to illustrate how much greater is the individual power 
 of the executive than that of the representatives of the 
 nation. He therefore brought to bear upon the legisla 
 tive branch of the Government an amount of personal 
 pressure unequalled, in time of peace, in the history of 
 the republic. 
 
 It was well known to the readers of the newspapers 
 at that juncture how the emissaries of the President 
 thronged the Halls of the Congress, stories were told 
 of " strange and remarkable conversions " which were 
 wrought through " influences which emanated from the 
 White House." Neither the President nor any of his 
 Cabinet have seats in Congress : they could not per 
 sonally and verbally urge there the repeal. But the 
 Bill passed and went to a hostile Senate, who had 
 resolved not to pass the measure. Here, again, the 
 power of the President proved too strong ; and there 
 then arose the maxim, "It is futile to oppose the 
 President." 
 
 Since this episode there have occurred others, not 
 less striking, as, for instance, the power exerted by the 
 President in favour of the ratification of the treaty 
 of peace with Spain ; while the history of the passage 
 
24 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 of the Porto Eican Tariff Bill exhibits clearly the 
 spectacle of Congress bending its will at the behest of 
 the ruler. 
 
 All this increased power was not among the things 
 written down by the men who framed the Constitution. 
 
 It belongs to the unwritten Constitution of America, 
 which, as we shall see, is growing up and covering the 
 naked framework of the eighteenth-century instrument. 
 It cannot be denied that the President s new power 
 owes something to patronage reposed in him. Men 
 whose political life depends upon the distribution of 
 federal offices to themselves or their friends, will 
 naturally defer to the man who is able adroitly to 
 dangle the golden prizes just above their heads. 
 
 This may be deplorable, but it is only human nature 
 after all. The fault lies with the system which renders 
 it necessary for the President occasionally to use this 
 lever. England has long since abolished the system; 
 America must do so. It is this which enables a President 
 to secure his renomination to office, notwithstanding the 
 hostility of a strong minority in his party. At the 
 Minneapolis National Convention of 1892, Mr. Harrison 
 (himself an illustration of the increased respect mani 
 fested for hereditary claims) was renominated through 
 the efforts and votes of office-holders appointed by 
 him. 
 
 Granted that the President s power is partly due 
 to his bounty, I believe it to be still more largely 
 attributable to the spirit of centralization which charac 
 terizes the New America in a marked degree. The 
 centripetal forces arise in the smallest and most remote 
 villages, in the smallest and remotest States, and go to 
 
THE GROWTH OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER 25 
 
 swell the quotient of power which is being consolidated 
 at Washington. 
 
 Communities need a figure-head ; human nature dis 
 likes an oligarchy. How much a democracy is capable 
 of being dominated by a demagogue possessing eloquence 
 and a personality is shown in the dramatic nomination 
 of Mr. Bryan for the Presidency in 1896. With the 
 lowering of the prestige of the States comes the necessity 
 for a National leader, and in the President the people 
 find one ready made. Their representatives in Congress 
 are only representative when they leave the bosom of 
 the electors. It is in the power of a President to dis 
 regard them by placing himself instantly en rapport 
 with the whole people, who instantly respond to his 
 hegemony. 1 
 
 We are, by the way, witnessing the same phe 
 nomenon in the British Empire, where the power of 
 the Crown has within the last few years enormously 
 increased by reason of the personal influence which it 
 is able to exert, especially in the Kingdoms over-seas, 
 over public opinion, which it would be rash for any 
 British statesmen to disregard. More and more do the 
 Colonies grow impatient of any restraint imposed upon 
 them by the British Parliament, more and more do they 
 tender their allegiance to the Imperial Crown. It is 
 the symbol no matter who the wearer of their Im 
 perial Unity. Americans are less impersonal ; they are 
 only in the infancy of symbolism ; they expend their 
 stock of loyalty in other ways. Womanhood in the 
 
 1 It is certain that the election of a politician to the exalted office of 
 President invests him with a sense of national responsibility which is superior 
 to party. That there have been a few instances when the President has 
 elevated party above country only proves the rule. 
 
26 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 abstract a symbol ; the national flag another symbol. 
 Yet the Presidential chair is gradually coming to be the 
 centre and cynosure, the badge and the revered emblem 
 of American world-power. 
 
 The late President s progress through California 
 equalled that of any crowned head in the old world, 
 It was a continuous ovation. The pathway of the chief 
 of the New American Empire was, we are assured by 
 an eye witness, literally strewn with roses, and all sorts 
 and conditions of men and women united in doing him 
 honour. 
 
 Curious illustrations of the increased respect and 
 consideration for the ruler are to be found in the 
 proposition to rebuild the executive mansion on a scale 
 of great magnificence. In furnishing his Excellency 
 with a body-guard and liveried out -riders, we see merely 
 a return to Washingtonian practice. Did not the first 
 President ride to open Congress in a coach-and-six, " like 
 an English King ? " I cannot forbear to cite one other 
 instance, of still more recent occurrence. 
 
 The yacht Mayflower, which was purchased by the 
 American Government at the time of the war with 
 Spain, has just been refitted and refurnished, and put 
 in commission for the use of President Roosevelt. 
 
 The despatch-boat Dolphin had hitherto been used 
 as a Presidential yacht, but the Mayflower is a much 
 larger and finer vessel, her displacement being 2690 
 tons, while the Dolphin s is only 1486 tons. 
 
 1 The Federalist suggestion that the image and symbols on the coinage 
 might be made to have an educational bearing led in the early days of the 
 republic to a proposal to stamp the head of the President on the coins. This 
 proposal led to a heated debate. The suggestion has since been adopted with 
 regard to the postage, although the head is not that of the reigning President. 
 
THE GROWTH OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER 27 
 
 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 ever- 
 increasing 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 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 Pre 
 sident can prepare and promulgate laws more promptly 
 than Congress, which occupies too much time in adjust 
 ing 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, 1 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 1J398 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 cceur 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. 1 
 
 28 
 
EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 29 
 
 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. 12 
 This lamentable episode fired the popular heart and 
 precipitated a conflict. The cry : "To hell with Spain ! 
 Eemember the Maine ! " swept through the land. The 
 rest was inevitable. 
 
 It has been said that when the Eevolutionary 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 last- 
 mentioned 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 arid 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 lojig 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. 1 
 
30 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 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 newspapers * 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, Sen or Sagas ta, 
 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 
 " 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, 
 
EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 31 
 
 The numerous seaboard cities cannot be fortified 
 under 30,000,000 dollars. The army of occupation dis 
 tributed throughout the island cannot safely be reduced 
 to less than 30,000 men, costing 45,000,000 dollars per 
 annum. 1 
 
 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 in 
 dependence and non-participation in the general politics 
 of the world, and to adopt a policy of territorial expan 
 sion, 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, arid 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 per 
 manent 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. 1 General Wesley Merritt. 
 
 The Governor-General, Judge Taft, told the Senate that it " would have 
 been better had we never gone there." 
 
32 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 3. We are to have colonies and dependencies, coal 
 ing-stations and " keys." We are to acquire military 
 and naval influence and a reputation for physical 
 prowess. 
 
 4. Imperialism means political tyranny and meddle 
 someness ; greedy scrambling for territory, offensive and 
 defensive alliances, and a stultification of the principles 
 upon which the republic was founded. 
 
 So far Imperialism. But, first of all, had America 
 the right, under her constitution, to acquire and govern 
 territory beyond her borders ? There is certainly no 
 constitutional provision such as Jefferson wished to 
 create, 2 but in its absence there is ample precedent. 
 America obtained Louisiana and Alaska by purchase, 
 occupied Florida by force, took California and New 
 Mexico as spoils of war, and annexed Texas and 
 Hawaii. 
 
 Yet this is to be noted; it has always been dis 
 tinctly understood that a territorial government was 
 preliminary to statehood, it was to be replaced by a 
 state organization directly the size of the population 
 warranted such a step. The idea of a permanent 
 territory, with no prospect of ultimate recognition as a 
 
 1 The favourite theory of the American strategists is that the next great 
 war in which America will be involved must be fought in the Caribbean Sea, 
 and that Hayti and San Domingo will then be valuable naval bases, more 
 important even than Porto Rico, Cuba, or the Danish West Indies, owing to 
 their proximity to the Panama Canal. 
 
 The recent trouble in San Domingo and the revolution in Hayti have 
 led to a renewed discussion at Washington of the question of annexation by 
 America, but no movement has been initiated officially towards that end. 
 
 2 "Jefferson sought to quiet his strict constructionist conscience (after 
 purchasing Louisiana) by empty talk about a suitable constitutional amend 
 ment ; but nothing came of it, nor has the matter been at any time seriously 
 considered." Wm. MacDonald. 
 
EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 33 
 
 State, and subject indefinitely to the immediate control 
 of Congress, is foreign both to American theory and 
 practice. It therefore follows that the chief danger of 
 the new Imperialism lay in the inevitable demand from 
 the new acquisitions for admission to the union as 
 States, which America will be obliged to grant if she 
 is to obey her present constitution, and to continue her 
 historic national policy. If she refuse, and she will 
 refuse, a new era in that policy commences, and a new 
 constitutional amendment is foreshadowed. For the 
 objections to the admission of Hawaii, or the Philippines, 
 or any other region, as a State, with senators and re 
 presentatives in Congress, participation in presidential 
 elections, and an equal voice in the conduct of national 
 affairs, could not be tolerated. Not even the foremost 
 advocates of an Imperial America have espoused such 
 a doctrine. Therefore there were two courses to be 
 followed, either the relinquishment of the new posses 
 sions, or the permanent government of outlying districts 
 as colonies in fact, if not in name. 
 
 The Philippine Act of March 2nd, 1901, provided 
 that 
 
 " All military, civil, and judicial powers necessary to govern the 
 Philippines acquired from Spain by the treaties concluded at 
 Paris on the tenth day of December, eighteen hundred and 
 ninety eight, and at Washington on the seventh day of 
 November, nineteen hundred, shall, until otherwise provided 
 by Congress, be vested in such person and persons, and shall 
 be exercised in such manner as the President of the United 
 States shall direct for the establishment of Civil government 
 and for maintaining and protecting the inhabitants of said 
 islands in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and 
 religion." 
 
34 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 In other words, any and all laws deemed necessary by 
 the President were to be set up and executed ; Congress 
 deposited all power in the agents of the President. 
 
 According to the old American formula the necessary 
 foundation of government is the consent of the governed. 1 
 But of course this principle must be abandoned in the 
 face of the Philippines which America has acquired by 
 the sword, and which it may either retain, hand over 
 to another power, or perhaps, barter for the West Indies 
 at its pleasure without reference to the wishes of the 
 people. 
 
 This, of course, implies that the old theories of 
 equality and of universal suffrage are flung openly to 
 the winds. The denial of suffrage to the blacks, previous 
 to their manumission, was constitutionally explained. 
 The Supreme Court had decided that they were not 
 men, but chattels and real estate, they were not persons 
 within the meaning of the constitution. When the 
 emancipated slaves were given votes, this doctrine of 
 universal suffrage was strained to the utmost, and now, 
 as we shall see, shows signs of breaking down in practice 
 throughout the Southern States. Its most ardent 
 votaries are now aware of its weakness ; it is in the 
 last degree likely they would seek tc extend the 
 doctrine to the horde of dark-skinned Sandwich or 
 Philippine islanders, or to the fanatical blacks of the 
 Antilles. 
 
 This is common sense, yet even common sense some- 
 
 1 " The Almighty," as Lincoln expressed it, " never made a people good 
 enough to rule over another people." 
 
 " Any decent kind of government of Filipinos by Filipinos is better than 
 possible government of Filipinos by Americans," declares Mr. Schurman, 
 Chairman of the Philippine Commission. 
 
EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 35 
 
 times spells inconsistency. It means an abandonment 
 of old principles and ancient ideals. The attempt to 
 deal with the people of the new possessions on terms 
 less liberal than America has hitherto accorded to the 
 lowest elements of her own cosmopolitian population, 
 
 must be construed by foreign nations as a withdrawal 
 
 --.. ..-""*"" 
 
 from its previous advanced position. Not merely this, 
 but it must likewise operate as a powerful argument 
 in favour of the restriction of the suffrage of negroes 
 and illiterates at home. 
 
 This proposition the anti-Imperialists deride : uni 
 versal suffrage, they say, for continental Americans, no 
 matter however ignorant and degraded, and restricted 
 suffrage for Hawaiian or Philippine Americans, is a 
 combination whose reactionary effect is to be dreaded. 
 
 The way such an argument is met is this : Had 
 the founders of the republic attempted to apply the 
 doctrines of equality which they proclaimed, the whole 
 social fabric would very quickly have gone to pieces. 
 But they one and all shrank from applying them. The 
 very men upon whose lips were oftenest those phrases 
 about the inalienable rights of man, went carefully to 
 work and established State government in which these 
 precious rights were accorded scant respect, in which 
 manhood suffrage was disregarded. The ballot was 
 bestowed upon property-owners, office-holding being 
 confined to those citizens who owned lands and houses 
 and possessed a sectarian qualification. 
 
 When territorial government was first set up by 
 Congress, the broad principle existed that there was one 
 kind of government for the States and another for the 
 territories ; that the just powers of the latter need not 
 
36 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 be derived from the consent of the governed ; that 
 only such men as own land were fit to vote, and that 
 only the select class who owned a great deal of land 
 were fit to legislate : that the constitution limited the 
 power of the federal government over the States ; but 
 that the will of Congress was supreme over the 
 territories. 
 
 According to this principle, Congress was free to 
 govern the dependencies of the United States as it 
 pleased. The form of government of the territories 
 need not even be republican : the people thereof might 
 be taxed without any representation in the taxing body. 
 They might be, and were, stripped absolutely of the 
 franchise, and ruled by officials not of their own choice. 
 
 It is a curious fact, but America has had all these 
 arguments on the subject of Imperialism threshed out 
 before in her history. A century ago, criticism of the 
 administration took almost an exactly similar form to 
 that which it has recently taken concerning the govern 
 ment of the Philippines. And whatever the form of 
 rule the President and his advisers have in store for the 
 Philippines, it will probably be freer and more liberal 
 than Jefferson gave to the people of Louisiana, and 
 Monroe to Florida. 
 
 "The President proposes," said the New "York 
 Herald, of March 7, 1804, "to erect a government 
 about as despotic as that of Turkey in Asia." The same 
 journal a week or two later, contained the following, 
 which is extraordinarily like some of the recent indict 
 ments against the administration : 
 
 " The folly which supposes that the people of Louisiana are 
 not so well qualified to enjoy political liberty as those hordes of 
 
EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 37 
 
 aliens and strangers who are continually intermeddling with our 
 public concerns, will not always pass current with the people of 
 America. Nor is it possible that any part of our empire can be 
 long held in a state of vassalage even under the philosophic 
 Jefferson. We revolted from Great Britain because her parlia 
 ment taxed us without consent. Our colonies may adopt our 
 principles. Even the limited monarchy proposed in the bill 
 now under discussion in the House of Eepresentatives, will not 
 probably be established, and it is next to a certainty that the 
 session will terminate leaving Mr. Jefferson in complete posses 
 sion of all the despotic power which were lately acquired by the 
 Spanish monarchy." 
 
 A fair idea, by the way, of America s historic 
 government of dependencies can be gained without 
 even venturing beyond her borders. 
 
 In the case of the Indian we have the abject failure 
 of a democracy really trying to act fairly by the 
 savage races its precursors on the soil. 
 
 The result is to be ascribed in this instance to bad 
 policy in its dealings with the Indians, in the second to 
 the greed and corruption of the officials appointed to deal 
 with the aborigines. 
 
 The state of the Indian territory which boasts half a 
 million inhabitants, has long been a scandal ; but it was 
 made much worse by the appointment, in 1893, of the 
 Dawes Commission. This body consists of four members 
 who employ about a hundred clerks and servants. Its 
 sole original mission was to effect new treaties with the 
 five tribes of Indians occupying the country. Increased 
 jurisdiction has been given to it by succeeding Congresses, 
 and a new and increased appropriation. It did nothing 
 except muddle matters, and for ten years has been 
 popularly known as the " The Eock of Ages for ship 
 wrecked politicians." 
 
38 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 Up to the close of 1901, America was appropriating 
 ten to fourteen million dollars a year to the Indians, and 
 thousands of people were contributing largely to Indian 
 education and missions. Yet the result of this system 
 is not at all satisfactory. The education of generations 
 of young Indians in well-equipped boarding schools had 
 little or no effect upon the Indians on the reserves, where 
 in many cases they were as savage as in the days of 
 Pocahontas, and quite as incapable of maintaining them 
 selves, leaving the Government to suffer through their 
 idleness and poverty. 1 
 
 In the case of jDuia, America has, after much external 
 pressure, " KlEeraDyTeSeemed her promise given before the 
 war, to bestow self-government on the island. 
 
 But sovereignty is sometimes none the less real 
 because judiciously veiled. Americans have surrendered 
 much, but not everything ; they still retain a right of 
 veto and of intervention that practically makes of Cuba 
 a vassal State. The foreign relations of the republic 
 
 1 In 1902, America adopted a new policy, set out by President Eoosevelt 
 in his first message to Congress in December, 1901. The policy consisted in 
 breaking up the tribal funds, giving to each man his individual allotment, and 
 as rapidly as possible making the Indians citizens of America, instead of as 
 formerly under tribal government, separate minor nations under the wardship 
 under the United States Government. The President said " In the schools 
 the education should be elementary and largely industrial. The need of 
 higher education among the Indians is very very limited. On the reservations 
 care should be taken to try to suit the teaching to the needs of the particular 
 Indians. 
 
 " There is no use in attempting to induce agriculture in a country suited 
 only for cattle raising, where the Indian should be made a stock-grower." 
 
 The President strongly condemned the ration system which " promotes 
 beggary, pauperism, and stifles industry," and he pointed the way to the 
 passing of the Indian problem when he said, " The Indian should be treated as 
 an individual like the white man." 
 
 If this policy be continued, Indian reservations, Indian customs and habits 
 will soon be something of the past. 
 
EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 39 
 
 are absolutely in the hands of the Washington Govern 
 ment, which have also a veto power over legislation 
 increasing the Cuban debt, while it reserves to itself the 
 right to intervene " for the preservation of Cuban 
 independence, and the maintenance of a Government 
 adequate for the protection of life, property and 
 individual liberty." Naval and coaling stations, too, 
 have been demanded and ceded. Cuba, in short, while 
 virtually a sovereign State in the management of its 
 domestic affairs, is for all other purposes under a very 
 strict American suzerainty. Such arrangements are 
 seldom satisfactory. Sooner or later the desire to be 
 all one thing or all the other is almost sure to upset 
 them, and though there may be reasons of geography 
 and relative strength why what has happened between 
 us and the Boers need not necessarily be repeated 
 between the Americans and the Cubans, still it will be 
 surprising if their present relations continued indefinitely 
 or even for any considerable period. 
 
 The Free Cuba, an independent and sovereign State, 
 which was the dream of her revolutionary leaders, has 
 been definitely abandoned, and a Cuba of limited powers 
 an American Eratectorate has arisen, not dissimilar 
 to the protectorate which England exercises over Egypt. 
 
 It rests mainly with the Americans themselves to 
 say whether the experiment will succeed. The United 
 States are the obvious market for Cuban produce. In 
 the old days, Spain provided an outlet, but that out 
 let has now been stopped by the action of the United 
 States in releasing the island from Spanish rule. All 
 the more reason why Americans should make up the 
 deficiency by admitting Cuban sugar and tobacco at 
 
40 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 reduced rates. President Roosevelt has urged this 
 course upon Congress with all his force and earnestness, 
 as a policy to which the country stands committed by 
 every consideration of duty and honour. He has pressed 
 for fifty per cent, reduction of the Dingley tariff in 
 favour of Cuba. Governor Wood has certified that a 
 reduction of 33 J- per cent, is the very least that will 
 benefit the island. Yet the Senate, at the bidding 
 of the beet-sugar and other " interests," has refused to 
 vote a remission of more than 20 per cent. This is a 
 most ominous and significant , step ; it shows that the 
 Senate has yet to learn the true spirit of empire. It 
 is trying to govern Cuba in the interest of Americans 
 instead of in the interests of Cubans. The consequence 
 is that in its general commercial position the island is 
 little better off to-day than it was under Spanish rule : 
 and unless Americans speedily make some substantial 
 concessions, the first President of the Cuban Republic 
 may also be the last. 
 
 President Roosevelt s Cuban policy by no means 
 commends itself to all his supporters. Nevertheless, it 
 were strange if his power and influence, backed by his 
 Cabinet and the House of Representation were not able 
 to prevail over the Senate and open the gates of the 
 tariff to Cuba. Curiously enough the Democrats 
 unanimously support the President in his insistence that 
 America is bound in honour to give commercial assist 
 ance to Cuba. Consequently there may be some founda 
 tion for the widespread belief that the Sugar Trust is 
 the cause of the deadlock ; but it is much more likely 
 to be the Senate s desire to display his power over a 
 President whom they cannot control, and whose sudden 
 
EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 41 
 
 exaltation the party leaders of Hannatype view with 
 dismay. If so, they are making a dangerous experiment : 
 the President s steadfastness in the Cuban policy has 
 already won him the regard of the nation at large, with 
 whom the Upper Chamber is not, to put it mildly, 
 popular. 
 
 Cuba s annexation is a foregone conclusion, if the 
 capitalists and jingoes have their way, and it will not be 
 the worst thing that could happen to the island. The 
 wonder is that it has not fallen long before into the 
 hands of the Great Eepublic. John Quincy Adams, in 
 1823, when Secretary of State, predicted an annexation 
 within fifty years. 
 
 " From a multitude of considerations," he wrote " Cuba 
 has become an object of transcendent importance to commer 
 cial and political interests of our Union. Its commanding 
 position, the nature of its productions and of its wants, give 
 it an importance in the sum of our national interests with which 
 that of no foreign territory can be compared, and little inferior 
 to that which binds the different members of the Union together. 
 Also, if it be not annexed, what is to be feared, and doubtless 
 on good grounds, are the periodical revolts and miserable pro- 
 nunciamientos which have distinguished the political history of 
 all the other Latin- American republics. Why should Cuba be 
 exempt from these ? Her origin, her history, her people, her 
 climate are the same." 
 
 On the other hand, I am ready to admit that, if the 
 President s policy fail, Cuba, assured of the support of 
 the other Latin nations of the Western hemisphere, who 
 distrust and dislike America, may drift away, first 
 commercially, and then politically, from the latter s 
 domination. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 IMPERIAL RESPONSIBILITIES 
 
 THREE years elapsed after the war with Spain, and 
 America still found herself in the dilemma regarding 
 the status of the annexed peoples. When we come to 
 consider the antiquated constitution and the modern 
 Supreme Court, we will see how inevitable it was that 
 the latter body should come to the rescue and relieve 
 the country from its embarrassment. 
 
 The constitution was made for the United States, 
 not the United States for the constitution. It had 
 been pointed out that to hang the entire administration 
 of colonial possessions upon the single grant of power 
 " to make all needful rules and regulations respecting 
 the territory " of the United States, is to suspend an 
 empire by a very slender thread. 
 
 In a letter addressed to Gallatin on the proposed 
 purchase of Louisiana, Jefferson wrote 
 
 "There is no constitutional difficulty as to the 
 acquisition of territory, and whether, when acquired, it 
 may be taken into the Union by the Constitution as it 
 now stands will become a question of expediency." 
 
 Up to 1901 the great cfceck on America s expansion 
 beyond her geographical boundaries, or her power of 
 conquering feebler States, was the general belief that 
 
 42 
 
IMPERIAL RESPONSIBILITIES 43 
 
 such territory, whenever annexed, was a potential State, 
 and must ultimately be included within the Union. 
 
 It was thought that the constitution offered no 
 alternative, and this being so, the American people 
 regarded the admission of millions of coloured voters, or 
 Catholic voters, or voters disaffected towards democracy, 
 with alarm. How to get out of the difficulty ? 
 
 They did not know the elastic nature of their con 
 stitution, its adaptability in the hands of clever men 
 to any situation which may conceivably arise. 
 
 Two recent decisions of the Supreme Court came to 
 alter completely the fundamental relations, of President 
 and Congress, to the people of the American trans 
 marine dependencies, so well to the inhabitants of the 
 territories. 
 
 The first of these was that in the case of De Lima 
 v. Bid well (collector of the port of New York), in which 
 it was ruled that instantly upon the cession of Porto 
 Rico by Spain to the United States that island became 
 part of America, and that duties could not be lawfully 
 exacted upon merchandise coming thence after the 
 cession and prior to special legislation on the part of 
 Congress. ^ 
 
 In the seconcl case, Downes v. Bid well, it was held 
 that Congress could constitutionally impose duties not 
 uniform but discriminative, throughout the United 
 States, upon merchandise coming from Porto Rico after 
 such legislation, because the latter was " not part of the 
 United States within the meaning of the revenue clauses 
 of the constitution." l 
 
 1 I.e. " that all duties, imposts and excises, shall be uniform throughout 
 the United States." 
 
44 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 However paradoxical these two decisions may appear 
 they practically determine the powers of Congress over 
 the people of all the American dependencies, until they 
 are overruled by a differently organized court. Thus, 
 it is declared that ceded territories become a part of the 
 United States, but that their inhabitants are not entitled 
 to the rights of American citizenship. 1 
 
 Judging by the first decision, the " uniformity " 
 clause in the constitution applied to the territory, and 
 this was probably the opinion of the majority of the 
 members of the Supreme Court. 
 
 The second case dealt with a matter happening after 
 the passage of the act creating a territorial jgoYernment 
 in Porto Eico. A legislative body, consisting of two 
 branches, was provided for, and the appointment of a 
 Governor and Attorney- General authorized, Courts were 
 established, and leave given to litigants to appeal to 
 the American Supreme Court. At the same time a 
 duty was levied upon Porto Eican products brought 
 into America, and the question now arose as to the 
 validity of such a duty. If Porto Eico were part and 
 parcel of America, the imposition of a duty was uncon 
 stitutional. One of the members, Mr. Justice Brown, 
 settled the whole vexed question in his| own mind, and, 
 without the concurrence of any of his colleagues, delivered 
 himself of an argument which rendered him at once 
 famous. He maintained that " the constitution of the 
 United States was formed by the thirteen States, and 
 
 1 The first decision assumed this form : " We are therefore of opinion 
 that at the time these duties were levied, Porto Eico was not a foreign 
 country within the meaning of the tariff laws, but a territory of the United 
 States, that the duties were illegally exacted, and that the plaintiffs are 
 entitled to recover them back." 
 
IMPERIAL RESPONSIBILITIES 45 
 
 that its scope and authority were limited to the thirteen 
 States, and to such States as might from time to time 
 be added thereto." Furthermore, said he, the con 
 stitution did not, by its own force, extend to the pos 
 sessions of the United States, whether created into terri 
 tories with a regular form of government, or whether 
 they were outlying unorganized possessions. There is 
 no doubt that Mr. Justice Brown was historically correct 
 in this opinion, because this was really the idea per 
 vading the minds of the men who made the constitution. 
 But American State policy and the spirit of Supreme 
 Court rulings for three parts of a century have diverged 
 from such a theory, until it came to be axiomatic that 
 the territories, when organized, are ipso facto, brought 
 within the scope of the constitution. In other words, 
 that a territorial organization constitutes a pledge to 
 the inhabitants that a territory will normally develop 
 into a State of the Union. 
 
 Now, although a majority of the Supreme Court 
 bench voted with Mr. Justice Brown against the legality 
 of the customs exactions, they by no means agreed with 
 his proposition that Porto Rico was a mere possession 
 and not a potential State. They merely held that the 
 constitution did not apply to the island, and conse 
 quently that the assessment of duties was illegal, in as 
 much as under the constitution the uniformity clause 
 was applicable to territories created by Act of Congress 
 and duly organized. Nevertheless, their colleague s 
 opinion is, in reality, sounder, and, in the long run, a 
 safer doctrine. For while he voted for the appellants in 
 the De Lima case, he only did so because Congress had 
 not yet legislated for Porto Rico. Had Congress done 
 
46 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 so, he was prepared to say that the act of imposing a 
 duty of fifteen per cent, of the duties imposed under the 
 Dingley tariff was perfectly legal. Porto Eico was not 
 a foreign country, nor was it an integral part of 
 America ; but Congress could legislate, at its own 
 discretion, for the tariff system of any dependency. 1 
 
 I am of opinion that Mr. Justice Brown s views have 
 obtained very wide acceptance, and that he has made 
 converts of his own colleagues. Yet there are some who 
 believe that if a case should again arise, Porto Eico 
 will be declared a territory, subject to the constitution, 
 and therefore a potential State. And if Porto Eico, so 
 also the Philippine Islands, so that it would follow that 
 every dependency which America has acquired from 
 Spain will be organized as a territorial government, and 
 the constitution made applicable to them. 
 
 England s doubtful example in Canada will be no 
 precedent in the case of America s treatment of her new 
 possessions in the Philippines. Her chief object is to 
 Americanize the former Spanish possessions as soon as 
 possible, and to this end American political and judicial 
 systems, American material civilization, and American 
 education is to be introduced. One of the first steps is 
 to make the learning of English obligatory in the schools, 
 and to abolish as speedily as possible all Spanish. In 
 official life and in the law courts, however, Spanish is 
 to be permitted for five years, on account of past com 
 mission having had a free hand in reorganizing the 
 government of the island. 
 
 1 " Assuming always," remarks ex-Congressman Boutell, " what is not by 
 every one admitted, that Congress has power to legislate beyond the scope of 
 the constitution, from which its own authority to legislate is derived." 
 
IMPERIAL RESPONSIBILITIES 47 
 
 After five years English will be substituted, and it is 
 thought that the undertaking will be facilitated because 
 Spanish has never been the uniform language of the 
 islands, neither has there been any uniform native 
 tongues. Near Manilla a large proportion of the residents 
 speak dialects of the Malay tongue, and know nothing 
 of Spanish. The Philippines are divided into numerous 
 tribes, each having a language of its own quite dissimilar 
 and mutually incomprehensible. The Taft commission 
 has revised the school system, and the teaching taken 
 out of the hands of the religious orders which control it 
 under the Spanish supremacy. 
 
 Congress will probably allow the President to continue 
 his present quasi-military control, through the commission 
 now at Manilla. It seems to be generally agreed that 
 self-government cannot be established until the Filipinos 
 shall have become more civilized ; and Congress will 
 probably wait until the future is more assured before 
 enacting experimental legislation. Meanwhile the Pre 
 sident holds out scant hope to the " equal rights " men 
 with regard to the new American possessions. 
 
 " Peace and freedom," Mr. Koosevelt said, " are the objects 
 for which they are fighting. Military power is used to secure 
 peace, in order that it may be supplanted by civil governments. 
 Other nations have conquered to create irresponsible military 
 rule. We conquer to bring just and responsible civil govern 
 ment to the conquered. When the Filipinos have shown 
 capacity to real freedom by their power of self-government, 
 then, and not till then, it will be possible to decide whether they 
 are to exist independently of us, or to be knit to us by the ties 
 of common friendship and interest. When that day may come, 
 it is not in human wisdom now to foretell." 
 
 " In this case," says Major Parker, " distance is so great, and 
 
48 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 the alien character of these people so distinct, that it is worse 
 than folly to hold out to them the idea of proximate Statehood. 
 Should they ever become fitted for it, the result can be obtained 
 only in the course of many generations." 
 
 Yet if we are to take Admiral Dewey s opinion, 
 recently given before the Senate Committee on the 
 Philippines, the inhabitants of those American posses 
 sions are better fitted for self-government than the 
 Cubans. This would seem to point to inconsistency, 
 for the Cubans are free and independent. The exact 
 political status of the Filipino, which was long a matter 
 of doubt, has now been settled by an official statement 
 filed by Mr. Knox the American Attorney- General. 
 
 The case was that of a Filipino who desired to 
 become an American citizen by the usual process of 
 naturalization. Congress not having yet fixed per 
 manently the political standing of the civil rights of 
 the natives, the Government holds that they cannot 
 take out naturalization papers any more than can the 
 Chinese in America, but must retain the nationality 
 of the Philippines. 
 
 This is certainly ambiguous. What is that nationality ? 
 One of the late insurgents now loyal to America, 
 Buencamino by name, warmly demanded an answer to 
 this question when he stood before the Philippine 
 committee. " Are we, or are we not," he asked, 
 " American citizens ? " He is now assured that in the 
 opinion of the American Government, the Filipinos are 
 simply inhabitants of a conquered country held by force 
 of arms, subjects of the Imperial republic. No matter 
 how intelligent, or well-behaved, or loyal, they cannot 
 obtain rights which are granted freely to the most 
 
IMPERIAL RESPONSIBILITIES 49 
 
 doubtful and disreputable of Turks, Kussians, or 
 Africans. 1 
 
 General MacArthur told the Senate Committee 
 that there is no question of the power of the Filipinos 
 to attain any standard of excellence. They have a large 
 representation in all the artisan employments. They 
 have a deft touch ; they are great in wood-carving ; 
 they are artists ; they are natural musicians. General 
 Merritt testified also to their good conduct and 
 aptitude. 
 
 An American army officer but lately returned 
 from the Philippines says the native women are 
 imitating the American women school teachers and 
 wives of Army officers in the matter of dress, personal 
 adornment, and manners. During the last year a great 
 change of this nature has been observed among the 
 native women who have been thrown into contact with 
 the " Americanos." The Philippine women now insist 
 not only upon having more clothes, but better clothes, 
 and the result is a marked improvement in their 
 average personal appearance. 
 
 A year and a half ago this officer passed through a 
 village in Luzon. In the house where he lodged was a 
 girl of ten or twelve years who smoked big cigars and 
 apparently enjoyed them. Visiting the same village a 
 few months ago, the officer called to see his friends 
 the native family. He found the girl now a little larger, 
 of course, and also very much better dressed. " You 
 are not smoking, I see," he said to her. " No, senor." 
 
 1 A very significant sign of the times was the prohibition last fourth of 
 July of the reading in the Philippines of the American Declaration of 
 Independence, that greatly cherished but blatantly thrasonical document. 
 
50 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 " Well, try one of these," he said, offering her his cigar- 
 case. " No, thank you, senor," replied the girl in fair 
 English. " Me no smoke now. Americano woman no 
 smoke." The moral of this story is obvious. 
 
 There are 150,000 children in the schools, and the 
 Americans have sent them 3000 teachers, so that in the 
 words of the Senator Depew, " they may learn English, 
 the Declaration of Independence, * the Star-spangled 
 Banner/ and Yankee Doodle. " Happy Filipinos ! 
 
 When Spain had control of Porto Kico, travel and 
 transportation were made very difficult oy the condi 
 tions of the roads. There was only one main road from 
 San Juan to Ponse, a distance of eighty-five miles, 
 besides this one road there were only about one hundred 
 and sixty miles of main roads in the islands. The 
 usual method of travelling was on horseback, with pack 
 animals for freight, but only in a few places could the 
 bull-carts be used, and then under very irksome 
 conditions. When the Americans came into possession, 
 their first work was upon the roads of the island, 
 building new roads, constructing railroads, and insti 
 tuting the electric street-car system, and the telegraph. 
 The Porto Kicans are good workers, and are further 
 encouraged by a large increase in wages, 9d. a day to 
 2s. Id. But they have the fault common to warm 
 climates of working only as long as necessity demands, 
 then idling and squandering their earnings. They 
 appreciate, however, the benefits of the change, for the 
 old clumsy bull-cart is disappearing, and its place is 
 being taken by waggons drawn by horses, and whereas 
 formerly the cost of the transportation of the coffee to 
 the sea was 3s. 4c/. a hundred pounds, now under the 
 
IMPERIAL RESPONSIBILITIES 51 
 
 new conditions the charge is 5d. The aim of the 
 Americans is to bring the standard of this island to the 
 level of an American State. Let us hope their object 
 may one day be accomplished. 
 
 Yet it must be admitted America lacks the necessary 
 apparatus for the government of dependencies. It has 
 been pointed out that Great Britain in the government 
 of her dependencies is still a monarchy, although at 
 home she has become practically a republic. 1 As a 
 monarchy the nation boasts an Imperial service entirely 
 detached from home parties or political influence. 
 Will it be possible for America to acquire and main 
 tain such a service, free from home politics, without 
 the exaltation of the executive and the exercise of his 
 direct authority ? 
 
 As we have just seen, the country already finds that 
 an Imperial policy is an expensive one. It involves 
 large drafts on the home treasury, not merely in out 
 right grants for necessary internal improvements, but 
 also in financial concessions not less expensive. It 
 involves fortifications, troops, a large and effective 
 navy, and the cost of territorial administration. She 
 will be obliged to find Government houses, prisons and 
 court-houses, improve rivers and harbours, subsidize 
 railways, survey public lands, and pay numerous official 
 salaries. 
 
 In brief, the colonial system means the adoption of a 
 new scale of national taxation and expenditure, and 
 
 1 " Republic " is a facile term. Gibbon speaks of " The republic of 
 Europe, with the Pope and Emperor at its head." Elsewhere he says 
 that Charles IV. was " the temporal head of the great republic of the 
 West."" Decline and Fall," chap. xlix. 
 
52 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 opens the way to administrative outlays far exceeding 
 those to which the country has been accustomed. 
 
 Nevertheless, on the whole, and in spite of these 
 warnings, the bulk of the people of America are prepared 
 to make these sacrifices. They are weary of standing 
 aloof amoDg the nations ; while conscious of the theo 
 retical wisdom of such a policy of abstention. But their 
 practice has left the old theories far behind. The 
 wealth, the luxury, the ambition of the individuals has 
 permeated the body politic. If America were still a 
 nation of husbandmen, the primeval simplicity, the 
 lofty ideals, the sacrificial seclusion which marked the 
 fathers of the commonwealth, would still have served. 
 But these virtues have long been supplanted by other 
 traits ; the husbandman has been pushed aside to toil 
 for the race of capitalists, the land is invaded by 
 a cosmopolitan horde eager for sudden wealth, the 
 stress of living has vastly increased ; in short, the 
 national character has been tinctured by its pursuits, 
 just as the national body has outgrown its old 
 clothes. 
 
 America (at least in the East and manufacturing 
 districts) is well able to pay much higher taxes than she 
 now pays. But the sources of revenue provided by the 
 Constitution have already begun to show significant 
 limitations. The duties imposed by the Protection 
 tariff are now about as high as they are ever likely to 
 reach. The scale of duties as now levied would have 
 astonished the Protectionists of a generation ago. 
 
 To tax the people further it is plain a new system 
 will have to be devised. At present, the Supreme Court 
 holds that an income-tax is unconstitutional ; at the 
 
IMPERIAL RESPONSIBILITIES 53 
 
 same time, the Constitution expressly prohibits the 
 levying of any direct tax not susceptible of apportion 
 ment among the States in accordance with their 
 population. Consequently, the only two remaining 
 resources are indirect internal taxation and increase 
 of the National Debt, upon both of which the war with 
 Spain obliged the Government to draw heavily. For 
 some time to come it is clear there will be no further 
 lowering of the National Debt, and internal taxation 
 will be made heavier. 
 
 The few fat years w r hich have so astonished Europe, 
 will be followed by the lean ones ; but, despite the 
 stress of domestic trials, America must continue to 
 shoulder her Imperial responsibilities. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE NEW CONSTITUTION AND LAWS 
 
 "A CONSTITUTION," said Walter Bagehot, "is a collection of 
 political means for political ends, and if you admit that any 
 part of a Constitution does no business, or that a simpler machine 
 would do equally well what it does, you admit that this part of 
 the Constitution, however dignified or awful it may be, is never 
 theless in truth useless." 1 
 
 In 1901 Mr. Justice Brown drew the attention of his 
 American compatriots to "the manifest danger to the 
 future of the country which lurks in the inflexibility of 
 the Federal Constitution." 2 
 
 For the people of America have for nearly a century 
 agreed to consider themselves ruled by an inflexible 
 Constitution, not to be amended or modified except by 
 the method set forth in the instrument itself. 
 
 1 " The English Constitution," p. 4. 
 
 2 In a remarkable letter of Hamilton s, dated February, 1802, he despairs 
 of the Constitution, which, however, he was " still labouring to prop," but 
 which was " a frail and worthless fabric. Yet Hamilton was the first to seize 
 on the convenient doctrine of the implied power of the Constitution. The 
 growth of nationality, and the conversion of the agreement of thirteen States 
 into the character of a nation, have been largely the development of the 
 implied powers. This, remarks Senator Lodge, is the central point of 
 Hamilton s whole policy, and in his bold declaration of the implied powers 
 of the Constitution he laid bare his one predominant purpose of building up a 
 powerful national government. 
 
 54 
 
THE NEW CONSTITUTION AND LAWS 55 
 
 This is, of course, a delusion : the unwritten and 
 flexible American Constitution promises in time to be 
 the greater power of the two ; the other destined, per 
 haps, to bear a similar relation to the whole as the un 
 written portions of the British Constitution, such as 
 Magna Charta, the Petition of Eights, the Habeas 
 Corpus Act, the Bill of Eights, and the Act of Settlement. 
 
 America is, par excellence, a judge-governed country, 
 because in no other on earth is the power of the courts 
 of justice comparable to that wielded here. The common 
 phrase "a judicial ruling" has in America, as we shall 
 see, a very literal signification. An executive edict or a 
 legislative act appears to be powerless for good or evil if 
 the court of last resort, after due argument and con 
 sideration, shall pronounce it contrary to the funda 
 mental law contained in the Constitution. 
 
 All depends, therefore, on the interpretation of the 
 Supreme Court. 
 
 Chief Justice Marshall, in 1803, declared that the 
 written Constitution was supreme, and that any Act of 
 Congress not in accord with it was void. 1 But since 
 Marshall s time the written Constitution has been steadily 
 losing force. It has been repeatedly amended by deci 
 sions of the Supreme Court which have often overruled 
 previous judgments. This was inevitable ; the garments 
 made for the Eepublic of 1789 were beginning to be 
 outgrown. How much less would they have fitted the 
 nation of 1903 ? Certain State Governments have lately 
 complained that their legislation had not a free hand by 
 
 1 During Marshall s time the attitude of the Supreme Court was one of 
 absolute independence as a co-ordinate department; the government and 
 fundamental principle of constitutional law were formulated in opposition 
 often to the administration and often to public sentiment. Pingrey. 
 
56 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 reason of the intervention and " greed of jurisdiction " 
 of the Federal Supreme Court. 
 
 The famous Dred Scott decision in 1856 marked the 
 change, so that the doctrine actually carried into effect 
 approximates the prevailing public sentiment or the 
 pronounced party policy of the current administration. 
 In brief, the Constitution can be changed not necessarily 
 by amendment, but by "judicial construction." 1 
 
 One of the most interesting examples is the decision 
 in the legal tender cases of 1869-70, showing clearly 
 how subservient to administrative necessity the American 
 Supreme Court may be. A previous interpretation of 
 the Constitution was reversed, and it was held that the 
 power to make the notes of the National Government 
 legal tender in discharge of private debts was one of the 
 inherent rights of sovereignty in all civilized nations, 
 and that as the Constitution did not expressly withhold 
 it from Congress, that body had the power so to legislate 
 for the United States. In other words, the jus gentium, 
 or law of nations, recognizes such authority, and there 
 fore America ought to follow suit, notwithstanding her 
 peculiar federal structure. But this certainly clashes 
 with the doctrine that Congress can exercise no power 
 by virtue of any supposed inherent sovereignty in the 
 general government, inasmuch as sovereignty resides in 
 the people, and Congress can exercise only such powers 
 
 1 A sound constitutional lawyer has recently shown clearly that Congress 
 has under the Constitution the power which was not previously believed to 
 make all attempts upon the life of the President or other high officials punish 
 able by death. This was supposed to require a special constitutional amend 
 ment. It has also the power to prevent the importation into America of 
 persons known to hold anarchistic sentiments, whose presence would be 
 dangerous to national peace and security. More "judicial construction " ! 
 
THE NEW CONSTITUTION AND LAWS 57 
 
 as have been given to it by the people. This decision 
 thus marks an interesting stage in American national 
 evolution and emancipation from the original Constitution. 
 
 Again, in 1876, the decisions in the Granger and 
 Munn cases held that persons and corporations engaged 
 in public trades may be placed under restrictive legisla 
 tion without remuneration a finding as to vested rights 
 antagonistic to the interpretation of Chief Justice Mar 
 shall, but in accordance with the public opinion of the 
 later day, which is against monopolies and the powers 
 of corporations. 
 
 Another striking instance of the persuasive power 
 of public opinion on the interpretations rendered by the 
 Supreme Court is afforded by the income-tax case of 
 1895. The law imposing a graded income-tax was at 
 first upheld as constitutional by a majority of one ; but 
 on a second hearing the majority changed to the other 
 side, causing the former opinion to be overruled. 
 
 Forty odd years ago the Chief Justice decided that 
 there was no power vested in the National Government 
 under the Constitution for the establishment and main 
 tenance of colonies ; that 
 
 " a power in the general Government to obtain and hold colonies 
 and dependent territories for which it might legislate without 
 any restriction would be inconsistent with its own existence in 
 its present form ; that a people of the United States would give 
 the general Government power to organize and maintain colonies ; 
 and that to do so would be unconstitutional, and inconsistent 
 with our Eepublican form of Government." J 
 
 1 Yet, on the other hand, Professor J. B. Macmaster has recently written 
 a review of the history of suffrage in the territories seeking to show 
 that foreign soil acquired by Congress is the property of and not part of the 
 United States ; that the territories formed from it are without, and not under 
 
58 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 But times have changed public opinion in America 
 has changed and in 1901 a new interpretation was 
 grafted upon the old Constitution. The doctrine of 
 1856 was swept aside as anachronistic, and the decision 
 of the Supreme Court, in the De Lima and the Downes 
 case, authorized America to enter upon a colonial policy. 
 
 Contrast public opinion now with public opinion in 
 the same direction in 1764, and we see how America 
 has evolved. Here we find the American Supreme 
 Court affirming the very doctrine Lord North insisted 
 upon at the time the thirteen American Colonies were 
 talking of separating from Britain, viz. that Parliament 
 possessed plenary power to govern the Colonies, that, 
 even though unrepresented in Parliament, they might 
 be taxed and duties levied upon their commerce. Con 
 gress is now affirmed to be in the position of the same 
 unlimited power over the Dependencies of America, and 
 what we call the American Colony of Porto Rico is 
 compelled to pay such import and export duties as 
 Congress may be pleased to levy. 
 
 " Lord North," says Professor Macmaster, " was 
 wrong in the eighteenth century as the American Revo 
 lution demonstrated, but his doctrine is right in the 
 beginning of the twentieth century, as the Supreme 
 Court has decided." 
 
 America, we see, then, is really little inconvenienced 
 
 the Constitution ; and that, in providing them with government, Congress is 
 at liberty to establish just such kind as it pleases, with little or no regard for 
 the principles of self-government ; that in the past it has set up whatever sort 
 was in the opinion best suited to meet the needs of the people, never stopping 
 to ask how far the Government so created derived its just powers from the 
 consent of the Government ; and that it is under no obligation to grant even 
 a restricted suffrage to the inhabitants of any new soil we may acquire, unless 
 they are fit to use it properly. 
 
THE NEW CONSTITUTION AND LAWS 59 
 
 by her obsolete Constitution, because the Supreme Court 
 is its " living voice." If the Constitutional mutation 
 goes on for another fifty years, the old written Constitu 
 tion will be merely a legal fiction. Not even the British 
 Constitution has undergone greater changes in its spirit 
 and mode of operation than the American Constitution 
 from the ideas and intentions of its makers. It is only 
 too obvious that the Court is most sensitive to the 
 political currents of the day. For example, in the case 
 of the proposed income-tax in 1880, the Court decided 
 in favour of its legality. Fifteen years later, when its 
 composition had altered and popular influences were 
 different, it pronounced against the constitutionality of 
 the tax. 
 
 It is true these reversals are often obtained by a 
 bare majority, in the last-named by one only, as also in 
 the German s insular cases, where, if one justice had 
 changed his mind, the present Government policy in the 
 Philippines and Porto Rico would have been denounced. 
 Yet these bare majorities furnish a safeguard ; public 
 opinion welcomes the lack of finality ; there is " the 
 hope that the bare minority of to-day may ultimately 
 become a majority." 
 
 The Supreme Court has been of late steadily gaining 
 ground. The nation looks to them in many of the new 
 controversies which have arisen. These nine men have 
 adroitly to pull, and stretch, and manipulate a Constitu 
 tion which is commonly regarded as inflexible so as to 
 cover the needs and aspirations and the grievances of 
 the people. It is a burdensome task it exacts mighty 
 wisdom. The tendencies of the era are socialistic and 
 anti-capitalistic : the dicta of the Constitution are plain 
 
60 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 as to sanctity of contrast and equality of taxation. " I 
 admire," writes an English jurist, " the ingenuity with 
 which the nine open sluices and dig side-ducts and find 
 outlets when the head of waters presses dangerously on 
 the dam. But against some sudden freshets of opinion," 
 he adds, " these devices may be futile." l 
 
 But the Constitution is not always obeyed, nor do 
 its glaring omissions always embarrass the nation. 
 There was no Constitutional authority for the creation 
 of the electoral Commission of 1877 composed of five 
 senators, five representatives, and five Supreme Court 
 Justices in order to settle the electoral votes of Louisiana, 
 Florida, South Carolina, and Oregon. It was a proceed 
 ing which would have been impossible in Marshall s day. 
 The Constitution provides for a uniform customs tariff, 
 but reciprocity has nevertheless been adopted. The 
 American Government has made compensation for the 
 murder of Italian and Chinese aliens within State juris 
 diction, a clear encroachment upon State sovereignty as 
 defined by the Constitution. It has lately excluded a 
 member from Congress without Constitutional sanction. 
 It has more than once invaded a State and settled its 
 private affairs, a proceeding which ought to have caused 
 Jefferson to have turned in his grave. The Constitution 
 provides that all money bills shall originate in the Lower 
 House, as with us, and that no money shall be drawn 
 from the Treasury save by reason of appropriation made 
 by law. But have we not lately seen the President and 
 
 1 The Supreme Court is appealed to for multifarious decisions relating to 
 the Constitutionality of Acts passed either by Congress or by the State legis 
 latures. It may, it has been said, at one moment be asked to determine the 
 proper assessment of the cost of a municipal sewer, and at another to say who 
 is to be the Governor of a State. 
 
THE NEW CONSTITUTION AND LAWS 61 
 
 Senate agreeing to pay Spain the sum of $20,000,000 
 for the Philippine islands without the consent of the 
 Lower House. All of which implies a want of adherence 
 to the laws of the Constitution. 
 
 " The question arises," says Professor Pingrey, " is 
 the Constitution of such a nature that it must be 
 construed and interpreted to meet the exigencies of the 
 time in a manner subservient to popular sentiment and 
 progressive history ? " Has the Supreme Court plenary 
 powers to modify its Constitution by construction and 
 interpretation, to meet the demands of civilization ? 
 Have the executive and the legislative departments 
 potentiality to ignore the Constitution when expediency 
 seems to require it ? l 
 
 To get at the inner opinion held by the most in 
 telligent Americans of to-day, with regard to the 
 limitations of their Constitution, we cannot do better 
 than turn to remarks by General Wallace, and Senator 
 Proctor, both very conservative and rational Americans. 
 
 " There are," says one, " a great many things to-day, things 
 good and things bad, which were not in the knowledge of our 
 forefathers, wise as they were ; but because they were ignorant 
 of the good, shall we not enjoy them ? Because they did not 
 anticipate the bad, shall we go on submitting to them ? They 
 discerned their conditions and were faithful to them ; why 
 should we not study ours ? " 
 
 "Many of our statesmen," asserts Senator Proctor, "wrongly 
 imagine we can remain satisfied, as are the Chinese, to be guided 
 in questions of immediate and world-wide importance by 
 
 1 " Even those of our people who are neither readers of history nor students 
 of the science of politics are beginning to understand that the silent and 
 irresistible law of growth, which expands the girdle of the oak, is an equally 
 irresistible law of our national life, which neither legislators, jurists, nor 
 sentimentalists, can suspend or control." Prof. H. Taylor. 
 
62 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 quotations from obsolete texts from the wise sayings of remote 
 ancestors." 
 
 So we see that not even a rigid Constitution, not 
 even a solemn counsel of the Father and first ruler of 
 his country, can fetter for ever the aspirations of the 
 people. 
 
 That the American rigid Constitution does not like 
 the British unwritten Constitution run everywhere, 
 many instances may be cited to prove. The Con 
 stitution declares that no Americans citizen shall be tried 
 except by a jury of his peers. Such jury is held to 
 consist of twelve men ; but Americans are daily tried in 
 China by a Consul and two assessors. Men accused ol 
 murder are tried by a Consul and four assessors : the 
 American Minister approving the death sentence. The 
 Constitution provides that all civil cases involving more 
 than $20 shall be tried by a jury. In China the 
 Consul hears such cases and gives judgment above, and 
 the Supreme Court upholds him. For instance, an 
 adventurous American in Shanghai refused to pay his 
 city taxes because he had no right to vote, not holding 
 real estate. The American appealed to the American 
 Law and Constitution, but in vain. The Consul General 
 held that the Constitution was not operative, and the 
 man had to pay. Another American was sentenced to 
 life imprisonment for a murder committed off Japan in 
 an American ship. He sought a habeas corpus, not 
 having been tried by a jury. The Supreme Court held 
 that the conviction was legal : as it had in cases of 
 America elsewhere, notably in Turkey. " In civil as 
 in criminal matters, laws made in pursuance of the 
 treaties to govern Americans in the East need not comply 
 
THE NEW CONSTITUTION AND LAWS 63 
 
 with the provisions of the Constitution." The American 
 Constitution therefore is not always supreme for 
 Americans. 
 
 As the Constitution is capable of varied interpreta 
 tion to assist the federal power, so of itself the federal 
 authority of the country developes unexpectedly, as we 
 may see in the railway strikes of 1894. Congress had 
 then recently assumed the power of regulating inter 
 state commerce, and thereby rendered the federal 
 Government responsible for maintaining the interstate 
 railways as international highways. But the country 
 remained in complete ignorance of the far-reaching- 
 consequences of this action, until an armed mob ap 
 peared, and, to defend its authority, a body of national 
 soldiers had to be despatched to the scene of riot and 
 disorder. 
 
 When the American army appeared on the spot the 
 State authorities were much astonished at the invasion ; 
 but State power is now futile, and the State military 
 retired to the background. 
 
 Congress, however, does not always consider the 
 Constitution when it wishes to act in any special manner, 
 and it is often too late for the Supreme Court to declare 
 the strict illegality of any of its acts under the Con 
 stitution, even were it advisable to do so, as it rarely 
 or never is. It was an entirely new right claimed by 
 Congress when it determined the validity of the electoral 
 vote of any State in a Presidential election. But 
 although Congress can empower the President to do 
 this or that, the House of Representatives has been 
 reduced perhaps not to a negligible quantity, yet, at 
 any rate, it is now a very small factor in the affairs 
 
64 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 of the nation, and it is growing less. The Senate is 
 the real master. Of its new predominance and ambition 
 I will tell the reader in the next chapter. 
 
 Turning from the Constitution and Congress, let us 
 note what progress has been made in law-making. 
 
 It has been observed that the law of the American 
 people, however novel and fantastic, and apparently in 
 some instances unjust, bear a very close and intimate 
 relation to their life. They are made by the people 
 themselves, and are not imposed by external authority 
 or by an aristocratic class. Otherwise, if enforced, they 
 would be condemned by the whole civilized world. At 
 present it does not follow that this legislation is enforced ; 
 its mere passage is significant. Perhaps its purpose is 
 then served, and the future historian may consult the 
 tomes of repealed statutes for illustration of the ethical 
 sentiment and the peculiar characteristics of American 
 civilization at this epoch. 
 
 One very conspicuous stride toward a United State 
 of America has of late years been witnessed in the 
 movement for securing uniformity of laws relating to 
 trade, commerce, marriage and divorce, citizenship, and 
 the treatment of insanity and disease throughout the 
 Union. 
 
 By the Bankruptcy Act of 1897, Congress super 
 imposed upon the forty-five diverse systems of com 
 mercial laws represented by as many States, each having 
 its own mysterious local influences "for the bewilder 
 ment," as some one said, " of non-resident creditors and 
 the undoing of small and experienced ones," one great 
 uniform system of jurisprudence covering the entire 
 field of business transactions, and impartially affecting 
 
THE NEW CONSTITUTION AND LAWS 65 
 
 commercial dealings of every description in every part 
 of the Commonwealth. Now that the latter has enjoyed 
 the advantages of this national act its thoroughness, 
 economy, and fairness it is highly improbable that there 
 will ever be a return to the old order of things, or, rather, 
 to the old disorder, the old chaos. 
 
 In America divorce has been sought with avidity by 
 countless persons who ought to have continued their 
 marital relation, and who would have done so if the 
 opportunities for easy divorce had not presented them 
 selves on every hand, and so tempted them in a rash 
 moment to destroy their homes and what should have 
 been a lifelong alliance. Moreover, need for uniform 
 legislation is self-evident. The absurd validity of a 
 marriage in one State which is invalid in another, or 
 the granting of a divorce in one part of America which 
 is not recognized in another part of the same country is 
 another evil which should be abolished. Children are 
 legitimate in one State and are illegitimate in another. 
 All this justifies the growing demand for uniform 
 marriage and divorce laws enacted by the various States, 
 or as an alternative the relegation to Congress of the 
 power to deal with this subject. It is monstrous, that 
 an absolute divorce granted in one State say, Mas 
 sachusetts should not have force in another State, as 
 New York ; and that the same couple, living in lawful 
 wedlock in the one State, are leading a criminal life 
 in the other by the mere continuance of the identical 
 relationship. 
 
 While the State of New York has some stringent 
 laws applicable to anarchists who threaten society, 
 Illinois has practically none at all. Consequently Chicago 
 
66 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 has long been an anarchist centre. This condition of 
 affairs is really worse than would be the entire absence 
 of restrictive laws in all States, because it keeps up the 
 corporate spirit and zeal of the anarchists to be per 
 petually defying the authorities of one State by the 
 simple process of moving across the border and carrying 
 on their propaganda on the other side. National legis 
 lation would thus seem to be a stern necessity. 
 
 But as under the Constitution these matters can 
 only be dealt with by the separate States, complete 
 uniformity of State legislation can only be secured by 
 their legislatures passing laws which shall be essentially 
 identical. The difficulties in the way are very great, as 
 may be supposed ; but it would be possible for all these 
 difficulties to disappear through the force of public 
 opinion, if it were ever strongly aroused in this direction. 1 
 Already the States of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, 
 Michigan, Delaware, New Jersey, Georgia, and New 
 York have annually appointed Commissioners during 
 the past decade to devise a scheme for securing uniform 
 State legislation. At some of the meetings of these 
 Commissioners as many as thirty-one States have been 
 represented. 
 
 If their efforts have not yet been crowned with 
 success, we must reflect upon the obstacles they have 
 to face. The fantastic diversity of opinion entertained 
 by the petty members of forty-six petty States legis 
 latures is, primd facie, an appalling condition to alter. 
 To animate these with a common zeal and a common 
 
 1 It is worth recalling that the German Code of Commerce, drawn under 
 a resolution of the Frankfort Diet, some years ago, was made general law by 
 the action of the legislative bodies of the various German States. 
 
THE NEW CONSTITUTION AND LAWS 67 
 
 purpose, they must be confronted with a very great issue 
 indeed. They feel their insignificance, the superero 
 gatory nature of their functions, and it is only perhaps 
 natural that they should cling to their dwindling powers 
 and their futile privileges : even if both be for evil, as 
 retarding national solidarity. 
 
 Consequently, there has arisen in America a demand 
 for such amendments of the Constitution as will enable 
 Congress to legislate upon these subjects, absurdly for 
 bidden to it by the jealousies and intercolonial distrust 
 of 1789. But, in order to secure an amendment to the 
 Constitution, a measure must be proposed by both 
 Houses of Congress by a two-thirds majority, or by a 
 convention called on application of legislatures of two- 
 thirds of the States, and after being so proposed must 
 be introduced into the legislatures of all the States, and 
 be ratified by the legislatures of three -fourths of the 
 States. At present, it must be confessed, a large number 
 of the States, of at least two-thirds, would be opposed 
 to any constitutional amendment increasing federal 
 power. 
 
 Nevertheless, already Congress possesses much more 
 power under the Constitution than it commonly exer 
 cises. Emergencies may conceivably arise when it may 
 exert this power, or any degree of power of which a 
 modern interpretation of the Constitution is capable, 
 and if this were in the public and national interest it 
 would be universally applauded, just as the President s 
 incursions into the legislative domain have been received 
 with approval. 
 
 A great deal of the time of the various State legis 
 latures has of late years been occupied in considering 
 
68 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 schemes of a more or less socialistic character, but so far 
 the champions of even those measures which have been 
 approved in England have met with scant success. The 
 paternalism of the local governments has evinced itselt 
 more in petty legislation of the " curfew," anti-barmaids 
 and ariti-bacillus-in-the-razors type ; the establishment 
 of Government breweries and bakeries would require 
 a stronger pressure of opioion than now exists. 
 
 Municipal trading and municipal ownership has 
 never obtained much footing in America, nor is it likely 
 to do so. The reasons urged against the practice are 
 chiefly, as stated by Mr. R. P. Porter, the injurious 
 effect upon the work strictly within the municipal 
 sphere of operation ; the fact that in giving attention to 
 trading operations the " unproductive " work is almost 
 certain to be neglected ; the tendency to discourage 
 improvement or development ; the engendering of ill- 
 feeling which is sure to arise when the taxpayer finds 
 himself obliged to help defray the cost of competing 
 with himself, the difficulty in adjusting the burden of a 
 trading undertaking on the right shoulders, and such an 
 equitable regulation of the charge as will not put a 
 burden on those who derive no benefit ; the impossi 
 bility of drawing a line as to which industries shall be 
 taken up by the municipalities, and which shall be left 
 to individual enterprise. 1 
 
 1 " How is it," once asked Lord Goschen, " that while the increasing 
 democracy at home is insisting, with such growing eagerness, on more con 
 trol by the State, we see so small a corresponding development of the same 
 principle in the United States? It is clearly not simply the democratic 
 spirit which demands so much central regulation. Otherwise, we should find 
 the same conditions in the Anglo-Saxon democracies across the sea." 
 Address at Edinburgh, 1883. 
 
THE NEW CONSTITUTION AND LAWS 69 
 
 It is true that early in the last century the various 
 State Governments of America did enter into financial 
 partnership with the promoters of canals; and later, 
 when steam railways were introduced, States and cities 
 and towns and counties alike were appealed to for 
 assistance in building railways. Nor was the appeal 
 unheeded, for in the forties and fifties an epidemic, very 
 similar to the present fever for municipal trading in 
 England swept over the country, and ended in bank 
 ruptcy and ruin, not only of cities and towns, but of 
 important States. Bonds issued by State and local 
 authorities for the promotion of railways went in default. 
 These and kindred experiences taught them the useful 
 lesson that there was a limit to State and municipal 
 credit. The taxpayers of those times, who saw their 
 property practically confiscated to pay for enterprises 
 which should have been left to individual endeavour or 
 private speculators, invented a device known as "the 
 Debt-limit Clause," and this clause, in some form or 
 other, had been inserted in nearly every State Consti 
 tution drawn and adopted since those days of financial 
 disaster and destruction of State and local credit. 
 Partly owing to debt limitation and partly because 
 private enterprise had been allowed a freer headway in 
 such undertakings as the supply of gas, electric lighting, 
 tramways, and telephones, there is to-day in America no 
 city owning and operating its own tramways and street 
 railways, probably less than half a dozen manufacturing 
 gas, a very few engaged in supplying electric light, and 
 not one in the telephone business. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE NEW DIPLOMACY 
 
 WE passjoow from America s territorial expansion and 
 domestic law-making to consider her new foreign 
 relations. 
 
 America has somewhat blindly and naivelj entered 
 the international arena. Her advantages are her wealth 
 and rude strength ; l her disadvantages are those insepar 
 able from democracy, from the peculiar formation of her 
 Government, from ignorance of usage, want of political 
 I continuity, and from a too-exalted conception of her 
 |own position and destiny. Thus hampered,jLt is inevit 
 able she must make in this new business more enemies 
 than friends. It is the chief purpose and the truest 
 province of diplomacy to make friends. Friends mean 
 good-will, good- will means markets, markets prosperity, 
 prosperity domestic peace and more intellectual and 
 spiritual expansion. Let us now see if American policy 
 is calculated to encompass these great ends. 
 
 Diplomacy respect for another nation s rights- 
 regard for legality ; comity, the jus gentium is all so 
 new to Americans that it is small wonder they stumble. 
 
 1 Signer Bonamico lias said that America will necessarily become an 
 aggressive military power, and anticipates its eventual solidarity with the 
 Dual Alliance. 
 
 70 
 
THE NEW DIPLOMACY 71 
 
 " What have we to do with foreigners and treaties?" 
 once asked the eminent Senator Matthews. 1 
 
 Washington s Farewell Address is commonly sum 
 marized as " advice to steer clear of European entangle 
 ments." Consequently, without reading that document, 
 a large body of Americans conceive that it recommends 
 national isolation and advises against alliances of any 
 sort with any European nation. But, as a matter of 
 fact, Washington merely considered as entangling any 
 European alliance which should make America the 
 vassal of any other ; any alliance in which his country 
 should be an unequal partner and dependant. He con 
 templated temporary alliances on a footing of equality, 
 but counselled against permanent ones, because the 
 relative strength of nations is not a fixed equality, but 
 constantly fluctuates. "It is," said he, "our true 
 policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any 
 portion of the foreign world ... we may safely trust 
 to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies." 
 
 " Again," he says, " It must be unwise for us to 
 implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary 
 vicissitudes of her (Europe s) politics, or the ordinary 
 combinations and collisions of her friendships and 
 enmities," clearly implying that time might bring ties 
 
 1 To show what a qttantite negtigedble America was in international 
 matters before the war, we need only refer to the experience of their Minister 
 to China so recently as 1894. 
 
 " So far did the idea that we ought to take no part in foreign questions 
 extend," says Mr. Denby, " that some of my colleagues at Pekin, when I 
 undertook to make peace for China and Japan, deprecated any intervention 
 whatever of the United States in the affairs of the Far East." He proceeds, 
 " We hold our heads higher now. We are coming to our own. We are 
 stretching out our hands for what nature meant should be ours. We are 
 taking our proper rank among the nations of the world ; we are after markets 
 the greatest markets now existing in the world," etc., etc. 
 
72 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 that were not artificial, but natural and politic. He 
 even believed also that America might wisely become 
 a member of a European coalition, and this doctrine 
 of his is accentuated by the recent discovery of certain 
 omitted words in the original draft of the famous 
 address. Speaking of neutrality, he says that one of 
 the results would be that " beligerent nations, under the 
 impossibility of making acquisitions upon us will not 
 lightly hazard the giving us provocation." In the first 
 draft the sentence continues " to throw our weight into 
 the opposite scale/ which, although subsequently erased, 
 shows what was in Washington s mind, viz. that armed 
 intervention in Europe was a future possibility for his 
 nation. 
 
 Furthermore, writing to La Fayette, he says that 
 "these United States shall one day have a weight in 
 the scale of Empire." He also describes himself as " a 
 member of an infant empire." 
 
 The dramatic collapse of Spain under American 
 blows startled the Continental nations of Europe, who 
 for at least three centuries had regarded the Spanish 
 Court with a respect hardly justified by its real modern 
 weakness. The apparition of the new power was 
 likened to the descent of a brigade from the planet Mars 
 " a force singularly potent, absolutely new and not 
 quite accountable, had suddenly put itself in evidence." 
 
 In Asia we have for some years witnessed the 
 spectacle of the European powers striving to obtain 
 concessions which would end in territorial acquisition, 
 with the avowed intention of closing the ports of such 
 acquired territories to the world s commerce in favour 
 of its own, by the imposition of exorbitant customs 
 
THE NEW DIPLOMACY 73 
 
 duties. But it is not to the interest of two countries, 
 Britain and America, to conform to such policy. They 
 are enabled by their resources, the industry and the 
 inventiveness of their peoples, and their facilities for 
 reaching foreign markets, to compete on equal terms. 
 Both possess a large and increasing population, and 
 
 large and inc^^ijogjjn^ ^5E e ^^- en ^ on 
 
 foreignjnarkets for an joutlet. 
 
 It is clear that- the interests of these countries 
 demand that no combination of Powers be permitted 
 to close the ports of Asia to their commerce. 
 
 But although it was equally to America s interest, 
 she long stood by inert, lending no aid to Britain in 
 her efforts to avert the impending danger. She was 
 fettered by her historic policy of isolation, a policy 
 enunciated by most of Kef Heading statesmen from 
 Washington to Cleveland. In spite of the interests 
 she had at stake, she remained silent, while France 
 acquired Madagascar and abrogated American treaty 
 rights by imposing discriminating duties in favour of 
 French products. No word came from President or 
 Foreign Secretary or Senate when the Chinese territory 
 was occupied by Russia, Germany, and France, threaten 
 ing dismemberment of the ancient Empire. 
 
 Yet Russia and Germany, by means of their pro 
 tective policy, were shutting America off the northern 
 coast of Asia from territories which might readily 
 become large markets. 
 
 The general partition of China would mean placing 
 American goods at a disadvantage. On the other hand, 
 what is the good of the " open door " to Germans who 
 are seeking protection for their manufactures. The 
 
74 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 open door benefits only England and America. America 
 undoubtedly has in China a splendid market for her 
 native products, her timber, her locomotives, her steel 
 rails, her petroleum, her cotton goods, her mining 
 plants. She enjoys greater proximity to the Flowery 
 Kingdom than any other commercial country, except 
 Japan, for we cannot yet take Canada s young commerce 
 into account. Why, therefore, should not the Pacific 
 become as important as the Atlantic ? San Francisco, 
 Seattle, and Tacoma may be destined to rival on the 
 western seaboard New York, Boston, and Philadelphia 
 in the East. 
 
 Mr~. JSay s action in the Chinese drama of WAQ 
 seemed then logical. Here the republic really entered 
 the field of international politics, and her presence was, 
 to all but ourselves, by no means welcome. 1 
 
 When the Boxer insurrection came with such be 
 wildering suddenness, public opinion throughout the 
 civilized world was in a fluid state. No power appeared 
 to own any definite policy : none dared to take any 
 steps out of concert : all secretly hoped that the long- 
 expected opportunity for the partition of China had 
 arrived. 
 
 Such was the critical juncture chosen for America s 
 _ delmt on the stage of international diplomacy. 
 
 1 When the International Peace Convention met at the Hague in 1899, 
 and convention was signed by the American delegates, in the course of it 
 they announced that, " Nothing contained in this convention shall be so 
 construed as to require the United States of America to depart from its 
 traditional policy of not intruding upon, interfering with, or entangling itseli 
 in, the political questions of internal administration of any foreign State ; nor 
 shall anything contained in the said Convention be construed to imply a 
 relinquishment, by the United States of America, of its traditional attitude 
 toward purely American questions." 
 
THE NEW DIPLOMACY 75 
 
 Never was an appearance better timed : never was 
 an ambitious statesman given a fairer opportunity. On 
 July 3rd Secretary Hay despatched to the Powers the 
 celebratecf Circular Note, in which he stated that the 
 American Government regarded the situation in China 
 as one of anarchy rather than as war, to be met by 
 a declaration of war ; that America would treat the 
 friendly viceroys as the representatives of the Chinese 
 people, with whom she desired to remain at peace ; 
 that she would act concurrently with the other Powers 
 in rescuing the legations, in protecting foreign life and 
 property, and in preventing a spread of the disorders ; 
 that America s general policy was to seek a solution 
 which might "bring about permanent safety and peace 
 to China, preserve Chinese territorial and administrative , 
 entity, protect all rights guaranteed to friendly powers 
 by treaty and international law, and safeguard for the 
 world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all 
 parts of the Chinese Empire." 
 
 This circular note took the Chancelleries of the 
 world by surprise, but it did effect a healthy clearing 
 of the atmosphere. It did quicken the international 
 conscience : it did certainly serve to crystallize public 
 opinion. 
 
 It \vas wise, unselfish, and humane: and lent 
 America a position of moral ascendancy which she did 
 not soon lose. 
 
 We can hardly yet fully realize all the responsibility 
 which Mr. Hay assumed. A British admiral who had 
 attempted to advance had been repulsed. The European 
 Governments were in a state of indecision. Most of the 
 officers on the spot, except the Japanese, judge that a very 
 
76 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 large force would be needed to make victory tolerably 
 sure, and in case of defeat the most serious consequences 
 were certain. Mr. Hay, we are told, never flinched ; 
 his first anxiety was to open communications with the 
 legations in order to have public opinion behind him 
 in the risk he had resolved to run. In this he suc 
 ceeded. Then, as soon as General Chaffee took com 
 mand, Mr. Hay advised an advance, though the 
 Americans marched alone. Mr. McKinley agreed, and 
 the public knows the rest. The legations were relieved ; 
 Pekin was occupied, and the campaign ended precisely 
 as our Cabinet could have wished. Afterward it only 
 remained to dissolve the European concert, and facilitate 
 an evacuation to achieve all that America desired. 
 Gradually Mr. Hay succeeded in detaching first one 
 power and then another from the coalition, until only 
 the Germans and English remained. In this predica 
 ment the emperor found the cost of the expedition 
 rolling up, the chance of collecting damages from the 
 Chinese dwindling away : together with the prospect 
 of permanent occupation a financial panic raged in 
 Berlin. The dream of industrial expansion departed, 
 and Germany accepted the inevitable. 
 
 But what was there behind Mr. Hay in all this 
 work ? Nothing. He was copying the methods of 
 Europe ; but Europe, had she known it, could have 
 afforded the indulgent smile now grown habitual. 
 
 Mr. Hay is a diplomatist ; but it is the Senate who 
 is his master, and it did not care two straws about 
 China. In the case of an ordinary Power we naturally 
 identify the minister with the country he represents : 
 it is not so easy to do so here. Mr. Hay is not 
 
THE NEW DIPLOMACY 77 
 
 America : his achievement found little sympathy in 
 the body ofjthe nation ox with th<Tstatesmen. America 
 shudderedat her foreign minister s temerity. It was 
 a brilliant piece of diplomacy : the exception that proves 
 the rule. But America was so impatient to get free 
 of China, and free herself from an association with 
 Europe, as novel to her as it was embarrassing, that 
 she did not even pause to insist that the principle to 
 govern the assessment of the indemnity should be agreed 
 on in advance. 
 
 A similar piece of diplomacy was tried again, in the 
 despatch of an identical note to Great Britain, Germany, 
 Austria, Eussia, France, and Italy, on behalf of the Jews 
 in Roumania. All these Governments were signatory 
 to the Berlin Treaty of 1878, which created the inde 
 pendent Balkan States, and under which there was to 
 be no discrimination against any residents of Roumania 
 on account of religious belief. 
 
 Said Mr. Hay in his Note 
 
 " The teachings of history and the experience of our nation 
 show that the Jews possess in a high degree the mental and 
 moral qualifications for citizenhood, and no class is more wel 
 come here when coming equipped in mind and body for citizen 
 ship. But this Government cannot be a tacit party to an 
 international wrong. It is constrained to protest against treat 
 ment to which the Jews of Eoumania are subjected, not alone 
 because it has unimpeachable ground to remonstrate against 
 resultant injury to itself, but in the name of humanity. The 
 United States may not authoritatively appeal to the stipulations 
 of the Treaty of Berlin, to which it was not and cannot become 
 a signatory, but it does earnestly appeal to the principles con 
 tained therein, because they are the principles of international 
 law and eternal justice, advocating the broad toleration which 
 that solemn compact enjoins, and standing ready to lend its 
 
78 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 moral support to the fulfilment thereof by its co-signatories, 
 for the act of Roumania itself has effectively joined the United 
 States to them as an interested party in this regard." 
 
 It was, of course, the success of the China note 
 which induced Mr. Hay to make this further essay, 
 but it is to be feared that Europe is wiser now. If 
 America thus claims a right to mingle in and adjust 
 the affairs of Europe she must pay the price. America 
 has no locus standi whatever. No wonder, therefore, 
 that the general opinion on the Continent was that the 
 note was as naive as it was unusual. 
 
 " European States do not, however, need American instruction 
 in matters of religious freedom and of civilization. We do not 
 believe that the Note will make the slightest impression on the 
 Treaty Powers. It will be taken as being merely an action on 
 the part of President Eoosevelt to improve his chances of re 
 election, and there is not the least reason why the European 
 States should allow themselves to be used for such an object." 1 
 
 But this is not the true meaning of the note, any 
 more than the pretext of Jewish oppression. It means 
 that Mr. Hay is a diplomatist, with an itch for diplo 
 macy. He cannot see his country shouldered outside 
 the concert of nations without an occasional endeavour 
 to make her voice heard, and her position, founded upon 
 wealth and population, universally recognized. But 
 this is hardly a motive which can find sympathy 
 abroad. Back of diplomacy must be power and influ 
 ence, and, alas ! Mr. Hay is speaking only for himself 
 and a little group of his friends who would not like to 
 confess, even amongst themselves, how weak they are. 
 
 Thus, when America, through her Senate, came to 
 
 1 Kreuz Zeitung, Berlin, September 20, 1902. 
 
THE NEW DIPLOMACY 79 
 
 act, she scuttled out of China post-haste. The Senate 
 is the real master when the matter is not a vital one. 1 
 It has recently taken to regarding a treaty made between 
 the executive and a foreign power as simply a tentative 
 arrangement " a project." In a letter which Senator 
 Lodge wrote to the Boston Transcript of December 29, 
 1900, defending the position of the Senate, he said : 
 " The Senate is part of the treaty-making power, and 
 treaties sent to it for ratification are not strictly treaties, 
 but projects for treaties, they are still inchoate." This 
 statement, Mr. Lodge observes, is a " constitutional 
 truism." 
 
 Only last year, 1901, the Senate ratified a treaty 
 with Great Britain (The Tenure and Disposition of Real 
 and Personal Property) providing for the disposition of 
 real estate, and giving any British Colony the right to 
 adhere to the convention or notice from the British 
 Ambassador at Washington to the Secretary of State ; 
 and, similiarly, any possessions of America beyond the 
 seas were to be included in the compact upon notice 
 " being given by the representative of the United States 
 at London, by direction of the President." The Senate 
 amended this to read " by direction of the treaty-making 
 
 1 The opponents of the Constitution in 1787, predicted as follows : " The 
 Senate will become an oligarchy. Sitting for six years, and not directly 
 elected by the people, it must gradually acquire a dangerous pre-eminence 
 in the Government, and finally transform it into a tyrannical aristocracy (see 
 The Federalist, No. Ixii.). 
 
 James Wilson prophesied the power of the Senate. Jefferson said, " It 
 will be no alleviation of despot egoist that these powers will be exercised by 
 a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. If," said Smythe (1811), " there 
 results to America a grand calamity and failure of the whole it can only 
 accrue from the friends of liberty not venturing to render the executive 
 power sufficiently effective the common mistake of all popular Govern 
 ments." 
 
8o THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 power of the United States." This signified that the 
 Senate has assumed to itself the right to conduct foreign 
 relations, an assumption for which no justification is to 
 , 3 be discovered in the Constitution. 
 
 This is not the first time that the Senate has sought 
 to get the upper hand of the Executive. They tried it 
 with Jackson ; but he promptly vetoed their act as " in 
 my judgment inconsistent, but with a division of powers 
 in the Constitution, as it is obviously founded on the 
 assumption that an act of Congress can give power to 
 the executive or to the head of one of the departments 
 to negotiate with a foreign Government. 
 
 " The Executive has competent authority to negotiate 
 . . . with a foreign government an authority Congress 
 cannot constitutionally abridge or increase." 
 
 At a later period President Grant, in returning to 
 Congress a joint resolution on an international matter, 
 took that body to task. " The President," said he, " is 
 the agent to represent the national sovereignty in its 
 intercourse with foreign powers and in all official com 
 munications from them. . . . The Secretary of State 
 conducts such correspondence exclusively under the 
 orders and instruction of the President." 
 
 President Cleveland also gave Congress to understand 
 | that he would countenance no interference in his conduct 
 f of foreign affairs. But Mr. McKinley was not inclined 
 to stand upon his prerogative, and we thus see the 
 Senate advancing with impudent strides forward towards 
 a share of power. 
 
 Treaties negotiated by the President are merely 
 " projects for treaties," and, furthermore, it now claims 
 to know the details of a treaty while in process of 
 
THE NEW DIPLOMACY 81 
 
 negotiation and before the treaty is submitted to it for 
 ratification, wherefore they actually compelled President 
 McKinley and Secretary Hay so to amend the Hay- 
 Pauncefote treaty as to make its acceptance by the 
 British Government impossible. Thus we see that this 
 new doctrine makes the President simply the agent of 
 the Senate in framing a treaty. 1 
 
 There have been numerous instances lately illustrating 
 the desire of the Senate to pose as the real " treaty- 
 making power." It has been guilty of trivial and absurd 
 emendations to treaties which it has not opposed merely 
 in order to exercise its power. 2 
 
 In 1899 Mr. Kasson, a " Keciprocity commissioner " 
 provided by the President, arranged a treaty with France, 
 which went beyond the limits of what the Senate was 
 prepared to allow, because it provided for a reduction of 
 duties on products of other nations competing with 
 similar products of America, 
 
 We here get an idea of the crude diplomatic pro 
 visions of the Government, also the relations existing 
 between the President s commissioner and the Senate. 
 Mr. Kasson is addressing a committee of the latter body. 
 
 " I am holding back from any fresh negotiations under the 
 Fourth section of the tariff act, in order to get the judgment of 
 
 1 "The State Department in its negotiations with foreign Governments 
 has one hand tied behind its back and a ball-and-chain about its leg," was 
 the comment of an American who had practical experience of his country s 
 diplomacy. 
 
 2 " An examination made by me," writes Mr. Maurice Low, " of original 
 treaties in the archives of the Department of State shows that in the early 
 days the State exercised the right of amendment very sparingly and witli 
 great discretion, but of recent years, especially during the last decade, it has 
 exercised its power with the greatest freedom, until now the treaty that is 
 ratified without amendment is the exception." 
 
 G 
 
82 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 the Senate upon this plan of reciprocity, because I have put my 
 best efforts into this French treaty, and if it is not to be ratified, 
 of course there is no propriety in my going and making Govern 
 ment embarrassments in this respect. If this highly advan 
 tageous treaty cannot be approved, I consider it vain to attempt 
 any other in Europe." 
 
 " Government embarrassment ! " indeed ; not merely 
 involving his own Government but the unlucky foreigner 
 who has been devoting his time and thought in all good 
 faith to the negotiation of a treaty, which, after being 
 signed, sealed, and delivered, he finds to his surprise and 
 indignation, is not worth the paper it is written on ! 
 Who would be an American diplomatist ? How ex 
 hausting must be those explanations to European Powers 
 who believe that a treaty between two foreign ministers 
 is a treaty and not merely a pourparler or a protocol ! 1 
 
 It is hardly necessary to recall here all the incidents 
 of the regrettable attempts to abrogate the Clayton- 
 Bulwer treaty. 
 
 It affected the American imagination as something 
 grand and heroic to stand at the mouth of the canal, 
 sword and pistol in hand, and defy the nations of the 
 earth to attack it. But a simple agreement with the 
 Powers to refrain from attacking it was too tame and 
 pacific to afford them any interest. 
 
 The absolute impossibility of inducing certain 
 Americans to look at any international subject on the 
 basis of international usages is shown conclusively by 
 
 1 Hamilton predicted the future "instability in foreign policy, due to 
 changes in the executive and in public sentiment, and rendering necessary 
 the participation of a comparatively small council or senate in the manage 
 ment of this department." 
 
THE NEW DIPLOMACY 83 
 
 one writer in speaking of " brutal British obstruction of 
 the Isthmian canal." 
 
 That continuity of policy and the identification of 
 the nation with itself throughout all epochs fails of com 
 prehension by the masses, and of commendation by 
 many Americans who ought to know something of 
 international honour, is only too clear. Take such a 
 recent utterance of Mr. Josiah Quincy, a Massachusetts 
 statesman, as the following, concerning Cuba, not de 
 livered, be it known, in the haste of platform speaking 
 or to a newspaper reporter, but penned soberly in black 
 and white in the pages of a leading review : 
 
 " In spite of the solemn resolution, we are not bound to ex 
 clude any policy which may be found for the best interest both 
 of the people, of the island, and of ourselves. If annexation is 
 the outcome indicated by every dictate of statesmanship, and of 
 mutual interest, the dead hand of the Fifty-fifth Congress cannot 
 hold us back from it" 
 
 What, we may ask this scion of an honourable name, 
 what do the nations of the earth know about the Fifty- 
 Jifth Congress f What do Cuba and the Cubans know 
 of the Fifty-fifth Congress ? What is the Fifty-fourth 
 Congress ? or the Twenty -fourth ? or the Eighty-sixth ? 
 It was not the Fifty-fifth Congress that bound itself by 
 solemn bond and covenant, but the American people, 
 through its assembled representatives. Covenants may 
 be broken, resolutions may be annulled, but this is worse 
 than cynicism. 
 
 Indeed, we may very well question whether the 
 political habits of Americans fit them for success in 
 the sphere of world-politics. Their long freedom from 
 
84 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 " entangling alliances ; " their irresponsibility for the 
 moral effect of their own words ; their reckless contempt 
 for foreign Powers, who are not on their own scale of 
 prosperity or population, has been a bad training-school 
 of diplomacy. And at home the same spirit is wit 
 nessed in the popular indifference to purity and effective 
 ness in official administration. As we shall see in 
 another chapter, the idea of a trained service of strict 
 business methods, and the absence of personal or party 
 favouritism in the administration of government, is 
 only in embryo in America. 
 
 If America is to be a world-power, it is obvious that 
 she must exercise her powers as these are exercised by 
 other nations. 
 
 She must, as one of her citizens advises, " wheel 
 into line, and follow the droit commun, the common law 
 of all civilized peoples." The day of experiments in 
 general government is past ; let America reserve her 
 ingenuity for legislation. She must acquiesce in the 
 jus gentium, or law of nations. 
 
 Naturally after the Chinese episode all Europe was 
 anxious to see America continue her international policy 
 so auspiciously begun. They seek to egg on to Quixotic 
 feats of arms in which she would surely be out of her 
 element. Look at this strain from the redoubtable M. 
 Urbain Gohier. He wants America to interfere in 
 Turkey, and as he declaims every Chancellerie in 
 Europe shrieks with ribald laughter. 
 
 "The American Navy is powerful, while a Turkish Navy 
 scarcely exists. Where is the possibility of war ? There must 
 be two to make a fight. To show the blood-stained Sultan a 
 few battle- ships, and warn him that every human head that 
 
THE NEW DIPLOMACY 85 
 
 falls with the knives of his assassins will be paid for by the 
 destruction of one of his palaces, this would not be the work 
 of a conqueror, but the action of a noble heart. 
 
 "For the great American Nation the rush would be nil, 
 the cost insignificant, and the glory infinite. It would show 
 that its prodigious material wealth has not stifled its feeling of 
 chivalry ; it would," etc. 
 
 Come on, America ; come on, and mingle with us, 
 fight with us, sink with us. Our caudal appendages 
 have been incontinently severed ; say, why should yours 
 wag pendant ? 
 
 Mr. Hay, as we have just seen, was ill-advised 
 enough to take up the challenge. 
 
 Imperialism will inevitably demand that Congress 
 shall support the policy of the Executive, and the latter 
 must possess large powers of initiative. Otherwise it 
 would be impossible to maintain the secrecy and reserve 
 frequently indispensable to diplomatic success. Lack 
 of continuity in America s foreign policy must place 
 her at a disadvantage when dealing with other Powers 
 whose diplomacy suffers no such arbitrary breaks. 
 
 The goal towards which the Expansionists are lead 
 ing America is the Cabinet system of Government, 
 which is inevitable for the country if she is to have 
 wide-spread international relations. 
 
 But although American diplomacy is operative under 
 great difficulties, there are now many Americans who 
 are piously ready to cry, " Better a thousand times the 
 perils of intimacy with other nations, and with the race 
 at large, than the perils of isolation or of detachment 
 from the race at large." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE MONROE POLICY 
 
 HAVING displayed Mr. Hay and his well-meant struggles 
 to establish the New Diplomacy, let us now turn to a 
 grave inconsistency in America s foreign relations which, 
 if persisted in, threatens danger to the republic. 
 
 The Continent of Europe has a deep cause of offence 
 against America in her dog-in-the-manger policy towards 
 South America. 
 
 They see from afar a vast continent, thinly peopled, 
 suitable to Europeans, full of natural resources, in short, 
 one of the prizes of colonization in the world, which 
 America coolly announces she will neither occupy 
 herself nor let anybody else occupy. 
 
 Now, Germany is already a powerful physical factor 
 in Brazil, and would like political paramountcy ; Italy, 
 whose sons are already settled in vast numbers in 
 Argentina, casts longing eyes on that country ; France 
 desires ardently the control of Guiana ; Austria-Hungary 
 wishes Uraguay. Not for selfish purposes ; not in order 
 to press the yoke of tyranny upon the necks of the 
 people, but in order to find an outlet for their surplus 
 population and energies, in obedience to that normal 
 twentieth- century law of which I have spoken. 
 
 Is it, then, surprising that certain statesmen should 
 
 86 
 
THE MONROE POLICY 87 
 
 have adumbrated the league of Europe against America 
 as " a necessity of civilization " ? l 
 
 The Monroe policy was a preventive measure 
 designed to ward off the thrust of the Holy Alliance, 
 which seemed to threaten the political existence of 
 America, Monroe and his advisers saw the danger 
 from afar, as did the British minister Canning, but it 
 was the latter alone who suggested the policy. 
 
 The world moves, and the world ages. The Western 
 Hemisphere of 1903 is not as it appeared to Canning 
 and Monroe in 1824. The "republics" of Spanish 
 origin grow more unlike the rest of the nations, more 
 unlike each other. 
 
 In the first place, although the Latin republics of 
 the Western Hemisphere have taken America as their 
 model, the peculiar qualities inherent in the people 
 prevent them from following the spirit of Anglo-Saxon 
 laws and theory of government. 
 
 In half a century Mexico has had eight Constitutions, 
 twenty revolutions, and fifty pronunciamentos. She 
 has had a succession of petty tyrants, under the names 
 of emperor or president, who have arrogated supreme 
 authority by means of force, and each has in turn been 
 overthrown by force. If to-day the Mexicans seem to 
 enjoy a period of tranquillity it is by reason of their 
 prudent concession to a dictatorship, however it be 
 veiled under Constitutional forms. 
 
 As for the other five republics of Southern North 
 
 1 Long ago, Bismarck, instead of seeing in the Great Republic the halo- 
 crowned pioneer of liberty and progress, could see in it only an " incendiary 
 republic of evil repute where a brutal and hypocritical democracy has the 
 lead, where the venality of officials, the fraudulent appropriation of public 
 money, and the terrors of lynch law are the order of the day ! " 
 
88 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 America, they are periodically subject to revolts and 
 mutinies, and are without any secure foundation. 
 
 In fact, with the exception of Brazil and Chili, all 
 Latin nations of the Western Hemisphere have 
 exhibited profound political incapacity. In Colombia, 
 tyrannies succeed tyrannies as constitution follows con 
 stitution. Force and violence seem to be in the blood 
 of the body politic. In Venezuela, the pronunciamento 
 of the victorious upstart is the only method of obtaining 
 power, and has grown to be a veritable, and almost 
 venerable, institution of State. As for Ecuador, it has 
 been called " a fragment of the Europe of the Middle 
 Ages," secluded between the Pacific and the summits of 
 the Andes, " an immense monastery with the honours 
 of a nation." This is no longer its plight, but the 
 advance has not been very marked. Within the past 
 quarter of a century, a foreign war has robbed Peru 
 of her two richest provinces, and more than ten civil 
 wars have helped to bring her to her present state of 
 bankruptcy. 
 
 In brief, the Spanish colonies in both North America 
 and South America had not at the time of their revolt 
 from Spain been educated for liberty and self-govern 
 ment, but rather for dependency and servitude. 
 
 If Germany were to invade and conquer Argentina, 
 America would not be menaced any more than if 
 Germany were to conquer Greece or Portugal. Argen 
 tina is 5000 miles from Washington. 
 
 It is probably a fact that the Kaiser views with 
 secret and strong approbation the plans for securing a 
 German colony in the South American continent. The 
 only obstacle in his way for we would hardly be so 
 
THE MONROE POLICY 89 
 
 foolish as to object is the Monroe policy. But 
 Germany does not recognize the Monroe policy, and 
 America, as Mr. Eoosevelt has said, needs a fleet of great 
 battle-ships if she intends to live up to that policy. Has 
 she got them ? 
 
 But can the American people seriously intend to 
 stultify themselves, jeopardize the lives of their soldiers 
 and sailors, and sacrifice the prosperity of the Southern 
 Continent by perpetual adhesion to a mere dogma 
 which served its turn when it was enunciated in 1823,| 
 but can hardly be a weapon for national defence in 1903 ?^ 
 Look at the case broadly look at it from a humani 
 tarian standpoint not the narrow humanity which 
 sees only the present, but that which encompasses the 
 future well-being of mankind. That is the way Ameri 
 cans as well as Englishmen have been looking at the 
 Avars undertaken in the Philippines and South Africa ; it 
 is progress versus barbarism, intelligence versus igno 
 rance ; so that the point of view is sufficiently familiar. 
 Assuming that Germany, highly civilized, efficient, 
 capable, and honest, desires to plant a German colony 
 in the Southern Continent. Does any but a prating 
 dunce or parish bigot suppose that this would not 
 redound to the advantage of the whole district where 
 German institutions rose, German thrift spread, or 
 German laws ran ? Would not German methods of 
 colonization be modelled precisely on those of the 
 English, which the Americans themselves are never 
 tired of praising ? 
 
 " If," asks one American, Mr. Walter Wellman, " a 
 new Prussia or Bavaria were set up in Brazil, a new 
 Italy in Argentina, another Holland in Patagonia, a 
 
90 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 new Brittany in Guiana, who can say that the result 
 would constitute a menace to the United States ? " 
 
 President Roosevelt, in a speech delivered recently 
 in Vermont, thus referred to the Monroe policy or 
 " doctrine." He disclaims any " aggression." 
 
 " We believe in the doctrine, not as a means of aggression 
 at all. It does not mean that we are aggressive towards any 
 Power. It means merely that, as the biggest Power on this 
 Continent, we remain steadfastly true to the principle first 
 formulated under the presidency of Monroe, that this Continent 
 must not be treated as a subject for political colonization by 
 any European Power. It is a doctrine of peace, a doctrine to 
 secure a change of this Continent, for the United States here 
 to develop peaceably along their own lines. How have we 
 formulated that doctrine ? If our formulation consists simply 
 in statements on the stump, or on paper, they are not worth 
 the breath that utters them, or the paper on which they are 
 written. The doctrine will be respected as long as we have 
 a first- class efficient Navy, not very much longer. 1 
 
 " In private life, the asserter of something that he is going 
 to do, and does not back it up is always a contemptible creature, 
 and as a nation, the last thing we can afford to do is to take 
 up a position which we do not intend to make good. Bragging 
 and boasting in private life are almost always signs of a weak 
 
 1 It is declared that high officers on the Naval Board of Construction 
 have not hesitated to state that " An American Navy should exceed that of 
 Germany if the country is to be safe." But there could be no attempt to 
 invade the territory of either Power. The probable way of carrying on such 
 a war would be in the Baltic or the English Channel. 
 
 Nevertheless, each nation might shrink less if occasion arose, from trying 
 conclusions at sea, and the Atlantic itself might be the theatre of war. 
 Germany s navy will be superior in size and effectiveness to that of America 
 in 1906, according to the naval programmes, and with a larger fleet, can she 
 not safely plant her colonies where she chooses on the South-American 
 Continent. The truth is, America herself would greatly benefit from 
 Germany s colonizing labours in the Southern Continent. She has far more 
 bond with a great cultured Protestant Germany than with the horde of semi- 
 Spanish, semi-civilized Peruvians and Argentinians. 
 
THE MONROE POLICY 91 
 
 man, and a nation that is strong need not have its public men 
 boast and brag on its account. Least of all does a self-respecting 
 nation wish its public representatives to threaten, menace, or 
 insult any other Power. Our attitude towards all Powers must 
 be one of such dignified courtesy and respect as we intend they 
 shall show to us. In return, they must be willing to give us 
 the friendly regard we exact from them. 
 
 " We must no more wrong them than we must submit to 
 wrong-doing by them. When we take up a position, let us 
 remember that our holding it depends on ourselves, depends 
 on our showing that we have the ability to hold it. Shame to 
 us if we assert the Monroe doctrine, and then, if our assertion 
 shall be called in question, show only that we made an idle 
 boast, and that we are unprepared to back our words by deeds." 
 
 Fine words ! but they cannot disguise the fact that 
 America, by the Monroe doctrine, seeks to put a barrier, 
 and prevent the world-movement reaching the shores 
 of a distant continent. She sets up an arbitrary, 
 immutable, unvarying rule that not only may she 
 interfere where right and liberty are concerned, but 
 that she must and shall interfere in any and every 
 case whatsoever, regardless of the circumstances, where 
 native control is threatened from without. 
 
 The fundamental error of America is in asserting, 
 as it must be our fundamental error in acquiescing in 
 such assertion, that because it is at present the chief 
 country of a hemisphere which was discovered a trifle 
 of only four centuries ago, it occupies the position of 
 champion of that half against the supposed aggressions 
 of the other half. It is a self- elected champion. 
 
 The Monroe doctrine has indeed been called the one 
 example now surviving of a first-class Power setting its 
 strength against progress. It is opposing the principle 
 
92 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 of the " constantly increasing responsibility of the 
 superior and competent nations and the constantly 
 lessening sway, influence, and territory of the inferior 
 and the incompetent," which is to-day one of the 
 mightiest forces in the world. It is telling Peru, 
 I Venezuela, Paraguay, Columbia, and the rest, that they 
 i shall be protected in their degraded policy and incom- 
 ; petence, and it is telling the great trustees of Africa 
 and Asia, and the islands of the sea that they must 
 cease their work of morality and civilization in the 
 Western Hemisphere, because in 1823 Mr. Monroe 
 dreaded the Holy Alliance ! 
 
 The feebleness and falsity of the Monroe doctrine is 
 that it concerns not only countries adjacent to America, 
 but the whole of the Western Hemisphere, parts where 
 it has not and may never have any interest whatever, 
 and where other and equally civilized Powers have 
 already a great actual interest. It would be hard for any 
 American to say what interest his country possesses in 
 middle and lower South America to justify it in claim 
 ing any exclusive privilege. It can hardly be the 
 preservation of a republican form of government, espe 
 cially when he sees that nowadays the name does not 
 exactly define the thing, and the chief European nations 
 whose possible activities America seeks to restrain, are 
 purer democracies than any of the South American 
 republics. 
 
 Moreover, Monroeism applied to Brazil when it was 
 (as until a dozen years ago) a monarchy. 
 
 Canada, with an area greater than America s, stands 
 to ; ; $tultify eternally the Monroe doctrine. That doc 
 trine declared eighty years ago that European presence 
 
THE MONROE POLICY 93 
 
 in this hemisphere would be a menace to the United 
 States. Canada in the sense then implied is European. 
 Canada is British. Is Canada less free, are her people 
 less happy, less enlightened, than her neighbours ? 
 
 " Hemisphere " is rather a " large order." Then 
 there is Mexico. 
 
 Less than forty years ago, Mexico s position seemed 
 doubtful. To-day Mexico has few equals in the rapidity 
 of her progress, and, led by a really great constructive 
 statesman, she is developing a strong and brilliant 
 individuality. 
 
 What does Mexico think of the Monroe doctrine ? 
 Says the exiled but patriotic Prince Yturbide 
 
 " The Monroe doctrine of the twentieth century is not at 
 variance with the theory to which more or less frequent 
 expression has been given in the United States, that the 
 mission of that country is one of conquest. Indeed, in the 
 light of circumstances, it is as nearly the announcement of 
 a mission of conquest as could be given in indirect words. 
 The countries of Spanish- America 1 are not afraid of being 
 conquered ; but they are averse to entangling alliances with a 
 great Power whose people wish continually to hear that they 
 have missions of conquest, seeing that arrangements of that kind 
 are calculated to brew trouble under almost any circumstances." 
 
 This settles the Monroe doctrine as far as the Spanish races 
 are concerned. " Every barrier," says this Mexican, further, " of 
 race, of language, of religion, of traditions, of habit, of thought, 
 and even of geographical distance, stands between these people." 
 
 The retention by America of a permanent Asiatic 
 dependency must vitally menace the principles of the 
 
 1 A cumbrous and ambiguous term, implying those portions of the con 
 tinents of North America and South America, excepting California, Arizona, 
 New Mexico, Florida, and such as have been incorporated into the republic 
 of America, which were settled and ruled by Spain and also by Portugal. 
 
94 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 Monroe doctrine. As long as she adheres consistently 
 to the ideal of a political domination of the Western 
 Hemisphere, the principle of the non-interference therein 
 by any other Power, may be logically maintained against 
 the assumed "rapacity" of Eastern Powers. But the 
 logic of the position disappears when America invades 
 the Eastern Hemisphere, where she has less apparent 
 right than any European nation has in South America. 
 
 " If," says an American writer, " it be accepted that the 
 Monroe doctrine is a fundamental one in our foreign relations, 
 we are bound to respect the implied limitations. If we seek 
 a field for the expansion of Anglo-Saxon ideas, we have a broad 
 one in our own Continent, not yet fallow-ploughed." 
 
 A leading British organ the Spectator believes, 
 nevertheless, that 
 
 " It would be wise policy for us formally to notify to 
 America our recognition of the true Monroe doctrine, for, while 
 admitting that we had no wish to expand, we should obtain 
 something approaching an insurance of our possessions in North 
 America, in the West Indies, and in South America." 
 
 It is not difficult for those of us who seek to ascer 
 tain the real opinion of Europe concerning America. 
 The American is already, indeed, an amer-eikon (bitter 
 image) to the Latin, the Slav, and the Teuton. Take the 
 recent utterance of Count Canevaro, late Italian Foreign 
 Minister, and a clear-headed statesman. He is con 
 vinced that the Triple Alliance and the Dual Alliance 
 jointly have given Europe twenty years of peace, and 
 that this fact would perhaps " lead the European nations 
 to consider the possibility and the necessity of uniting 
 against America and Asia, as the future civilization 
 would require them to do." This deliverance plainly 
 
THE MONROE POLICY 95 
 
 coincides with that of Count Goluchowski, the Austrian 
 Chancellor, and other able interpreters of the signs and 
 needs of the times. In brief, America is regarded by 
 Europe as a dangerous obstacle to the accomplishment 
 of its designs, and as an impertinent intruder into the 
 field of welt politik. Nor can it be supposed that the 
 Vatican views the crippling by America of the most 
 Catholic nation with anything but resentment, and this 
 opinion of the Papacy is sure to yield results in the 
 uttermost corner of Europe. 
 
 Europe and by Europe we mean always the Conti 
 nental nations is harassed by the fear which is almost 
 a belief that commercial competition with America is 
 out of the question. Her wealth and energy are ex 
 aggerated unreasonably, and she stands before Europe 
 as a monster seeking to monopolize trade and control 
 all the wealth of the universe. Its tentacles are the giant 
 Trusts, actuated by a Protectionist Government, quick 
 to make reprisals if their victims endeavour to escape. 
 When trade is crushed and their industrial classes are 
 idle, socialism will arise at home to aid in the devas 
 tating process. Is it any wonder, then, that America s 
 action regarding the exploitation of Asia and South 
 America is bitterly resented, as an additional outrage ? 
 
 At one of the greatest meetings ever held in Vienna, 1 
 attended by the great Austrian aristocrats and leading 
 economists, and approved by the Austrian Premier, 
 America was roundly denounced as the grand " peril " 
 of the future. She was aiming, said Dr. Peez, at 
 " universal economic supremacy," and must be fought 
 by strict protection. Count Buquoy thought her 
 
 1 October 23, 1901. 
 
96 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 internal economic policy revealed " a series of crimes 
 which were associated with an unparalleled ruthless- 
 ness in the conduct of business." The meeting unani 
 mously passed resolutions demanding a " union of 
 Central Europe against transoceanic competition." This 
 means the beginning of an attempt at an economical 
 boycott of America. 
 
 As for ourselves, we are told by our great and good 
 British newspapers that, in spite of commercial emula 
 tion and the strongly-marked variations of character 
 and mind, produced by lapse of time, difference of 
 environment, and the effect of a polyglot emigration, 
 since the separation of the race, Britain and America 
 " are, after all, nearer in language, institutions, and 
 national temper, as well as more closely knitted together 
 by their economic interests, than any other two 
 countries not under the same Government that history 
 has known." 
 
 This is not quite correct, because Austria and Prussia 
 were much more allied in language, and institutions, 
 and national temper ; but that did not prevent them 
 from hating each other with a deep hatred, and finally 
 
 -, separating, never to reunite. What is true is that 
 no other two nations in the world are so manifestly 
 
 I each other s commercial rivals as Britain and America. 
 
 v One is Protectionist, the other Free Trade. One is a 
 
 manufacturing and agricultural country, the other is 
 forced to be manufacturing alone. Diplomatic co-opera 
 tion is rendered difficult by the difference between their 
 administrative systems. America has no permanent 
 under-secretary, and there are no ex-Ministers in her 
 Parliament. Surely, these things obstruct perfect unison. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE NEW COMMERCE 
 
 THE rapid change in America s trade conditions has 
 been a fruitful theme of discussion of late. She is 
 to-day a manufacturing exporter, instead of chiefly an 
 importer ; and is now in a fair way of becoming a 
 creditor, instead of remaining a debtor, to Europe. 1 
 
 The gross value of manufactures in America in 1870 
 was $3,385,000,000, an increase of 75 per cent, over 
 1860. Ten years later, in 1880, when the population 
 had increased 30 6 per cent., the increase in the gross 
 value of manufactures w r as 58 per cent., or a total of 
 $5,349,000,000. In 1890, with a gain in population 
 of 24*86 per cent., the increase in manufactures was 
 69 per cent., the total being $9,056,000,000. In 1900 
 the increase in population has been 21 per cent., and 
 
 1 With all the recent stir concerning things American it is somewhat 
 diverting to read in the Edinburgh Review of 1820, such a series of interro 
 gations as the following : 
 
 " In the four quarters of the globe who reads an American book? or goes 
 to an American play ? or looks at an American picture or statue ? What 
 does the world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons ? What new 
 substances have their chemists discovered? or what old ones have they 
 analyzed ? What new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes 
 of Americans ? What have they done in mathematics ? Who drinks out 
 of American glasses? or eats from American plates? or wears American 
 coats or gowns ? or sleeps in American blankets ? " 
 
 97 H 
 
98 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 the gross value of manufactures about 54 per cent, 
 increase, or about 13 billions of dollars. 1 
 
 Thus in a paragraph we may take note of America s 
 stupendous growth of national production. During the 
 period that the population increased 98 54 per cent., 
 the value of her manufactures increased 260 per cent. 
 Domestic consumption has more than proportionately 
 increased, but is destined to be far in the rear of pro 
 duction. Consequently, it is clear that America must 
 have foreign markets wherein to dispose of her 
 surplus. 
 
 American supremacy in the iron trade has been 
 built up in a decade by hard work ; unbounded self- 
 confidence, unquestioned boldness in speculation, has 
 brought the mechanism of iron-production, from the 
 mining of ore to the handling of the finished product, 
 to an efficiency almost marvellous. Between 1890 and 
 1899 the output of iron ore rose from 14^ to 24^ 
 million tons, that of pig-iron from less than 8^ to over 
 13f million tons, and that of steel from under 4 to lOf 
 million tons. At the same time mechanical appliances 
 have been brought to such a pitch of perfection that, 
 whilst the average production per annum per man 
 employed at blast furnaces in 1890 was 275 tons, it 
 had risen to 354 in 1900. In shipbuilding alone, 
 England retains supremacy ; but even here she is 
 warned that the New York Shipbuilding Company s 
 yard "is in all respects the most modern and the most 
 
 1 In addition, the American flour mills are able to grind all the wheat 
 annually grown in the entire country in eight months, and this, although over 
 100 millions of bushels were exported last year. It is the same with cotton ; 
 the cotton mills working only eight months in the year would produce all the 
 cotton goods America consumes annually. 
 
THE NEW COMMERCE 99 
 
 remarkable in the world," and Mr. Nixon, shipbuilder 
 and ex-Tammany Hall leader, has announced that 
 " notice is served upon Europe that, even in shipbuilding, 
 we propose to go to the front." 
 
 This significant result, brought about within so brief 
 a space of time, has not been due more to national 
 policy than to huge natural resources and sheer hard 
 work added to the extraordinary resourcefulness and 
 business activity of American merchants and manu 
 facturers in exploiting the products of American toil 
 and ingenuity. 
 
 Many years ago, America was described by " Sam 
 Slick " as " a land of hard work, with two kinds of 
 slaves the niggers and the white slaves. . . . An idle 
 fellow who runs away to us is clapped into harness 
 before he knows where he bees. . . . He must either 
 draw or be dragged to death." 
 
 I have seen this inordinate passion for hard work 
 ascribed to the climate. 1 But, whatever the cause, 
 America s achievements in commerce are certainly the 
 result of downright industry. 
 
 Youth is everywhere evident in commerce, in 
 industry, in journalism, in literature and, almost for 
 the first time in American history, in politics. One 
 natural explanation of this is, that under the new 
 
 1 "Residence in the neighbourhood of Chicago," remarks the London 
 Speaker, " must be equivalent to taking a drug." Yet the Americans have 
 not always been characterized for excessive industry. Mr. Henry Bradshaw 
 Fearon, who visited America in 1817, says that it afforded " decided evidence 
 of the prosperity of that country, which could admit so large a body of its 
 citizens to waste in indolence three-fourths of their lives, and would also 
 appear to hold out encouragement to Englishmen with English habits, who could 
 retain their industry amid a nation of indolence, and have sufficient firmness 
 to live in America, and yet bid defiance to the deadly example of its natives." 
 
ioo THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 strenuous regime, there are no old men. To our eyes 
 it is the great drawback of the American system, which 
 throws, with reckless disregard, men as well as machines 
 upon the scrap-heap. At Vandergrift, a model village 
 attached to one of the most successful ironworks in 
 America, we are told that "hardly a dozen persons can 
 be found over fifty years of age/ Wages are high, but 
 hours are long. Philanthropy is building model villages, 
 but no wage-earner may dispute conditions of labour 
 with his employer. No consideration is shown to a 
 man because he has become skilled. One of the main 
 aims of American workshop practice is " to reduce by 
 every possible means the number of highly skilled men 
 employed, and more and more to establish the general 
 wage on the basis of common and unskilled labour." 
 Matching and doubling in the mill, they say, can be 
 learnt in a few weeks. A heater can be made in six 
 months, and it took a man who had been working pre 
 viously on a locomotive, from October to the following 
 June to pass through the various stages before he 
 arrived at the position of roller. 1 
 
 The master spares neither his men nor himself. The 
 American business man sacrifices his life to his business. 
 He has no companions out of business. " The American 
 system," says Mr. Jeans, " does not provide either 
 opportunities or a stimulus to cultivate the artistic, the 
 literary, and the beautiful." The master comes with 
 the men, and leaves after they have gone. No wonder 
 is it that Allegheny City, a suburb of Pittsburg, is 
 known as " Suicide City." Prosperity may be bought 
 too dear, and America is paying more for her industrial 
 
 1 Iron Commission s Report, 1902. 
 
THE NEW COMMERCE 101 
 
 success than we would care to pay ; more, indeed, than 
 humanity can afford. 
 
 To illustrate how the national intensity invades 
 every walk and calling of life, from the bank president 
 to the bootblack, we may take the case of the cotton- 
 mill hand. How is it, it has often been asked, that 
 American mills, paying larger wages than are paid in 
 Europe, can afford to compete with the European mills 
 in the sale of cotton cloth ? The industry is supposed 
 to be conducted everywhere on the same principles. 
 Looms can be run in one way only, that is, by super 
 intending the movement of the shuttle by the operation. 
 Take the case of a certain kind of print cloth : the case 
 of labour per hundred yards is in Switzerland 2s. 6d. ; 
 in England, 2s. Od. ; in America, Is. Sd. Yet the daily 
 average was : in Switzerland, 25. O^d. ; in England, 
 2,9. 8^d. ; in America, 3s. 6^d. What is the solution 
 of the mystery ? It is this : the average number of 
 looms attended by one weaver in the mills of Switzer 
 land and Germany was about two and half ; in England, 
 about three and a half ; and in America, about six and 
 a half. The larger number of looms worked by a single 
 operative explains the higher wages by the day and the 
 lower cost of labour by the piece. The larger number of 
 looms run by one hand, the closer the attention required. 
 
 "The American worker s high earnings are," remarks a 
 recent close observer, 1 " realized at an expense of nerve power, 
 which the European operative is not required to expend on her 
 work. For every unit of pay received the American operatives 
 are obliged to turn out more yarn, pounds or pieces, than the 
 operatives in England ; the English more than the German,- 
 and the German more than the Austrian." 
 1 Mr. Jacob Schccnhof. 
 
102 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 Two years ago it seemed as if America were going 
 to swamp European markets with production of pig- 
 iron, and be not only the largest producer, but also 
 controller of the world s supply. In 1900 she sent 
 Britain 94,282 tons, and took from her only 45,000 
 tons of special brands. This year a constant stream is 
 flowing the other way. Every liner from the Clyde 
 and Mersey is taking as much pig-iron to the United 
 States as she cares to carry, and steamer after steamer 
 is being successfully chartered to take full cargoes from 
 the Tees, the Clyde, and west coast ports to Baltimore, 
 Philadelphia, and other points. The latest movement 
 is, perhaps, the most striking. It is for tonnage to 
 convey pig-iron from our shores to New Orleans, Pensa- 
 cola, and other of the gulf ports. This is remarkable 
 because there has been no reported interruption in the 
 output of the furnaces of the Southern States, and it 
 was from the Southern States that Britain received her 
 first parcels of American iron, coming at nominal 
 freights for the ballasting of cotton ships. It is, of 
 course, well understood that the strike of the anthracite 
 miners of Pennsylvania has affected the output of foundry 
 pig-iron in the Eastern State. But, then, against this 
 we have the facts that the total output of pig-iron in 
 America is larger than ever it was, notwithstanding the 
 strike, and that it is not foundry iron alone that America 
 is importing. One notable feature is the large quantity 
 of steel-making iron, of un wrought steel, and, latterly, 
 of finished steel, she is now drawing from Britain or 
 from Germany. 1 
 
 1 The growth in the importation of manufacturers materials during the 
 last twenty years has advanced from one-third to nearly one-half of the total. 
 
THE NEW COMMERCE 103 
 
 America s lead as a manufacturing exporter was 
 of brief duration. There came in 1901-2 a sudden 
 and unexpected reduction in outward shipments to the 
 extent of no less than twenty million sterling, and 
 Britain was once more restored thereby to her premier 
 place as an exporting nation. 1 
 
 But this does not mean that the bugbear of American 
 competition has disappeared. The decrease in American 
 exports has been due to two factors the deficiency in 
 the maize crop, a temporary condition and next to a 
 decline in metal manufactures. This is, however, accom 
 panied by no decline in actual production, nor in actual 
 
 While the imports of these materials have practically doubled during this 
 period, those of other articles have increased only about twelve per cent. A 
 comparison for the last ten years shows an increase of fifty per cent, in the 
 manufacturers materials, and a decrease of ten per cent, in other imports. 
 The contrast would be even more striking if, instead of value, quantity were 
 taken as the basis. 
 
 1 The decline in American exports may be seen from the following state 
 ment published by the British Board of Trade. 
 
 The imports of the four principal trading nations for the six months 
 ending* with June were 
 
 United Kingdom 
 Germany ... 
 United States 
 France 
 
 1900 
 
 ... 255,657,000 
 ... 146,542,000 
 ... 91,546,000 
 ... 99,927,000 
 
 1901 
 
 262,417,000 
 134,069,000 
 90,300,000 
 88,864,000 
 
 1902 
 
 262,740,000 
 139,037,000 
 94,986,000 
 90,073,000 
 
 Daring the same years the exports of these countries were as under : 
 
 United Kingdom 
 United States 
 Germany . . . 
 France 
 
 1900 
 
 ... 144,377,000 
 ... 148,340,000 
 ... 111,589,000 
 ... 80,688,000 
 
 1901 
 
 138,580,000 
 150,386,000 
 104,886,000 
 
 80,588,000 
 
 1902 
 
 135,376,000 
 133,023,000 
 112,415,000 
 83,328,000 
 
 This fall has been accounted for by the fact that American manufacturers, 
 and especially the Trusts, frequently by lowering their prices force their 
 products into the foreign market whenever there is an over-production at 
 home. But the truth seems to be that the decrease occurred in a few articles, 
 such as copper, iron, and steel goods, and refined illuminating oil. 
 
io 4 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 sales and consumption. It means that the American 
 manufacturers, even with the employment of the pro 
 digious forces at full pressure temporarily, cannot keep 
 pace with domestic needs. 
 
 That the tide must turn is of course inevitable ; the 
 fat years must be followed by the lean. Even now 
 American trade prosperity is not exempt from the 
 shadow of coming trouble. For instance, the labour 
 outlook is far from reassuring ; the increasing frequency 
 of strikes and lockouts is a factor w r hich must retard 
 development. But supposing this trouble to be in the 
 main surmounted by the capitalists, the huge internal 
 activity, added to the scientific process of improvement 
 and remodelling in America s industrial apparatus a 
 process the British ironmasters and manufacturers yet 
 shrink from must tell in America s favour. Eailways 
 are extending their facilities ; factories are renovating 
 their plants ; the prime cost of manufacture is every 
 where being reduced to a minimum. 1 
 
 High wages necessarily precipitate cheap production. 
 They form the great inducement for the introduction 
 of improvements in machinery, which would not be 
 undertaken in countries where a low wage standard 
 obtains. 
 
 No mill- owner or manufacturer would condemn still 
 sound machinery to the junk-heap unless results com 
 mensurate with the monetary outlay were in sight. 
 
 1 The efficiency of American machinery has been secured at enormous 
 cost waste, the English ironmaster would call it. 
 
 At one of the best known and most successful Bessemer shops, writes 
 Mr. Enoch James in the Iron Trade Commission report, it was stated that 
 the whole plant had been reconstructed four times during the last twenty-five 
 years down to the very foundations, and this, too, under the supervision of 
 the same engineer. 
 
THE NEW COMMERCE 105 
 
 % 
 
 Improvements mean a lower piece rate to the operative, 
 and he would resist the change unless he saw a prospect 
 of better earnings. An American not long ago ex 
 changed notes with the manager of a Swiss cotton-mill. 
 He found that the cost of management and equipment 
 per spindle and per loom was about three times as high 
 as in England. Expressing his surprise, he was told 
 that it was true that their equipment was more expen 
 sive, but that it was " so much better and lasted so 
 much longer." 
 
 This was, in American eyes, a poor policy. There 
 mills are undergoing perpetual change through the 
 introduction of newly invented devices. 
 
 The mills in the South are, for the most part, new 
 mills, with new machinery of the latest type, especially 
 the new automatic loom. 
 
 As to the new scale of wages in America, the last 
 report of Mr. Bell, the British commercial agent, con 
 tains some interesting information. The United States 
 Steel Corporation caused considerable sensation when, 
 a short time ago, the working men in all branches of 
 the steel works had their wages increased without 
 having asked for it. Present prosperity, of course, 
 fully justifies these increases in wages. Not only are 
 the manufacturers and transportation companies making 
 large profits, but the cost of living has gone up enor 
 mously during the last few years. Wage earners were 
 never before so fully occupied nor so well paid. 
 
 "Probably a number of factors have contributed to this 
 result. While it is true, no doubt, that prices have advanced 
 faster than wages, the hardship to the wage-earner has un 
 questionably been in considerable measure off-set by steadier 
 
io6 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 employment, For some years past the industries of the nation, 
 as a whole, have been kept so busy as to necessitate the steady 
 employment of a maximum working force. In some former 
 periods, when the disparity between prices and wages was less 
 striking than it is to-day, such was not the case. At such 
 times the wage-earner was frequently in danger of having to 
 tide himself over long intervals of enforced idleness. Though 
 a dollar then would, at any given time, procure for him more 
 of the necessaries of life .than it will now, he did not have 
 the dollars coming to him month after month and year after 
 year with the regularity that has been the case in the last 
 few years." l 
 
 For the moment, then, the great forces of American 
 production are in abeyance, they are absorbed by 
 domestic prosperity ; when this is completely supplied 
 we must expect a renewed onslaught upon the world s 
 markets. 
 
 Meanwhile, though the trade has not been so brisk 
 as formerly, yet the national revenue showed on the 
 30th of June last a surplus of eighteen million sterling 
 over expenditure out of an income of one hundred and 
 twelve million sterling, and many millions of the war 
 taxes have been already repealed. 
 
 It is highly absurd for any American to suppose 
 that his country s prosperity can be independent of 
 Europe. The countries of Europe form America s prin 
 cipal customers, 2 and if hard times and insolvency were 
 to overtake these customers, it needs no abstruse economy 
 to discover that America would suffer. She is making 
 
 1 " You in Europe are continually asking, What is the use of America? 
 What is America for? Here is my answer. The function of this country 
 and its people is the diffusion among men of material good." Eichard Grant 
 White. 
 
 2 Her total exports in 1900 amounted to $1,394,000,000, of which amount 
 $1,000,000,000 went to European countries. 
 
THE NEW COMMERCE 107 
 
 things she does not want, and she wants things she 
 does not make. Under the present circumstances of 
 international capital, neither seller nor buyer can claim 
 any advantage over the other, or prate about commercial 
 independence. 
 
 Again, the idea that America s prosperity is to be 
 gauged by the excess of her exports over her imports 
 is equally fallacious. It merely signifies that America, 
 having accumulated more capital than it can employ at 
 home, has ceased to be a borrower, and is supplying 
 capital i.e. machinery and food stuffs to Europe. 
 When Europe begins to pay the interest on this capital, 
 the imports into America will probably exceed her 
 exports. Yet such a circumstance, properly viewed, can 
 hardly cause misgivings in the mind of any educated 
 American. 
 
 But suppose that Europe does not wish to borrow 
 any more such capital from America. Suppose hard 
 times replace the present prosperous ones. "Would not 
 an industrial collapse in England or Germany produce 
 an immediate effect on American trade ? Would it not 
 mean that their warehouses would soon become stocked 
 with unsaleable goods ? The situation as to imports 
 and exports would then be reversed ; but it would 
 obviously require an altogether different interpretation. 
 The inflow would perhaps then exceed the outflow, but 
 it would not signify prosperity, because the former 
 would be not interest, but capital. 
 
 And capital has always been flowing to America 
 from Europe. When one nation borrows from another, 
 the loan must take concrete shape. It must be repre 
 sented either by gold or goods, and interest must take 
 
io8 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 either of these forms. America has been and is paying 
 her forty years debt to Europe in produce and manu 
 factures, and very naturally her exports have exceeded 
 her imports. 
 
 It is not improbable she is now catching up, and is 
 beginning to pay some of the principal, and is even 
 lending where a decade ago she borrowed. But that is 
 merely because Europe, owing to her greater recent 
 military and naval expenditure, is paying a higher rate 
 of interest on money, and American capitalists are 
 seeking that temporarily higher rate. 
 
 But it must not be supposed that America s payment 
 of interest on British capital in America is greater than 
 is actually the case. The export of her manufactures is 
 relatively by no means so large as those writers who 
 speak of the American " invasion" would have us believe. 
 
 America has abundant coal resources ; and coal being, 
 according to the present conditions, the basis of machine 
 production, her future in this respect is assured. 
 
 The coal area of Western Europe, practically all 
 open to mining, is less than 10,000 square miles, while 
 in America 50,000 square miles is already available, 
 and this by no means represents her resources. The 
 bulk of American coal is now mined in six States 
 Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Illinois, Alabama, 
 and Iowa. But coal is found in twenty counties in 
 Virginia. Kentucky contains two large coal fields, one 
 being 4500 square miles in area. The Missouri coal 
 fields comprise 25,000 square miles, and the coal is 
 of fair quality. Texas has a coal-bearing area of 30,000 
 square miles. The Kocky Mountain region is declared 
 to abound in coal. Wyoming has 20,000 square miles 
 
THE NEW COMMERCE 
 
 109 
 and 
 
 of coal lands. Colorado 18,000 square miles, 
 Montano 60,000 square miles of coal-bearing area. 
 
 But putting aside these huge facts, the six mining 
 States alone have within the last few years distanced 
 all competitors, even the United Kingdom, as may be 
 seen from the following table : 
 
 Year. 
 
 Great Britain. 
 
 Germany. 
 
 France. 
 
 Belgium. 
 
 America. 
 
 1885 
 1890 
 1895 
 1898 
 
 161,800,000 
 184,500,000 
 194,300,000 
 205,200,000 
 
 73,600,000 
 82,200,000 
 79,100,000 
 96,200,000 
 
 19,500,000 
 
 26,000,000 
 28,200,000 
 30,300,000 
 
 17,400,000 
 
 20,300,000 
 20,400,000 
 21,400,000 
 
 102,100,000 
 141,600,000 
 187,000,000 
 218,000,000 
 
 Thus it is seen that America in 1898 finally succeeded 
 in exceeding the output of Great Britain. 
 
 Moreover, American coal is so abundant that the 
 mines are shallow and easily worked, while many 
 European mines are so deep as to threaten soon to be 
 unprofitable. 
 
 A slow but regular increase of American coal to 
 Europe has lately taken place, and this movement will 
 go on until the European miner is forced to give up the 
 battle. Each advance in prices helps the American 
 mine-owner, who can now pay all freight charges, and 
 profitably send his coal 3000 or 4000 miles. At present 
 the mine price of coal is 6s. 7d. a ton in England, and 
 in France 95. 7d., while in America it is only 45. 7d. 
 
 "Our industry," wrote Jevons/ years ago, "will certainly 
 last and grow until our mines are commonly sunk 2000, 3000, 
 or even 4000 feet deep. But when that time comes, the States 
 of Northern America will still be working coal in the light of 
 day. Quarrying it down on the banks of the Ohio, and running 
 
 1 The Coal Question. 
 
no THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 it down into boats alongside. The question is, how soon will 
 our mines approach the limit of commercial possibility, and 
 fail to secure us any longer that manufacturing supremacy on 
 which we are learning to be wholly dependent ? " 
 
 Yet, with all her advantages, America has many 
 natural disadvantages to overcome in comparison with 
 her European rivals, and some that are insuperable. 
 With the single exception of Birmingham, Alabama, 
 there is no place in America so well situated for iron 
 production as the British centres, with their proximity 
 to points of shipment and consumption. England to 
 this day is therefore superior in natural advantages to 
 America, and with enterprise and organization could 
 press the Americans hard upon their home market. If 
 the high tariff made that impossible, it could drive them 
 out of the foreign market unless they sold below cost 
 price. 
 
 Eeaders of American newspapers can hardly fail to 
 have been struck by the relative progress of the South 
 over the North. Side by side with the accounts of the 
 establishment of new mills in the former, of increased 
 output and capital, are found items relating to lowered 
 wages, strikes, lock-outs, and those disputes between 
 capital and labour which presage the decline of a once 
 great industry in New England. 
 
 Twenty years ago the total capital invested in 
 Southern manufacturing was $257,200,000 ; now it is 
 $1,500,000,000. The cotton crop has doubled, and the 
 cotton manufacture has sextupled. In 1880 the total 
 wages paid to factory hands in the South was $75,700,000; 
 now it is $400,000,000. The output of coal has jumped 
 from 6,000,000 tons to 50,000,000 ; that of iron from 
 
THE NEW COMMERCE in 
 
 397,000 tons to 3,000,000 tons. Cotton is king still 
 in the South, where the production is now some 
 12,000,000 bales per annum ; but it is not the sole 
 industry, nor has it yet reached the high-water mark 
 of development, although in actual cultivation it has 
 probably reached the low- water mark in price. 1 The 
 staple has been forced down to a price which would 
 soon ruin an all-cotton country ; while owing to probable 
 arrangement with Cuba, and the recent Eeciprocity 
 treaties with the West Indian Islands, these latter be 
 come formidable rivals to the South in tobacco, sugar, 
 and rice. But, on the other hand, it is the seaboard 
 cities of the South which must be the chief ports for 
 America s new trade with the West Indies ; and Sa 
 vannah, Charleston, Fernandina, Jacksonville, Tampa, 
 Pensacola, Mobile, New Orleans, and Gralveston will 
 expand proportionately. Even now, Southern cattle, 
 live stock, iron, steel, and cotton goods are being im 
 ported to Cuba and Porto Kico. The rivalry in sugar, 
 rice, and tobacco is only serving to force the Southern 
 half of America into keener competition with New 
 England in the manufacture of its own raw material. 
 Ten years ago ninety per cent, of the pork, for instance, 
 consumed in the Gulf States came from Chicago and 
 Cincinnati. Now large pork-packing factories are 
 springing up in all directions, in addition to the large 
 quantities of this staple raised and consumed at home 
 by the Southern farmers. Flour mills are also beginning 
 to abound in every State locally capitalized. A new 
 
 1 The total cotton crop of the United States for the year 1901-2 was, 
 10,701,453 bales, against 10,425,141 in the previous year, and 9,439,559 
 during 1899-1900. 
 
ii2 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 grain elevator, with a capacity of 1,000,000 bushels, 
 has just been erected as far south as Galveston, Texas. 
 
 But the greatest activity is being manifested in the 
 manufacture of cotton, where there are now 6,000,000 
 spindles at work, or more than treble the number 
 operated a decade ago. Many of the minor mills pay 
 8 per cent, dividend, while the largest earn over from 
 12 to 20 per cent. To show the sentiment back of all 
 this increased activity, I take the following from an 
 address by one of the manufacturers. 
 
 " Every bale of cotton produced in Georgia should be spun 
 in Georgia. There is no such thing as too many mills in the 
 South so long as a single bale of cotton is shipped to New 
 England or across the water. I am tired of seeing our farmers 
 sell their cotton at $25 per bale to foreign manufacturers, 
 and buy it back in its manufactured state at from $60 to 
 $75, the difference between the price received and the 
 price paid having gone to pay freight, to enrich foreign manu 
 facturers, and to feed and clothe the poor of other countries, 
 while our own worthy poor are left to spend their lives in 
 misery and want." 
 
 This is sound economic doctrine, and will yet in 
 evitably be made the basis of all trade and production, 
 unless Governments make the duties so high on alien 
 manufactures and so low on the raw material as to 
 encourage the exports of the one and discourage the 
 export of the other. If America undertook to manu 
 facture all her own cotton, it would be a blow to Europe 
 to be felt, until other sources of supply were discovered ; 
 in the mean time the mills would be in the position of 
 those in Lancashire during the Civil War. 
 
 I am a firm believer in the doctrine that Free trade 
 
THE NEW COMMERCE 113 
 
 means waste, because it involves so many of the middle 
 men and transporters. Protection, on the other hand, 
 brings producer and consumer together on the same 
 ground, and so prevents waste. But this is by the way. 
 
 The sudden successful rivalry of the South is 
 ascribed to the higher rate of wages paid in the North. 
 Considerable investigation has been undertaken by 
 legislative committees, manufacturers delegations, and 
 unofficial inquirers into what is called the " Textile 
 War," which shed a flood of light upon the advantages 
 attending cotton-milling in the South. The conclusion 
 reached is that the Southern States have an enormous 
 advantage in cheap labour, and that the mills of New 
 England cannot compete their rivalry without a sub 
 stantial reduction of wages. 
 
 The lower cost of living is found to be responsible 
 for their difference. According to the report of American 
 commissioners of labour, the average income of cotton 
 weavers per family in the Carolinas was $412.09 ; the 
 average in Massachusetts was $52.28, or 27 per cent, 
 higher than in the South. But a family in the South is 
 larger on the average, and there is a higher percentage 
 of workers to each family than in Massachusetts. 
 
 So that it is estimated that wages in the latter State 
 were 40 per cent, above those obtaining in the South, 
 and this is doubtless correct. Besides, the Southern 
 mills have the advantage of an hour or an hour and a 
 half longer working day. Thus the cost of labour being 
 the chief item 87 per cent. the South having advan 
 tage of 30 or 40 per cent, in this regard. Is it wonder 
 ful, therefore, that capital is pouring into the South and 
 revolutionizing the conditions of life there ? Since 1897 
 
 I 
 
ii4 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 lumber mills have sprung up all over the South ; factories 
 for furniture, waggons, spokes and brooms are utilizing 
 the enormous area of virgin forests. One of the lumber 
 companies in South Carolina is amongst the largest in 
 the country, wholly due to the Dingby tariff against 
 Canadian timber. 
 
 Sheep-raising is becoming important in Tennessee and 
 North Carolina, and woollen mills are arising in many 
 places. In Florida and the Carolinas sufficient phosphate 
 deposits have been discovered to fertilize all the grain 
 and cotton lands for centuries, while in Georgia and 
 Tennessee marble and granite are shipped in vast 
 quantities. Of the other new industries, ostrich-farming 
 is now being carried on in Florida with success, and 
 not less successfully the cultivation of tea in South 
 Carolina where the soil is admirably suited to the finer 
 species. 
 
 The greatest obstacle in the way of the extension of 
 America s non-European commerce has been her lack of 
 steamship facilities. A large portion of her trade with 
 the South American continent is done vid Europe ; she 
 has not a single line of steamers running to the Eiver 
 Plate, although there are numberless European lines 
 running to and from that river and district. While 
 trade has to be conducted under such conditions, it is 
 impossible for it to expand. America has therefore 
 come to realize that as long as she depends on other 
 nations to do her ocean- carry ing trade, her exports to 
 the countries of the South continent and elsewhere will 
 remain of relatively small account. 
 
 Not even her panacea of reciprocity will help her 
 much. But once the Isthmian Canal is cut, with cotton 
 
THE NEW COMMERCE 115 
 
 mills adjoining the cotton plantations spinning cheap 
 cloth, with iron and steel forges in Alabama, Ohio, and 
 Pennsylvania alongside coal mines, with the unequalled 
 extension of internal communications, what is to set a 
 limit to America s commercial progress ? 
 
 Some might answer the faults and insecure struc 
 ture of society ; the growing antagonism between capital 
 and labour ; the failure of the State to assimilate jarring 
 elements. The set-back will be social, not economic ; 
 it will not arise from lack of material resources. 
 
 America has much to fear from labour troubles. 
 There continues to be deep unrest among the industrial 
 classes. The strikes and the great fortunes made by 
 trust promoters, especially the coal and steel men, have 
 naturally produced discontent among the wage-workers, 
 and a desire for better conditions. Strikes in the bitu 
 minous coal fields of the West and South may be looked 
 for, to be followed by another among the employees on 
 the large railway systems. During the recent coal strike 
 in Pennsylvania troops guarded the mines, with orders 
 " shoot to kill " strikers who attempt by violence to 
 prevent any men from working in the mines who may 
 desire to do so. Intense bitterness prevailed on both 
 sides, and the increased dearness of anthracite coal 
 entailed great hardship upon the poor in large 
 cities. 1 
 
 " The duty of the public in trade disputes," once 
 said Lord Derby, " is to make a ring to see fair 
 play." 
 
 But in America public opinion is not yet sufficiently 
 
 1 The losses arising out of the strike were not less than $92,300,000, of 
 which $21,200,000 represent wages lost by the men. 
 
n6 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 advanced to see or to desire to compel fair play. Per 
 sonal liberty is talked about until it becomes wearisome 
 to the ear ; but it is not the kind of personal liberty to 
 which we Britons are accustomed. 
 
 Take even the case of the recent steel strike, which 
 is supposed to have been comparatively free from riotous 
 excesses. In the districts covered by the strike hundreds 
 of men willing to work were not allowed to work ; the 
 mill approaches were picqueted by relays of strikers ; 
 non-union men were set upon and forced to retire 
 under threats of assault. The few who succeeded in 
 evading the vigilance of the strikers picquets were 
 simply prisoners, not daring to venture out even for 
 food. At railway stations and in the streets inoffensive 
 persons suspected of being non-unionists were pelted 
 with stones, badly beaten, or kidnapped and imprisoned. 
 Besides these actual sufferers were the thousands of 
 other victims who, owing to the reign of menace and 
 injury, were unable to come forward and obtain em 
 ployment. 
 
 Where, it may be asked, is America s equivalent to 
 the English " Conspiracy and Protection Act " ? There 
 are, indeed, various laws on the subject scattered through 
 out the States ; but what avail are they when they are 
 not enforced by the full strength of the Government, if 
 need be ? " Freedom," declares a Massachusetts judge, 
 " is the policy of this country ; but freedom does not 
 imply a right in one person, either alone or in combina 
 tion with others, to disturb or annoy, either directly or 
 indirectly, another s lawful business or occupation for 
 the sake of compelling him to buy his peace." 
 
 The entire authority of the State should, if necessary, 
 
THE NEW COMMERCE 117 
 
 be put in motion to protect the liberty of a single 
 citizen ; the law should be uniform for all, and universal 
 in its application, and the refusal and failure of the 
 State to repress and punish violations of personal liberty 
 is a practical alliance with, and a defence of, anarchy. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE AMERICAN ARMY 
 
 LORD WOLSELEY, with, as it seemed, a fine love of 
 paradox, perhaps from an exaggerated belief in the 
 value of individual initiative, has lately told us that 
 the American Army is " the best in the world." 
 
 A few years ago the very phrase " American Army " 
 would almost have been tinctured with irony. 1 
 
 Contrasted with the conditions which pertained less 
 than a quarter of a century ago, the change in personnel 
 and moral, is even more striking than that which has 
 marked all the other conditions of national life. 
 Europeans smiled at the laxity which attended enlist 
 ments. Who took the American Army seriously ? 
 What need was there for an American Army at all, 
 except as a small mounted frontier force ? In those 
 days, as an American officer 2 reminds us, "the recruit 
 who easily entered through the front door made his exit 
 from the Army with equal smoothness ; the result being 
 that for a time the desertions outnumbered the enlist- 
 
 1 In 1890 the whole military force of a nation of 60,000,000 consisted of 
 only 25,000 privates (principally of foreign birth) and 2144 officers. The navy 
 was even proportionally smaller. Yet both appeared to suffice, because it 
 seemed absurd to suppose a war with any foreign power. 
 
 2 General H. C. Corbin. 
 
 118 
 
THE AMERICAN ARMY 119 
 
 ments, and became a national disgrace." Yet the 
 reformers of the Army had a hard task to enlist the 
 public and the Government in their cause. Army reform 
 finally came ; it began with a closer scrutiny of candi 
 dates. The recruiting standard has gone on increasing 
 in severity, until in 1898 only three men were accepted 
 for every ten rejected as unfit ; that is to say, only 
 29,521 recruits passed muster, while 98,277 applicants 
 were rejected as lacking in legal, mental, moral, or 
 physical requirements. 
 
 In the British Army the chief qualification is the 
 physical one ; it is almost a foregone conclusion that 
 when a candidate presents himself he is a British subject. 
 It would, on the other hand, surprise no one who recog 
 nizes the cosmopolitan character of America to learn 
 that a large number of Army candidates were foreigners. 
 Strictly speaking, of course, there are no foreigners in 
 the American Army. If the force may not be called, as 
 one of its commanders calls it, " American in every 
 sense of the word," yet it is a legal requirement that the 
 accepted soldier shall be a citizen of the United States, 
 " or shall have declared his intention to become a 
 citizen." Out of the 130,000 men who presented them 
 selves at the recruiting office in 1898, only some 5000 
 were aliens, and these were promptly rejected. Of the 
 29,521 accepted applicants, we learn that 24,000 were 
 native born and 5031 of foreign birth. 
 
 Every recruit is obliged to bring with him testi 
 monials of good character signed by two persons, and it 
 is part of the military requirements that " if satisfactory 
 evidence of good character, habits, and conditions 
 cannot be furnished by the recruits, or be otherwise 
 
120 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 obtained, the presumption should be against him, and 
 he should not be accepted." 
 
 There are other points in the recruiting system which 
 deserve our passing notice. In addition to being of 
 good character, he must specifically be free from intem 
 perate habits ; and recruiting officers are directed to 
 seek closely for evidence of intoxication or other forms 
 of debauchery. . . . The recruiting officer cannot be 
 perfectly justified in rejecting men upon whom the 
 smell of liquor was perceptible. The applicant must, 
 furthermore, be intelligent, and must speak, read, and 
 write the American language. Here is a quotation 
 from " Triplet s Manual," the official guide for officers in 
 their examination of recruits : 
 
 " The examination of men for enlistment may, in general 
 terms, be divided into the physical, the intellectual, and the 
 moral. In the emergencies which our troops are called upon to 
 meet, where celerity of movement and ability to endure 
 privation and hardships are indispensable to success, the 
 necessity for able-bodied men is obvious. Intellectually, 
 although no educational standard is officially established, a 
 soldier should be able to read and write, and should also be 
 quick and clear in his understanding. The advance in the 
 science and art of war, and the improvement in modern fire 
 arms, calls for a higher degree of intelligence than was required 
 by the soldiers in the past. This is recognized by the Govern 
 ment by the establishment of schools and libraries, by providing 
 reading-rooms that are liberally supplied with periodicals and 
 newspapers, and by opening the way for promotion to all who 
 will avail themselves of these opportunities for advancement. 
 The care and attention that the soldier is required to give to 
 his weapon and ammunition, the drill which their use entails, 
 and the skill which may be attained by the practice of rifle- 
 firing, develop individuality, excite interest and ambition, and 
 tend to make the profession attractive. It is therefore desirable 
 
THE AMERICAN ARMY 121 
 
 that men should be selected who can appreciate this life, and 
 who have the mental capacity to profit by it. 
 
 " The moral character should be scrutinized with care, in 
 order that enlistments from the vagrant and criminal classes 
 may be avoided. The recruiting rendezvous is a favourite 
 haunt for these men ; and a study of their personal character 
 istics will well repay the recruiting officer for his labour. The 
 vagrant seeks admission to the Army usually at the beginning of 
 winter, for shelter, food, and clothing, without any intention of 
 completing his enlistment or of performing any more service 
 than he is compelled. The criminal seeks to bury his unsavoury 
 history under an assumed name, and by service in distant 
 stations to escape the observation of those who know him. 
 The evil influence of even one of this class cannot be over 
 estimated ; and no degree of physical perfection or soldierly 
 bearing would induce a recruiting officer to accept his service." 
 
 In one sense, America may be said truly to have 
 " the best army in the world," for not in America can 
 the private of the regular army be made the butt of 
 scornful jests, or the fact of his enlistment be accepted 
 as primd facie evidence of his having failed in life. 
 The legal requirements which must be observed before 
 he can enlist, and the physical examination which he 
 must pass, render it certain that his acceptance is a 
 guarantee of worth. He is even welcomed in the 
 music-halls. 
 
 In a country where nearly every ^^S.^ ^^ 1 ^ 16 ^ 
 and pugnacity exists to a remarkable degree, it is 
 delightful to find an army so peaceful and well behaved. 
 Before the prospective recruit passes into the hands of 
 the examining surgeon, he is obliged to answer the fol 
 lowing questions : 
 
 1. Have you given your true name or an assumed 
 one ? 
 
122 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 2. Do you understand clearly the nature of the oath 
 of enlistment, and are you fully determined to serve the 
 United States honestly and faithfully ? 
 
 3. What is your object in enlisting ? Do you already 
 understand the nature of the " Declaration of Eecruit " 
 connected with enlistment ? 
 
 4. Are you familiar with the Act of Congress "to 
 prevent desertion from the Army and for other 
 purposes ? " 
 
 5. Do your parents and other relatives know of your 
 intention to enlist ? 
 
 6. Are there any reasons for your parents or other 
 relatives objecting to your enlistment ? 
 
 7. Give the names of two reputable persons, residents 
 near the house of your parents, who are acquainted with 
 them? 
 
 8. Have you given up any occupation on account of 
 health or habits ? 
 
 9. By what firm or individual have you been 
 employed in the past six months ? 
 
 10. Was your character good when you left that 
 employment or service, etc. ? 
 
 This is not all. There are numerous other questions 
 regarding the recruit s parents and his own physical 
 condition, and whether he has been convicted of felony 
 or imprisoned in jail or penitentiary. The investigations 
 into his bodily health are particularly rigorous. The 
 recruiting officer is held rigidly accountable for the 
 enlistment of men who may be found unfitted for 
 service ; and if the enlistment has been carelessly made 
 in violation of regulations, the expenses incurred may 
 be deducted from the officer s pay. 
 
THE AMERICAN ARMY 123 
 
 In brief, the barriers to enlistment are much greater 
 in America than at present in any other country. 
 
 In Great Britain only applicants for enlistment in 
 the Household Cavalry are required to give certificate of 
 good character, while the educational tests are confined 
 to those who seek to enter the Engineer corps. 
 
 Moreover, the essentials as to height, weight, chest 
 measurement, and age are less exacting with us than in 
 America. 
 
 The pay of an American private begins at $13 
 (2 135. 2cZ.) a month ; after three years service it is 
 increased $1 ; in his fourth year $2, and in his fifth 
 year $3 a month. If the soldier re-enlists he receives 
 $2 a month additional, so that in his sixth year his pay 
 amounts to $18, or nearly half a crown clear per diem, 
 in addition to first-rate rations, lodging, clothing, and 
 medical attendance. A liberal furlough is granted, and 
 when on furlough the private receives not only full pay, 
 but a shilling a day extra in lieu of rations. His clothing 
 allowance is so liberal that, with care, he can receive on 
 his discharge a sum equal to the difference between the 
 clothing allowed and clothing drawn, often amounting 
 to 20. 
 
 The Government also permits and encourages soldiers 
 to deposit money with paymasters, allowing 4 per cent, 
 interest on such deposits. 
 
 But, best of all, the private can go on serving thirty 
 years, and then be placed on the retired list with three- 
 quarters of the pay allowances to which he was entitled 
 at the time of his retirement. There are many such 
 retired soldiers in America, less than fifty years of age, 
 and drawing their four shillings a day, without ever 
 
124 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 having received a wound or ever having fought a 
 battle. 
 
 But now, when we pass from the American Army qua 
 Army to America as a military power, we have to deal 
 with a different matter. 
 
 The people of America have gone about their military 
 affairs like children playing at soldiers. There was no 
 discipline, there was no craving for improvement, there 
 was no intelligence. 
 
 For a bellicose and jingoistic folk, ready at all 
 times to take and give offence, the Americans are still 
 surprisingly unmilitary. Perhaps I should say that 
 there is an absence of a scientific military spirit in the 
 country. They do not take the profession of arms 
 seriously ; and our recent experience in South Africa 
 has rather disposed them to believe that a regular army 
 has very little advantage, if any, over the untrained 
 volunteer. 
 
 " The indifference of our people to military literature," 
 remarks General Anderson, "is surprising." He com 
 ments on the fact that whereas European periodicals 
 publish many articles on military subjects, in American 
 magazines they are conspicuous by their absence. " This 
 apathy can only be accounted for by the fact that Mars 
 has asked but a subordinate part in our national drama." 
 To judge by the popular press and the tone of American 
 opinion, one might suppose that all American wars had 
 been triumphantly successful. Yet even in her campaigns 
 against the Indians she has had to suffer numerous 
 actual defeats. Of the Eevolutionary War her people 
 remember the successful battles, but forget the humiliating 
 reverses of the untrained militia against a disciplined 
 
THE AMERICAN ARMY 125 
 
 army at, say, Long Island and at Camden. The war of 
 1812 was a succession of humiliations. "Our untrained 
 and ill-disciplined levies," confesses one distinguished 
 officer, " proved utterly unreliable." 
 
 The Mexican war was better, because there were 
 very few volunteers, and if volunteers did well in the 
 Civil War it was only because they fought against 
 volunteers, and were led by regular officers. 
 
 From 1865 to 1898, the utmost required of the 
 26,000 men who formed the American Army was to 
 chastise the belligerent Red Man, or perhaps to quell 
 a riot at the instance of the Federal Government. 
 Thirty-three years of inaction had done its work : this 
 little army was ignorant of the art of modern fighting, 
 it was ignorant of military tactics adapted to modem 
 needs. 
 
 But, it will be asked, did the great Civil War teach 
 the Army nothing ? Did it not leave a heritage of 
 professional knowledge of technical skill, of traditional 
 discipline and esprit de corps f 
 
 The answer is that the American Army was little 
 better than a body of armed civilians controlled by 
 intelligent officers, who, capable as they were, could 
 hardly be expected to take their profession seriously, as 
 long as the public did not take them, or it seriously, 
 as long as public opinion seemed to maintain that an 
 army did require organization and training, but could 
 spring into being at the mere behest of a President in 
 any National emergency. 
 
 Strange to say, the lesson of the Civil War was un 
 heeded. Both sides were equally ill prepared ; both 
 North and South spent months in drilling and placing 
 
126 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 their armies in the field ; both sides committed un 
 paralleled military blunders ; consequently there was no 
 penalty suffered such as would have followed had one 
 of the combatants been on a different and more efficient 
 military footing. 
 
 Put into his hands the best and latest modern 
 engines, let the field of operations be where it will and 
 the volunteer is not the regular soldier. Let the amateur 
 be animated by patriotic zeal, let him have physical 
 strength and endurance and skill in battalions, he is not 
 and never will be a match for the professional soldier. 
 But in America his inferiority is marked, because he 
 lacks the leading essential, discipline ; because he has 
 never been made to learn that hard lesson, implicit 
 obedience. Subordination is never easy to the average 
 American, in whatever capacity ; but he conquered, he 
 was obliged to conquer, his natural intractability, at the 
 time of the Civil War, at whose beginning instances 
 of fantastic insubordination of men to their officers 
 abounded. They had known their officers in private 
 life, many of them were their social inferiors; their 
 superior military knowledge was suspected ; was it 
 surprising that their commands were frequently dis 
 obeyed ? That on a march in a campaign, it was a case 
 of the blind following the blind ? 
 
 But the American volunteers did master their lesson ; 
 drastic penalties did their work, and the amateur soldier 
 did at length acquire discipline. The popular reasoning 
 was, therefore, that what he once did he could again. 
 When the Presidential proclamation went forth, the raw 
 levies would appear in their thousands and tens of 
 thousands, they would undergo the usual process, and 
 
THE AMERICAN ARMY 127 
 
 soon be transformed into an army. But, in the mean time, 
 what of the enemy ? 
 
 Such was the situation at the outbreak of the war 
 with Spain. " It has taken," remarked one notable 
 American, " the weakest military power in Europe to 
 open our eyes." What if it had been the strongest ? 
 
 The system which took it for granted that the 
 amateur was equal to the graduate was to encounter a 
 severe shock. The first weeks of the war shattered many 
 cherished American illusions. The nation heard with 
 profound chagrin that one body of its volunteers had 
 refused to go into action. It heard of one regiment 
 becoming so demoralized as to threaten the entire line, 
 and to avert a panic it had to be despatched uncere 
 moniously to the rear. 
 
 The average American took no interest in his regular 
 army. He (and she) reserved all his enthusiasm for 
 the volunteers, who are often men of means and social 
 position ; just as the Englishman does on special 
 occasions, but the Englishman knows that the backbone 
 of his defence and defiance consists of the regular army, 
 and the American is now beginning to appraise the 
 trained professional soldier at his real value. 
 
 Since 1898 a new interest sprang up in the Army. 
 The average man suddenly became aware that the men 
 in the ranks are not all there was to the Army, that 
 an institution known as the Staff Corps had quietly 
 developed. The policy of laissez faire had bred official 
 incompetence ; the Staff Corps was utterly inadequate 
 to the occasion of war. Criticism had exhausted itself 
 upon the British War Office lately ; but this department 
 was in a high state of efficiency, and performed its 
 
128 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 work with magical foresight and despatch, compared 
 with the American Staff Corps in 1898. 
 
 Food supplies ran short, winter uniforms were pro 
 vided for a campaign in the tropics, there were no 
 hospitable arrangements, there were no transports to 
 carry sixteen thousand men from Florida to Cuba. 
 When the troops landed in Cuba the only rations at 
 first available were soap and candles. Afterwards, the 
 vessels discharged fat bacon and salt pork, probably the 
 very worst food that could be furnished men who are 
 undertaking a severe campaign in the tropics. But let 
 me quote from one of the eye-witnesses of the campaign ; 
 
 " When supplies were at last brought to the front, tomatoes 
 in two-pound cans were issued. Think of men having to march 
 and go into battle with bulky tomato cans stowed about their 
 persons ! Yet the commissary department had so little know 
 ledge of the actual requirements of war that, because tomatoes 
 for commercial use are sold in cans containing two pounds, that 
 size was accepted for the Army. ... To provision a few hundred 
 men in garrison requires no great knowledge or executive 
 capacity. This has been the experience of commissary officers 
 for the past thirty years. They have drawn supplies, they have 
 signed their names to vouchers, they have drawn their salaries. 
 That is all." 
 
 Perhaps no department was so unready as the 
 medical corps, which allowed regiments to go into 
 action lacking a single surgeon. Troops in an enemy s 
 country had bullets dug from their bodies with pen 
 knives, because the surgeons neglected to furnish 
 hospitals, and were without their instrument-cases at 
 hand. With a battle imminent, no provision was made 
 for the care of the wounded, and when after the battle 
 
THE AMERICAN ARMY 129 
 
 the wounded were brought in tens and hundreds, there 
 were no means for their proper treatment. 
 
 The great military question before the Americans is 
 how to make the military strength of their country 
 available in a great emergency. 
 
 " Our Army," said President Roosevelt in 1899, 
 "has never been built up as it should be built up ... 
 there is nobody from which the country has less to fear 
 and none of which it should be prouder, none which it 
 should be more anxious to up-build. Our Army needs 
 complete re-organization not merely enlarging." 
 
 In 1900 the Secretary of War clearly drew the 
 limits within which the movement must be confined, 
 when he said that "the country must rely for its 
 main strength upon the volunteers, since the armaments 
 of other Powers are so great that almost any conflict in 
 which we may become involved will require a much 
 larger standing force than any which we are willing to 
 maintain. 7 
 
 What the size of their standing army should be, we 
 may gather from Mr. Secretary Boot s recommendation, 
 that provision be made for a " minimum force of 60,000 
 men, with an authorized maximum of 100,000," while 
 the Lieutenant-General commanding suggests the pro 
 portion of " one soldier to every thousand of popula 
 tion," or, according to the present census, about 80,000 
 men. 1 
 
 The possible military strength of America in war 
 time should not be less than 2,000,000 men. How 
 
 1 A scheme is now being championed in America which is to give the 
 Army its own reserve by increasing the term of enlistment, while lengthening 
 the present period of active service. 
 
 K 
 
1 30 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 may this potential army of defence be so organized as 
 to constitute a safeguard ? 
 
 The outbreak of war soon opened the eyes of the 
 public as to the efficiency of the National Guard. The 
 administration was panic-stricken : equipments were 
 missing, regiments which ought to have been mustered 
 at a moment s notice were delayed for weeks. In only 
 one or two States was the force in even approximate 
 readiness. There was no self-reliance amongst the force 
 even at their annual State encampment. When they 
 assembled for the purpose of military instruction, their 
 stations were supplied under contract by a professional 
 caterer. 
 
 Yet it seems certain that in building up a great 
 army, America must take into consideration her egregious 
 National Guard. 
 
 What is the National Guard ? It is a huge, ambitious, 
 dilettante wire-pulling organization about as warlike, 
 scientific, and efficient as the Imperial Guard of China. 
 
 As to its political influence, a notable example was 
 given just prior to the late war with Spain, when pend 
 ing legislation for the national defence was arrested by 
 the National Guard, because adequate concessions had 
 not been made to its leaders. It has ramifications in 
 every State, and its constitution enables it to take 
 advantage of every political emergency to advance its 
 own ends. As for that for which it was primarily 
 organized, it merely goes under an uncertain amount of 
 drill annually, administered in a haphazard way. 
 
 Being the National Guard, it is supposed to be sub 
 sidized by the nation, as well as by the several States ; 
 but when one learns that the amount of the subsidy is 
 
THE AMERICAN ARMY 131 
 
 only 80,000 per annum, to be distributed amongst 
 two hundred thousand members, it is perceived that 
 America hopes to do her soldiering very much, to use 
 a colloquialism, " on the cheap." 
 
 It is true that, besides this, there is, in most of the 
 States, an additional small appropriation ; but, on the 
 whole, the National Guard relies for its support upon 
 private donations and upon the efforts of its individual 
 members. 
 
 Americans always show themselves to be legal 
 pedants that is the inevitable result of their rigid 
 Constitution but never does this pedantry appear so 
 ridiculous as in the discussions over the legal status of 
 the National Guard. 
 
 Is the force a national or a local one ? Must it, as a 
 unit, obey the President, or is it a congeries of atoms, 
 each obeying its State Governor ? Fancy the destruc 
 tion of prestige and authority implied in such a fantastic 
 dispute ! One group roundly declares that the organiza 
 tion is subject only to the orders of the Governors of 
 the respective States, and that no call from the President 
 is legally competent to put a single member into active 
 operation before an enemy not on State soil. Another 
 faction, while acknowledging the authority of the Presi 
 dent, asserts that his order must come through the 
 Governor, and that no call through other channels need 
 be listened to. Another class, and this is growing into 
 the majority, believes in the fundamental authority of 
 the National Government, and announces itself ready 
 always to respond to any orders received from Washing 
 ton, regardless of the channel through which such 
 mandate may come. 
 
132 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 As a matter of fact, the National Guard is what we 
 would term the Militia of America, and is, therefore, 
 subject to the President, and not to the State Government. 
 
 At present the Army consists of seventy thousand 
 regulars, which is only one man for every thousand of 
 the population an absurdly small proportion. A city 
 of ten thousand inhabitants, so to speak, represented by 
 ten soldiers ! Well may it be said that " there can be 
 no menace to the republic as a standing army of pro 
 portion so meagre, when compared to the total popula 
 tion." Inasmuch as a large proportion of this force will 
 always be serving abroad, the number of regulars in the 
 country is little, if any, larger than under the old regime. 
 
 America will have to improve her system of mobili 
 zation. The war against Spain was declared April 21, 
 1898. The first expedition which left San Francisco 
 for the Philippines did not leave until May 25. This 
 force consisted of five companies of regulars and 
 two full regiments of volunteers. It did not boast a 
 single field gun, horse, mule, or cart. A month later 
 it was followed by two other expeditions, totalling 
 11,000 men, yet the entire force was without transporta 
 tion, save such as could be raked and scraped together 
 on the islands. Four months passed before Manilla was 
 attacked, August 13, the entire American Army then 
 consisting of two regiments and two volunteer batteries 
 of field artillery, parts of four regiments of regulars, and 
 eight regiments of volunteers. 
 
 Imagine such a situation if America had been 
 fighting a first-class power ! 
 
 Since the close of the Civil War general officers have 
 never had under their command at one time more than 
 
THE AMERICAN ARMY 133 
 
 a few thousand men. Consequently, they knew nothing 
 of tactics on a large scale. The new mobilizing arrange 
 ment will give brigade and divisional commanders large 
 bodies of troops to handle, and so enable them to 
 conduct a campaign under conditions approaching 
 reality. 
 
 The charge for this annual mobilization will naturally 
 fall upon the National Government, that is to say, the 
 encampment expenses. It now makes an annual appro 
 priation for the benefit of the militia force, and it could 
 exercise influence upon the States which refuse to send 
 their troops to the encampment by depriving them of 
 their share in the appropriation. Or the system under 
 which t the appropriation is allocated might be changed, 
 and a fixed sum paid to the State for every soldier 
 present at the national encampment. But this would 
 hardly be necessary it would suffice that the National 
 Government requested the co-operation of the State 
 authorities : they would not dare refuse. 
 
 That with an army may come militarism and a 
 military caste is not unlikely in America, but for serious 
 reasons it will never attain the ascendency it has got 
 in France. The Americans have always been fond of 
 military distinction ; from the Army they draw the chief 
 store of the titles with which they ornament their not 
 always distinguished personal nomenclature. Such titles 
 are not always a guarantee of military distinction or even 
 of military service on the humblest scale. The Governor 
 of a State may appoint any private citizen to his entour 
 age, and the appointment carries with it a colonelcy. I 
 do not profess to know how generals are made, but not 
 long since I addressed a letter to a prominent newspaper 
 
134 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 editor in Boston whom a few years ago I knew as 
 Colonel T. In his absence my letter to the colonel was 
 replied to by his secretary, who informed me somewhat 
 coldly, I thought, that General T. would make an 
 appointment on his return to town. Conscious that the 
 Cuban War had intervened, I subsequently remarked to 
 a mutual friend that that conflict had enabled the 
 colonel to show his real as distinguished from his 
 fictitious military prowess. " Cuban War ! " exclaimed 
 my friend. "Why, T. hasn t been within a thousand 
 miles of Cuba. He is a general honoris causa." 
 
 I cannot close this chapter without some reference 
 to the pension system. 
 
 No other nation in the world has dealt so liberally 
 and ungrudgingly with the survivors and widows and 
 orphans of its wars. In the last thirty-three years it 
 has paid to its pensioners the stupendous sum of half a 
 billion sterling, in addition to three millions in fees for 
 the medical examination of applicants and fifteen million 
 sterling for other expenses of administration. The 
 grand total in dollars is 2,327,021,872. In brief, the 
 nation pays away thirty millions sterling annually for 
 pensions, and the war with Spain has added several 
 thousand further names to the pension-roll. 
 
 Pension attorneys have educated the public mind to 
 believe that service in war means a pension, whether 
 the soldier is disabled or not. Consequently, all who 
 went into the Spanish War were familiar with the 
 systems of its large appropriations. The pension agents 
 swarmed in the volunteer camps, and "thousands of 
 well-meaning lads, who had just passed a rigid physical 
 examination to enter the Army, made all their 
 
THE AMERICAN ARMY 135 
 
 arrangements for pensions before performing any 
 duty." 
 
 How debauching must such a system be ! The 
 number of volunteers who saw service in battle during 
 the war with Spain is paltry enough, yet 27,047 claims 
 for pensions were filled up to June, 1900. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE NEW SHIPPING 
 
 AMERICA has lately been making great efforts to possess 
 a navy and a mercantile marine. Popular interest began 
 to centre in the navy, thanks largely to the writings of 
 men like Captain Mahan, who began, in 1897, to preach 
 the gospel of armaments, the need of aggressiveness, 
 and the danger of a policy which looks inward and 
 never outward. Some time before the war with Spain, 
 and the ensuing naval victories, and since then, the 
 popular demand for batttleships has been strenuously 
 approved by the President and acceded to by both 
 Houses of Congress. 1 
 
 1 A return was issued in August, 1902, showing the fleets of Great Britain, 
 France, Russia, Germany, Italy, America, and Japan, distinguishing the different 
 classes of vessels built and building. The following table gives a summary of 
 the comparative results : 
 
 
 Battle 
 ships. 
 
 C.D. 
 
 Vessels. 
 
 Cruisers. 
 
 Torpedo 
 Vessels arid 
 Boats. 
 
 T. B. D. s. 
 
 Sub 
 marines. 
 
 
 
 bb 
 
 
 si 
 
 
 t c 
 
 
 fcb 
 
 
 bb 
 
 
 bb 
 
 
 
 p 
 
 
 G 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 q 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 S3 
 & 
 
 m 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 
 1 
 
 P 
 fi 
 
 2 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 "3 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 P 
 
 
 W 
 
 Great Britain . 
 
 52 
 
 15 
 
 4 
 
 _ 
 
 126 
 
 37 
 
 126 
 
 11 
 
 108 
 
 23 
 
 _ 
 
 9 
 
 France . 
 
 28 
 
 8 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 46 
 
 18 
 
 264 
 
 37 
 
 10 
 
 24 
 
 12 
 
 22 
 
 Russia . 
 
 18 
 
 8 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 12 
 
 148 i 10 
 
 27 
 
 27 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 Germany 
 
 25 
 
 9 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 38 
 
 11 
 
 96 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 
 
 Italy . . .17 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 1 
 
 159 
 
 4 
 
 9 
 
 6 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 America 
 
 10 
 
 8 
 
 12 
 
 4 
 
 22 
 
 15 
 
 24 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 18 
 
 1 
 
 7 
 
 Japan . 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 2 
 
 66 
 
 14 
 
 14 
 
 5 
 
 
 _ 
 
 136 
 
THE NEW SHIPPING 13? 
 
 But America finds that the execution of a programme 
 of naval construction is not solely a matter of money. 
 
 The latest report of Kear- Admiral Bowles, the chief 
 constructor, shows that there is not a single vessel now 
 under contract that is not over a year behindhand. For 
 instance, six submarine torpedo-boats, contracted for in 
 August, 1900, to be delivered in eight months, were two 
 years later still unfinished. The contractors are not 
 troubled by the fear of penalties, as these are uniformly 
 remitted by the Secretary of the Navy. Of the fifty- 
 two vessels now building, fourteen are first-class battle 
 ships and armoured cruisers, and nine are fast pro 
 tected cruisers. Among the remainder are four single- 
 turret monitors, exactly resembling those built at the 
 close of the Civil War. They were forced upon the 
 Naval Department by a band of influential Congress 
 men in the summer of 1897 as mounts for a gun which 
 has since been proved to be utterly without value. 
 
 America has repeatedly attempted, and I am not 
 sure the attempts are not about to be renewed, to place 
 warships on the great lakes. At present she is debarred 
 from doing so by a compact between us and her Govern 
 ment in 1817, known as the Kush-Bagot Convention. 
 
 It was a very wise arrangement, because at the time 
 it was negotiated Americans and Canadians on the 
 respective borders of the lakes were not on the best of 
 terms, and the mutual disarmament served to create 
 greater mutual confidence. It stimulated commerce 
 and encouraged settlement, and what is specially true of 
 the first twenty years after the compact is true to-day. 
 
 Changed maritime conditions have indeed arisen not 
 anticipated by either party ; but it is safe to affirm that, 
 
138 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 were the convention to be abrogated, its abrogation 
 would soon come to be a source of all the hostility, 
 jealousy, and misunderstanding which it was framed to 
 avert. 
 
 It is true that an absolutely literal compliance with 
 the agreement has not always been observed, as, for 
 instance, when in 1838 we found it necessary, owing to 
 political troubles in Canada, to increase our naval arma 
 ment on the lakes beyond the point fixed in the compact. 
 When America promptly remonstrated, we made her 
 Government see that the increase was necessary owing 
 to the incursions of armed bands of pirates and revolu 
 tionaries ; that our sole purpose was to guard the 
 Queen s dominions against a manifest danger, and that 
 when the danger was over the increased armament 
 would be discontinued. As the hostile incursions with 
 which Canada was threatened were from combinations 
 of armed men unlawfully organized and prepared for 
 war in the United States in defiance of the efforts of the 
 Government to prevent them, " it is not surprising that 
 the danger continued for several years." Ultimately 
 the Americans launched a small iron war-vessel, Michi 
 gan, of 498 tons, in 1844, under protest from the British 
 Government. But it was not until the outbreak of the 
 Civil "War that the American foreign minister, Mr. 
 Seward, made any adequate reply. 
 
 " It is not," said he, " supposed by this Government 
 that their retaining of the steamer in question upon the 
 lakes is a violation of their arrangement of 1817. But 
 if the British Government thinks otherwise, we shall 
 be happy to consider its views in that respect." To this, 
 as far as can be ascertained, the British Government 
 
THE NEW SHIPPING 139 
 
 made no reply ; and so for a full forty years the matter 
 of the Michigan s illegal patrol of the great lakes has 
 been dropped as a subject of international remonstrance. 
 The vessel still exists, and may occasionally be seen by 
 tourists and yachtsmen moving about in fine weather in 
 her task of transporting the members of the hydro- 
 graphic survey. 
 
 In the meantime, however, the Americans, during 
 the Civil War, sought to abrogate the Convention, even 
 going so far as to give us notice and to repeal it by Act 
 of Congress. 
 
 They thought better of this decision later on, 
 and Mr. Seward, on behalf of America, withdrew this 
 notice. " You may say to Lord Kussell," he wrote, 
 " that we are quite willing that the Convention should 
 remain practically in force." 
 
 In 1890 there was a project to build a steel practice 
 vessel for the naval academy on Lake Michigan, but the 
 terms of the Convention were duly observed, and the 
 project fell through. Two years later the Senate passed 
 a resolution directing the Secretary of State to inform 
 the Senate whether the agreement of 1817 was still in 
 force. 
 
 The Government replied that in their opinion it was, 
 
 1 "It was doubtless not at all within the contemplation of the under 
 standing of 1817 that the National resources in naval construction should be 
 materially diminished thereby, as they are at present, through the exclusion 
 of the facilities afforded by establishment in the Lake cities. These estab 
 lishments might in emergency render important service in the construction of 
 torpedo-boats, and other small vessels, which, with the concurrence of the 
 British authorities, could be taken through the Welland canal and placed in 
 commission for sea service as promptly as would be possible if they were 
 built on the Atlantic seaboard." (American Secretary of the Navy, letter 
 dated April 16, 1898.) 
 
1 40 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 notwithstanding that Congress had repealed it in 1865, 
 because the British Government had been so instructed 
 by Mr. Seward, and if America s good faith was to be 
 accepted abroad they must sustain the arrangements 
 made by her Foreign Minister. 
 
 Now we come to 1898, when a Bill was passed by 
 Congress authorizing the construction and maintenance 
 of a gunboat on the lakes, providing " that the said 
 construction of said gunboat shall conform to all 
 existing treaties and convention." 
 
 But the gunboat has not been built, for in that 
 year the joint High Commission for the settlement of 
 various pending questions between America and Canada 
 was the " revision of the Agreement of 1817 respecting 
 naval vessels on the lakes." But the labours of the 
 High Commission came to nothing they are " sus 
 pended," and so the construction of the American gun 
 boat is still in abeyance. 
 
 America has not always scrupulously respected the 
 letters of the agreement. For many years she has 
 maintained armed revenue cutters far exceeding the 
 prescribed tonnage and armament, and thereby invoking 
 in 1857 and again in 1865 a protest from the British 
 authorities, because these revenue cutters are always 
 available for auxiliary use by the navy in time of war. 
 
 Several of these rendered conspicuous service in the 
 recent Spanish War. 
 
 The chief point we have to consider with regard to 
 
 1 Mr. Boutell thinks this is probably the only instance where an Act of 
 Congress has been set aside through instructions issued by an American 
 Cabinet Minister to an American Minister abroad. " It is," he adds, " not a 
 legislative precedent that is likely to meet with the approval of modern 
 Congresses." 
 
THE NEW SHIPPING 141 
 
 the observance of the Kush-Bagot Convention is that at 
 present only one party can put war vessels on the lakes 
 without building them there, unless Canada consents to 
 the use of her canals for this purpose. We, on the 
 other hand, can conceivably send to the lakes from the 
 Atlantic all war vessels capable of passing the Canadian 
 locks, or 130 gunboats, 170 torpedo-boats, and 110 
 destroyers, a formidable force. But we could not 
 attempt to do this in the event of war until some act 
 of belligerency had actually taken place, or unless we 
 had six months previously given notice of abrogating 
 the Convention. So that it would appear that the 
 agreement restrains us from making adequate prepara 
 tions for the protection of Canadian shores, and the 
 chances are slender that, during war, our fleet would 
 ever reach the lakes uninjured. Doubtless, the first 
 achievement of the Americans would be to blow up 
 the locks. 
 
 So far the Convention is to America s advantage, 
 and it is doubtful if the establishment of a naval ship 
 building industry on the lakes would equal this advan 
 tage, even if to it were added the proposed training 
 of a naval militia on these waters. 
 
 At the close of the American Revolution America s 
 total shipping was less than half that -of Great Britain, 
 but by 1850 her tonnage was 3,500,000 to our 
 4,250,000 tons. In the next few years America had 
 taken a leading share in the Transatlantic and China 
 trade, and by 1854 was only 100,000 tons less than 
 Britain s 5,250,000 tonnage. Seven years later, at the 
 outbreak of the Civil War, America had 5,482,120 tons 
 her high- water mark, but still 400,000 less than 
 
i 4 2 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 Britain s. Then wood and canvas were superseded by 
 iron and steam, and, unable to build the new ships, and 
 forbidden by a foolish Congress to buy, America lost 
 her lead, her shipping fell off, and to-day stands at 
 less than half what it was forty years ago. The first 
 steel vessel ever built in America was constructed in 
 1895 of steel plates imported from Glasgow. 
 
 Could there be a more striking instance of progress 
 and development than that five years later, in 1900, 
 American steel plates should be imported into Glasgow 
 for the construction of British ships ? Is America to 
 recover her position in the maritime race ? Perhaps ; 
 but it will not be instantly. She will have to increase 
 her shipbuilding sixfold to produce what Britain turns 
 out every year, while her registered tonnage of vessels 
 already built is only a tenth of ours. Kapid as are her 
 strides in shipbuilding, America cannot make good this 
 disparity by ordinary means. 
 
 Let us see to what extraordinary means she may, in 
 the emergency, resort. 
 
 At present the American flag carries only about one 
 twelfth of America s commerce. By a new policy of 
 finance and protection it is hoped that soon 75 to 80 
 per cent, will be American. 
 
 In the Congress of 1901 a Bill was introduced " to 
 promote the commerce and increase the foreign trade of 
 the United States, and to provide auxiliary cruisers, 
 transports, and seamen for Government use when neces 
 sary." This is the celebrated Shipping Subsidy Bill. 
 
 This measure provides that there shall be paid to 
 American sail and steam vessels conveying cargoes 
 compensation at the rate of one and one-half cents per 
 
THE NEW SHIPPING 143 
 
 gross ton for each additional 100 miles on longer 
 voyages. It is not necessary that the vessel shall carry 
 passengers. It is simply to make trips in the foreign 
 trade with cargoes of not less than a prescribed amount, 
 no matter what the nature of the trade may be. 
 
 In order to stimulate the building of large steamers 
 of more than the average rate of speed additional subsidy 
 is proposed, based upon speed and tonnage as high as 
 2 3 cents per gross ton. Foreign-built vessels admitted 
 to American registry are to receive only 50 per cent, of 
 the compensation granted to home-built ships, while 
 ship- builders are to be allowed to make contracts with 
 the Government which will guarantee them the same 
 subsidy as that which is to be enjoyed by vessels already 
 constructed. No vessel is to be entitled to compensation 
 unless at least one-fourth of her crew are citizens of the 
 United States, or have declared their intention to be 
 come such ; while bounties are provided for vessels and 
 crews engaged in deep-sea fishing. 
 
 By the passage of this Bill the Kepublican party 
 hope to restore the American merchant marine to the 
 position it once held and lost. It is naturally argued 
 that in aiding the ship-owners they are aiding the whole 
 nation ; yet at the same time, what the average Ameri 
 can sees is that the owners will all become multi 
 millionaires by the enactment of the law, which the 
 " Shipping King " is pressing upon Congress. 1 
 
 1 As to the scope of the Hanna-Payne Shipping Subsidy Bill " compensa 
 tion " is payable (1) upon gross tonnage ; (2) for " mileage sailed both outward 
 and homeward bound"; (3) to all vessels " engaged in trade " between our 
 own and foreign countries ; (4) according to speed the rate per ton to certain 
 vessels having ability for speed above fourteen knots, is increased in pro 
 portion to fleetness as tested on a trial trip, presumably in ballast trim, to 
 
i 4 4 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 But not content with the roseate future held out to 
 the mercantile marine by the champions of State sub 
 vention, a group of capitalists have recently planned 
 and executed a more dramatic and decisive coup. In 
 the month of January, 1902, it was announced that Mr. 
 Pierpont Morgan, acting for this group, had negotiated 
 the purchase of a number of American and British steam 
 ship Hues, which were thenceforward to be amalgamated 
 under a single administration, and has popularly come 
 to be known as the Shipping Trust. Apart from Ameri 
 can ambition to possess a mercantile marine, a factor in 
 the situation undoubtedly is that the steamships, as 
 they were formerly controlled, did not pay during the 
 last few years they have been running. It was vitally 
 necessary to concentrate the management, to reduce 
 expenses, and to dispense with the full equipment with 
 which each separate company had to be served. It is 
 calculated that the savings resulting from eliminating 
 the ruinous competition, and the ability to charge uni 
 form prices instead of cut-rates, will make money for all 
 the lines which do not now pay. 1 " While we are told 
 the Combine will owe its inception to America, its basis 
 
 establish the record of each vessel. There is nothing to be deducted or with 
 held for voyages in ballast, or with partial cargoes (no doubt because then 
 " compensation " would be most required). 
 
 For all practical purposes, the whole of American foreign shipping will 
 come under the operation of this law. Vessels operating outside its scope 
 would be forced to engage in the coasting trade, or be transferred as foreigners, 
 or lie idle. 
 
 1 The Morgan combination, however, has to earn enough to pay interest 
 on a vastly inflated amount. For engineering the combination Mr. Morgan 
 was to receive some two and a half millions sterling, on which interest must 
 be paid, and doubtless a very large number of other persons, who had con 
 trived by their efforts towards the carrying through of this gigantic amalga 
 mation, would have to obtain their reward likewise. 
 
THE NEW SHIPPING 145 
 
 will be international, and the management will be mainly 
 directed to the policy of paying the shareholders the best 
 returns. No blow has been aimed at British prestige, 
 for British interests and shareholders will jointly benefit." 
 The Combine has certainly attracted less attention in 
 America than it has in England ; probably there are 
 only four ships in the community which at present fly 
 the American flag. The Shipping Trust materially 
 benefits the American railroads. They have very satis 
 factory accommodation in the existing lines. But if 
 they will not directly gain, at least they will now defi 
 nitely know what ocean-rates, hitherto fluctuating, are 
 going to be. Kates will tend to become more uniform, 
 and will not be subjected to rebates and commissions, 
 which are the characteristics of all the competitive 
 organizations. 
 
 Will this audacious coup turn out a profitable one 
 for its promoters? There are many who venture to 
 express the opinion that, if the idea is thereby to obtain 
 control of the Atlantic carrying trade, it will lamentably 
 fail. As Professor Ginsberg has lately pointed out, 1 the 
 costly ship built in America cannot compete in the 
 world s market with the cheap British-built vessel. Mr. 
 Morgan is buying costly ships, as if the shares in the 
 new Combine are to be worth their face- value. The sea 
 is not Protectionist, and cannot be. 
 
 " Mr. Morgan must either secure a monopoly, and an absolute 
 one, killing all rivals and controlling the output of new tonnage 
 on both sides of the Atlantic in which case he can make the 
 British consumer of American food-stuffs and manufactured 
 goods pay the interest on his inflated capital, or that capital 
 
 1 British Association Meeting, 1902. 
 
146 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 will not make the expected return. To sum up, it would appear 
 that there was little ground for fearing that Britain will lose 
 the right to fly the red ensign over the combination s fleet, for 
 the interest of both the American ship -builders and of the 
 labour organizations are against the admission of these ships to 
 the United States register. Belfast is secure of her large share 
 of the new work for the organization. The British public as a 
 consumer is not likely to suffer seriously from what has taken 
 place, because it seems inconceivable that the Combine can 
 successfully corner the freight market, even if it wishes to." 
 
 As for the question of which flag shall be flown by 
 the ships, this depends on the fate of the Subsidy Bill, 
 which has already passed the Senate and is now before 
 the House. Should this measure become law, then doubt 
 less a large portion of the new ships will be built in 
 American shipyards, and will fly the American flag. 
 But if it does not become law, then those who control 
 the Trust will undoubtedly consider it more economical 
 to build the vessels in Great Britain, and run them 
 under the British, German, or Belgian flags. 
 
 But the matter of the flag is a very vital one, and 
 will prove the most serious in the long run, in spite of 
 the attempt of the Trust promoters to belittle its sig 
 nificance. 
 
 With regard to the huge development of inland 
 navigation, it is solely due to Canadian enterprise that 
 America possesses the present open pathway which now 
 connects the lakes and the oceans. If she had expended 
 as much money in proportion to her size and population 
 as Canada has, there is little doubt Chicago would have 
 long enjoyed fully the advantages of a seaport. 
 
 In order to explain the process by which a steam 
 ship from Europe may and does reach Chicago, we must 
 
THE NEW SHIPPING 147 
 
 first call attention to the river St. Lawrence, now navi 
 gable for ocean craft as far as Montreal. Then come 
 the Lachine Rapids, to avoid which vessels are carried 
 around by the Lachine Canal and locks. After this 
 is the broad reach known as Lake St. Louis, and then 
 the Soulanges Canal enables the ship to circumvent 
 another obstruction. Beyond the Soulanges lies Lake 
 St. Francis, and beyond is still another canal ; and so 
 the vessel goes on, alternating between rivers, lakes, and 
 canals, as far as Lake Ontario. On the western side of 
 this great inland sea, the vessel is lifted to the higher 
 level of Lake Erie by the famous Welland Canal and 
 locks, and so avoids the Niagara Falls. All these arti 
 ficial waterways pass through Canadian territory ! 
 
 For nearly half a century the Isthmian Canal meant 
 the Nicaraguan route to the people and politicians of 
 America, for the simple reason that the Panama route 
 was controlled by foreigners. If America was ever to 
 build a canal at all, it must be via Nicaragua. The 
 financial failure of the Panama project, so far from 
 leading Americans to perceive where their true interests 
 lay, and so direct them to take over the uncompleted 
 work from the French, led them more than ever to 
 consider the alternative route. 
 
 Just at what juncture a small group of senators 
 recognized the advantages to be reaped from De Lesseps 
 abandoned labours would be hard to say. 
 
 Senator Hanna, the leader of the party, voted against 
 a favourable report on the Nicaragua Canal Bill in 
 committee. Consideration of this measure in the Senate 
 was prevented by the votes of the Republican majority. 
 Yet the Bill could have been passed at any time during 
 
148 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 the session, and the failure of the friends of the 
 Administration to press it forward remained for a time 
 a mystery to the majority of Americans, who supposed 
 that the matter had been publicly settled. 
 
 But the Government, as we now have good reason to 
 suspect, was holding back for terms. 
 
 Neither President nor Senate ever had any intention 
 of constructing the Nicaragua Canal, but these tactics 
 were so far effectual that the French company was 
 brought to terms, and finally offered to sell at Uncle 
 Sam s own price, i.e. $40,000,000. 
 
 Public opinion soon underwent a transformation, and 
 now, after all the hard things said about the Panama 
 
 O 
 
 route, calls on the Government (which had meant to do 
 so all along) to close with the offer. 
 
 It is the estimate of the Walker commission that, 
 possessed of the French concession, and of the work 
 completed by the French company, the canal could be 
 constructed for $38,130,704 less than by way of 
 Nicaragua. As there is a good harbour on either side 
 of the isthmus, the Panama Canal could be maintained 
 for $1,350,000 less per annum than the Nicaraguan 
 a sum equivalent to 3 per cent, on $45,000,000. A 
 ship could steam from ocean to ocean via Panama by 
 the light of one day, as against thirty-three hours by the 
 Nicaragua route. 
 
 The completion of the Isthmian Canal will un 
 doubtedly stimulate American shipping, although, 
 perhaps, at the expense of her railways, whose owners 
 are, of course, doing their best to retard the scheme. 
 
 It is the belief of the Americans that within five 
 years after the completion of the canal its tonnage will 
 
THE NEW SHIPPING 149 
 
 be very much larger than that of the Suez Canal 
 to-day. 1 
 
 The tolls will probably be fixed at the Suez rate, 
 i.e. $1.80. This would render the gross annual receipts 
 at over eight million dollars on the assumed traffic for 
 the first few years. 
 
 With reference to the human element, everything 
 has changed and is changing in the American mercan 
 tile marine save the condition of its seamen. The 
 maritime laws of America place the seaman in a 
 position relatively far more unjust and degrading than 
 that of his predecessors. In the matter of personal 
 liberty he exists under all the disabilities which formerly 
 oppressed the negro. In brief, he is a chattel, both in 
 law and practice. 
 
 In law, the seaman is a " ward of Admiralty." His 
 helpless condition under the ancient maritime laws, 
 framed in 1790, is made the excuse for imposing upon 
 him burdens " that could not be imposed upon other 
 classes without depriving them of rights that were 
 personal freedom." 2 
 
 " Seamen," according to a recent Supreme Court judgment, 
 "are treated by Congress ... as deficient in that full and 
 intelligent responsibility for their acts which is accredited to 
 ordinary adults, and as needing the protection of the law in the 
 
 1 The net tonnage for 1901 through the Suez Canal shows an increase of 
 1,085,688 tons over that of 1900, and of 928,210 over 1899. The transit 
 receipts, which amounted to 100,386,397 francs, were higher than any previous 
 year since the opening of the canal, and show an increase of 9,762,789 francs 
 as compared with those of 1900. No special reason can be assigned for the 
 increase in the trade through the canal except that the economical situation 
 of India has recently improved, and that there has been an increased activity 
 in the trade with the East. 
 
 2 Mr. Justice Harlan. 
 
150 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 same sense in which minors and wards are entitled to the 
 protection of their parents and their guardians." 
 
 The maritime law of America derives its authority 
 from the code of the Middle Ages, beginning with the 
 Consolato del mare of indefinite antiquity, earlier than 
 the thirteenth century. 
 
 In 1897, the Supreme Court rendered a decision 
 which evinces the extreme conservatism of American 
 law. Two years before, four seamen of the American 
 barque Arago deserted at Astoria, Oregon. The brief 
 set forth that the laws under which the seamen were 
 held to servitude operated to deprive them of liberty 
 and prosperity without the due process of law, to 
 deprive them of the right of trial by jury, and to hold 
 them to slavery and involuntary servitude, contrary to 
 the Constitution. On the latter ground it was indeed 
 contended that the law binding the seaman to fulfil his 
 will is in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment, which 
 prohibits slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a 
 punishment for crime. 
 
 The Courts sustained the historical statutes (" from 
 the earliest historical period the contract of the sailor 
 has been treated as an exceptional one "), and the sailors 
 had to go back to their master. 
 
 The decision attracted wide attention, and was 
 charged with signifying for the first time that the 
 personal liberty of the citizen is not a right inherent in 
 the fundamental law, but is merely a privilege enjoyed 
 under the tenure of public opinion, and public policy 
 among other instances. 
 
 At the present moment, an American boy named 
 Amos Stone, a native of Boston, and the son of respectable 
 
THE NEW SHIPPING 151 
 
 parents, is an inmate of a lunatic asylum at Seattle, 
 Washington State, as the result of treatment received 
 from officers on board an American ship. Another 
 American boy, Ephraim Clark, has been confined in 
 Thomaston Maine Penitentiary for twenty-five years, 
 for mutiny under circumstances of extreme provocation. 
 " Such cases," says one critic, " contain a sufficient ex 
 planation of the native American s aversion to the sea. 
 He sees the seaman, the driftwood of all races, brutalized 
 at sea, robbed ashore, practically without redress, and an 
 object of pity and contempt." 
 
 American ships are dreaded by the sailor the world 
 over. America can never have a mercantile marine 
 unless she reforms in this particular. The personal 
 treatment endured by the seamen at the hands of the 
 officers is not better than it was in Dana s day. 
 
 "Extreme brutality," says Mr. W. Mac Arthur, in his 
 monograph on the subject, " is the rule, almost without exception. 
 It is a standing charge against our maritime law that it requires 
 no qualification other than that of citizenship on the part of 
 sailing-ship officers. Here America occupies a unique position 
 among maritime nations. The consequence may be foreseen : 
 the men in authority on board American ships are selected 
 because of their ability to maltreat the wretched men under 
 them, and not for their seamanship. This leads to the perpetra 
 tion of the most wanton brutalities conceivable, by minds trained 
 to ingenious methods of inflicting torture upon their subordinates, 
 and undeterred by the fear of consequences, social or legal." 
 
 Pick up any American newspaper published in the 
 Maritime States, and it is not unlikely you will come 
 across the familiar case of a seaman just returned from 
 a voyage, bringing charges against shipping officers, 
 charges which seem incredible for inhumanity. But 
 
152 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 the public is indifferent and apathetic or sceptical : the 
 charges are dismissed with " monotonous regularity." 
 
 America is far behind Britain, Germany, Italy, and 
 Denmark in her ancient laws for the treatment of the 
 sailor, and she will have to alter this if her forthcoming 
 mercantile marine is to become popular. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 TRUSTS AND COMBINES 
 
 INDUSTRIAL consolidation has been carried far and carried 
 quickly by America. Twelve or fourteen years ago 
 there were not a dozen business combinations in the 
 country which might, in the American language, ap 
 propriately be termed Trusts. Now there are nearly 
 three hundred Trusts, covering the production of almost 
 every article of daily use, from matches to sleeping-cars, 
 and involving billions of capital. In one year alone 
 (1899) the industrial combinations formed represented an 
 authorized capitalization of two billion dollars, a sum 
 equal to all metal currency in circulation in America. 1 
 
 But there has lately come a second phase in the 
 centralizing process. Some of the larger combinations 
 are organized for the purpose of holding the stock of 
 other corporations. A large company buys up all the 
 stock of several other companies, and issues its own 
 stock substantially in exchange. The profits of the 
 constituent companies form the fund from which the 
 dividends of the holding company are paid. In other 
 
 1 There are in 1902 exactly 287 Trusts, with an amount in capital stock 
 scheduled at over five billion dollars, the outstanding bonds amounting to 
 about two billions, and the total capitalization being close on seven billion 
 dollars, or about a third of the entire manufacturing capital of America. 
 
 "S3 
 
154 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 cases, on the formation of a combination, the new 
 company buys for cash or stock all of the plants of 
 the uniting companies, and these companies are then 
 dissolved. The former method may be described as the 
 " Trust," and the latter as the " Combine." 
 
 The economic is the paramount phase of American 
 life, and no economic tendency is so extraordinary, so 
 absorbing, or so new as that which is concentrating the 
 entire industries of the country into single corporate 
 groups. In some departments of manufacture these are 
 supreme and complete monopolies. 
 
 The possibilities for economy with a Trust are very 
 great, because it dispenses with travelling salesmen and 
 with advertising, and practises the distribution of goods 
 from the nearest source of supply. Thus the cost is 
 reduced often more than one half. It is clear that the 
 present competitive system involves most waste, and 
 often the consumer is obliged to pay 100 per cent, over 
 the prime cost of the article. 
 
 There are, then, great possibilities of social economy 
 and advantages in the new system ; but, on the other 
 hand, it is also being selfishly used to make exorbitant 
 profits and to crush competition by unfair discrimination 
 and tyrannous practices. 
 
 Competition reduces prices, but there is a point in 
 the reduction of price beyond which it is not possible 
 for any of the competitors to go, unless their capital, 
 and consequently their output, is so large that they are 
 content with the minimum of profit or even with loss, 
 in the hope of lessening the number of smaller com 
 petitors. A lessened output would soon restore prices 
 to such a level as to yield the normal profits. Unless 
 
TRUSTS AND COMBINES 155 
 
 this is achieved by the manufacturer, the glut in the 
 market must be met by the withdrawal of a portion of 
 his capital in the business, or to direct it into other 
 lines of business. This was the old way. But machinery 
 is now more costly, and possesses a more specific character, 
 and it is not so easy to withdraw capital from an un 
 profitable business. 
 
 Professor Jenks of America has found that " in 
 dustrial combinations have been able to control pro 
 ductions ; in other words, to restrain competition to such 
 an extent as to enable them materially to raise the prices 
 of products." Another American professor, Mr. Bullock, 
 calls attention to the contradictory assertions of the 
 Trust magnates that " Trusts are necessary to stop com 
 petition, which has become wasteful and generally 
 pernicious ; while they contend that the spirit of the 
 eliminated corrective agency which they call potential 
 competition is still skulking round somewhere with 
 power to act, and that it will certainly be evoked by 
 the groans of the victimized consumer." 
 
 There are not wanting many leading financiers who 
 predict that a combination of industries will inevitably 
 result in one of the greatest financial crashes ever felt 
 in the United States, and that, too, at no very distant 
 period. 
 
 "Combinations of all great industries are a menace to 
 Government," declares Mr. Eussell Sage. " Such combinations 
 are not only a menace, but are the oppressors of the people. 
 Should an era of combinations ensue, the American people 
 will certainly revolt against them, and, if they do, there will 
 be financial ruin such as people have never dreamed of in the 
 history of the world. There are certain times when combina 
 tions are useful and beneficial. When several industries are 
 
156 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 beginning business, it is well for individuals to combine for 
 mutual protection until business is fairly on its feet. When 
 the business is firmly established, combination should be dis 
 rupted, and the concern conducted along individual lines. The 
 embarrassment of one individual would not then mean the 
 wrecking of the industry. 
 
 " It is better to have such industries divided among several 
 individuals than combined into one great corporation, the em 
 barrassment of which would mean the ruin of all. Industries 
 conducted along individual lines have many safeguards. Instead 
 of but one source, each individual has several, separate and 
 distinct from each other, to which to apply for aid during any 
 great trouble." 
 
 The essential feature of the Trust is monopoly. 
 Legally it is merely a large corporation, but in fact it 
 is a compacted group of competing corporations a 
 giant consolidation able to control the entire output of 
 any special manufacture and to destroy competition by 
 temporary underselling. 
 
 It is a monopoly which " so controls business, what 
 ever it may be, as practically to regulate competition 
 and to fix the price of its products on the whole, with 
 little reference to competitors, or to the cost of pro 
 duction, but mainly with reference to securing the 
 greatest net results." l 
 
 1 On the other hand, the British commercial agent, Mr. Bell, has recently 
 thrown light upon the moderation and consummate ability in dealing with 
 human nature which characterize the policy of the greatest of the Trusts and 
 indicate the real moral strength of the Trust system in general. " Notwith 
 standing the enormous demand for iron and steel, prices have been kept at 
 a reasonable level. This has been largely due to the United States Steel 
 Corporation, which firmly refused to raise their prices unduly." 
 
 One reason, as Mr. Bell observes, is that the Steel Corporation prefers a 
 steady and regular trade upon a vast scale, and at a moderate profit, to the 
 wild fluctuations of losses and gains inseparable from prices sensationally 
 inflated and then as deeply depressed. There is also another solution of the 
 
TRUSTS AND COMBINES 157 
 
 The consequence is, competition must be met by 
 " cut-throat " methods. The article is sold for less than 
 cost, and the weaker firms manufacturing it go under. 
 In fact, to use the common American defence, it is a 
 case of " trust or bust "-combination or extinction. 
 
 The capitalist Trust is therefore a natural outcome 
 of modern competitive conditions. If it in each instance 
 assumed its form naturally, if it merely restored normal 
 prices and did not resort to oppression and injustice in 
 order to perpetuate its supremacy, there would be no 
 agitation against Trusts, nor would they threaten the 
 commercial and industrial fabric of America. 
 
 The Trust tends to depress the price of raw material, 
 for one thing, and so injure the market for the 
 farmer. 1 
 
 It is futile to try and abolish Trusts ; it is flying 
 in the face of economic evolution and the possibilities 
 of production ; but you can regulate them, just as you 
 can and do regulate banking and insurance. 
 
 In 1890 an Act was passed by Congress " to protect 
 trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and 
 monopolies," which is now commonly known as the 
 Anti-Trust Act. It provides that : 
 
 " Every contract combination in the form of Trust 
 or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or 
 
 Steel Trust s moderation. It is afraid of rousing the public to anti-tariff 
 legislation. If it abused its advantage, its monopoly would disappear by the 
 abatement of the Protectionist duties. 
 
 1 Professor Graham thinks that under the Trust system in the future 
 production will be largely increased and wages "might be as high as at 
 present, though the trade unions would occupy a less strong position than 
 they now did to enforce their desires by a strike. The employment of the 
 working classes would probably be more steady, though their sense of inde 
 pendence must not be so strong." 
 
158 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 commerce among the several States or with foreign 
 nations, is hereby declared to be illegal." 
 
 The passage of this Act was thought by many to 
 herald the downfall of the iniquitous Trust. But there 
 was soon seen to be grave difficulties in the way of its 
 practical enforcement. 
 
 To begin with, the sole authority of Congress to 
 legislate upon the subject is found in the constitutional 
 provision that it shall have power to regulate commerce 
 with foreign nations and among the several States. 
 Unless, therefore, a " Trust" restrains commerce with 
 foreign nations or among the several States, or, as it 
 is called, interstate commerce, it is not within the scope 
 of the Act, which has no relation to transactions within 
 the boundaries of an individual State. 
 
 This interpretation was first settled publicly in 1894 
 by the Supreme Court in an action brought by the 
 Government under the Act. It appeared that by the 
 absorption of numerous other companies a certain 
 corporation had secured control throughout the country 
 of the manufacture of refined sugar. It was therefore 
 charged that there was a combination or conspiracy in 
 restraint of interstate commerce, in that it contemplated 
 that refined sugar should be sold in States other than 
 those in which it was produced. Nevertheless, the Court 
 decided (one member dissenting) that the question where 
 the sugar would ultimately be shipped was without im 
 portance ; the acquisition by the Trust of sugar refineries 
 was merely an act done within the State where they 
 were situated, and was not an act in restraint of inter 
 state commerce, even though it might indirectly affect 
 such commerce. The Supreme Court pointed out that 
 
TRUSTS AND COMBINES 159 
 
 if the latter circumstance alone brought transactions 
 within the purview of the Federal power, the National 
 Government would control to the exclusion of the States 
 " substantially everything of importance in business 
 operations and affairs." On the contrary, it held that 
 contracts, combinations, and conspiracies to control 
 domestic enterprise in manufacturing, -agriculture, mining, 
 or production in all its forms, or to raise or lower prices 
 or wages, are not within the prohibition of the Statute, 
 although they may tend to restrain external as well as 
 domestic trade. Congress did not attempt to limit and 
 restrict the rights of corporations created by the States, 
 or the citizens of the States, in the acquisition, control, 
 or disposition of property, or to regulate or prescribe 
 the price or prices at which the property or the products 
 thereof shall be sold. 1 
 
 Other cases were tried before the Supreme Court, 
 and it was soon rendered evident that so far as its 
 efficacy went in restraining the growth of the Trusts, the 
 Anti-Trust law was almost a dead letter. 2 The rule was 
 laid down that facilities furnished, or services rendered, 
 in connection with the transaction of interstate com 
 merce, are not a part of that commerce, and agreements 
 
 1 In this construction of the Anti-Trust Act, the Court therefore held that 
 the various processes of production are antecedent to and distinct from inter 
 state commerce ; that commerce begins after production has ceased and when 
 the product commences its final movement from the State of its origin to the 
 State of its destination. All this hair-splitting clearly shows the obstacles 
 which the American people as a whole and the national power have to 
 overcome. 
 
 2 " In the United States we have inherited (from Great Britain) this same 
 slowness of political growth, and it is favoured by our obstructive written 
 Constitution, which is characterized by the Hamiltonian forethought of hinder 
 ing legislation or amendment to the extent, it may be feared, of hindering 
 healthy progress." Professor A. Watkins. 
 
160 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 or combinations to fix or maintain the charges for such 
 facilities or services are not within the four corners of 
 the Act. The construction which the latter has thus 
 received makes plain how narrow is its scope, and that 
 few except those engaged directly in the business of 
 interstate transportation are affected by its provisions. 
 
 Yet the terms of the Anti-Trust Act are said to 
 cover everything regarding which Congress has the 
 constitutional power to act. In one of his annual 
 messages to Congress, President McKinley said, " It 
 will be perceived that the Act is aimed at every kind 
 of combination in the nature of Trust or monopoly in 
 restraint of interstate or international commerce." 
 
 Congress, then, can do no more than it has done in 
 the way of Statutes. It is helpless, unless to direct 
 severer processes of inquiry and heavier penalties. 
 
 Producers may combine to limit production or con 
 trol prices ; those furnishing services or facilities in the 
 transaction of interstate commerce as above described 
 may combine to fix the price and extent of such facilities 
 or services ; the consignees may combine to control the 
 price of their services or the number of persons engaged 
 in the business ; but none of these operations are com 
 prehended in the Statute. 1 
 
 What, then, do we see ? Simply, that the National 
 Government has no powers save those expressed in the 
 Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court. It 
 is idle for the ill-informed American opponent of Trusts 
 
 1 Yet, to show how far the State Courts are ready to go, we have the 
 remarkable decision of the Illinois " Supreme Court, by which the Associated 
 Press (an organization similar to Reuter s Agency or the Central News) is 
 ordered to sell its news to any newspaper that may apply. 
 
TRUSTS AND COMBINES 161 
 
 to demand what he is always demanding the enforce 
 ment of the Anti-Trust Act ; he should look into his 
 rigid Constitution and perceive that the objects of his 
 repugnance do not come within the constitutional juris 
 diction or legislative powers of the nation or within the 
 prohibition of the nation s law. 
 
 Unless the Supreme Court consent to a more helpful 
 interpretation, America may yet wake up to the con 
 sciousness that her commerce is being muzzled by her 
 eighteenth-century Constitution. 
 
 Considering the threatening nature of the Trusts, it 
 is not surprising that their abatement should form a 
 mighty political issue. Yet the Anti-Trust crusade is 
 confined to neither political party. But how differently 
 do they approach it how different are the remedies 
 proposed ! The Republican leaders can hardly be sincere 
 in wishing the earning power of the Trusts curtailed, 
 and they must have listened to President Roosevelt s 
 recent speeches with something like consternation until 
 they were convinced that the President carefully avoided 
 naming a remedy. 1 
 
 1 At Pittsburg, in 1902, President Roosevelt made the following remarkable 
 speech : 
 
 " Especially great and especially difficult are the problems caused by the 
 growth and concentration of great individual, and, above all, of great corporate 
 fortunes. It is immensely for the interests of the country that there should be 
 such individual and corporate wealth as long as it is used aright, and where 
 it is not used aright then it becomes a serious menace and danger. The 
 instruments and the methods with which we are to meet these new problems 
 must in many cases themselves be new. But the purpose lying behind the 
 use of these methods and instruments must, if we are to succeed, be now, as 
 in the past, simply in accord with the immutable laws of order, justice, and 
 right. We may need, and it is my belief that we shall need, new legislation, 
 conceived in no radical or revolutionary spirit, but in the spirit of common 
 sense and common honesty, and with a resolute desire to face facts as they 
 are. In the solution of these difficult problems we need a character that 
 
 M 
 
1 62 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 So far he has pointed out no definite path along 
 which investigation should proceed. He has, indeed, 
 spoken of " governmental control," and even of an 
 amendment to the Constitution ; but what sort of con 
 trol and what sort of amendment he does not specify. 
 We have not much faith in either remedy. No scheme 
 of " governmental control " has yet been proposed that 
 would not do far more harm than good ; while as for 
 amending the Constitution, I have on a previous page 
 shown the difficulty of the process. 
 
 Still clinging to what will prove a counsel of pure 
 perfection, very difficult to realize in practice, Mr. 
 Eoosevelt declares that his aim is to destroy the evils 
 of the combines. But he is profoundly impressed with 
 the conviction that the industrial efficiency of the 
 mammoth corporation is the foundation-stone of the 
 present commercial power of the United States, and he 
 maintains without hesitation that if America cannot 
 
 will refuse to be hurried into any unwise or precipitate movement by any 
 clamour, whether historical or demagogic ; but, on the other hand, a character 
 that will refuse to be frightened from a movement he thinks right to under 
 take by any pressure, and still less by any threat, expressed or implied. Mr. 
 Knox has shown that much can be done along the lines of supervision and 
 regulation of great industrial combinations ; but, if we recklessly try, without 
 proper thought and caution, to do much, we shall either do nothing or else 
 work ruin that would be felt most acutely by those citizens who are most 
 helpless. It is no easy task to deal with great industrial tendencies. By 
 dealing with them in a spirit of presumptuous and rash folly, and, above all, in 
 a spirit of envy, hatred, and malice, we should invite disaster so widespread 
 that the country would rock to its foundations. Special legislation, municipal, 
 State, and national, is needed, but, beyond all, we need an honest and fearless 
 administration of the laws on the Statute books, made in the interest neither 
 of rich nor poor, but in the interest of exact and equal justice to all alike." 
 
 This latter is a mere piece of rhetoric, seeing that the Anti-Trust law has 
 been pronounced by the Supreme Court powerless to affect the Trusts. In 
 fact, the whole utterance carefully avoids going to the root of the evil or of 
 giving fright or offence to the Trust politicians. 
 
TRUSTS AND COMBINES 163 
 
 succeed in attacking the evils without impairing the 
 advantages of the Trust system, she had better bear the 
 former than sacrifice the latter. 
 
 " It is a great deal better that some people should prosper 
 too much than that no one should prosper enough, so that the 
 man who advocates destroying Trusts by measures that would 
 paralyze the industries of the country is at best a quack, and 
 at worst an enemy of the Republic." 
 
 Again he says 
 
 "The nation must assume the power to control by legis 
 lation. The immediate need in dealing with Trusts is to place 
 them under the real, not nominal, control of some sovereign, to 
 which, as its creatures, Trusts still owe allegiance, and in whose 
 courts the sovereign s orders may with certainty be enforced. 
 This is not the case with the ordinary so-called Trust of to-day, 
 for the Trust is a large State corporation, generally doing busi 
 ness in other States also, and often with a tendency to monopoly. 
 Some governmental sovereign must be given full power over 
 these artificial and very powerful corporate beings. In my 
 judgment the sovereign must be the National Government. 
 When it is given full power, that power can be used to con 
 trol any evil influence, but that power should be exercised with 
 moderation and self-restraint." 
 
 Now let us enumerate the certain remedies, and in 
 doing so we may perceive some of the difficulties which 
 cause the President embarrassment in his policy of 
 extirpating the evils of the Trusts without injury to 
 their industrial efficiency. 
 
 These remedies are three in number 
 
 1. Lowering the tariff on goods hitherto protected 
 for the Trust. 
 
 2. Equality of railway rates to all shippers, large or 
 small. 
 
1 64 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 3. Full publicity relating to the capital and opera 
 tions of the Trusts. 
 
 The reduction of the tariff is the only method which 
 would largely protect the community from the practice 
 of such abuses as have occurred and from the possibility 
 of worse. But the President has so far shrunk from lay 
 ing sacrilegious hands upon McKinleyism, which has been 
 the Ark of the Covenant for the Republican party. 1 
 
 Yet, Mr. Havemeyer, the " Sugar King/ has called 
 the tariff " the mother of Trusts/ and has admitted, if 
 the duties were remitted in the case of any articles the 
 production and distribution of which were known to be 
 in the hands of a monopoly, the abuses we now hear so 
 much of would be very greatly curtailed, if not for a 
 time absolutely abolished. 
 
 In 1901 Mr. Babcock, a Republican Congressman, 
 gave notice of a motion for placing steel on the free 
 list. He and his friends had no difficulty in proving 
 that when a " struggling industry " is at last capable of 
 
 1 Mr. Roosevelt lias since denounced the proposition to remedy the Trust 
 evils by changes in the tariff. He declared that the real evils connected with 
 the Trusts could not be remedied by any change in the tariff laws. He pointed 
 out that the products of many Trusts were unprotected, and would be entirely 
 unaffected or at the most only slightly affected by the change. In this con 
 nection the President especially mentioned the Standard Oil Corporation and 
 the corporations controlling the anthracite output. Some corporations, he 
 said, did well, others did ill. The Trusts could be injured by depriving them 
 of the benefits of a protective tariff, but only at the cost of damaging all their 
 small competitors and all paid workers concerned. 
 
 The necessary supervision and control in which President Roosevelt firmly 
 believed as the only method of eliminating the real evils of Trusts would have 
 to come through wisely and cautiously framed legislation. He was confident 
 that in this instance there were the best reasons for the amendment of the 
 Constitution, but at the same time he believed that without this amendment 
 a good deal could be done by the existing law. All power should be used 
 with wisdom and self-restraint, and all men, rich and poor, should obey the 
 laws alike, and receive their protection alike. 
 
TRUSTS AND COMBINES 165 
 
 capitalizing itself at eleven hundred millions of dollars, 
 it may be reasonably left by a paternal Government to 
 take care of itself. 
 
 The tariff laws, then, are the bulwark of the oppres 
 sive Trusts, and, in the language of the Democratic ex- 
 Attorney-General, " tariff reform must be coincident 
 with Anti-Trust legislation." 
 
 Now let us take the second point. Many think the 
 only real solution of the Trust question is Government 
 control of the railways, because the fact is, the railway 
 system of America has passed into the control of a few 
 persons, and these persons must inevitably be brought 
 into relationship with the heads of the Trusts, and so 
 establish discrimination. 
 
 The Trust would still be comparatively harmless, so 
 far as its ramifications over a wide extent of territory 
 are concerned, were it not for the aid and abetment of 
 the railways. The Interstate Commerce Commission 
 in its last report declares 
 
 " There is probably no one thing to-day which does so much 
 to force out the small operator and to build up those Trusts and 
 monopolies against which law and public opinion alike beat in 
 vain as discrimination in freight rates. This problem is so 
 serious that it will soon attract an attention that has hitherto 
 never been given it." 
 
 By reason of their control of enormous traffic, the 
 Trusts are able to dictate to the railways the terms upon 
 which they will purchase transportation. 
 
 The railroad and the Trusts between them employ 
 one-fourth of the non-agricultural labour of America. 
 The political danger of this is patent, especially when it 
 is borne in mind that only a fraction of these workers 
 are members of a trade union. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE NEW IMMIGRATION 
 
 AMERICA has always been crying out for people. Her 
 appeal has met with a hearty response, and the Old 
 World has poured out its teeming thousands of souls to 
 fill up the waste places of the Republic and contribute 
 an unwonted squalor to its cities. 
 
 But the hospitality of America has been grossly 
 abused ; the demand lately has become general for the 
 restriction of immigration. The recent exploits of the 
 anarchists have accelerated the movement. " We shall 
 soon find," exclaims the Commissioner of Immigration 
 at New York, " that this country is the harbouring- 
 place for the malcontents, criminals, and illiterates of 
 the world." l 
 
 1 The Shattuck Bill, which will receive the attention of the Senate this 
 year, aims at correcting some of the evils connected with immigration. 
 Amongst its provisions is one dealing with the immigration of illiterates. 
 All immigrants over fifteen years of age must be able to read the American 
 language " or some other. For testing purposes the inspection officers are 
 to be furnished with copies of the Constitution of the United States, printed on 
 uniform pasteboard slips, each containing not less than twenty, and not more 
 than twenty-five words of the said Constitution, printed in the various languages 
 of the immigrants in double small pica type. Each immigrant may designate 
 the language in which he prefers the test shall be made, and shall be required 
 to read the words printed on a slip in such language. No two immigrants 
 listed on the same manifest shall be tested with the same slip." 
 
 166 
 
THE NEW IMMIGRATION 167 
 
 There is, however, another reason for the demand 
 for restriction. 
 
 Formerly the bulk of the men and women knocking 
 at the door, besides British, were Irish, Germans, and 
 Scandinavians. But last year twice as many Croat ians 
 and Slavonians entered her portals as English, three 
 times as many as Scotch, as many Slovaks as Irish, 
 three and a half times as many South Italians, and 
 twice as many Hebrews as Germans. Then there were 
 Lithuanians, Magyars, Kuthenians, and other races 
 whom not one American in a hundred had ever heard 
 of before, and who may or may not become good Ameri 
 cans, speaking the American language, and helping the 
 American eagle to scream in another generation. The 
 three principal elements in the total immigration into 
 New York alone of 1900 were : Italian (South), 84,346 ; 
 Hebrew, 60,764 ; and Polish, 46,938. Following these 
 came the Irish, 35,607 ; Scandinavian, 32,952 ; and 
 German, 29,682. 
 
 What a contrast from thirty years ago, when the 
 immigration from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, 
 and Scandinavian countries was three-quarters of the 
 total! Even in 1895 it was still more than one-half; 
 and in 1898 one-third of the total. Now it is less than 
 an eighth, and is rapidly approaching what one official 
 declares will be a negligeable quantity. 
 
 Immigration from North-Western Europe, apart 
 from the Irish and Scandinavian who arrive to enter 
 domestic service, may be said to have well-nigh ceased. 
 
 Italy sends at present by far the largest number of 
 immigrants. The returns issued in July for 1 902 show 
 that 493,840 immigrants landed in New York for the 
 
1 68 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 previous twelvemonth an increase of 104,940 over the 
 figures for the preceding year. About half of these 
 were Italians, while Hungarians, Russians, and Poles 
 made up a majority of the remainder. 1 
 
 All this deluge of Latin and Slav humanity means 
 that the West will suffer. This incoming stock does 
 not care for farming, but elects to remain in the eastern 
 cities and mining regions, and to help to swell the 
 already congested labour market. 
 
 In 1895, among the States which declared to an 
 investigating committee of the Treasury that they 
 desired no further immigration of any kind were 
 Illinois, Iowa, Mississippi, Minnesota, Nebraska, and 
 California. In 1902, out of forty-eight States in the 
 Union, only four desire any immigration. 
 
 America would thus now be glad to shut her doors 
 to the poor-and-oppressed of Europe and Asia ; to the 
 well-to-do and oppressed alone she extends a polite 
 welcome. 
 
 There is yet another reason for alien exclusion. 
 America has so long fostered immigration to her shores 
 that she does well to inquire whether it would not be 
 well for her own interest that the steady stream should 
 be checked. The normal increase of her population 
 
 1 " America," declared Mr. Hay, in his note to the Powers concerning the 
 Roumanian Jews, " welcomes now as always the voluntary immigration of all 
 aliens fitted to become merged in the body politic. Its laws provide for their 
 incorporation indistinguishably in the mass of citizens, with absolute equality 
 with the native born. Equal civil rights at home and equal protection abroad 
 are guaranteed them. Almost none are excluded except paupers, criminals, 
 and the contagiously or incurably diseased. The voluntary character of the 
 immigration is essential. Hence assisted or constrained immigration is shut 
 out. The purpose of this generous treatment of the alien immigrant is to 
 benefit him and the country alike, not to afford another State a refuge for its 
 undesirable elements." 
 
THE NEW IMMIGRATION 169 
 
 guarantees for the future a safe and sufficient growth ; 
 and she has yet enormous stretches of territory waiting 
 to be reclaimed from the primeval wilderness. 
 
 Besides, is she not in danger of becoming un- 
 Americanized ? Is she now assimilating the foreign 
 element in her population as thoroughly as she has 
 done in the past ? We all recognize the value of the 
 mongrel the advantage he enjoys. Dealing with 
 " ethnical grafting/ Professor Lombroso tells us that 
 no pure race has become great, nor has remained so, 
 without the admixture of foreign blood. The first, and 
 perhaps the greatest, of human inventions, the alphabet, 
 would have remained in the limbo of the uncreated but 
 for the graft of the Semites upon the Egyptians. The 
 Dorians, as a pure race, were not great ; but as soon as 
 they became blended with the Italianized Sicilians and 
 the Pelasgi of Sicily and Magna Grseeia, they wrought a 
 revolution in Etruscan art. Such men of genius as 
 Archimedes sprang from this amalgamation. To the 
 admixture of Norman blood the Saxon and Angle and 
 Dane owe the greatness of England. The Japanese 
 were originally inferior to the Chinese, but the present 
 Japanese possess a strong infusion of Malayan blood, 
 which has influenced tremendously their national cha 
 racter. " The graft of the German race," says Lombroso, 
 " very potent because then in its formative, produced 
 the phenomenon of Polish culture. The development 
 of Poland in the most of her Slavonic neighbours, who 
 were still uncultured, was rapid and most marvellous. 
 The Sicilians evince greater evolutionary tendencies than 
 the Neapolitans, and this because of their strongly 
 mixed blood. Noteworthy also is the fact that the 
 
i/o THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 spirit of progress is strongest in Palermo, where the 
 mixture of Norman and Saracen was strongest. . . . 
 Long before the Venetians sought refuge in their 
 islands, a mixture of Eornan, Greek, and Slavonic had 
 taken place amongst them." The disintegrating influ 
 ence attending the commingling of a civilization 
 achieved after long inspiration and painful experience 
 with the customs, manners, and habits of thought of an 
 inferior class of aliens is patent to all. 
 
 Time and effort are essential to the growth of 
 homogeneity. The solidarity of any Government and 
 nation is indispensable to its practical efficiency and to 
 its moral progress. Admitting, therefore, the advantages 
 of " ethnical grafting," is there not a point when it 
 ceases to be a virtue when it becomes a national 
 danger ? America has revelled for nearly half a century 
 in a carnival of miscegenation. Hers is the most 
 mongrel race on earth. In addition to her five million 
 foreign-born citizens, America has a million and a half 
 of aliens, 25 per cent, of whom do not even speak the 
 American language. As they profess allegiance to 
 other Powers, and Italy, Germany, and Russia do not 
 relinquish their military claims on their subjects 
 abroad, they are a potential source of danger. 
 
 In 1890 there was in the country this large 
 non-constitutional population, which was nevertheless 
 included unchallenged within the constitutional popula 
 tion, for election purposes. These aliens these people 
 owing allegiance to other Governments, are increasing in 
 America. The number of aliens in the Republic in 1890 
 was large, the males of voting age numbering 1,189,452. 
 It was so much larger in 1900, that, assuming the alien 
 
THE NEW IMMIGRATION 171 
 
 family was of the average size, there would be between 
 five and six millions of conscientious monarchists in 
 America, who did not subscribe to her institutions. 
 New York contained 400,000, Pennsylvania 294,000, 
 Massachusetts 250,000, California 227,000, and Illinois 
 202,000. The subtraction of these non- Americans from 
 the population would have a marked effect upon the 
 Congressional representation of many of the Northern 
 States. 
 
 The fact is, that in many parts of America the 
 country is saturated by the alien element, and no more 
 may be absorbed without a dangerous precipitation. 
 
 The time may come when it will be difficult to dis 
 cern traces of the original Government and the spirit of 
 American institutions. 
 
 By the present method of naturalization the immi 
 grant is able to influence America s institutions before 
 he understands them. He is given power in the body 
 politic almost immediately. 
 
 The law provides that two years before the alien is 
 admitted to citizenship he must take an oath of his 
 intention to become a citizen. He must renounce allegi 
 ance to other Powers ; must agree to support the Con 
 stitution ; must have resided in America continuously 
 for five years, and in the State where the oath is taken 
 for one year ; and, lastly, he must satisfy the Court 
 before which he appears that he is of good moral 
 character. 
 
 Yet does any one suppose that these restrictions are 
 universally observed ? 
 
 The elementary schools in the Northern States of 
 America are largely made up of non -English- speaking 
 
1 72 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 children of poor immigrants, especially in such cities as 
 New York, Boston, and Chicago. Even in small towns 
 the proportion of young children who are of foreign birth 
 and their education is a problem dealt with successfully 
 by the elementary schools, as the children are soon 
 affected by the American air, and show a great aptness 
 in learning and a determination to succeed. In the 
 foreign quarters of larger cities there is often a mere 
 sprinkling of children of American parentage. In the 
 Hancock school in Boston in 1902 there were 1167 
 Hebrews, 1273 Italians, and only 80 American children. 
 In schools of this character there is what is called an 
 " overflow " room for children newly arrived in America. 
 Some are too old for the primary grades, and none know 
 the language, so the sorting out and educating these 
 children of various ages and intelligence is no easy task. 
 The work, however, is much simplified by the desire 
 both on the part of the children and of their parents to 
 become Americanized. 
 
 It is estimated that within a radius of fifteen miles 
 from New York City Hall there are now more Jews 
 than in the whole of Germany. Slowly, but surely, the 
 Jew is permeating the whole commercial life of New 
 York, and getting a control of many trades within his 
 fingers. 1 Gradually, too, the Gentile element, particularly 
 
 2 The Jews are about one-eightieth of the population, yet they claim 
 115 out of the 4000 millionaires of the country, about two and a half times 
 as many as they are entitled to. Even leaving out the backwoods, and con 
 fining the inquiry to the town populations, it is found that the number of 
 Jew millionaires is still disproportionately large. Most of them are of German 
 extraction, and have been settled in the country thirty years or more. No 
 Russian name is to be found on the list, and very few recent emigrants. The 
 business of the successful ones extends from banking to pork-packing, from 
 realty to dry goods, from distilleries to cotton. In New York such of them 
 
THE NEW IMMIGRATION 173 
 
 the Irish and the Irish-Americans, are becoming aware 
 of the pressure which Jewish industrial competition 
 is putting upon them. The constant wholesale influx 
 of poor Jews from Russia, Germany, and Austria 
 has led to a marked lowering of wages, and when this 
 came home to the poor Irish, the persecution of the 
 Hebrew commenced. The antagonism has recently 
 evoked unseemly riots, and as the increased cost of 
 living and the ingenious methods of the "sweater" 
 continue, serious trouble is to be feared. Yet, amidst all 
 the outcry against alien pauperism, it would be hard to 
 match the Irish in that respect. 
 
 Of the inhabitants of New York City, 12*6 per cent, 
 were born in Ireland. This percentage supplies 35*5 
 per cent, of all inmates of the hospitals and insane 
 asylums, 60*4 per cent, of the almshouse paupers, 367 
 per cent, of the workhouse inmates, and 15 4 per cent, 
 of the penitentiary convicts. As one recent American 
 statistician remarks, " If all the inhabitants of this city 
 were Irish-born, they would require eight such alms- 
 houses as the one now maintained. Ireland," he adds, 
 with fine satire, " does not make a great show on the 
 map, but her existence is absolutely necessary in order 
 to maintain in New York an almshouse of the present 
 magnitude." 
 
 The inconsistency of Americans was never shown 
 more clearly than in its treatment of a really hard 
 working and well-behaved race the Chinese. Twenty- 
 two years ago the Chinese exclusion laws were put into 
 operation ; they were passed to appease labourers with 
 
 as are not lawyers or theatrical managers are mainly engaged in the clothing 
 trade. 
 
174 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 whom the Chinese did not and could not compete. 
 They were then, as now, chiefly employed as agricul 
 turalists, and in the performance of work which no 
 American would voluntarily do that is, menial drudgery. 
 The class which declared itself injured by Chinese labour 
 were not Americans, but European aliens, accustomed 
 to nearly, if not quite, as low and degraded social con 
 ditions as the Chinese ; yet no sooner had they landed in 
 America than they joined in the clamour for excluding 
 these exceedingly useful and industrious immigrants 
 from the country. It is highly probable that much of 
 the immigration which has come to America from Asia 
 is superior to that which has come from Europe. It is 
 morally certain that China has not sent thither paupers, 
 criminals, or lunatics. 1 
 
 America, by her exclusion law, has certainly largely 
 divorced herself from a nation from which she might 
 derive much more commercial benefit than she does at 
 present, or is likely to do in the near future. 
 
 1 At present there are single States of America with over 10,000 feeble 
 minded persons. According to the last census there are over 100,000 idiots 
 and lunatics publicly known in America, which is supposed to be 25,000 
 below the real number. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE NEGRO PROBLEM 
 
 IT is gravely maintained that there are times when 
 reason and law do not and cannot govern in America, 
 where the sentiment of the whole or a part of the people 
 is stronger than the law. 
 
 A contemplation of such a dangerous contingency 
 involves us in the meshes of the relationship between 
 the only two races which do not assimilate in America * 
 the black and the white : in other words, the negro 
 problem. 
 
 Prior to the Civil War the negro was fostered and 
 protected by the institution of slavery, and for a portion 
 of the nineteenth century the ranks of the blacks were 
 reinforced by fresh importations. Under these influences 
 the negro population increased between 1790 and 1860 
 from 757,208 to 4,441,830 that is to say, sextupled 
 itself in seventy years. 
 
 Since the war which freed the negroes, these four 
 and a half millions have expanded to nearly nine 
 
 1 I should like it here to be understood that I use the term " assimilation " 
 in its political and social sense. We cannot shut our eyes to facts ; and I 
 would further make it clear that the statistics of the black population com 
 prehends the varying degrees of colour. 
 
176 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 millions, 1 which means that it has doubled itself in four 
 decades. The increase in the last ten years (1,370,749) 
 is alone equal to the population of Connecticut and 
 Rhode Island. In view of this, what becomes of the 
 comfortable theory of the negroes extinction by reason 
 of " enfeebled vital capacity " ? It is true that the 
 negro constitutes a slowly dwindling minority of the 
 total population, owing to the enormous influx of alien 
 whites, to the number since 1860 of 14,000,000. But 
 if the two races, white and " black," should continue to 
 grow at the same rate as during the past decade, it 
 would require at least 110 years to reduce the negro 
 element to one-tenth of the total population. Ten per 
 cent, is, then, the practically irreducible minimum ; and 
 as long as the negroes form one-tenth of the nation, the 
 race problem is a serious one for Americans in their 
 present state of mind to face. 
 
 In the South one constantly hears the phrase, " The 
 negro is all right in his place." Now, what is the 
 negro s place ? In the opinion of one eminent black 
 cleric, 2 he has no place at all in America. Neither the 
 North nor the South gives him a " place," and his sole 
 chance of happiness and prosperity would seem to be in 
 exodus to the land of his origin, Africa. 
 
 Let us see if the negro has a social sphere guarantee 
 ing him freedom, comfort, and justice in any part of 
 America. 
 
 There is no blinking the growing severity of the 
 
 1 According to the census of 1900, the " black " population throughout the 
 entire country has increased in practically the same ratio as the white popu 
 lation, there being 8,840,789 as against 7,488,788 in the year 1890. The 
 growth is thus a trifle over 18 per cent. 
 
 2 Bishop Turner. 
 
THE NEGRO PROBLEM 177 
 
 national attitude towards the negroes. No longer is it 
 confined to the South. The North has become suddenly 
 acquiescent, leaving the South to deal with the problem 
 in its own way. In every Southern State the negroes 
 have been disfranchised by more or less devious methods, 
 until the nullification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth 
 Amendments to the Constitution is all but complete. 
 Only the other day a Southern Senator openly defended 
 and applauded lynching. 
 
 A Bill was lately introduced into the Legislature 
 of Louisiana a State notorious for the frequency and 
 brutality of its lynchings authorizing the Governor to 
 transfer negro prisoners and order a change of venue in 
 cases where a lynching was threatened. Kespect for 
 law and order, one would have thought, would have 
 ensured the passage of this measure. The Louisiana 
 law-makers, however, with full knowledge that thereby 
 they were practically licensing lynching, contemptuously 
 threw it out. A few days later an Alabama judge 
 released a white man who was convicted of having 
 helped to burn a negro alive, the victim being after 
 wards proved innocent of the crime laid to his charge ; 
 while in Missouri, in the " black-belt region," there is 
 an almost chronic state of civil war between the blacks 
 and the whites. 
 
 Again, the movement towards giving legal effect to 
 the social segregation of the two races, which has always 
 been the custom of the South, is growing rapidly. The 
 " Jim Crow " cars on the railway are now required by 
 law. In Louisiana, marriages between white and coloured 
 persons, no matter how little the admixture of negro 
 blood may be, have been declared illegal ; and a Bill 
 
 N 
 
178 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 has just been passed requiring separate tram-cars for 
 whites and negroes in the cities throughout the State. 
 
 An Englishman, knowing of the prejudices of the 
 South, would suppose that the blacks would fly to the 
 more congenial atmosphere of the Northern States. 
 But the negro knows that, on the whole, he is better off 
 where he is. There are not as many negroes in all New 
 England as there are in two counties of the State of 
 Mississippi. 
 
 In the thirty-one Northern and Western States and 
 Territories they are not so numerous as in the State of 
 Alabama. 
 
 The black suffers an industrial exclusion north of 
 the Mason and Dixon s line in return for his political 
 suppression in the South. 
 
 Kace prejudice is not wholly confined to the South. 
 The recent race riots in New York, the lynchings in Ohio 
 and Indiana, and burnings at the stake in Kansas and 
 Colorado, betray something more than acquiescent apathy. 
 
 In New York, negroes, no matter how well-dressed 
 and well-behaved, are excluded from theatres, hotels, 
 places of popular resort, and even from churches. If a 
 black man has the temerity to enter a white man s 
 church, which is not often, he is shown to the gallery, 
 and a pretty wide space made for him by the other 
 occupants. Mr. Daniel Frohman, of the Lyceum Theatre, 
 one of the best known of American managers, told me 
 that, some years ago, a coloured man and his wife 
 were upon one occasion forcibly debarred from entering 
 his theatre. The man naturally protested, calling the 
 manager s attention to a law which imposes a fine of 
 $500 for such race discrimination. 
 
THE NEGRO PROBLEM 179 
 
 " lam a gentleman/ he said; "at least, I behave 
 as such. Why cannot I obtain the seat for which I 
 have paid ? " 
 
 The reply was one commonly heard all over the 
 Union in such cases 
 
 " Because it would ruin the name of the house. I 
 cannot, therefore, afford to have a coloured man, even in 
 the Lyceum Theatre. I prefer to pay." 
 
 The negro was considerate enough, or wise enough, 
 not to seek legal redress. Yet, about the same time, 
 Mr. Fortune, the mulatto editor of the Age, was ejected 
 from a second-rate drinking-saloon on account of his 
 colour. He sued the proprietor for $5000 damages, and 
 got a verdict, the jury awarding him $200. 
 
 Not until the possibility of negro domination has 
 vanished will the South express its free thought on 
 national questions. That section is now Democratic 
 because it would escape negro rule in local offices, and 
 negroes in collectorships, postmasterships, and other 
 Federal positions. When this has been removed, disin 
 tegration will follow. 
 
 The citizens of the Southern States are determined 
 upon the maintenance of a dominant white political 
 organization, and the only way they can see to the 
 fulfilment of this end is by restricting the voting 
 privileges of the blacks. A number of States within 
 the last few years have, therefore, had recourse to the 
 method of adopting new constitutions, whereby the 
 general suffrage has been ingeniously delimited, so as 
 to cover the case of the negro, without any direct and, 
 of course, unconstitutional provision to that effect. The 
 authors and upholders of this principle claim that they 
 
i So THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 have a perfect right to institute any plan by which the 
 voting may be controlled ; and point to such northern 
 States as Massachusetts and Connecticut, which have 
 prescribed voting qualifications for the people. In the 
 case of Connecticut there is a male population of voting 
 age of 280,340, with only 5204 coloured voters ; so that 
 colour is not the motive for the discriminating clauses 
 in the new constitution. The great mass of illiterates 
 here consist of white persons, there being but 719 
 coloured citizens who do not read or write. On the 
 other hand, there are 18,265 illiterate whites of voting 
 age in Connecticut ; an inexplicable circumstance, con 
 sidering that this is one of the oldest States, with a 
 good common school system. Article 29 of the State 
 Constitution, adopted in October, 1897, provides that 
 every person shall be able to read in the English 
 language any article of the Constitution, or any section 
 of the statutes of the State before being admitted as 
 an elector. Only 181,000 availed themselves of their 
 political rights at the last Presidential Election, which 
 shows that the restrictive article struck deep. 
 
 Even in those States where the negro still retains 
 the voting privilege, he has no voice in the government 
 of the State. Many have expressed curiosity as to this 
 result. The answer is a simple one. The candidates 
 for the office are selected, and the questions of the 
 State are decided in a white primary, or caucus, in 
 which the negro is not allowed to participate. The 
 united white vote being in the majority, the decision 
 arrived at in caucus is ratified at the polls, and the 
 negro s vote is not needed or solicited. 
 
 Here is an illustration of the evils of negro suffrage. 
 
THE NEGRO PROBLEM 181 
 
 The city of Wilmington, North Carolina, is one of 
 the oldest towns in America, is well-built, and has a 
 large commerce in cotton and turpentine. Of its 
 25,000 inhabitants, three-fifths are negroes. Yet, 
 although numerically strong, it must not be supposed 
 that the negro is a factor in the development of the 
 city or its locality. Thirty years of freedom and an 
 absolute equality of educational advantages with the 
 whites have not produced thrift or fostered talent. Of 
 the taxes in the city and country the whites pay 96f 
 per cent., the negroes pay 3J per cent. Consequently, 
 we may almost be prepared to admit the pleonastic 
 charge the whites bring against him, that the negro 
 here is "thriftless, improvident, does not accumulate 
 money, and is not a desirable citizen." 
 
 Yet, in spite of this, at the ballot-box all men are 
 presumed to be equal, and the negroes, if they voted, 
 would rule by mere power of numbers. How was this 
 prevented ? The methods throughout the South vary. 
 In Wilmington local government the negro preponder 
 ance was nullified by gerrymandering the bulk of the 
 black vote into two wards ; while the appointment of 
 local magistrates was entrusted to the State Legis 
 lature, which was always Democratic, i.e. white. But 
 in 1895 the Populist propaganda took hold of many 
 Democratic voters, and, together with the white Ke- 
 publicans and the 110,000 negro voters, carried the 
 State, and placed the Democrats in a minority. Two 
 years later, the triumphant majority began to enact 
 laws which were primarily responsible for the race war 
 of 1899. One of their statutes deprived the white 
 citizens of Wilmington of their suffrage by authorizing 
 
1 82 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 the Governor (a Republican) to appoint five out of the 
 ten members of the Board of Aldermen, while the other 
 five were to be chosen by the five wards, two of which 
 were o verpoweringly black. Moreover, magistrates were 
 ordered to be elected. 
 
 The consequence of this was that there were 
 presently 36 negro magistrates, each possessing the 
 power to give and imprison for all misdemeanors not 
 requiring a jury. Forty negro policemen were appointed 
 by the mayor and chief of police elected by the negro 
 aldermen, a negro registrar, negro deputy-sheriffs, and 
 numerous other black officials. 
 
 One of the magistrates, for instance, was a stevedore, 
 elected by the votes of his fellows, and who, when the 
 British Vice-Consul at Wilmington defended some 
 British sailors before him, announced contemptuously 
 that " De King of England ain t got nothin to do wid 
 yer co t." Queen Victoria then sat upon the throne. 
 
 Of course, the situation could not last. The white 
 men of the city met in solemn conclave, and determined 
 to rebel against the black usurpation. In the mean 
 time the negroes, who had been docile and peaceful 
 when under control, grew bold and insolent with their 
 access of power. An election was held ; the whites 
 swept the State, and in Wilmington at once took 
 steps for removing their lost prestige. A series of 
 resolutions declared that " the negro domination had 
 for ever passed, and that in the future the white man, 
 and the white man alone, should rule." The leading 
 blacks of the city, 32 in number, were summoned to 
 meet the Committee, and nearly all came in response 
 to the summons. " The scene," writes an eye-witness, 
 
THE NEGRO PROBLEM 183 
 
 "was dramatic." Seated at one end of the room were 
 the 25 white men ; at the other end sat the 32 negroes. 
 The whites were anxious, but determined ; the negroes 
 cowed and terror-stricken. The resolutions were read, 
 and, in answer to a query from one of the blacks as 
 to the meaning of a phrase, re-read. There was no 
 discussion, no argument. The whites delivered their 
 ultimatum, gave the negroes until the following morning 
 to make answer, and declared the meeting adjourned. 
 The whites and blacks then passed silently into the 
 night. 
 
 The town woke up next day, and went about armed. 
 A conflict was inevitable, and it came. An act of 
 incendiarism began the work, and it was followed by 
 a skirmish in which three negroes were killed, and three 
 wounded. More bloodshed followed, Wilmington was 
 given up to panic ; the negroes fled to woods and 
 swamps. The white victory was complete, not merely 
 in Wilmington, but in the eastern part of the State, 
 where similar scenes were enacted. 
 
 As a result of this treatment, the tendency of the 
 negroes is to gather in "black belts." This race gre- 
 gariousness is shown very markedly in the last census. 
 In one region of the South, enclosing 400,000 square 
 miles, we find three-fourths of the total negro popula 
 tion. In 108 counties of this region the negro out 
 numbers the white by more than two to one, while 
 in 171 others they are in the majority. 
 
 This Africanized area has increased from 71 counties 
 in 1860 to 108 counties in 1900, and the average 
 density of the black element in these counties is treble 
 that of the whites, and on the steady increase. 
 
184 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 " The opposite tendency of the Southern population," 
 says Mr. Kelly Miller, 1 "is also noticeable. Just as 
 the black spots are growing blacker, the white spots 
 are growing whiter." There are ten counties in 
 Virginia where the negro element constitutes less than 
 a tenth of the population ; in one of these there are 
 9687 whites, and only five negroes. Wherever, also, the 
 negro is in a marked minority, that minority invariably 
 becomes smaller. As the South develops into a manu 
 facturing region, the rural whites will be drawn into 
 the cities as operatives, leaving the blacks behind to 
 preponderate numerically. The conclusion is that the 
 majority of the negroes tend to gather into the "black 
 belts" of the country and into the "black wards" of 
 the cities, showing the forces of internal cohesion and 
 of external pressure. 
 
 The last census shows that there are 41 cities with 
 a coloured population of more than 8000, 2 the total 
 number of negroes in these cities being about 1,000,000, 
 which is a figure exceeding the total city population in 
 America in 1830. Yet the negro is out of place in the 
 city ; he has no fixed status in its industrial system, 
 and is compelled to loiter on the edges in such employ 
 ment as the whites are unwilling to accept. 
 
 It is worth while to remember that if the black race 
 is to acquire the full benefit of contact with the civiliza 
 tion of the white, it must be in the absence of political 
 hostility between the two races. The prejudice of the 
 whites against the black is an evil, however, which all 
 can understand ; but the prejudice which some mistaken 
 
 1 An able negro writer. 
 
 2 The city of Washington has 86,702 negroes. 
 
THE NEGRO PROBLEM 185 
 
 zealots seek to foster in the black against the white 
 is a far greater evil. 
 
 Again, the negro is not to work out his own destiny 
 in America by means of the ballot. Such a doctrine 
 is pure demagogism. What the negro must do is 
 voluntarily to renounce the ballot merely as a measure 
 of prudence ; he must work, acquire property, and 
 develop industrially. 
 
 The suggestion of Mr. Booker Washington, that he 
 learn the trades, is a sound one, and the most practical 
 solution of a difficult side of the question. Polytechnic 
 schools for the negroes, and good negro carpenters, 
 stone-cutters, builders, and machinists would certainly 
 add to the material assets of the country. 
 
 While the grim and ghastly anarchy of negro-burn 
 ing remains as a blot perpetually replenished on the 
 fame of America, her people would do well to restrain 
 their indignation at the achievements of imported 
 anarchists, whose methods are merciful in comparison. 
 
 A great outcry has arisen because of the cruelty 
 done by certain Americans in new territories, but the 
 President has done well in calling national attention to 
 the lynching committed at home under circumstances of 
 cruelty infinitely worse than the troops have committed 
 in the Philippines. 
 
 " The men who fail to condemn these, yet clamour at 
 what has been done in the Philippines, are guilty of neglecting 
 the beam in their own eye while they are taunting their brother 
 about the mote in his. Every effort is being made, and will be 
 made, to minimize the chance of cruelty in the Philippines, but 
 the acts of cruelty there have been wholly exceptional, and have 
 been shamelessly exaggerated. They are bitterly regretted, 
 
1 86 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 but they afford less justification for general condemnation of 
 the army than the lynchings afford for condemnation of the 
 communities where they occur." 
 
 One American, I see, boldly asserts that the lynching 
 is not done "merely to deter negroes, but in most cases 
 out of pure revenge, and in order to afford the ignorant 
 and vicious white of both sexes a cheap spectacle." 
 This is an indictment which I would shrink from making, 
 although I will not deny that revenge is a very strong 
 impulse among the lynching class of whites and the 
 love of fair play a very weak one. 
 
 I do not think there can be doubt that the South 
 is prejudiced against a fair hearing of the case of the 
 negro. It may be, as I have heard said, that the virtue 
 of cool dispassionate reasoning does not exist south of 
 Mason and Dixon s line. If anything, my sympathies 
 are with the people of the South, but no one can 
 sympathize with intolerance, overbearance, and narrow- 
 mindedness. Only lately we have an example of this 
 in the treatment accorded a Georgian college professor. 
 This gentleman, himself a Southerner, contributed to 
 the Atlantic Monthly a rational, moderate article, recog 
 nizing that the negro race was inferior to the white, 
 and pronounced emphatically against intermarriage or 
 amalgamation. Nor did Professor Sledd object to the 
 safeguarding of the ballot against negro preponderance. 
 But he strongly condemned lynching, and maintained 
 that the negro had rights which the white man was 
 bound to respect. For this offence Professor Sledd was 
 burnt in effigy by his students, and resigned his chair 
 to avoid expulsion. His articles also provoked violent 
 attacks in the Southern press. The only way in which 
 
THE NEGRO PROBLEM 187 
 
 the question of negro rule can be settled appears to the 
 Southern white to lie in the negro s disenfranchisement. 
 To secure this result three methods only seem to offer 
 themselves, viz. the negro must be frightened away 
 from the polls ; else he must be forcibly resisted when 
 he undertakes to deposit his ballot ; or his ballot must 
 be destroyed or nullified. The first method is now 
 unhappily chosen. 
 
 " At the same time," remarked a careful observer, 
 "the casting and the counting of the ballot are his 
 constitutional rights ; and so long as these are denied 
 him there is a confession that our vaunted scheme of 
 universal suffrage is a failure and a farce." 
 
 It would be well if some of the fast-dwindling band 
 of partisan zealots of the North of America were to 
 take their stand, not upon their own vain imaginings, 
 but upon the doctrine of Abraham Lincoln himself, 
 shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. 
 
 " I will say," said he, " that I am not, nor have ever been, in 
 favour of bringing about in any way the social and political 
 equality of the white and black races ; that I am not, nor ever 
 have been, in favour of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor 
 of qualifying them to hold office, nor intermarry with white 
 people ; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical 
 difference between the white and black races which will for 
 ever ^forbid the two races living together on terms of social 
 and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, 
 while they do remain together there must be the position of 
 superior and inferior ; and I, as much as any other man, am in 
 favour of having the superior position assigned to the white 
 man." 1 
 
 1 Speech at Charlestown, Illinois, September 18th, 1858. 
 
CHAPTEK XIV 
 
 THE NEW POLITICS 
 
 ARE there not two great forces at work in America now, 
 as they were at work in England in the " seventies " ? 
 Socialism, the chief ingredient of populism and Bryanism ; 
 and Imperialism, which involves class and militarism ? 
 If so, it demonstrates that America is a body politic 
 such as we are, and is not immune from the diseases 
 or shall we say external symptoms of growth ? which 
 visit other nations. Socialism and Eepublicanism, with 
 Mr. Joseph Chamberlain among the cohorts, looked very 
 irresistible thirty years ago, and Imperialism after Mr. 
 Gladstone s onslaughts appeared a forlorn hope. But 
 just as surely as Socialism will subside in Germany, as 
 anti-clericalism and anti-seinitism will dwindle in France, 
 and as these forces may yet change the face of Spain 
 so will the American Republic have its time of internal 
 collision and antagonism: "According to the state of 
 the blood, so will the issue be," is a surgical aphorism. 
 According to the blood of the State so will the issue 
 be in politics. The American organism is not yet 
 healthy, through its veins a turbid fluid courses, it is 
 subject to the wild and morbid impulses of youth, it 
 does not know its own mind, it is not quite at moral 
 
 188 
 
THE NEW POLITICS 189 
 
 uuity with itself; but it is strong of arm and tumultuous 
 of head, and full of enthusiasms and beliefs. 
 
 A new spirit has lately informed its politics. Since 
 1898 we observe a marked tendency to raise the whole 
 tone of public life. Public interest has become centred 
 in Imperial matters, in the upbuilding of international 
 commerce, in the work of establishing peace and orderly 
 government in the outlying portions of the Empire. It 
 has less to spare for the local political crank with his 
 petty programme, or the local boss in his wire-pulling. 
 With the decrease of State power, this was inevitable ; 
 with the growing establishment of a Civil Service on 
 European lines, the professional politician class must 
 ultimately languish. 
 
 Less than five years ago there was no fundamental 
 difference in the tenets of the two great political parties. 
 It was in vain that Mr. Bryan and his friends tried to 
 foist the Silver Question upon the Democratic party ; 
 it did not touch the feelings or emotions of the people ; 
 it left their moral sense cold. But by the war with 
 Spain, American politics were at last provided with a 
 real and vital issue. " Expansion " and " Imperialism " 
 became the watchwords of the Eepublican party. At 
 the same time it ran athwart existing party lines : there 
 were adhesions here, objections there ; a new school of 
 thought seemingly became built up, and both parties 
 became considerably altered in complexion. In Massa 
 chusetts, the two Senators, both Republicans, each 
 prominent in the councils of his party, occupied diametri 
 cally opposed positions on the question of Imperialism. 
 As in Britain, the Opposition, divided against itself, 
 dwindled into insignificance; as in England, neither 
 
1 90 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 party is yet able to adjust itself to the new wants, and 
 the new war-cries. 1 Southern Democrats and Northern 
 Democrats have never been quite the same thing, 
 because the party has an altogether different social 
 meaning in the two sections. But take away that social 
 significance disenfranchise the negro, and a large part 
 of the Southern Democracy would undoubtedly go over 
 to the Eepublican party. The unfortunate Democratics, 
 realizing the desperate straits to which they have been 
 reduced by the bosses who rebelled against Mr. Cleveland 
 in 1896, and sold themselves to the Bryanites, or silver 
 party, are making a serious effort to redeem themselves. 
 The two parties are diametrically opposed on the question 
 of Imperialism ; and they also hold not less divergent 
 views on the subject of a standing army, or " militarism," 
 as the Democrats call it. Here is the official utterance 
 of the party on the increase in the military estab 
 lishment 
 
 "We oppose militarism. It means conquest abroad, and 
 intimidation and oppression at home. It means the strong 
 arm, which has ever been fatal to free institutions. It is what 
 millions of our citizens have fled from in Europe. It will 
 impose upon our peace-loving people a large standing army 
 and unnecessary burden of taxation, and a constant menace to 
 their liberties. A small standing army, and a well-disciplined 
 State militia are amply sufficient in time of peace. This re 
 public has no place for a vast military service and conscription. 
 
 1 It is curious to note how party lines can, on great occasions, now be 
 obliterated in America. This was not formerly the case. In the Civil War, 
 Kepublicans and Democrats were arranged against each other in almost solid 
 phalanxes, because the abolition of slavery was the cardinal principle of the 
 Republican party alone. But now when any great question arises which 
 concerns the country s outside relations, the President has only to speak, and 
 he tinds a response from a sympathetic people. 
 
THE NEW POLITICS 191 
 
 When the nation is in danger the volunteer soldier is his 
 country s best defender. The National Guard of the United 
 States should ever be cherished in the patriotic hearts of a free 
 people. Such organizations are ever an element of strength 
 and safety. For the first time in our history and coeval with 
 the Philippine conquest, has there been a wholesale departure 
 from our time-honoured and approved system of volunteer 
 organization. We denounce it as un-American, undemocratic, 
 and unrepublican, and as a subversion of the ancient and fixed 
 principles of a free people." 
 
 As with Imperialism and militarism, so do Trusts come 
 in for scathing criticism. The Republican party also 
 indulges in a condemnation of Trusts, and " favours such 
 legislation as will effectively restrain and prevent all 
 such abuses, protect and promote competition, and 
 secure the rights of producers, labourers, and all who 
 are engaged in industry and commerce." But very 
 few of the leading members of the party are said to 
 regard this seriously ; for the Republican managers are 
 themselves the aiders and abettors of the Trust system. 
 The attempt made in Congress a few years ago to pass 
 a constitutional amendment abolishing Trusts has been 
 called a " transparent humbug." 
 
 It is amusing to us to see the Republicans indulge 
 themselves in self-laudation over the war with Spain. 1 
 
 1 Extract from the Republican Platform : " In accepting by the Treaty of 
 Paris the just responsibility of our victories in the Spanish war, the President 
 and the Senate won the undoubted approval of the American people. No 
 other course was possible than to destroy Spain s sovereignty throughout the 
 West Indies and the Philippine Islands. That course created our responsi 
 bility before the world, and with the unorganized population whom our inter 
 vention had freed from Spain, to provide for the maintenance of law and 
 order, and for the establishment of good government, and for the performance 
 of international obligations. Our authority could not be less than our 
 responsibility, and wherever sovereign rights were extended it became the 
 
1 92 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 " It was a war," says their manifesto, " unsought and 
 patiently resisted, but when it came the Government 
 was ready. Its fleets were cleared for action, its 
 armies were in the field, and the quick and signal 
 triumph of its forces on land and sea bore equal tribute 
 to the courage of American soldiers and sailors, and 
 to the skill and foresight of Republican statesmanship." 
 Of course, it was really the persistent nagging of the 
 Democratic minority in Congress which finally brought 
 the Government to declare that Cuba must be free and 
 independent, and thus rendered war inevitable. 
 
 "The skill and foresight of Republican statesman 
 ship " was hardly a factor in the achievements of the 
 land and naval forces, while both parties unanimously 
 voted the fifty millions appropriation, and supported the 
 campaign of the President. 
 
 President Roosevelt himself has robbed the Populists 
 of their chief slogan. This third party sprang into 
 existence in 1891. Its chief object was to destroy 
 industrial Trusts, restore the full value to the currency, 
 and secure governmental control of railways and tele 
 graphs. It declared for postal savings banks, which 
 the people of nearly every country enjoy, except 
 America ; for an income-tax ; for municipal ownership ; 
 and for the direct vote of the people for Senators. 
 At present, the tariff issue would seem to have dis 
 appeared from American politics. But its disappearance 
 
 high duty of the Government to maintain its authority, to put down armed 
 insurrection, and to confer the blessings of liberty and civilization upon all 
 the rescued peoples. The largest measure of self-government consistent with 
 their welfare and our duties shall be secured to them by law. To Cuba 
 independence and self-government were assured in the same voice by which 
 war was declared, and to the letter this pledge shall be performed. 1 
 
THE NEW POLITICS 193 
 
 is, I think, only temporary. The extraordinary pros 
 perity, under the existing tariff laws, which has attended 
 the last two protectionist administrations, and the 
 presence of other problems raised by the Spanish - 
 American war, have submerged the tariff question. 
 
 There have, it is true, been many suggestions made 
 altogether to eliminate it from politics. Some demand 
 the establishment of a permanent commission charged 
 with the oversight of the tariff laws and regulations, 
 and the adjustment of duties to suit the changing 
 conditions, prevent unfair inequalities, and " secure to 
 the Government the largest revenue consistent with 
 the best interests " of producer and consumer. But it 
 is to be feared that this is a counsel of perfection : it 
 would hardly be feasible in America s present stage of 
 political development. 
 
 The Government of the United States, however, 
 will continue to require a large revenue to pay the 
 expenses of its maintenance, and the method by which 
 the taxes providing these revenues shall be levied, 
 collected, and paid, must always continue a burning 
 question. There will still be a class demanding in 
 direct taxation, as at present, and another class holding 
 that internal revenue or an income-tax, or both, offer 
 the best means of providing the necessary funds of 
 Government. 
 
 It is probable that the democratic party will champion 
 an income-tax at the next election, and demand a 
 revision of the present customs tariff. 
 
 After the main issues have been disposed of, the 
 two parties find it possible to agree on some of the 
 minor ones. Both uphold the principles of the State 
 
 o 
 
194 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 irrigation of arid lands, chiefly because it is a burning 
 question in the State of Wyoming. Both seek to catch 
 the soldier vote, old and new, by endorsing a liberal 
 pension policy, and both favour the construction of 
 the interoceanic canal ; the Eepublicans being non 
 committal in their use of the word " Isthmian," while 
 the Democrats, not knowing the mind of the adminis 
 tration, plump flatly for the Nicaraguan route. In 
 1896 the Eepublican party platform advocated the 
 1 renewal and extension" of the reciprocity arrange 
 ments negotiated by President Harrison s administra 
 tion, " on such terms as will equalize our trade with 
 other nations, remove the restrictions which now obstruct 
 the sale of American products in the ports of other 
 countries, and secure enlarged markets for the products 
 of our farms, forests, and factories." 
 
 The advocacy of this policy, and the carrying out 
 of the attendant measures, were undertaken zealously 
 by Mr. McKinley to the day he was shot down at 
 Buffalo, notwithstanding the almost insulting hostility 
 of the Senate. Eeciprocity, as understood by the 
 Republican party, is described in the last national 
 " platform " as a policy " so directed as to open our 
 markets on favourable terms for what we do not our 
 selves produce in return for free foreign markets." 
 The Postmaster-General offers the following concise 
 definition of reciprocity : 
 
 " Its principle, rightly understood, is axiomatic. 
 Brazil grows coffee and makes no machinery. We 
 make machinery and grow no coffee. She needs the 
 fabrics of our forges and factories, and we need the 
 fruit of her tropical soil. We agree to concessions for 
 
THE NEW POLITICS 195 
 
 her coffee, and she agrees to concessions for our machinery. 
 That is reciprocity." 
 
 The late President McKinley also thus defined 
 reciprocity : 
 
 " It is to afford new markets for our surplus agricul 
 tural and manufactured products, without loss to the 
 American labourer of a single day s work that he might 
 otherwise procure." 
 
 With the Democrats, for the present, fiat money and 
 the free silver agitation is done with. Large numbers 
 of the party forming the best element have been much 
 impressed by the exhortation of Mr. Cleveland, in which 
 he reminded the party of its old historic principles, 
 antagonism to protection, and appealed to them to take 
 advantage of the division among their opponents, and 
 of the new responsibilities of the country, to adopt a 
 practical and healthy policy in lieu of the impractical 
 and fatuous dogmas to which they lately gave adhesion. 
 In this way only, he urges, can the Democrats recover 
 their natural share of national authority, and the evil 
 of the Trusts be restrained. That this appeal has not 
 fallen on deaf ears is shown in the sudden lukewarmness 
 evinced towards the Bryanite movement. Mr. Gor 
 man, a veteran intriguer, may be the party candidate 
 in 1904 ; as an alternative the party mantle seems to 
 have fallen on the shoulders of Senator Hill of New 
 York, an able politician, indeed, but a man devoid of 
 ideals and spirituality. There is really only one candi 
 date who can be expected to do battle against Mr. 
 Eoosevelt in 1904 with any chance of success, and that 
 is the ex-President himself. True the tradition against 
 a third term is against him, but it would be wise in 
 
196 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 the Democrats to offer him the nomination in the hope 
 that his strength will override the power of the tradition. 
 His appearance as the democratic delegate on a Free 
 Trade platform would restore the continuity of his 
 party s policy and also something of the dignity which 
 it has latterly lacked. 
 
 America has advanced very far towards the purifica 
 tion of her politics in the last decade. One of the 
 greatest steps in reform has been taken in the Civil 
 Service. The Civil Service plan has rightly become 
 one of the essentials of our modern systems of Govern 
 ment. It was inevitable that America would have to 
 resort to it, if she ever intended to possess clean and 
 effective administration. There was a time, prior to 
 the enactment of the Civil Service Law, when "post- 
 offices were made clearing-houses for political runners, 
 and when drunkenness, corruption, and bad government 
 lurked in the very official atmosphere in other words, 
 when postmasters unflinchingly, and without conscience 
 or self-respect, debased their official power in the interests 
 of political candidates." 
 
 The Presidential elections of 1876 and 1880 are now 
 admitted by both sides to have been grossly corrupt. 
 Ward " heelers " and slum " bummers " stalked through 
 out the land. Money was distributed lavishly by the 
 campaign managers on both sides. Matters in this 
 direction had gone to such infamous lengths l that a 
 
 1 That this condition is not exaggerated, I may quote the testimony of 
 Mr. Perry S. Heath, the present assistant Postmaster-General : " Postmasters, 
 collectors of internal revenue and customs, United States marshals, and even 
 men upon the Federal bench, were leaders in political management. The 
 post-offices of the country were the head centres of each community ; and 
 there clustered in them on week-nights and on Sundays the floating voters 
 
THE NEW POLITICS 197 
 
 cry went up in Congress and the country for reform, 
 and in 1883 the original Civil Service Law was placed 
 upon the Statute Book. 
 
 The Executive in America often acts because he is 
 forced to act, if action is to take place at all. The 
 public, weary of delay, applaud him. It is natural to 
 Democracy to move slowly, in that he moves through 
 a many-headed, often discordant, legislature. It takes 
 years to do what, under a monarchy, a sovereign, or his 
 minister, would do by a single pen-stroke. 
 
 The scope of the new law thus forced upon the 
 Congress by the President was narrow ; it embraced 
 only 13,924 positions as against the 83,817 classified 
 ones to-day. Nevertheless, the complaints of the 
 " spoilsmen " l were bitter, and it was only with great 
 difficulty that Federal office-holders of any grade 
 adjusted themselves to the new regime. At length 
 President Cleveland, espousing the views of the re 
 formers, felt himself called upon to pen a proclamation 
 warning Federal office-holders against offensive or per 
 nicious political activity. It was addressed, "To the 
 heads of departments in the service of the General 
 Government," and began in this wise : 
 
 " I deem this a proper time to especially warn all subordinates 
 in the several departments and all the office-holders under the 
 General Government against the use of their official positions 
 in attempts to control political movements in their localities. 
 
 "Office-holders are the agents of the people, not their 
 
 to accept their money, and managers to take instructions. Postmasters . . 
 handled the mails with a view to party advantage. Their employers, every 
 one of them, were of their own political faith. No man had a position for 
 a moment who did not work and vote for the political principles of the party 
 in power." 
 
 1 " To the (party) victors belong the spoils." President Jackson s motto. 
 
198 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 masters. Not only is their time and labour due to the Govern 
 ment, but they should scrupulously avoid in their political action 
 as well as in the discharge of their official duty offending, by a 
 display of obtrusive partisanship, their neighbours who have 
 relations with them as public officials." 
 
 But the conditions which belonged to 1886 no longer 
 exist. In the last political campaign there was less 
 political activity among Federal office-holders than ever 
 before. Indeed, a man who enters the Civil Service 
 seems to evince even less interest in politics than his 
 English confrere. 
 
 In seventeen years the classified service has risen 
 from 13,924 to over 80,000. When Mr. Arthur s term 
 expired 15,573 employees were in the classified service : 
 Mr. Cleveland added 12,000 during his first term, his 
 successor 15,000, and at the close of Mr. Cleveland s 
 second term the rest stood at 86,932. Mr. McKinley 
 reduced the list by 11,000, so that there are now at 
 least 100,000 places reserved in the Government as 
 party spoils, among these being Revenue collectorships, 
 deputy marshalships, and pension examining boards. 
 
 This means that numerous chief clerks and heads of 
 divisions go out with each expiring administration. 
 
 The consular service is still included in the spoils 
 system. Whenever you come across an American consul, 
 or an American diplomatist, you may be fairly sure he 
 is enjoying the reward of political service rendered to 
 the party in power. It is obvious that to render such 
 a service efficient it must be divested of all political 
 influence : it should be, and doubtless will be, placed in 
 the hands of a competent non-partisan board, having 
 full control and vested with the power to make all 
 
THE NEW POLITICS 199 
 
 appointments and the necessary rules and regulations 
 for a proper administration. At present the methods of 
 appointment, insufficient salaries, the shortness of office 
 and insecurity of tenure, and the absence of reasonable 
 classification, are enemies to efficiency. 1 
 
 Europeanization of the American Civil Service, 
 although antagonized, will ultimately prevail. 
 
 It is then hoped that the Americans will have 
 hardly fewer changes in their Civil Service on a change 
 of administration than England has had since the 
 Civil Service order of 1870. That is, the political 
 heads of departments, the members of the Cabinet, will 
 go out with the retiring President, but the assistant 
 
 1 There is no country which imposes upon her consuls duties so numerous 
 and varied. The American Consul is obliged to examine into the values of 
 merchandise, and to certify invoices of goods about to be exported ; he is 
 a free information bureau, and is expected to entertain all Americans calling 
 upon him. He must be alert and industrious, a good business man, and able 
 to write a first-class report. Yet his salary is only one-half or one-third what 
 is paid by us to our consuls. 
 
 There are 700 consuls and consular agents of America abroad ; and no 
 one would guess from their personal accessories or their habitat that they 
 represented a great nation. 
 
 The consular service was primarily intended to protect the lives and 
 property of American citizens abroad, and also in a measure to promote their 
 welfare. But it has since widely altered its scope. It is now chiefly a great 
 commercial intelligence department. Its legal and diplomatic character has 
 been put in the background ; and although it is still attached to America s 
 Foreign Office or Department of State, it would more properly come under 
 the scope of a Department of Commerce and Industries. 
 
 But for a nation of business men, as the Americans proudly boast them 
 selves to be, the consular service is on a most unbusiness-like footing. Until 
 lately it was wholly utilized as a political asset, wherewith to pay campaign 
 obligations. 
 
 The term of each consul is limited by the will of the Administration, and 
 as the latter is exposed to quadrennial change, there is little inducement for 
 incumbents of office to perfect themselves in the service. Such a system 
 which permits a man to be recalled, simply through change of administration, 
 is certoinlv not business-like. 
 
200 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 secretaries of the other departments will remain, as now 
 do the assistant secretaries of the State department. 
 
 The comptrollers and auditors of the Treasury, com 
 missioners and collectors of customs, commissioners and 
 collectors of internal revenue, assistant postmasters, 
 general postmasters, the comptroller of the currency, 
 and bank inspectors, will then be men trained and fitted 
 for their technical duties, who have achieved promotion 
 on account of their personal ability and of long service. 
 
 The demand for reform will go on in America until, 
 in Mr. Carl Schurz s words, "the spoils system is 
 totally abolished, and the new order of things has 
 supplanted it in the ordinary ways of thinking and the 
 political habits of the people/ x 
 
 " Let us hope devoutly," exclaims another American, 
 " that it will rapidly advance in favour until every 
 department of federal state and municipal government 
 in the United States shall be conducted on business 
 principles by persons selected for the places that they 
 are to fill." 
 
 Moreover, nearly every State has now adopted the 
 Australian ballot system, which guarantees an honest 
 vote and an honest return. Votes cannot now be 
 openly purchased, and such incidents as Mr. Bryce 
 described in 1893 could not occur. 2 
 
 1 There is, however, a new evil which Civil Service Reform has itself 
 fostered. 
 
 The thousands of postal clerks throughout the country are banded together 
 in a solid organization for the purpose of influencing legislation in their own 
 interest. So dangerous does this principle appear that President Roosevelt 
 has lately issued an order forbidding attempts of public officials or employees 
 to secure legislation for the increase of salaries. 
 
 2 Political campaigns still continue expensive, but it is solely on account 
 of the educational " literature," halls, bands, and speakers. 
 
THE NEW POLITICS 201 
 
 The movement for reform led by New York has 
 affected nearly every city in the country. It has even 
 invaded the municipal government of San Francisco, long 
 a bye-word for corruption and extravagance. In that 
 city numerous attempts to get a new charter adopted 
 had failed, but in 1900 the spirit of reform saturated 
 the mind of the people, and a new era began. A Civil 
 Service Commission, composed of three persons holding 
 office for three years, is appointed by the Governor of 
 the State. Promotions are to be made according to 
 merit and term of service. No employee of the city 
 shall be discharged, except for dishonesty, inefficiency, 
 insubordination, or habitual discourtesy. Salaries of 
 public offices must be fixed at rates no higher than 
 those paid for similar services in similar employment. 
 Sex will be no bar to a suitable office. No person can 
 be appointed to, or dismissed from, an office for political 
 reasons ; nor can he or she be removed without a fair 
 public trial. Particular care is to be taken to have the 
 examinations conducted fairly and without favouritism. 
 
 It is not likely that a system which has made 
 political corruption a profession can be uprooted in a 
 few years. Payment for political services begins with 
 the money doled out to the ward-heeler or canvasser, 
 and continues by regular gradation of salary to state 
 offices, congress-men, judges, governors, and finally in 
 the salary of a senator at Washington. The mainte 
 nance of this profession of paid politics rests upon the 
 practice of conferring public appointments at the behest 
 of the senators or representatives from each State. It 
 is against this practice that Mr. Koosevelt, like his 
 predecessor Garfield, has sternly set his face. He early 
 
202 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 announced his intention of exercising his own discretion 
 in filling a public office ; although the fulfilment of this 
 intention has involved not a little friction between him 
 and the party leaders, yet the President s independent 
 attitude has been warmly received throughout the 
 country. 
 
 While on the subject of the New Politics, we cannot 
 fail of paying a passing tribute to the growth of the 
 Keferendum principle in legislation. When Congress, 
 Legislation, and Municipal Council fail to express the 
 wishes of the people when they are composed of pro 
 fessional politicians who cannot be trusted then the 
 evils of Democracy must be met by more democracy, 
 and the Swiss principle of direct legislation by the 
 people must be called in. 
 
 This is the only way by which the growth of 
 personal power under republican forms can be checked 
 by those who feel that personal power should be checked. 
 And it is undeniable that the mayor of our American 
 city is vested with too much power, considering the 
 method by which he is chosen. 
 
 It is undeniable that the movement for the great 
 use of the Referendum is making rapid progress. Every 
 party Republican, Democratic, Populist Prohibition 
 has declared for it on their platforms, an action, whether 
 sincere or not of itself, significant of its popularity. In 
 1898 the Union Reform Party adopted it alone as its 
 programme. In 1894 amendments for placing the 
 Referendum in the Constitutions of New Jersey, New 
 York, and Massachusetts just missed passing in those 
 States. In 1896 the South Dakota Legislature passed 
 a constitutional amendment for the Referendum by two 
 
THE NEW POLITICS 203 
 
 votes to one, and Utah and Oregon have followed suit. 
 Many cities, including San Francisco, Minneapolis, and 
 Detroit, boast a local Keferendum. It would, on the 
 whole, seem that the system is best adapted to local 
 government to correct State and municipal scandals and 
 abuses. But there are some who see in this extension 
 of democracy visions of wild, howling mobs taking 
 the law in their own hands and defying constitutional 
 authority and the counsels of the wise. A referendum 
 is obviously a dangerous system in a community where 
 prejudice runs stronger than the spirit of order and 
 fair play. The principle needs to be hedged round 
 about in some States, and it ought not to be taken 
 unless its need is clear. But it gives the people the 
 last word, and the people would rather follow the 
 initiative of a wise ruler they trust than an oligarchy 
 they distrust : a further corroboration of the Platonic 
 proposition which I have put on my title-page. 
 
CHAPTEE XV 
 
 HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT 
 
 IN my chapter on the growth of Presidential power I 
 have shown that the headship of the United States of 
 America is not inferior, so far as actual power and direct 
 authority go, to that held by any of the monarchs of 
 Europe. 
 
 It has already given employment to the pens of 
 many ingenious and enthusiastic Transatlantic writers to 
 trace a parallel between the German ruler, or Emperor, 
 William II., and the American ruler, or President, 
 Theodore Koosevelt. Both of these illustrious person 
 ages, we are told, boast a " superabundant vitality, 
 fearlessness, seeming disregard for public opinion, and 
 many-sidedness." Nor does the parallel end here. 1 
 
 The versatility of the Kaiser includes war, politics, 
 art, science, and literature ; and the same may be said 
 of the President. William is forty-four years old ; 
 Theodore is precisely the same age. Both have been 
 previously credited with rashness, impetuosity, and 
 imprudence ; both have, as rulers of great nations, lived 
 to stultify their traducers. Names and titles do not 
 
 1 Sir W. Laird Clowes, a personal friend of the President s, points out 
 that, on the other hand, "he has no love for state or ceremony, and is in no 
 sense a poseur." This may well be. Mais Vappetit vient en mangeant 1 
 
 204 
 
HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT 205 
 
 signify actual power. Call the one, President Hohen- 
 zollern of the United States of Germany, and the other, 
 Emperor Theodore of the Empire of America, and you 
 need not be at the pains of adding to the one or 
 subtracting from the other one jot or tittle of the 
 power which each now possesses as an actual, if not 
 an inalienable, appurtenance of his high office. 
 
 Let us pursue the resemblance, apart from character 
 or the potentiality of office, into their respective situa 
 tions. Both came into power as the legal successor of two 
 men in whom all the world had confidence men who 
 represented wisdom, caution, and the personal love of 
 the people. William s predecessor had died <c crowned 
 by the aureole of success, having created a nation, and 
 having emerged victorious from a campaign that amazed 
 the world." For a moment, when his successor took 
 the oath of office, there was experienced a feeling of 
 distrust, of national uncertainty, of apprehensiveness 
 for the character and policy of his youthful successor. 
 The same is true of Theodore Roosevelt. All four 
 predecessors and successors in Germany and America 
 were soldiers, and Theodore and William were to prove 
 how groundless were the fears of their people ; they 
 were to show that both were men of peace and political 
 sagacity, although both believed in the sword, and 
 " longed for an opportunity to show how finely tempered 
 was the blade." 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt is the youngest President who 
 has ever ruled America. He is a notable exception in 
 being a gentleman by birth, and a scholar who knows 
 his own country and Europe, who knows much of 
 foreign languages. Moreover, he is the only President 
 
206 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 who ever sat in the chair of State who has served an 
 apprenticeship in one of the great departments of State. 
 Can there be any who will say that all this does 
 not betoken an entirely new order of things ? If 
 there were no other fact from which we were able to 
 deduce that a change has come over American politics 
 it would be this. If another and cognate fact alone 
 were needed, it would be that the head of the Cabinet 
 virtually his Prime Minister is John Hay, a scholar and 
 a poet, a man who, on visiting England a few years 
 ago, was neither afraid nor ashamed to write such lines 
 as these : 
 
 "ON LANDING IN ENGLAND.i 
 
 " Once more, hail, England ! Happy is the day 
 When from wide wandering I hither fare, 
 Touch thy wave-warded shore and breathe thine air, 
 And see again thy hedges white with May. 
 Rich memories throng in every flower-gemmed way ; 
 Old names ring out as with a trumpet s blare ; 
 While on with quickened pulse we journey where 
 London s vast thunder roars, like seas at play. 
 To thee, the cradle of our race, we come, 
 To warm our hearts by ancient altar fires ; 
 Not breaking fealty to a dearer home, 
 Thy children s children, from whatever skies, 
 Greet the high welcome of thy deathless eyes, 
 Thou fair and mighty mother of our sires." 
 
 Go over the roll of American Secretaries of State 
 since Hamilton, and see if you can find amongst all 
 those mediocrities one with the ability to write such 
 lines, the sentiment to prompt them, the courage to 
 publish them ! 
 
 1 Pall Mall Magazine, December, 1894. 
 
HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT 207 
 
 It was said of the late President McKinley that, 
 without being a great man, he had a " marvellous 
 capacity for hearing and interpreting the murmur of 
 public opinion, which he thought it the duty of his 
 life to obey." "This mode of governing," observes a 
 writer in the Spectator, " has one advantage only half 
 perceived, that it increases the force of the State to 
 an almost indefinite degree. Guidance may be wanting 
 when the head of the State is always listening ; but the 
 march can never be undecided, and the weight of the 
 marching myriad, thus kept at one with its foremost 
 files, must always be prodigious." l 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt is in many ways the most robust and 
 vigorous personality in the politics of the world. He has 
 the gifts which democracy adores courage, magnetism, 
 strength. His determination and decision cannot be 
 questioned. 
 
 There is no more profound error, even from the 
 point of view of more electoral tactics, than that of 
 the politicians who think that a democracy prefers its 
 statesmen to echo the supposed sentiments of the 
 average man. Democracy is conscious of its own short 
 comings, it sighs for leadership, and the man who 
 shrinks from leading cannot hope for a full measure 
 of popular trust. Demos may be king, but like any 
 other monarch he cannot do without advisers, men 
 wiser than he. Amid the besetting sense of perplexity 
 and lack of independent knowledge, which always 
 paralyze the mind of a democratic people when 
 
 1 I might also call attention to the fact that the leading and most brilliant 
 member of the Senate is not a " millionaire," nor a party " boss," but Mr. 
 Henry Cabot Lodge, a scholar and a cultivated writer. 
 
208 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 abandoned to their own devices, what they crave for 
 and admire above all, is the touch of masterful leader 
 ship, which brings great questions to an issue. What 
 ever may be the issue, no living man, not even the 
 German Emperor, has shown more of this quality than 
 President Eoosevelt. 
 
 He is in some respects a more remarkable and im 
 portant occupant of the White House than any of his 
 forerunners, scarcely excepting General Washington 
 and Mr. Lincoln, both of whom were specially deputed 
 by the American nation, the one at its inception, the 
 other in its gravest crisis, to do the work they accom 
 plished. The most fortuitous accident in Mr. Roose 
 velt s singularly fortunate career was that which placed 
 him in the presidential chair, for which he was only 
 vaguely regarded as a remotely possible occupant. Had 
 he asked for the presidency he would certainly have 
 been rejected by the fickle and disorganized con 
 stituencies that three years ago were at fever-heat in 
 the angry rivalry between McKinleyites and Bryanites. 
 McKinley s untimely end raised Eoosevelt from the 
 vice-presidency, in which nothing was expected of him 
 but that he should cause no trouble, and be a mere 
 nobody to the position in which he has so notably 
 distinguished himself by an honesty of conduct which 
 would never have recommended him to the wire-pullers 
 and the dupes of either the Democratic or the Republican 
 party. 
 
 There is something singularly attractive, even about 
 the fearless isolation and dramatic novelty of a presi 
 dential candidate appealing to the suffrages of the whole 
 people without the support and in spite of the wishes 
 
HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT 209 
 
 and intrigues of the hitherto omnipotent machine. Mr. 
 Roosevelt is sufficiently formidable, though standing 
 alone. It is quite possible that the " bosses " may bow 
 to his ascendency, and equally so that they may be 
 crushed in the conflict if they decide not to have the 
 President at any price. But it is significant when a 
 great state like Pennsylvania has already begun to match 
 the intrigues of the log-rollers and wire-pullers, and 
 although threatened by some of the bosses, pledges its 
 thirty- two votes in the electoral college to Mr. 
 Roosevelt. 
 
 As the republican vote in his own State, New York, 
 is almost certainly his, should his party not lose its 
 majority in these two great States before 1904, this 
 means sixty-eight votes to begin with. It is in vain 
 that the desperate politicians by profession, backed by 
 the big Trusts, form the project of running Mr. Hanna 
 for the presidency. The defection of this wing of the 
 party only increases the widespread popularity of the 
 President, although their power is shown in their de 
 feating their attempts to establish reciprocity with Cuba, 
 and other national measures in which they are seen 
 simply battling for their own pecuniary interests. 
 
 About the middle of October, 1901, a little incident 
 occurred in Washington at the Presidential Palace, which 
 for a time threatened to undo, so great was the signifi 
 cance attached thereto by a portion of the American 
 people, much of the unity which had been wrought north 
 and south. On the spur of the moment, the President 
 invited Mr. Booker Washington, a late afternoon caller, 
 to remain for dinner. Mr. Washington is a scholar, an 
 able administrator, and of courteous manners. But he 
 
 p 
 
210 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 is a negro : and instantly a great cry went up. The 
 South had been outraged. 
 
 Up to this episode, President Eoosevelt had the 
 warm, sympathetic approval and support of the Southern 
 people, and the Southern senators and representatives. 
 He had made it known that Democrats would be selected 
 for Federal offices when the other party could not furnish 
 good material, and had actually just appointed ex- 
 Governor Jones as the Federal District Judge in 
 Alabama. It is impossible to believe he will not regain 
 this political approval ; but the Southern people, as I 
 have already shown, are intensely prejudiced, and com 
 radeship for the negro is in their eyes a heinous crime. 
 But the incident shows the courage of the man, as 
 hardly anything else has done. 
 
 As to the personal influence which he exercises on 
 society and in the White House, it is sufficiently in 
 dicated by the fact that, differing from most of the 
 previous Presidents, he is a gentleman by birth and 
 breeding, an Anglican in religion, a sportsman, and 
 allied to a lady who is a social leader. It has often been 
 remarked that the early careers of the Presidents have 
 not qualified them to lead the world of fashion, and 
 this remark extends to their wives, with the single ex 
 ception of Mrs. Cleveland, who was both a beautiful 
 woman and a charming hostess. Mrs. Eoosevelt is 
 equally charming, and in her aesthetic tastes and lofty 
 ideals is well fitted to influence any society. 
 
 There can be, I think, little doubt of the tenure by 
 His Excellency of the Imperial office for a second, and 
 even, if the Americans be wise, of a third term. There 
 is little danger to be apprehended from one-man power 
 
HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT 211 
 
 in modern civilized communities, and when the one man 
 is Theodore Koosevelt, the Americans should give him a 
 free hand, in office, for as long as he cares to sustain its 
 cares. 
 
 For " as the nation develops, and the people increase 
 their qualifications for self-government, it will be seen 
 that they will lay hold of the presidency as the only 
 organ sufficient for the exercise of their sovereignty." 
 
 1 Ford, H. J., " Rise and Growth of American Politics." 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 EDUCATION AND SCIENCE 
 
 AMERICA has as yet no national system of education. 
 The educational advantages provided vary a good deal 
 in different States for each State provides and super 
 vises its own system in entire independence. Yet, 
 underlying all difference of method, there is an essential 
 unity of aim, which is "to make democratic education 
 universally accessible, and by means of it to lift up the 
 whole population to a higher plane of intelligence, 
 conduct, and happiness." 
 
 As Dr. Eliot, President of Harvard University, 
 points out, " Democratic education is a very new 
 thing in the world, and its attainable objects are not 
 yet fully perceived. Only a generation ago in some of 
 our Southern States it was a crime to teach a member 
 of the laborious class to read." 
 
 From the elementary school to the university educa 
 tion in the States is to a large extent gratuitous. This 
 is due in a great measure to the sums and land revenues 
 set apart by the several States and to other legislative 
 provision, and next to the enormous contributions made 
 to higher education by opulent citizens of the republic. 
 Mr. Cobden noticed the liberality of American citizens 
 
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE 213 
 
 in promoting education. Since his time private muni 
 ficence in this cause has exceeded anything hitherto 
 known. 1 
 
 Yet, in spite of all this Liberality, many of the men 
 foremost in the business world of America have expressed 
 the view that a university education rather unfits men 
 to succeed in business. Mr. Carnegie is quoted as 
 saying 
 
 " The almost total absence of the graduate from high positions 
 in the business world seems to justify the conclusion that college 
 education, as it exists, is fatal to success in that domain. The 
 
 1 Subjoined is a list of the reported benefactions made in the last eleven 
 years : 
 
 1890-1891 1,515,018 
 
 1891-1892 1,336,917 
 
 1892-1893 1,343,027 
 
 1893-1894 1,890,101 
 
 1894-1895 1,199,645 
 
 1895-1896 1,810,021 
 
 1896-1897 1,678,187 
 
 1897-1898 1,640,856 
 
 1898-1899 4,385,087 
 
 1899-1900 2,399,092 
 
 1900-1901 3,608,082 
 
 Total 22,806,033 
 
 Here are some of the institutions to which special benefactions have been 
 made : 
 
 Drexel Institute, by A. J. Drexel 600,000 
 
 Chicago University, by J. D. Rockefeller (from 1889 to 1900) ... 1,425,200 
 
 Chicago University, by Miss H. Cuiver ... 200,000 
 
 Chicago University, by Miss Emmons Elaine 200,000 
 
 Colgate University, by James B. Colgates 200,000 
 
 Columbia University, by Seth Low 200,000 
 
 Dartmouth College, by Edward Tuck 80,000 
 
 Leland Stanford University, by Mrs. Leland Stanford 2,200,000 
 
 Washington University, St. Louis, by Samuel Cupples and Robert 
 
 S.Brookings 600,000 
 
 Harvard University, by J. Pierpont Morgan ... .. ... 200,000 
 
 Carnegie Institution, Washington, by Andrew Carnegie 2,000,000 
 
2H THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 graduate has not the slightest chance, entering at twenty, against 
 the boy who swept the office, or who begins as shipping clerk at 
 fourteen. The facts prove this." 
 
 It is said that the average age of entering business 
 of the most successful men in America, such as Messrs. 
 Wanamaker, Vanderbilt, Peabody, Armour, and others, 
 was sixteen and a half, and the age of entering into 
 partnership twenty-two. Mr. Henry Clews remarks 
 
 " I do not employ college men in my banking office ; none 
 need apply. I don t want them, for I think they have been 
 spoiled for a business life. The college man is not willing to 
 begin at the bottom. He looks down on the humble places, 
 which he is fitted to fill. And, indeed, he looks down on all 
 business as dull and unattractive. . . . His thoughts are not 
 with his business, but with his books, literature, philosophy, 
 Latin. Now, no man can approach the exacting business life 
 in that half-hearted way. Business requires the undivided 
 mind." 
 
 It is observed, however, that the objections of these 
 captains of industry, many of whom have been liberal 
 donors to the various State universities, to college 
 education were usually somewhat qualified by the phrase 
 " as it now is." Moreover, it was universally admitted 
 that for professional men the old university ideal was a 
 good one. Of late years a decided effort has been made 
 to forward technical education both in the high schools 
 and in the universities, and to establish a complete 
 system of commercial and business training. 1 
 
 1 Mr. Thistelton Mark has recently furnished detail of the equipment and 
 work done by such establishments as the Armour Institute of Chicago, the 
 Bradley Institute of Peoria, the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, the 
 Lawrence School at Harvard, the School of Mines at Columbia University, 
 
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE 215 
 
 But now for the other side of the picture. In spite 
 of the progress of the last ten years, it is quite fatuous 
 to speak of the higher Educational System of America 
 being worthy of our own or anybody s example. Presi 
 dent Harper, of Chicago University, confesses quite 
 frankly, that " the field of higher education in America 
 is at the present time is an exceedingly disorganized 
 condition." 
 
 A university in America does not generally mean 
 what we regard as a university. There are hundreds of 
 academies, too, which are called colleges. 1 Let us take 
 a casual peep into the administration. To English 
 ideas a professor s life at a university should be in the 
 nature of a freehold. In America, on the other hand, 
 there is too much immobility not enough fixity of 
 tenure. The reason is, of course, to be found in the 
 fact that, with a few exceptions (such as Yale), there is 
 no self-government granted to an American University. 
 In academic as in political life, the tendency is to one- 
 man power. In the State Universities and in those 
 
 and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the latter having been de 
 scribed as "the finest technical institution in the world." 
 
 It beeras that twenty-one years ago a School of Finance and Economy 
 was founded in connection with the University of Pennsylvania, with the help 
 of a gift of $100,000 by Mr. Joseph Wharton, and since 1898, largely under 
 the stimulus of foreign example, the Universities of Chicago, California, 
 Wisconsin, Michigan, and Vermont, Dartmouth College, and finally Harvard, 
 have established special schools or schemes for higher commercial teaching. 
 The innovation has been received with favour. The total number of com 
 mercial students in schools and colleges reported to the Bureau of Education 
 rose from 131,518 in 1898-1899 to 190,698 in 1899-1900. Technical educa 
 tion, apart from the universities, has been handsomely endowed of late years 
 in the United States. 
 
 1 A Bachelor of Arts from one university has been known to enter the 
 " Preparatory Department " of another, where the best part of a year was 
 needed to fit him for admission to the freshman class. 
 
216 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 privately endowed or supported by religious denomina 
 tions, the teaching staff is ruled despotically by a 
 president, who acts as the vizier of the millionaire 
 benefactor or " regent," " trustees," etc., who rarely 
 interfere with his decisions. 1 
 
 Nearly all academic institutions are virtually con 
 trolled, as we may already have inferred, by capitalistic 
 influences. This is productive of effects far from 
 salutary both upon the teaching staff and upon the 
 pupils, but the time is not yet at hand when public 
 opinion even partially realizes the consequences of their 
 faulty organization. 
 
 On the subject of social distinctions in the common 
 schools, Eev. Cecil Grant says 
 
 " Though the conditions of American society are of necessity 
 widely different from our own, the educated American is no less 
 aware than ourselves of the worth of culture, and .were it found 
 that the mixing of the social strata in their schools caused a 
 general levelling down of manners, or that their daughters ran 
 a risk of undesirable entanglements, the higher class of Americans 
 would most certainly not send them to the common schools as 
 universally as they do. As a matter of fact, the writer s own 
 observation, supported by the unanimous testimony of all whom 
 he had the opportunity of consulting, was to the effect that, 
 whereas the levelling up was most surprisingly apparent, no 
 signs of the reverse process were to be detected. 
 
 " At school, as at college, idleness is tempered by the com 
 mercial instinct. The boy drinks in with his mother s rnilk the 
 creed that success in life is life s main object, and that to succeed 
 one must work. The writer was told, as an instance of the im 
 portance attached to educational success, that in Harvard for 
 some time there had been an average of one suicide yearly after 
 
 1 This system has its advantages from a pecuniary standpoint, as in 1900- 
 1901 it realized 3,500,000 in academic endowments in America. 
 
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE 217 
 
 the result of the examinations. It would not be just to say 
 that there are no higher motives at work, or perhaps to claim 
 any superiority for England in this respect. The fact that the 
 English boy is too idle to think of the future does not prevent 
 him from developing the commercial spirit very fully later on." 
 
 From education I pass to science. 
 
 While praise has been showered plentifully upon 
 America for her industrial achievements and her inven 
 tions, it is well to ask what has she done in the way of 
 science ? What position does she occupy in the scientific 
 world ? Everything would seem to have favoured the 
 growth of brilliant investigators rich endowments 
 bountifully equipped colleges, and yet, where is the 
 American equivalent for Pasteur, Lister, Kelvin, Koch, 
 Berthelot, Lodge, Crookes, Slaby, Hertz, Helmholz, 
 Rontgen, Rayleigh ? 
 
 There are numerous examples of clever workers in 
 applied science, but where are the great philosophers 
 the investigators the Franklins and Rumfords of 
 to-day ? 
 
 In the marvellous new science of neurology, Spain, 
 Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria contribute 
 distinguished exponents : America none. 
 
 In the domain of chemistry an American name of 
 repute is wholly absent. Take electro-chemistry, the 
 aluminium and calcium carbide industries are to-day 
 worth millions of dollars to America. Yet America 
 contributed nothing to their slow and painful evolution. 
 
 In brief, in nearly all the departments of science, 
 which require penetrating reflection, America finds herself 
 isolated from the rest of the world. Perhaps the most 
 brilliant example of the fruitful union of scientific 
 
218 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 experiment and scientific imagination is the new theory 
 of ether, which offers to the universe the only explana 
 tion of the phenomena of light, heat, electricity, and 
 magnetism, of the Marconi telegraph and X-ray photo 
 graphy. To this theory scores of great scientists, from 
 Kelvin and Helmholz to Lorenz and Poincare, have 
 brought their contributions, every country in Europe 
 can boast a representative. America contributes 
 nothing. 
 
 As to the causes of America s scientific inferiority, it 
 may be that she has no institutions, such as the College 
 of France, the Pasteur Institute, the Eoyal Institution. 1 
 
 " I have before me," writes the American Professor Synder, 
 " the latest volume on metallurgy, summing up twenty years of 
 marvellous work. From almost a dictionary of names, Belgian, 
 Netherlandish, German, English, French, Eussian, I can find 
 but two Americans, Professor Gibbs, whose contribution was 
 most indirect, and Professor Howe. Not even a science which 
 rests upon a billion dollar Trust seems to arouse the interest of 
 one original c inventive American mind. " 
 
 It is to remedy this defect, to lessen this inferiority, 
 that Mr. Carnegie has undertaken the establishment of 
 an institute bearing his name. 
 
 The purpose of the founder is to secure for the 
 United States the leadership in the domain of discovery 
 by "an assiduous collecting of brains similar to the 
 collecting of rare books and works of art which Americans 
 are now carrying on in so lavish a manner." There is 
 no organization in England which has done more for 
 
 1 It is a curious circumstance that the Royal Institution was founded by 
 an American, Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford). He was born near 
 Boston, and took sides with the Northern country during the Revolution. 
 
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE 219 
 
 English science and industries then the Royal Institution. 
 The total cost of a century of scientific work in the 
 laboratories of the Royal Institution amounts tol!9,800, 
 or an average of 1200 per annum. The Carnegie 
 Institute in Washington will dispose in a year of as 
 much money as the members of the Royal Institution 
 have expended in a century. 
 
 All this may bear great fruit ; but in the mean time 
 the national unsympathetic attitude towards scientists 
 must alter if the best men are to devote their lives to 
 the public in a field not always the most lucrative. 
 
 England, France, and Germany honour their men of 
 science in the most marked way, but, as Professor 
 Newcomb is obliged to confess, it is " significant of 
 America s inferior place in science that the idea of such 
 celebrations in honour of science and scientific men is 
 so foreign to our notions that it is hardly likely to 
 present itself for generations to come." 
 
 1 America undoubtedly boasts some eminent physicians and surgeons, and 
 in dentistry she leads the world. As a further illustration of the tendency 
 of the times we see the medical profession now in process of combination on 
 the English model. 
 
 The following extract from the new constitution of the American Medical 
 Association gives a clear idea of the purpose of the medical professsion in 
 reorganizing its societies : 
 
 "The object of this Association shall be to federate into one compact 
 organization, the medical profession of the United States, for the purpose of 
 fostering the growth and diffusion of medical knowledge, of promoting friendly 
 intercourse among American physicians, of safeguarding the material interests 
 of the medical profession, of elevating the standard of medical education, of 
 securing the enactment and enforcement of medical laws, of enlightening and 
 directing public opinion in regard to the broad problems of State medicine, 
 and of representing to the world the practical accomplishment of scientific 
 medicine." 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE NEW LITERATURE 
 
 SINCE the American Copyright Act of 1892, the literature 
 of America at least, in the department of fiction has 
 taken an upward bound which is astounding. To the 
 protection afforded by that Act to American authors 
 must be ascribed the sudden rise of a whole flood of 
 native talent, which, passing the literary borders of the 
 country, has inundated Europe. Prior to that time 
 America may be said to have been dependent on Britain 
 for her fiction, although it is true that there existed a 
 number of native writers whose work was esteemed, 
 but whose following in the country was comparatively 
 small. The universal vogue enjoyed by British authors 
 had for a century been fostered by the system of piracy, 
 which made it feasible to put on the market a novel 
 often at a fifth and sometimes at a tenth of the price 
 such a book would command in England, or that a book 
 by an American author would sell for in America. 
 
 The result of this has been to keep America pro 
 vincial as far as literature is concerned, a relationship 
 which has not been without its advantages, in that it 
 constantly held high ideals of thinking, conduct, and 
 speech before people who would otherwise have lapsed 
 
 220 
 
THE NEW LITERATURE 221 
 
 to a level more purely Boeotian than was reached by the 
 Westerners of Jackson s day. 
 
 When this unfair condition of things became 
 abolished, an indigenous school of fiction sprang up 
 like a mushroom in the night. Patronized by national 
 sentiment, and perhaps also by national vanity and 
 prejudice, authors who had long languished for a 
 publisher and a public now disposed of their wares by 
 the tens and even the hundreds of thousands. But 
 there was another reason for this vogue. Whatever 
 their literary shortcomings, they delineated, or sought 
 to delineate, a life familiar and attractive to Americans 
 at large. Most of the denizens of the large cities 
 migrated thither from the villages and the farms of the 
 country often at an early age carrying with them 
 tender recollections of the old home, and the simple 
 rustic characters they knew in their childhood. Amidst 
 the high pressure, moral, mental, and physical, of the 
 workaday cities, men and women turned with delight 
 to whatever recalled to them those homely and pathetic 
 scenes. Americans are at heart a simple people a 
 nation of children when the cunning and greed and 
 the worldliness have been scaled away, and " Grand 
 father s Clock," "The Old Eed Barn," "The Old Oaken 
 Bucket " are achievements which move them strangely. 
 
 The play that enjoyed the greatest successive run 
 of any on the American boards was The Old Home 
 stead. It was not a drama you could not call it a 
 drama it was a mere presentation of rustic character, 
 in all its lovableness and uncouthness, surrounded by 
 other rustic characters and rustic scenery. It ran for 
 years; it evoked numberless imitators, who all succeeded. 
 
222 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 It was the forerunner of such books as " David 
 Harum" and " Eben Holden," which sell more and are 
 read more than Shakespeare, and Scott, and Dickens, 
 and Thackeray put together. These works are not 
 masterpieces the two mentioned were written by men 
 who were not professional authors they are merely 
 transcripts of the sayings, reports of the doings, of 
 actual people professedly so distinctive Americans 
 creatures known on the other side of the Atlantic and 
 therefore making their first bow in literature. All this 
 amply justifies their existence, all this explains their 
 huge popularity. There is none of the artistic genius here 
 of the great school of American novelists, of Hawthorne, 
 of Holmes, of Howells, of Cable, of Bret Harte, of Miss 
 Wilkins. It was perhaps " a new graft on the tree of 
 English literature," although of this I am a little 
 doubtful. I should rather call it a purely American 
 growth. The authors occasionally, it is true, lapse into 
 English ; but the body of their works is written in, 
 their characters adopt exclusively, the American 
 language. 
 
 We turn now to regard a consequence of their 
 success. They set a fashion ; they stimulate the public 
 into reading American books by American authors. 
 The demand created, we see, to our amazement, within 
 twenty-four months, men and women rushing from the 
 church, journalism, the college, the business office, to 
 become authors. It is not necessary to have art, in 
 sight into character, judgment, knowledge of the world : 
 a little aptitude for scribbling, and a clever publisher 
 will soon push the aspirant into renown. The presses 
 of America groan with the printing of novels, and yet 
 
THE NEW LITERATURE 223 
 
 there is scarce a duodecimo which will outlast a single 
 lustre. The quondam barrenness is overspread with 
 verdure, but it is all, or nearly all, weeds. I do not 
 wish or intend to disparage the great writers they 
 would have written had there been no " boom " in 
 American fiction. But even these are specialists ; and 
 by no means specialists of the magnitude of George 
 Moore, let us say. It is needless to proclaim that there 
 are no writers of the depth as well as breadth of Thomas 
 Hardy or Mrs. Ward. 1 Perhaps Mr. Ho wells puts it 
 squarely when he says 
 
 " Our life is too large for our Art to be broad. In despair 
 at the immense variety of the material offered to it by American 
 civilization, American fiction must specialize, and, turning from 
 the superabundance of character, it must burrow far down in a 
 soul or two." 
 
 The new school has done something. It has shown 
 that America s beginnings are not unromantic and 
 unattractive. Time is now shedding his mellow rays 
 upon the Colonial era, although Thackeray in "The 
 Virginians " had showed its worth. The early history 
 of Greece, Germany, France, Italy, and England were 
 rich in poetry and romance ; but it was not supposed 
 that America had anything to offer to the native author 
 comparable in richness, or worthy to engage the pen of 
 poet and romancers. But since (to quote one cultured 
 American 2 ) " we have come to understand our own 
 
 1 American literature has always suffered from the narrowness of American 
 national experience. "One cannot undertake a study of the literature of 
 America," remarks Mr. Sheffield Clapham, " without some longing for a greater 
 warmth, brighter colours, more fervid imagination." 
 
 2 Professor Hamilton W. Mabie. 
 
224 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 history more clearly, and to comprehend its significance 
 both as an extension and expansion of the spiritual 
 history of Europe, and as a new chapter in the un 
 folding of the human drama, our eyes have been un 
 sealed, and we have become aware of the wealth of 
 material at our disposal for the making of litera 
 ture." 
 
 The easiest novel to write, and the easiest to fail in, 
 is the historical novel. But considerations of artistic 
 failure did not deter the army of embryo novelists. Here 
 again, was a national want an arid patch in the field 
 of American literature. America was at length old 
 enough to have a history ; her Colonial days receded 
 into the twilight, and became invested with a grace and 
 charm unseen before. The new ambitious school was 
 instantly on hand with its pen, and wrought diligently 
 and according to its lights and limitations at what 
 Stevenson called "tushery." They could be realists 
 as well ; no particular province of fiction was theirs, 
 but they chose the din of arms, horrid tumult of the 
 " swashbuckler swashing on his buckler." 
 
 In these novels incident succeeds incident with 
 startling rapidity. There is no time to draw character ; 
 there is no time for natural descriptions ; in brief, 
 these " historical romances " are but glorified dime- 
 novels. 
 
 See how their pages reek with bloodshed. Take this 
 
 " The ruffian against whom I was pitted began to draw his 
 breath in gasps. He was a scoundrel not fit to die . . . 
 unworthy of a gentleman s steel. I presently ran him through 
 with as little compunction, and as great desire to be quit of a 
 dirty job, as if he had been a mad dog." 
 
THE NEW LITERATURE 225 
 
 Or these 
 
 " Now, I ll scalp you ! " he cried, in a voice terrible to hear ; 
 and with his words, out came his hunting-knife from its sheath. 
 ... In fact, he had taken off part of Maisonville s scalp . . . 
 insisting upon completing his cruel performance . . . He shook 
 the tuft of hair at Maisonville, and glared like a mad bull." 
 
 " Young Brandon replied : Stand your ground, you coward ! 
 ... If you try to run I will thrust you through the neck as 
 I would a cur. Listen how you snort. . . . The fellow started 
 to run, but turned, and fell upon his knees to beg for life. 
 Brandon s reply was a flashing circle of his steel (elsewhere a 
 dexterous twist of his blade), and his sword-point cut length 
 wise through Judson s eyes, and the bridge of his nose, leaving 
 him sightless and hideous for life." 
 
 Well may the eminent critic observe that the 
 inventors of these hideous incidents possibly do not 
 prefer bloodshed. They are mostly gentlemen of peace 
 ful callings, and the instincts of law-abiding citizens, 
 with probably no love of homicide in them. Never 
 theless, " that delicate something which we call tone, 
 whether intellectual or ethical, must suffer from an orgy 
 of the kind, as it would suffer from an excess in opium 
 or absinthe. " 
 
 These excesses, too, are mainly clothed in a garb 
 which is supposed to be in unison with the period. The 
 style is stilted and archaic, with occasional lapses into 
 the American language. 
 
 In " Richard Carvell," we have the hero observing 
 that he " raised up in bed," and another, a London 
 lackey of George III. s time, reports his master as being 
 " some better." " Another of the new historical novelists 
 makes a Franco- American backwoodman of the Fenimore 
 Cooper type employ phrases of current American slang ; 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 and yet another gives vivacity, if not vitality, to an 
 English princess of the sixteenth century by having her 
 speak and act as a twentieth century hoydon from 
 Indiana." * 
 
 No new English historical novel has enjoyed the 
 overwhelming popularity of these numerous American 
 romances. Mr. Howells has an explanation for this : 
 " It is possibly because the English have looked more 
 constantly and more profoundly into the past, and found 
 there was nothing in it, that they have invented 
 imaginary realms, and left the exploitation of history 
 to our more ardent, more inexperienced, romantic school, 
 it is certainly simpler to cut loose from any sort of fact, 
 and abandon one s self to pure fake as the English have 
 done." 
 
 Yet, with all its defects of style, of taste, or perhaps 
 only of art, the new American school of fiction has 
 served, and is serving, as a great unifying influence. 
 It will not, unless it produce some really great writer, 
 worthy to compete with the best, endure for any time. 
 It does not possess the elements of endurance, and as 
 for the bulk of its achievements they have not, in Dr. 
 Johnstone s immense phrase, " wit enough to keep them 
 sweet, or vitality enough to preserve them from putrifi- 
 cation." 2 No American writer had hitherto been able 
 
 1 W. D. Howells, in North American Review, vol. clxxi. 
 
 2 Could anything display the current literary spirit and tendencies in 
 America more than the many advertisements offering to teach fiction ? 
 
 Here is a sample one which I reproduce verbatim, omitting, however, the 
 name of the enterprising firm of tutors in fiction. 
 
 "SHORT STORY WRITING TAUGHT. 
 
 " Our course of home spare-time study in short story writing is in charge 
 of successful authors, and we buy and print all available work of our 
 students. 
 
THE NEW LITERATURE 227 
 
 to give the American race clear consciousness of its 
 strength, its aims, and its works ; no writer had bound 
 the race together in the consciousness of community, 
 although the statesmen have frequently done this. Yet 
 I do not deny that there have been national writers, 
 and I notice that President Koosevelt condemns the 
 " futility of talking of a Northern literature, or a 
 Southern literature, an Eastern or a Western school of 
 art or science. Joel Chandler Harris is emphatically 
 a national writer ; as is Mark Twain. They do not 
 write merely for Georgia, or Missouri, or California, any 
 more than for Illinois or Connecticut ; they write as 
 Americans, and for all people who can read English." l 
 
 As to poetry, it is scarce in America, although 
 there are any number of facile versifiers. There are 
 no Longfellows, no Bryants, no Poes, no Whittiers, no 
 Lowells not even a Whitman. 
 
 The real poetry is not of the classic mould, but it 
 has the marks of genuine poetry about it for all that. 
 
 " This is the 20th century improvement on high-priced correspondence 
 instruction. 
 
 " Most rejected manuscripts have slight faults easily corrected by a little 
 practical study. 
 
 " Testimonial from a Student. 
 
 " I have read with pleasure Supplement No. 1. It is a broad and compre 
 hensive way of writing on this subject. It will bring many new authors into 
 the market. 
 
 " F. S. GLOVER, 
 
 " 55, Worth Street, New York City, 
 
 " What a Professional Writer says. 
 
 " Am especially pleased with your short story writing supplement. This 
 is a thoroughly good thing. 
 
 " ELLIOT WALKER, 
 
 " Pittsfield, Mass." 
 1 "The Strenuous Life." 
 
228 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 Mr. Whitcomb Riley is as true a poet as Robert Burns, 
 and so is Mr. F. L. Stanton. Mr. Markham lias also 
 given signs of having great gifts. But after these 
 men we must turn to the other sex for passion and 
 metre. In America there has always been a super 
 abundance of female poets. Mr. Stedman s recent 
 anthology of American poetry is distinguished among 
 books of this sort by the number of its female names ; 
 the Mary Annes and Harriets appearing more than a 
 third as often as the Johns and the Jameses and the 
 Williams. We read herein of the " glowing, prophetic 
 periods of Emma Lazurus, the highly sensitized lyrics 
 of Helen Jackson, the playful fancies of Katherine Lee 
 Bates, and the exquisitely finished verses of Edith 
 Thomas." 
 
 But there are no Mrs. Brownings or Christina 
 Rosettis to be found amongst them. 
 
 When we turn to the domain of art i.e. pictorial 
 ar t we find an astonishing record of progress in the 
 past dozen years. It is not merely that the owners of 
 some of the most famous names in contemporary British 
 art are Americans by birth and up-bringing ; for the 
 significance of that may be easily exaggerated. None 
 of these men received their art training in America, 
 and have passed most of their lives in Europe. 1 Yet 
 Mr. Abbey, Mr. Sargent, and Mr. Whistler are distinctly 
 American in their temperaments and in the character 
 of their work. It is informed by a certain vigour, and 
 reveals a quite American perception of effect and hatred 
 of convention, such as we see exhibited in everything 
 
 1 Mr. Roosevelt condemns the American painter who lives abroad. But 
 the question is, Can he be produced at home ? 
 
THE NEW LITERATURE 229 
 
 the American workman handles. There is no largeness 
 or nobility of conception, no Rubens-like purity of 
 colour or outline ; because these qualities, in their 
 equivalent form, are not characteristic of any American 
 art or achievement. 
 
 Perhaps a distinctive school of American art may 
 arise is arising in America. 
 
 " What struck one most in the American work at 
 Paris, in 1900," remarked an English critic recently, 
 " was the beauty, the strength, the originality of the 
 landscapes, most of which came from American painters 
 living, not in Paris or London, but at home. Their 
 canvasses were not mere reflections of French models, as 
 American painting often is ; so that it seemed as if, 
 were an original American school to be looked for any 
 where, it would be among the landscape men who are 
 working quietly in their own country." 
 
 As for American journalism, it is hardly necessary 
 to explain its salient features to Englishmen, since the 
 establishment within their own community of news 
 papers conducted on similar lines and animated by 
 the same ideals. As one recent observer has said, 
 " The American newspaper has simply become an 
 industry a business conducted for the usual ends of 
 business, with public teaching and influence, but by a 
 by-product." As to the number and value of news 
 papers in the United States, there are, it appears, over 
 15,000 establishments for the publication of periodicals ; 
 an increase of 24 per cent, in the decade since the 
 previous census. About 400 are started every year, or 
 more than one for every day of the year, including 
 Sundays. Of the 15,000 existing journals, about 2000 
 
230 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 are dailies, and 13,000 weeklies. Considerably more 
 than the half of these publications are really very 
 unimportant, as but 6000 out of the 15,000 have more 
 than 1000 circulation. After giving the amount of the 
 capital invested in the newspapers and their output in 
 wages and material, it is reckoned that "the value of 
 the product is $223,000,000, that is 44,600,000. As 
 a " business proposition," therefore, the American news 
 paper is exceedingly attractive. 
 
 The mainspring of such journals being in the 
 counting-house, there are no longer any editors in 
 America in the old sense of the term. In fact, most 
 of the American newspapers are equipped with leader- 
 writers, news editors, city editors, theatrical editors, 
 sporting editors, " exchange" editors, every kind of 
 editor except a real editor. Yet there are exceptions 
 to this rule, and I think the exceptions have been grow 
 ing more numerous of late. The reaction against the 
 Yellow Press is already felt, and it is possible that the 
 new journalism will find a method to maintain itself in 
 spite of commercial disadvantages. 1 
 
 1 Anything more hideous to the eye and repulsive to good taste than the 
 advertisements and head-lines in the American newspapers can hardly be 
 conceived. One marvels how it is they are tolerated by the reader. 
 
CHAPTEE XVIII 
 
 PROGRESS AND CHARACTER 
 
 IN inquiring into the growth of what we may call the 
 American Empire we learn that in the lapse of a century 
 and a quarter the number of States has increased from 
 thirteen to forty-eight, that from an area of 860,000 
 square miles it is now over three millions, that from a 
 population of three millions it is now eighty millions. 
 
 America proper is thus a big country, but it is not 
 the biggest country on the planet, as nine-tenths of its 
 inhabitants piously believe. 1 In mere area it is smaller 
 than our Canada. Leaving out Alaska and the 
 Philippines there are 3,025,600 square miles of territory 
 under the Stars and Stripes. Australasia has a territory 
 of 3,077,374 square miles. So it would perhaps be well 
 for us to rid ourselves of the mere idea of size. Life 
 being counted not by moments but by actions, so a 
 country should be estimated not by its superficial area, 
 but by the number of its settlements. Deserts, prairies, 
 forests and lakes add nothing to actual civilization. 
 A wheat farm of half a million acres and two 
 hundred inhabitants is a consideration merely equivalent 
 
 1 Russia, which has all the natural resources of America, and is already 
 matching its progress, has an area of 8,450,081 square miles and a population 
 of 129,211,113. 
 
 231 
 
232 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 to an equally profitable manufactory of less than five 
 hundred thousandth the area. America is in truth a 
 country of magnificent distances, but mere distance, 
 like time, becomes meaningless if it be not punctuated 
 by human art, industry, and population. Great Britain, 
 small as it is in area, is a compact organization, and 
 if it were spread out to the size of America it would, 
 humanly speaking, be no greater. It contains cities, 
 towns, villages, and hamlets. Each of these centres of 
 life is separated by green fields, by forests, by moors, by 
 rivers and other natural features. Expand the area of 
 these spaces these natural features enormously, and, 
 lo, you have America ! 
 
 But even then, how much smaller would be America 
 by reason of the history, the accumulated interests, the 
 traditions, the legends, the associations that invest 
 with life, even to complexity, every mile of English 
 ground ? 
 
 One is bound to say that the homogeneity of the 
 American people spread out over such a country is 
 astonishing. Here in Europe we are accustomed to a 
 dozen diverse nationalities within such a space as 
 separates New York from San Francisco. To travel 
 four or five hundred miles in any direction is almost of 
 necessity to encounter varying racial types, strange 
 religious manners and customs. But America, vast as 
 its area, presents the same face from ocean to ocean, from 
 Canada to Mexico. 1 The city which is reached by the 
 traveller to-day is the city of yesterday, in replica, nor 
 
 1 This is a great change indeed. Mr. S. L. Clemens, writing in 1882, was 
 able to tell the geography of the country by the dress and personal appear 
 ance of the inhabitants. " Life on the Mississippi." 
 
PROGRESS AND CHARACTER 233 
 
 does the eye catch anything to vary the monotony of 
 architecture or the dreary parallelograms of the streets. 
 With the people, speech, dress, and deportment is the 
 same. The shops are the same, the same goods you find 
 in Boston are displayed in the same manner in St. 
 Louis. Market Street in San Francisco is the counter 
 part of Market Street, Philadelphia, even to the ferries 
 at the bottom of each thoroughfare ; State Street, 
 Chicago, is a reproduction of Broadway, New York. 
 Birmingham is far less like Nottingham than is 
 Cincinnati unlike any other city in America. 
 
 A great deal of this homogeneity may be more 
 apparent than real. You cannot eradicate racial 
 tendencies and predispositions. Yet it is certainly a 
 fact that the American type is at present in the 
 ascendency. As Mr. Frederic Harrison has recently 
 observed 
 
 " Those who direct the State, who administer the cities, 
 control the legislatures, the financiers, merchants, professors, 
 journalists, men of letters those whom I met in society, are 
 nearly all of American birth and all of marked American type. 
 I rarely heard a foreign accent or saw a foreign countenance. 
 The American world is practically run by genuine Americans. 
 Foreigners are more in evidence in London or Manchester, it 
 seemed to me, than they are in New York, Philadelphia, or 
 Boston." 
 
 Sir William Butler some years ago spoke of 
 America as 
 
 " That vast human machine which grinds Celt and Saxon, 
 Teuton and Dane, Fin and Goth into the same image and like 
 ness of inevitable Yankee grinds him, too, into that image in 
 one short generation, and oftentimes in less ; doing it without 
 
234 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 any apparent outward pressure or any tyrannical law of 
 language or religion, but nevertheless beating out, welding, and 
 amalgamating the various conflicting races of the Old World 
 into the great American people. Assuredly the world has never 
 witnessed any experiment of so gigantic a nature as this 
 immense fusion of the Caucasian race now going on before our 
 eyes in North America." l 
 
 The real significance of this is said to have appealed 
 to the late President McKinley on the occasion of the 
 noteworthy tour he made just before his lamented 
 death. The solidarity of the nation, its community of 
 interest, the singleness of patriotic purpose, we are told, 
 struck him with tremendous force. He saw that, as 
 long as such conditions continued, there was " no need 
 to question the future of the republic. " 2 We therefore 
 find him, in speeches delivered at that time, constantly 
 impressing upon his auditors the idea of national unity. 
 " One flag, one country, one destiny," was his perpetual 
 text, and even an imagination less susceptible than Mr. 
 McKinley s might have caught fire at this extraordinary 
 spectacle. It is one of the wonders of the world. 
 Keflect upon the racial, lingual religions, moral and 
 architectural diversity of the Eoman Empire of the 
 British Empire. Contrast the American Empire with 
 the empire of Austria-Hungary, where in a territory 
 comprising only 240,000 square miles, less than a 
 fourteenth part of the area of America, we find such 
 a diversity of language that the printed money expresses 
 
 1 " The days of diversity are numbered," cries out Professor Sedgwick. 
 " All races are trimmed, lopped, and squeezed into the American mould. Miss 
 Wilkins s New Englanders, Bret Harte s miners, Owen Wister s ranchmen 
 are passing away." 
 
 2 H. L. West, " The President s Tour, 1 in The Forum, August, 1901. 
 
PROGRESS AND CHARACTER 235 
 
 the denomination of each note in above a dozen different 
 characters, where the debates in the Eeichsrath resembles 
 Babel itself. And we know that Austria-Hungary is, in 
 truth, a much betinkered structure, in imminent danger 
 of collapse ; while, on the other hand, America, in spite 
 of its size, is a unit, complete, not inharmonious, resting 
 on solid foundations. 
 
 Some years ago it was openly declared that the 
 people west of the Rocky Mountains were able and 
 willing to exist independently of their Eastern brethren. 
 The acquisition of the Philippines and Hawaii has 
 brought East and West together in mutual interests 
 and intercourse. More Eastern people visited San 
 Francisco in the three years following the war with 
 Spain than had travelled to the coast in the thirty 
 years previously. The Rocky Mountain barriers have 
 been razed to the ground. No longer on the outermost 
 edge of America the Pacific Coast capital is now a 
 halting place on the way to Manila, the capital of 
 Oriental America, two hundred miles farther on. 
 
 The redemption of the West and South from the 
 barbarity and often bloodthirsty localisms, formerly dis 
 tinguishing those sections, is only to be regretted by 
 the novelist and playwright, and perhaps those of us 
 who lament the disappearance of the picturesque. " The 
 Texan," we are told, " likes to be told that he lives in 
 a great State. He looks forward to the time, apparently 
 not far distant, when Texas will be the Empire State. 
 Above all, he is anxious that the Eastern visitor shall 
 observe that wealth and culture, refinement and intelli 
 gence, are not strangers within the Texas border." 
 There may still exist in the innermost recesses of the 
 
236 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 State the typical "bad man" with black flowing 
 moustache, and ever-ready pistol ; but he is not in 
 evidence to the tourist. The reception to Mr. McKinley 
 in the capital of Austin brought together a throng of 
 as fashionably-dressed and beautiful women as would 
 have graced any function in the East. 
 
 Nothing could better illustrate the change which has 
 come over the South than an episode in the tour of the 
 late President, in the typical Southern city of Vicksburg, 
 Mississippi, where the fortifications of the Civil War 
 still remain, although covered with grassy lawns, he 
 saw an arch formed by cotton bales, bearing the single 
 word " Expansion." 
 
 It was remarked as significant that in the city where 
 this display occurred, the reception of the President was 
 most demonstrative in its nature. It is a great cotton 
 
 o 
 
 mart, Englishmen, Germans, Italians, French, represen 
 tatives of every commercial nation constantly reside 
 here, for the purchase of this great staple and its 
 shipment abroad. The cotton-growers realize the value 
 of these foreign markets ; they know that they must 
 go beyond America to find buyers for their surplus 
 stock, and they were quick to perceive that the war 
 with Spain opened to them the markets of the East. 
 
 For them China and the Philippines have ceased 
 to be mere names on the map, and become the homes 
 of millions of human beings who are clothed in the 
 product of the cotton loom. Within less than sixteen 
 months after the war with Spain, the exports of cotton 
 goods to Manchuria alone had increased by over ten 
 million dollars. Is it surprising then, that the com 
 mercial instinct of the South, so long dormant, should 
 
PROGRESS AND CHARACTER 237 
 
 have awakened, and that the cry of " the open door 
 for southern cotton" should find an enthusiastically 
 responsive echo from the lips of men so long indifferent 
 to international policy ? 
 
 When the President talked of the great opportunities 
 awaiting the American cotton-planters, and emphasized 
 the opening avenue of trade as a further incentive to 
 industry and energy, he was cheered with a yell as 
 ear-piercing as that which thrilled Pickett s men at 
 Gettysburg. It may not be new blood in the veins 
 of the Southern people, but it is blood which is coursing 
 with new sensations. These Southerners were learning 
 the value of the dollar. They are realizing that the 
 practical business side of a question is to be preferred 
 to the sentimental. 
 
 For a long time the States of the vanquished Con 
 federacy held aloof from commercialism. A dozen years 
 ago, when I was temporarily resident in Georgia, the 
 most advanced of the Southern States, it was still 
 deprecated as a northern trait, which could only be 
 cultivated by northerners in that region. Even now, 
 politicians of the old school continue to resent the 
 development of commercialism which is honeycombing 
 the political structure of the South. But the new 
 element the business element in Southern politics 
 they are powerless to withstand. It is the logical 
 sequence of new conditions in their part of America ; 
 of the growing wealth and prosperity which marks 
 every State. All the cotton used to be sent North, 
 or to England ; now the mills beside the railway line 
 of nearly every town are monuments of commercial 
 development. The diversification of the crops in the 
 
238 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 South, long and fairly urged, has become realized. In 
 Alabama, vast fields of corn have taken the place of 
 cotton ; many of the valleys yield immense returns as 
 grazing lands, or when sown with potatoes. Garden 
 vegetables and fruit, such as melons and strawberries, 
 are raised in profusion for shipment to the North. 
 Moreover, the northern immigrant and the southern 
 native are dwelling together in harmony. Commer 
 cialism has already broken down the barriers of sectional 
 sentiment. 
 
 Not much more than a decade ago San Francisco 
 was but little more than a name to the average dweller 
 in the east, from which it was separated by a tedious 
 and costly railway journey. The Pacific coast was a 
 section apart from the rest of the country. Its merchants 
 habitually spoke of " importing " merchandise from the 
 States ? But during the last few years there has 
 journeyed a steady procession, mostly armed men from 
 East to West, all of them gathering numbers as they 
 pass, and all animated by a single purpose all active, 
 intelligent and patriotic. But for the event of the War 
 with Spain, these Eastern men would never have known 
 personally the Pacific coast, or have held a close com 
 munity of interest with their fellow-republicans 3000 
 miles distant. 
 
 San Francisco, more than any other city, has 
 experienced practical benefits from expansion. It is 
 the entrepot of America s commerce with the East. 
 Its docks have been thronged with thousands of soldiers 
 hastening to Manila, while returning regiments have 
 beheld the outlines of the Golden Gates with delight. 
 The enormous supplies for the Philippines and the late 
 
PROGRESS AND CHARACTER 239 
 
 American Army in China were broken in bulk at San 
 Francisco, and the transfer from train to transport, has 
 given employment to thousands. And it is but the 
 beginning. Henceforward the argosies that sail the 
 Pacific will increase in number and value, until New 
 York s maritime importance on the eastern seaboard 
 may be counterbalanced by San Francisco on the 
 Western. 
 
 Nearly all the European critics of the American 
 Union the last seventy years have laid stress upon 
 the nation s lack of a true capital. How, they asked, 
 can a nation possess any solidarity in matters of art, 
 taste, dress, and speech, when half a dozen cities spread 
 over 3,000,000 square miles of territory contend for the 
 honour of being the arbiters in such matters. 
 
 To-day a visit to Washington would convince them 
 that the nominal capital is in a fair way to become 
 the ideal capital. 
 
 While Washington may never become the " greatest 
 commercial emporium " of America, which President 
 Washington hoped it might, yet every census reveals, 
 perhaps to the astonishment of Washingtonians, a 
 striking increase in its commercial wealth. Manu 
 factures have been discouraged rather than encouraged, 
 yet they have increased until, in 1890, products to the 
 value of nearly $40,000,000 were recorded. It has 
 been remarked that the per capita wealth of the city 
 has been kept in advance of the whole country since 
 1860. 
 
 Since the Civil Service law was enacted in 1883, 
 each President has been able to render the tenure of 
 office in the executive departments more secure, and 
 
240 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 one result of this lias been a marked improvement in 
 the character and tone of Washington society. 
 
 There are in the capital employed under the Federal 
 Government no fewer than 20,000 persons, to whom the 
 sum of $23,000,000 is paid annually. These 20,000 
 officials with their families represent 80,000 of the 
 city s population. " So large a group too, representing 
 intelligent men and women, reflects the highest civiliza 
 tion, and insists upon the best moral and intellectual 
 conditions. So the churches of Washington flourish, 
 and its schools rank with the first in the land." 
 
 Amongst these office-holders are now a larger 
 number of scientific men than are to be found in any 
 other American city. They are chiefly members of the 
 ever-increasing scientific bureau of the Government. 
 They form a distinct and important class, maintaining 
 half a dozen learned societies, and furnishing the largest 
 element in one of the three most important clubs. 
 They will be increased by the impending establishment 
 of the Carnegie Institute. 
 
 But when we have thus paid tribute to America s 
 growth, wealth, and unity, let us not exaggerate her 
 moral importance in the world. 
 
 The true greatness of a nation is in its character, 
 its power to speak with one voice, and that voice to 
 be strong, and just, and intelligent ; it must be able to 
 fill a leading role in the drama of civilization and world- 
 progress. 1 
 
 1 His country s future commonly presents itself all roseate to the American 
 who has not yet acquired the thinking habit, but it would be hard to parallel 
 this for optimism so healthy as to be boisterous. 
 
 " We anticipate that within the life period of the majority of those who 
 will read these lines, America will dominate the world in literature, art, 
 
PROGRESS AND CHARACTER 241 
 
 New American civilization, it has been truly said, 
 has come to " centre about the conception of life as a 
 matter of industrial energy." 
 
 Must it not be something of a reproach to a nation 
 that when she is assailed savagely, unjustly, if you 
 will as she was assailed by a leading English review 
 at the outbreak of the Hispano-American War no 
 adequate rejoinder rises instantly to the lips even of 
 a fair-minded onlooker ? 
 
 "Wipe out Spain and America and their achievements 
 to-morrow, and which of them would be mourned by civiliza 
 tion? Should we miss the iron, and the oil, and the corn, 
 and the pigs, or the poetry of de Vega, the art of Velasquez, 
 the immortal fiction of Cervantes. A nation that is barren 
 in every branch of creative art may be rich in material goods 
 but all its millions will not buy it immortality in the world s 
 judgment-book." 
 
 \Ve may say wealth is greatness ; but, even so, surely 
 that wealth ought to be diffused amongst the people 
 
 science, finance, commerce and Christianity ; and believing, as we do believe, 
 that by virtue of the intelligence, industry, and conscience of her people, she 
 is the nation best fitted to hold that commanding position, it becomes the 
 chief mission of this journal to hasten the day, and to help to perfect the 
 equipment of those upon whom the responsibility must fall for the successful 
 performance of their duty, progress, and civilization." 
 
 This is not from the Oshkosh Clarion, but from that well-known journal 
 O f light and leading Harper s Weekly. 
 
 From this boasting it will be thought that America is but little changed. 
 " We are, 1 wrote Sydney Smith in 1820, " the friends and admirers of Jonathan. 
 But he must not grow vain and ambitious, or allow himself to be dazzled by 
 that galaxy of epithets by which his orators and newspaper scribblers 
 endeavour to persuade their supporters that they are the greatest, the most 
 refined, the most enlightened, and the most moral people on the earth. The 
 effect of this is unspeakably ludicrous on this side of the Atlantic, and even 
 on the other, we should imagine, must be rather humiliating to the reason 
 able part of the population." 
 
 R 
 
242 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 of all sections. America cannot be great in this sense, 
 because half her population is ill-housed, ill-fed, and 
 ill- clothed. She presents only her finer side to Europe. 
 
 Let us cut ourselves loose from this habit of megalo 
 mania ; let us see America in her true proportions. 
 There is, and always has been, with us a sect which sees 
 in America a great, and noble, and powerful champion 
 of freedom and civilization, the splendid redresser of 
 balances ; her political institutions and her wide moral 
 and physical latitudes come in for their whole-souled 
 applause. There was and is another school which throve 
 upon detraction of America. 1 Both lack knowledge. 
 
 Does America s action before the world express her 
 spiritual life ? Every nation, every people has a life of 
 the spirit ; and nearly always, at least in the older 
 nations, the collective deeds which go to form its outer 
 character, bear a just relation to its ideals. As those 
 ideals, as that spiritual power, is potent and deep, weak 
 and shallow, so is the worth of a race to be gauged. 
 
 " There is," says a distinguished American, 2 "in the 
 heart of every race a group of ideas, which may be called 
 ideals, since they express the passions, the faith, and 
 aspirations of the people. There is also in the same 
 race a power of action, and an executive ability, a skill 
 in doing ; and the real national problem is the co 
 ordination of those two sides of life : the side of idea, 
 and the side of action. " 
 
 1 But of course, as I am reminded, the larger part of the world has 
 never until lately thought of America at all, or if they did the image they 
 vaguely conjured up was that of a " lop-eared, shaggy, hulking, raw-boned, 
 braggart among the nations, marvellous for its size, its dyspepsia, its politics 
 and its millionaires." 
 
 2 Professor Hamilton Mabie. 
 
PROGRESS AND CHARACTER 243 
 
 Two things, according to M. Brunetiere, stand in the 
 way of the higher civilization in America, namely, the 
 great distance between the centres of social and in 
 dustrial activity, and the spirit of commercialism. There 
 is, indeed, as yet no co-ordination of intellectual standard 
 and aims; the development of its land, its minerals, 
 and its trade. 
 
 It is one of the profoundest symptoms of real worth 
 in America, that her people are now beginning to con 
 fess they have much to learn from the older nations 
 lessons in efficiency, economy, and administrative in 
 telligence. 
 
 " It will," writes the same able American, " indicate 
 greater confidence in our own institutions when we give 
 up boasting, and are willing to go to school to any 
 people who can teach us." 
 
 When America will abandon that pharisaical pre 
 tence of contentment with her own institutions, when 
 she can bring herself to believe that there are 
 spiritual and aesthetic needs which her form of govern 
 ment does not and cannot supply, when her people, in 
 short, acquire humility, and tolerance, and reverence, 
 she will seem to certain of her neighbours worthier of 
 emulation. 
 
 Wise men have told them that ornament is one of 
 the wants of human nature ; and yet they have not 
 taken the lesson seriously to heart, although uncon 
 sciously seeking to gratify this want on every possible 
 occasion. Thousands go abroad to feast their eyes on 
 the pomp and pageant of older lands ; but it must not 
 be thought that all those at home are cut off from glory. 
 Their military uniforms wax more splendid ; never are 
 
244 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 they prouder than when carrying gaudy banners and 
 flaunting gaudy badges. At least five million males in 
 America belong to secret societies, foresters, knights of 
 labour, etc., the membership of which comprises the 
 precious privilege of wearing a sash, gold lace, or a 
 flaming rosette. And these are the people with their 
 " Senators " and " Honourables," and judges and colonels, 
 who can reproach us with our traditions, our outward 
 marks of inward grace, who can affect to regard us with 
 amused tolerance. " They are children to us in certain 
 points of view. They are playing with toys we have 
 done with for whole generations. That silly little drum 
 they are always beating on, and the trumpet and the 
 feather they make so much noise and cut such a figure 
 with, we have not quite outgrown, but play with much 
 less seriously and constantly than they do. Then there is 
 a whole museum of wigs, and masks, and lace coats, and 
 gold sticks, and grimaces and phrases which we laugh at 
 honestly, without affectation that are still used in the 
 old-world puppet-show." l 
 
 Yet is it not strange that amidst the throngs that 
 line the streets, where these " puppet shows " pass, the 
 most eager, the most appreciative, almost the most 
 numerous, were Dr. Holmes s compatriots pressing 
 forward for place, reckless of inconvenience and expense, 
 thirstily elbowing the old world " children " aside. 
 
 It is difficult, often amusingly difficult, to make the 
 mass of Americans understand that Britain is also a 
 republic and a democracy; that there is far more justice 
 and freedom there than in their own country. The old 
 idea of despotism still lingers, often in unexpected 
 
 1 " Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." 
 
PROGRESS AND CHARACTER 245 
 
 quarters, and the prototyye of the Jefferson City editor, 
 who " mailed " a copy of his little sheet across the 
 Atlantic, confident that the anti-monarchical onslaught 
 it contained would make " Queen Victoria tremble in 
 her Tower of London " is still to be found. Americans at 
 large either possess exaggerated notions of the British 
 royal prerogative and of British institutions, or else they 
 ludicrously under-rate both, faults chiefly arising from 
 their cynicism and lack of political seriousness, perhaps 
 also to their want of perspective. But an American is 
 never to be trusted by his speech. He is laughing even 
 when he seems sincerest, and his derision often veils a 
 deep and honest respect. One might apostrophize him 
 in the language used by the Saracen to the Christian 
 knight : " You are of a nation that loves to laugh, and 
 you make sport with yourselves and with others, by 
 telling what is impossible, and reporting what never 
 chanced." l 
 
 Yet he is occasionally startled out of his affectation 
 and his cynicism, as when, for instance, one of his 
 fellow-countrymen, whom he cannot well accuse of 
 servility or mental decrepitude, bodily tells him the 
 truth. When Mr. Waldorf Astor cast off his allegiance 
 to America there was the usual cry of " snob " and 
 " tuft-hunter," but what could they say to Mr. Bret 
 Harte who " preferred the freer life of England," or of 
 Mr. Henry James, or Mr. Sargent, Mr. Abbey, Mr. 
 Boughton, and a score of others. Even as I write, the 
 newspapers contain an account of the naturalization of 
 Major Alexander Davis, a wealthy New Yorker, who 
 tells his countrymen that there is " a larger measure of 
 
 1 " The Talisman," chap. i. 
 
246 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 individual freedom in England than there is in America, 
 although," he adds dryly, " I suppose it would be hard 
 to find any American who would acknowledge that." 
 Another of his sentences catches the eye : " Somehow 
 one leaves all small prejudices behind when one lives 
 in London for any length of time." Ah, America is 
 the land of prejudices ; a wide, a charitable latitudi- 
 narianism is reserved for the few ; the shadow of Salem 
 and Plymouth Eock is over the land ; and the spirit 
 of wide tolerance whieh England has achieved is not 
 yet to be enjoyed. It is not merely the prejudice 
 against here the rich man, here the well-dressed man, 
 there against the black man : it is the widespread habit 
 of judging men and matters by their externals that is 
 most deplorable. 1 
 
 Every nation possesses a moral and intellectual 
 atmosphere of its own. Its people breed it, and imbibe 
 certain characteristics not easily understood or condoned 
 by other races. An American, with all his adaptability, 
 can hardly ever look at the world from the side we 
 others would fain choose. Too often he looks out from 
 back windows upon back windows. 
 
 I cannot forbear quoting a more pregnant passage 
 from Dr. Wendell Holmes, written in the fulness of 
 years and wisdom : " All sentiment," he confesses, " is 
 dying out of our people no loyalty for the sovereign, 
 
 1 I once read in a famous Southern newspaper this bitter dictum on 
 Tolstoi : " We do not need to read this man s books to form an estimate of 
 his character. His portrait shows him to be what he is an evil, lying, and 
 bestial fanatic. You can see the man by his face." 
 
 In no country do appearances count for so much as in America. A man 
 must look the part to play the part, and if Nature has been unkind in this 
 respect, it will take more than an average lifetime to overcome the popular 
 prejudice. 
 
PROGRESS AND CHARACTER 247 
 
 the king-post of political edifice ; no deep attachment 
 between employer and employed ; no reverence of the 
 humbler members of a household for its heads ; and to 
 make sure of continued corruption and misery universal 
 suffrage supplying all the great sewers into the great 
 aqueduct we must all drink from." Yet, if the doctor 
 could have lived until 1925, he might have taken a 
 less pessimistic view. " Even now we behold the union 
 which is formed through intermarriage with American 
 millionairism with European, and particularly with the 
 British aristocracy, and the growing eagerness of 
 American wealth to find admission to the Courts and 
 the Court circles of Europe. Between militarism and 
 aristocracy there is a subtle bond ; and militarism may 
 open the door through which aristocracy will find 
 its way." l 
 
 Is it altogether without significance that such 
 honours as Dewey s and Hobson s can be won by 
 military and naval success, w T hile a public career in 
 civil life carries with it, unless successful, the stamp of 
 vulgarity, almost of disgrace ? 
 
 The Americans probably never show themselves to 
 greater disadvantage than when belauding a hero of 
 their own choice. Even when the object of their 
 
 1 Professor Goldwin Smith. 
 
 But there is a worse feature of Europeanization which Americans may 
 well dread. The marriage customs of Europe are making great strides in 
 America. The financial standing of the parties are growing more important 
 in marriage than their personal qualities. " As we depart," remarks Professor 
 Fetter," from the simpler conditions of the colonial and pioneer period in this 
 country considerations of social relations, of family influence, and of other 
 factors which may further the interests of the individual contracting the 
 marriage are more and more allowed to enter into the prejudice of the 
 interests of posterity." 
 
248 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 adulation is a worthy man, the maudlin character of the 
 tribute offends the universe ; when he is unworthy, it 
 makes all decent people, in and out of the republic, 
 despair. The miserable achievement of the American 
 officer Funston, which would make a Briton hide his 
 head in shame, is made an object-lesson in gallantry. 
 Funston is held up by public-school teachers as a model 
 hero and patriot. " If this Funstonian boom continues, * 
 writes Mr. Clemens, " Funstonianism will presently affect 
 the army. In fact, this had already happened. There 
 are weak-headed and weak-principled officers in all 
 armies, and these are always ready to imitate successful 
 notoriety breeding methods, let them be good or bad. 
 The fact that Funston has achieved notoriety by para 
 lyzing the universe with fresh and hideous ideas is 
 sufficient for this kind." Among the fruits of Funston s 
 example are the torturing of the Filipinos by the 
 awful " water-cure," and General Smith s world-famous 
 order : " Kill and burn ! This is not a time to take 
 prisoners. The more you kill and burn, the better. 
 Kill all above the age of ten. Make Samar a howling 
 wilderness ! " Suppose a British officer in India or 
 South Africa had given such an order ! 
 
 If a neighbour critic may say so frankly, there is 
 no people which has greater need to hold up to itself 
 constantly high ideals of conduct and morals because 
 there is no people who struggle so passionately for 
 material advantages, and are, therefore, most exposed 
 to temptation in the methods by which they may gain 
 it. They may be said to have, at present, chiefly 
 executive energy without depth of idea or spiritual 
 direction. Their school of character is action per- 
 
PROGRESS AND CHARACTER 249 
 
 petual action and they know little of that calm philo 
 sophical force, which takes in life without relation to 
 externals, or to noise and movement. Yet the paths 
 converge at last almost to the same ends, for, as we 
 have been told, " action instantly tracts on character, 
 modifies ideas, makes them more definite, and grounds 
 them more deeply," whereby the professor and the 
 practiser reach the same conclusions. 
 
 I had intended to devote some space to religion in 
 America, but the subject is not easily handled, and 
 might prove invidious. Students of America s begin 
 nings are aware that half the colonies owed their origin 
 to a desire to " worship God freely ; " in other words, 
 the people were dissenters. The Episcopal, or Anglican, 
 Church was in the minority in nearly all sections. 
 There is to-day no State Church, yet the rapid growth 
 of Episcopalianism is great and universal. It is the 
 Church of which the President and the leading members 
 of the Government are communicants. It is the Church, 
 not merely of the better classes, but its growth and 
 influence now extend into all parts of the country. 
 
 While all religions continue to flourish in America, 
 yet one important new influence is the gradual eflace- 
 rnent of Puritanism and Bible reading amongst the 
 masses, especially in childhood. American literature, 
 under American thought and speech, has, from the 
 earliest times, been permeated as Biblicism ; even 
 journalism and humorous writing has been indebted to 
 Scripture for many of its points, which, in Britain, have 
 been thought almost profane. Men and women from 
 childhood have been saturated with the writings of the 
 prophets and apostles. But with the banishment of the 
 
250 THE NEW AMERICA 
 
 Bible from the common schools in many States, owing 
 to the jealousies of the sectarians, this Hebraistic 
 influence disappears. 1 
 
 Mr. Thistelton Mark, however, draws attention to 
 the fact that there are signs of a movement in America 
 in favour of the extension of direct ethical teaching. A 
 considerable number of schools have been started in 
 connection with different religious denominations, and 
 this rival movement has, to some extent, placed the 
 public schools on the defensive, and has led to more 
 emphasis being laid on the moral side of education. 
 Another interesting outcome of the same movement is 
 to be found in the ethical culture schools of New York, 
 which seek to provide indirect moral teaching a substi 
 tute for definite religious instruction. 
 
 1 An educational conference, held in 1902, placed on record a resolution 
 deploring the exclusion of the Bible from the common schools. The regret 
 expressed is based on literary, and not on theological grounds. The English 
 Bible is spoken of as " a literary work of the highest and purest type," and 
 it is alleged that its influence is gradually ceasing to permeate American 
 books. President Eliot, of Harvard, recently observed that " the mythologies, 
 Old Testament stories, fairy tales, and historical romances on which we are 
 accustomed to feed the childish mind contain a great deal that is perverse, 
 barbarous, or trivial, and to this infiltration into children s minds generation 
 after generation of immoral, cruel, or foolish ideas is probably to be attributed 
 in part the slow ethical progress of the race." 
 
APPENDIX I 
 
 THE NATIONAL TITLE 
 
 IN nation-making it is a decided advantage to start with a 
 distinctive name in the world. The importance of a national 
 title ought not to be under-rated : for if Eome occupied fifteen 
 centuries in her fall, it was less owing to her constitution and 
 puissance than to the tenacity of the epithet, which was inherited 
 successively by Goths and Vandals, Turks and Slavs, and tribes 
 who knew and cared nothing for the cradle of the Eoman race, 
 called themselves Eomans, and arrogated to themselves the name 
 and prestige of Eome. 
 
 It is a curiosity of nomenclature that there should have 
 arisen in one of the great Commonwealths of the world popular 
 doubt and uncertainty concerning its own national title. 
 
 Titles of great States, it is true, usually develop historically : 
 the dominant faction gives its name to the entire people. 
 On the other hand, they are occasionally the result of accident 
 or of ignorance. China is not China to the Chinese. Germany 
 is not Germany to the Germans, and Holland is no more Holland 
 to the Netherlander than the Netherlander are the " Dutch." 
 
 It is worth observing that there has not been in continental 
 Europe so careful a restriction of the term " America " to the 
 republic as was formerly customary. Up to a very recent 
 period the majority of Europeans, with scant appreciation 
 of a distinction, which the peoples concerned have agreed to 
 respect, between the national and continental designations, 
 have been addicted to describing Canadians, Mexicans, 
 
 25 1 
 
252 APPENDIX I 
 
 Nicaraguans, and indeed all other races inhabiting the Western 
 Hemisphere as "Americans." But a study of America s 
 genesis will show us that to be a native of " North America " 
 no more constitutes an " American " than a common European 
 origin and residence would be justification for branding a German 
 as an Austrian, or a Frenchman as a Swede. " America " is a 
 national designation of a single country ; x " North America " is 
 a continental designation, which includes several countries. 
 
 Prior to 1771 the term, we find, had a somewhat vague 
 significance. The greater part of the continent was a terra 
 incognita: Hearne, Mackenzie, and Vancouver had not yet 
 penetrated into the North-west: the Mississippi Valley was 
 as La Salle left it : the Pacific Ocean was supposed to begin 
 where Denver now stands. Yet vague as the continental 
 definition then was, to Englishmen and their colonial kinsmen 
 the terms America and American had long been applied almost 
 exclusively to the thirteen colonies and the hinterland. Thus 
 we find on the Louisburg medal of 1758 a rude outline of the 
 Continent, with divisions inscribed " America " and " Canada," 
 the former occupying the position of the English Colonies on 
 the map. 
 
 But after the conquest of Canada we find a growing dis 
 position on the part of the English colonists to claim the whole 
 Continent for America. They naturally assumed, reckoning 
 without their host, that Canada would be ready to throw in 
 its lot with them in the struggle now impending with the 
 Mother country, and that Spain would be forced to relinquish 
 her hold on the south and west. Thus we see the rise of the 
 term " Continental " as applied to the " Continental " Congress 
 and the " Continental " Army. This had, however, but a brief 
 vogue ; the colonists were soon undeceived as regards Canada, 
 which elected to continue a member of the British Empire. 
 
 1 " Canada," said Jolin Adams, " is still an appanage of the British Crown 
 in North America." America, however, was independent. " Whereas, the dele 
 gates of the United States of America, in Congress assembled ... in the second 
 year of the independence of America." 
 
 Article 1 of the Articles of Confederation says, " The style of the Confederacy 
 shall be The United States of America. " 
 
THE NATIONAL TITLE 253 
 
 " Continent " x was dropped as applying to the revolting colonies, 
 and the old term America began to have a still more restricted 
 application to the Atlantic sea-board. When, in 1776, John 
 Adams proposed to his friends Hancock and Jefferson the title 
 of " The United States of America " for the thirteen seceding 
 English Colonies, he was unaware that anything indefinite, in 
 adequate, or contrary to accepted custom dwelt in such a title. 
 
 On the contrary, his idea clearly was that the brand-new 
 unification of Colonies (or States) should boast the exclusive 
 title of "America," the designation of the inhabitants thereof 
 being Americans. We know that the colonists, in convention 
 assembled at Philadelphia, fully understood and acquiesced in 
 the title. It was free to them to choose any name, as other 
 new peoples had done, and several such were proposed, but 
 America" was tacitly agreed upon. 2 We know, also, that 
 in the English Parliamentary speeches of the time, Pitt, Fox, 
 and Burke habitually refer to America as a country quite 
 separate and distinct from Canada, Louisiana, Florida, California, 
 or Mexico, contiguous countries at that period. 3 In the early 
 literature of the new country we rarely come across "United 
 States" as meaning America, certainly not oftener than we 
 encounter United Kingdom as implying Great Britain and 
 Ireland. In the works of Irving, of Hawthorne, of Emerson, 
 and of Thoreau, the phrase, America, occurs as frequently and 
 
 1 Franklin, more enlightened than the rest, was one of the first to protest 
 against the assumption that the English king s dominion " embraced the larger 
 part of the Continent." 
 
 To realize the absurdity of confusing America, after 1776, with the Continent 
 of North America, we have only to be told that America (i.e. the thirteen states) 
 comprised only 820,680 square miles of territory, whereas the Continent possesses 
 nearly 8,000,000 square miles. 
 
 When the Due de Noailles, in 1778, delivered a declaration to the British 
 Government acknowledging the treaty between France and the " United States 
 of North America," the American envoy, Lee, called attention to the blunder. 
 The erroneous phraseology also evoked comment in Congress, whose members 
 were as well aware of the difference between America, the new nation, and North 
 America, the continent, as that between North and South Carolina, or New York 
 the city, and New York the state. 
 
 3 "It is the avowed policy of Europe," wrote Jay, "to restrict America to a 
 set of States." Vergennes, on behalf of France, continually refers to America, 
 in contradistinction to Canada and Louisiana. 
 
254 APPENDIX I 
 
 as spontaneously whenever either of these writers wishes to 
 refer to his native country as it comes with rarity and reluctance 
 in the American essayists and novelists after the Civil War. 1 
 
 The exact moment when our American cousin began to 
 suspect his exclusive right to the term " America " is difficult to 
 ascertain. Some would hasten to put it at the period of the 
 Civil War, and the subsequent insistence upon the term " United 
 States " in the national speech and literature as a flaunting in the 
 face of those who would not have wept to see them fe-united. 
 But it would seem as if the real significance of " America " as a 
 national epithet, as national as Brazil to the Brazilians, or as 
 "Deutschland to the Germans after 1870, had passed out of 
 people s minds in the republic, they dwelling more on the 
 word or phrase which described their federate character than 
 that more important word which denoted their country on the 
 map. For the South Carolinians, the Virginians, the Mississip- 
 pians and the rest, when they came, in 1860, to the task of 
 creating a separate nation, ventured no farther afield in the way 
 of national title than " Confederate States of America," a dis 
 tinction which is not to Europeans much clearer than if, as a 
 result of civil war in these islands, a " Confederated Kingdom 
 of Great Britain and Ireland " should rise in opposition to the 
 one at present happily existing. It is significant that the 
 critical period coincided with the growth of our American 
 cousins continental neighbours, Canada and Mexico. 2 
 
 Probably the reason why the term was in abeyance for so 
 long a period after the Civil War was the great expansion of 
 the republic. A shoal of new States being added, all of which 
 
 1 Thus, Hon. John Jay (in opposition to Winsor, who erroneously uses the 
 term) invariably employs the current phrase, as, " Vergennes argued that the 
 fisheries America had renounced with the British Crown . . . Vergennes had 
 ulterior reasons for keeping America out of the fisheries, the nursery of sea 
 men, for he did not wish America to become a naval power. See "Winsor," 
 vol. vii. p. 90. 
 
 2 Certainly since the writing of his national anthem, whose title is " America," 
 and which begins 
 
 " My Country, tis of thee, 
 Sweet land of Liberty, 
 Of Thee I sing ! " 
 
THE NATIONAL TITLE 255 
 
 took pride in being added to the Union. For to the people 
 of the territories, it was a reproach not to belong to " the 
 States." There were no States between Missouri and the 
 Eocky Mountains, so that one can understand how the custom 
 of speaking exclusively of the United States became general 
 in the West. 1 
 
 Then again the terms for the Continent and the country 
 are undoubtedly confusing. 2 Those familiar with manners and 
 colloquialisms in the States are aware that for some thirty 
 years prior to 1898, while the adjective " American " has been 
 in general use, the noun " America " has been extremely rare. 
 Surprising as it may be to Englishmen to be told the fact, one 
 might, up to that annus mirabilis, have travelled five thousand 
 miles and read a hundred books and newspapers without ever 
 having once come across it ; " United States " being almost 
 invariably the term employed by the American for his own 
 country whether at home or abroad. 
 
 In times past the phrase " United States " in its application 
 to America has lain open to the charge of deep, and even 
 humiliating obscurity. It is not so long ago that "United 
 States " received rather a rude shock. An American tourist 
 presenting himself at the Vatican with an intimation that he 
 hailed from the " United States," was asked by an official of 
 the Papal Court 
 
 "Columbia, Mexico, Brazil, America, or Chile?" a col 
 lection of names and nationalities not flattering to Yankee 3 
 pride. 
 
 Their amiable conceit in persistently referring to their 
 country as " the Bepublic," as though there was no other 
 
 1 In those days when west of the Kooky Mountains, and even east, there 
 were no " States " but only " territories," the inhabitants of those regions not 
 yet admitted to the full privileges of the Union always spoke of going east as 
 going to " the States." 
 
 2 There are those who continue to speak of the "American Continent." 
 Which is it ? Surely they do not mean to apply the term to both Continents. 
 
 3 The popularization of the term " Yankee " amongst the Americans, east 
 and west, north and south, is another result of the Hispano- American conflict, 
 The Spaniards threw it at the Americans as an insult ; the latter, even the 
 Southerners, accepted it with the best grace in the world. Yankee is, of course, 
 an Indian corruption of Anglais. 
 
256 APPENDIX I 
 
 republic, has already been likened by M. Paul Bourget to the 
 Chinese failing in speaking of "the Empire" as though there 
 were no other empires. The Chinese, indeed, in their arrogance, 
 have never found any need for any particular national desig 
 nation for themselves, " China " and " Chinese " being terms 
 of Occidental invention. Since the war with Spain, the best 
 speakers and writers in the States have employed with freedom 
 a term which, though long familiar and frequent in these isles, 
 the Americans themselves have very carefully avoided. 1 
 
 1 Having thus awakened to the fact of their exclusive title, it is amusing 
 to note the alacrity with which they laid hold of it, and how quick Americans 
 are to resent the imputation that they have no distinctive name amongst the 
 nations. 
 
 In the King s Speech at the opening of Parliament in 1902, reference was 
 made not to " America," or " The United States of America," as is usual, but to 
 * United States " tout court. This, one would have supposed, would have been 
 taken by Americans as a compliment. Nevertheless one alert American could 
 not suffer this to pass unchallenged, but wrote to Mr. Balfour in this strain 
 
 " SIR 
 
 " Will you permit me to inquire on behalf of a number of American 
 citizens, resident in London, and admirers of England and English institutions, 
 why, in the King s Speech of yesterday, the name of America was pointedly 
 omitted in referring to our country ? 
 
 "Is it not i recognized that America is our national designation: North 
 America and South America being the titles of Continents ? 
 
 " The use of the full title in the case of Brazil renders the omission all the 
 more significant. 
 
 " I am, Sir, etc., 
 
 " A. D. ENDICOTT." 
 Mr. Balfour replied as follows : 
 
 " Downing Street, 
 
 " June 25th, 1902. 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 * I have read your letter of the 17th with some surprise, as it seems 
 to imply that the omission of the words of America from the King s Speech 
 was intended to be derogatory to your country. I need not say that this is 
 a complete delusion. The words United States taken by themselves, without 
 further qualification, have, with us, invariable reference to the great republic 
 of which you are a citizen. There may be, and are, other * United States, 
 but that is the United States par excellence. 
 
 " Yours faithfully, 
 
 "ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR." 
 
 On the heels of this Dr. F. Pinto de Luz wrote to The Times to deprecate 
 a growing practice in this country, which he asserted is extremely offensive to 
 
THE NATIONAL TITLE 257 
 
 Nevertheless, United States of America will probably con 
 tinue to be with us, the United States par excellence, as the 
 British Premier says. 
 
 The American Government have given their own proper 
 national title slender official countenance ; nor has the term 
 figured for several decades in the messages of the United States 
 Presidents to the United States Congress. President Koosevelt, 
 in its writings, having made a practice of using the term 
 America, 1 before he was driven by virtue of his office to employ 
 the official Federal title, which is, only after all, inadequate 
 when addressing foreign nations. 2 
 
 Brazilians, of employing the term United States as if it referred solely to the 
 republic of the United States of America. * The Federal designation United 
 States was (he says) adopted by us in 1889 without any apprehension that it 
 would thereby confuse the general titles previously assumed by the republics 
 of America and Colombia. I trust it is not too late to point out to Englishmen 
 and to all Europeans that such Federal designation United States 
 is merely intended for local and domestic purposes in each of the republics 
 named, and not the national title, certainly not the exclusive possession, of a 
 single one abroad." 
 
 1 Thus, he writes, "America will become greater than any empire," etc. 
 " The Strenuous Life," 69. 
 
 2 Yet the difficulties under which the legal authorities have been labouring, 
 owing to this misapprehension of nomenclature, are numerous. Take a recent 
 decision of the Supreme Court (1901), where it is declared that the existing 
 Federal constitution was made for the United States, by which|term we under 
 stand the States, whose people united to form the Constitution, and such as have 
 since been admitted to the Union upon an equality with them. Had the 
 counsel of Hamilton been followed, and the term "America" been officially 
 used, how much more comprehensible would be the situation ? 
 
APPENDIX II 
 
 THE NEW TRUSTS AND THEIR MAKERS 
 
 IF the physiology of the Trust is yet far from being thoroughly 
 understood, the personality and methods of the Trust makers is 
 less so. Of the Trust system generally, it may be said that, 
 despite the many powerful and plausible arguments used in its 
 defence, these have hardly dispersed the many misgivings in 
 the minds of publicists concerning a system which offers one 
 of the sternest problems which the future has in store for the 
 United States of America. 
 
 Not the least significant or interesting feature of the Trust 
 movement has been the rapidity with which it has developed 
 from comparatively moderate beginnings thirty years ago to its 
 present position to-day, when the industrial combinations in 
 America represent a capital of one billion two hundred millions 
 sterling ; while during the single year 1899 Trusts were formed 
 to the extent of two billion dollars, which is a sum in excess 
 of the total currency in circulation amongst seventy millions of 
 people. 
 
 But the end is not yet, although the first stage of Trust 
 development may be said to have concluded ; it now remains 
 for the Trusts, which have swallowed up all separate industries 
 and destroyed competition, to devour themselves in other 
 words, for the "consolidations" to consolidate. The goal of 
 this movement, if not checked by some obstacle one cannot yet 
 foresee, would appear obviously to lie in the direction of an 
 industrial monarchy or oligarchy, in which one man or a hand 
 ful of men will control, not as now a million and a half or two 
 
 258 
 
THE NEW TRUSTS AND THEIR MAKERS 259 
 
 millions of artisans, but the entire labour, skilled and unskilled, 
 of the State; and from this stupendous position be able to 
 dictate both prices and wages to the inhabitants of the republic. 
 Mr. Carnegie once himself admitted as much, although appre 
 hending the intrusion of a factor, imperceptible as yet, which 
 would modify and perhaps totally prevent such a result. 
 
 But that, in the present conditions, such a result is neither 
 remote nor fanciful, has this very year been demonstrated by 
 the formation of a Steel Trust whose authorized capital of a 
 billion dollars embraces no fewer than nine separate Trusts, 
 which have enjoyed monopolies in various districts by the 
 complete absorption of competitive enterprises. The effect of 
 this novel tendency of which the United States Steel Corpora 
 tion is an example, will be nominally to reduce the number of 
 Trusts, indeed, but, at the same time, to render the greater 
 aggregations of manifold power, and it may be a source of 
 manifold danger to the future of the Commonwealth. Of the 
 one hundred and thirty organizations which to-day are classed 
 as Trusts in America, if the process of amalgamation continues, 
 as it threatens to do, scarce a dozen will exist in as many 
 years ; each combination being in control of the entire output 
 of steel, iron, oil, sugar, tobacco, furniture, cottons, woollens, 
 etc., of the country, instead of as now a large State or district. 
 
 The Trust system, which sprang into being early in the 
 " seventies," owed its foundation and origin to Mr. J. D. Kocke- 
 feller. Yet the consolidation of the oil-refining interests which 
 then took place was probably less the result of machinations 
 and manoeuvring on the part of this capitalist than a natural 
 perception on the part of the well-owners and refiners, of the 
 manifest advantages which would attend such an amalgamation 
 of the new industry which followed the discovery of the western 
 Pennsylvania oil-wells. They would thus be better able to 
 resist the aggression and overcharge of the railway companies, 
 which were doing their best to throttle commerce in that day. 
 By first threatening and afterwards, on numerous occasions, 
 actually fulfilling their threats to build lines of their own for 
 the transportation of their product, the railways were soon 
 brought to terms. The methods subsequently adopted by Mr. 
 
260 APPENDIX II 
 
 Eockefeller, at the head of the Standard Oil Company, were 
 deep and far-reaching, making competition virtually impossible 
 then, by underselling any rival who had the hardihood to oppose 
 them ; and less possible now than ever when the capital of the 
 Trust stands publicly at six hundred millions of dollars. From 
 dealing merely in oil it has branched out in correlative industries, 
 until it now manufactures its own tanks, cases, and cans; 
 besides owning its own railways, steamboats, trucks, and 
 delivery-vans, and directly managing the transportation of its 
 oil on all the railway lines of America. 
 
 In addition to all the huge mass of labour and enterprise 
 which is thus centralized in a single group of men or, more 
 properly, a single man this Trust has probably not less than 
 twenty millions sterling invested in the manufacture of by 
 products and proprietary articles well known to the English 
 as well as the American consumer. It is known to possess 
 some fifty millions sterling invested in railway securities, bank 
 ing deposits, and other forms of active capital. The power 
 which the Standard Oil Trust wields, industrial, financial, 
 political, in America, is one of the most astounding features of 
 transatlantic social and political econony. The head of this 
 Trust is, beyond dispute, the richest individual in the world, 
 boasting an annual income of certainly not less than five 
 millions sterling. 
 
 As for the Steel Trust, with its capital stock of $850,000,000 
 and a bonded indebtedness of $304,000,000, it stands nominally 
 as the superior of the Standard Oil Company, and perhaps 
 really is so. The leading spirit and organizer of this gigantic 
 combination of the steel interests is Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, 
 the New York financier, for whose services in connection there 
 with he has received three millions sterling in shares. That 
 these services have not been overpaid, if one chooses to regard 
 the transaction from the standpoint of a director of this Trust, 
 may be judged by the moral and financial responsibility entailed 
 upon Mr. Morgan during the critical moment when the Trust 
 was in process of formation. The stock of the various steel 
 companies had not been all acquired and might without warn 
 ing be converted into a weapon to lower the market value of 
 
THE NEW TRUSTS AND THEIR MAKERS 261 
 
 the acquired stock, and so ruin the promoter of the Trust. But 
 the great power in the money market which Mr. Morgan has 
 for some years possessed, enabled him to carry out the deal 
 successfully ; and the sum of twenty million dollars which he 
 had on deposit effectually frustrated the attempts of rival 
 financiers to thwart the Trust. 
 
 The presidency of the consolidation falls to Mr. C. M. 
 Schwab, who has succeeded Mr. Carnegie in the Steel Company 
 bearing the latter s name. It would be difficult to quote a 
 more striking instance of the rewards which good fortune, 
 accompanied by shrewdness and ability, often receive in 
 America than Mr. Carnegie s, unless it were that of his former 
 employee, Mr. Schwab. This new Trust magnate was born 
 and bred in an obscure Pennsylvanian town, and beginning 
 as a wage-earner at the age of fifteen, was given employment 
 in the Carnegie works in 1880. As an engineer he exhibited 
 such intelligence and skill as to earn Mr. Carnegie s approval 
 and his promotion to the post of chief engineer seven years 
 later. In the mean time Mr. Schwab had directed his attention 
 to the study of metallurgy and chemistry, and was soon able to 
 introduce several improvements in the manufacture of steel 
 plates. At the age of thirty-seven, or less than six years ago, 
 he was appointed to the chief control of the Carnegie Company 
 at a salary of twenty thousand pounds sterling, with forty 
 thousand workmen under his command. By the retirement 
 of Mr. Carnegie and the formation of the new Trust, he acquires 
 fifteen million dollars worth of stock and the presidency of a 
 combination employing not less than half a million of men and 
 over two hundred millions sterling of capital. 
 
 At the head of the Sugar Trust stands a well-known figure 
 in Mr. H. 0. Havemeyer, President of the American Sugar- 
 refining Company. It is this vast concern which, controlling 
 the gross output of refined sugar in the country, and regulating 
 the quality and price to the consumer, is prominent amongst 
 those Trusts persistently denounced as most inimical and even 
 dangerous to the interests of the community. The Trust was 
 formed several years ago by its present head and his brother, 
 the late Theodore Havemeyer ; all its refineries are under the 
 
262 APPENDIX II 
 
 superintendence of a single chemical expert, who is paid a 
 salary of fifty thousand dollars a year to devise "waste- 
 saving " contrivances, which, with the alleged consequent 
 deterioration of the product, affords one an insight into a 
 cardinal rule in the policy of the Trust. 
 
 Another combination, in importance perhaps next to the 
 Sugar Trust, is that whose president is Mr. J. B. Duke, and 
 which controls the tobacco commerce of America. In this 
 case, although there are nominally two great companies, each 
 with a capital of over eighty-five millions, in reality it is a 
 single concern, with a common president and board of directors, 
 and a common plan of offence and defence against competition. 
 The origin of this important trust is due to Mr. Duke himself, 
 who, in 1882, purchased, for less than 10,000, the controlling- 
 interest in a cigarette factory, established by his father in North 
 Carolina. At that time the competition amongst the New 
 York cigarette manufacturers was very strong ; the sum of a 
 million dollars annually spent upon advertising alone sufficing 
 to consume the profits. Mr. Duke undertook to confer with 
 the various leading manufacturers, with the result that these 
 agreed to consolidate their interests ; the success of this initial 
 Trust leading to the present further amalgamation of the tobacco 
 manufacturing interests. 
 
 Apart from the Trusts which deal in and affect the necessaries 
 of life and the commodities of modern domestic use, there is the 
 consolidation of interests in such appliances as the telegraph 
 and telephone. The Telephone Trust, of which the late Mr. 
 J. E. Hudson was the head, is a very thorough monopoly in 
 the district it covers, and had its organizer lived a few months 
 longer, its operations would have embraced a much wider field 
 and been itself of such far greater magnitude as to cause the 
 telephone system to be subordinate to the telegraph and cable 
 interests. 
 
 The Trust system began in the conception of a single jnan ; 
 and the Trusts are really in the hands of a much smaller group 
 of men to-day than would appear except by an examination of 
 the holdings in the several combinations ; and this group is, as 
 we have said, continually growing smaller. They have, for the 
 
THE NEW TRUSTS AND THEIR MAKERS 263 
 
 most part, risen from the ranks, and keep their own position 
 and maintain the status of the Trusts by sheer force of character, 
 financial knowledge, and unflagging energy. For, it is to be 
 observed, that the great power they wield is not to be trans 
 mitted to another in the ordinary course of inheritance or 
 bequest. The heads of the Trusts are paid great salaries for 
 the work they perform, inasmuch as they are the actual 
 managers as well as chief shareholders and figure-heads, and 
 those salaries may be said to be the fair reward of extraordinary 
 commercial ability. 
 
 But the initiative in the formation of Trusts, or the exten 
 sion of Trusts, lies, in the greater number of the newer instances 
 of combination, less with the heads of the Trusts, or the manu 
 facturers and producers of a commodity concerned, than with 
 certain speculators, who may be termed outsiders, who, noting 
 the tendency of the times and the opportunities offered for 
 amassing a vast fortune at a coup, have made it their business 
 to cast about in all directions of the industrial compass for 
 opportunities for acting as the mediums of amalgamation. 
 Mr. Leiter, for example, whose failure two or three years ago 
 in his attempt to form a Wheat Trust, was a speculator pure 
 and simple. And to this category must also belong one of the 
 most prolific and successful Trust organizers of the day, Mr. 
 Morgan, as well as Mr. W. H. Moore of Chicago, and Mr. A. N. 
 Brady of New York. 
 
 It is this new phase, and the existence of these new factors, 
 which constitutes the danger ; because it is a forced and 
 artificial process, one not naturally arising, which perhaps 
 never would arise, out of natural trade conditions. It is a 
 fiscal ability, and the speculative instinct grafted upon the best 
 talent for trade and commerce. 
 
 It also, but in a remoter sense, may be held to constitute 
 the safeguard against a commercial despotism ; because it will 
 soon grow as profitable to unmake Trusts as to make them. A 
 Trust is, in its essence, a tyranny ; but a plurality of tyrants is 
 incompatible with serious danger to the State. And, besides, 
 it may safely be assumed that in a republic like America not 
 even the strongest and most compact combination will altogether 
 
264 APPENDIX II 
 
 prevent merit from forcing its way through the barrier which 
 has thus been erected ; while, again, the burden to the consumer 
 can never be too great for his endurance if the monopoly of the 
 strongest Trust is not backed by Statute ; and if foreign com 
 petitors are not included in the sphere of the Trust s operations 
 or excluded by a too exalted protective customs tariff. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbey, E. A,, 228, 245 
 
 Adams, 4, 31 
 
 Adams, C. F., 30 
 
 Alaska, 32 
 
 America, national title of, 251 et seq 
 
 Anderson, Gen., 124 
 
 Ante-Trust Act, 157 et seq. 
 
 Army, 118 et seq. 
 
 Art, American, 228 
 
 Arthur, President, 9 
 
 Astor, W. W., 245 
 
 Australia, 4 
 
 Austria, 86 
 
 B 
 
 Babcock, 164 
 
 Bankruptcy Act, 64 
 
 Bell, 105, 156 
 
 Berlin Treaty, 77 
 
 Bismarck, 86 
 
 Boutell, 46, 140 n. 
 
 Bowls, Rear-Adm., 137 
 
 Bradford, G., 27 
 
 Brazil, 88, 89, 92 
 
 Britain, 9, 16, 25, 152 
 
 Britain and America compared, 1, 
 
 et seq., 22, 26 
 Britain, hatred of, 7 
 Brown, Mr. Justice, 44, 45, 54 
 Brunetiere, 243 
 Bryan, 24, 189 
 Bryce, Prof., 5 n., 8, 11, 200 
 Bullock, 155 
 Buoquoy, Count, 95 
 Butler, Sir W., 233 
 
 Cabinet system, 85, 199 
 
 California, 32 
 
 Canada, 4, 74, 92, 138, 140, 231, 252 
 
 Canal, Isthmian, 82, 113, 147 
 
 Canevaro, 94 
 
 Carnegie, 213, 218, 230 
 
 Chamberlaia, 4, 188 
 
 Chicago, 65, 146 
 
 Chili, 88 
 
 China, 62 
 
 Chinese, 173 
 
 Civil service reform, 196, 198, 239 
 
 Civil War, 6, 30, 125 
 
 Clayton-Bulwer treaty, 82 
 
 Cleveland, President, 9, 17, 22, 27, 73, 
 
 80, 195 
 
 Clews, H., 214 
 Climate, 99 
 Coal supply, 108, 109 
 Colonies, the thirteen, 3 
 Columbia, 88, 92 
 Combine, nature of, 153 
 Commerce, 97 et seq. 
 Congress, 18, 23, 27, 35, 44, 60 
 Constitution, rigidity of, 2, 6, 16, 18, 
 
 24, 36, 59 
 
 Corbin, Gen., 118 n. 
 Cotton mills, 101, 112 
 Crime, 13 
 Cuba, 38, 39, 111, 129 
 
 D 
 
 David Harum, 222 
 Davie s Commission, 37 
 Davis, A., 245 
 De Lima i-. Bidwell, 43, 58 
 
 265 
 
266 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Democrats, 189, 190 
 Denby, C., 71 
 Dickinson, 5 
 Diplomacy, 70 et seq. 
 
 K 
 
 Ecuador, 88 
 Education, 212 et seq. 
 Elliot, Dr., 212, 250 
 Europe, 71, 78 ; opinion of, concerning 
 America, 94 et seq. 
 
 F 
 
 Federal power, 8 
 France, 86, 133 
 Franklin, 11, 12 
 Free trade, 96 
 Funston, 248 
 
 Garfield, President, 9 
 
 Germany and America compared, 2, 
 
 71, 86, 89, 101, 152 
 Ginsberg, Prof., 145 
 Goluchowski, Count, 95 
 Gorman, 195 
 Graham, 157 
 Grant, Cecil, 216 
 Grant, President, 9, 80 
 
 Hamilton, A., 6, 12, 54 n. 
 
 Hanna, sen., 147, 209 
 
 Harper, 215 
 
 Harris, Chandler, 227 
 
 Harrison, F., 233 
 
 Harte, Bret, 222, 245 
 
 Havemeyer, 164 
 
 Hawaii, 32, 33 
 
 Hay, John, 74, 75, 81, 168 n., 206 
 
 Hayes, President, 9 
 Heath, Perry, 196 n. 
 Hill, sen., 195 
 
 Holmes, O. W., 222, 244, 246 
 Howells, 222, 223, 226 
 Hunt, Leigh, 11 
 
 Immigration, 166 
 
 Imperialism, 31 et seq., 51 
 
 Indians, policy towards, 37, 38 
 
 Ireland, 173 
 
 Iron trade, 98 
 
 Italy, 86, 89, 152, 167 
 
 Jackson, A., 8, 19, 80 
 
 James, Enoch, 104 n. 
 
 James, Henry, 245 
 
 Jeans, 100 
 
 Jefferson, 6, 7, 11, 12, 18, 32, 36, 42 
 
 Jenks, 155 
 
 Jews, 167, 172 
 
 Journalism, 229, 230 
 
 Kasson, 81 
 Knox, 48 
 
 Labour, 98, 99, 115 
 
 Lakes, the great, 137 et seq., 147 
 
 Lincoln, 187 
 
 Literature, 220, 221, 249 
 
 Lodge, H. C., 54 ., 79, 207 
 
 Lombroso, 169 
 
 Louisiana, 31 
 
 Lunatics, 174 n. 
 
 Luxury, American, 13, 52 
 
INDEX 
 
 267 
 
 Mabie, 223, 242 
 
 Macmaster, J. B., 58 
 
 Madison, 12 
 
 Mahan, Capt., 136 
 
 Maine, destruction of the, 29 
 
 Manilla, 30 
 
 Marine, mercantile, 136, 149 
 
 Mark, Thistelton, 214 n., 250 
 
 Marshall, C. J., 55, 57 
 
 Massachusetts, 3, 5, 7, 65 
 
 Mathews, Gen., 71 
 
 McArthur, 49, 151 
 
 McKinley, President, 20, 80, 81, 160, 
 
 194, 195, 207, 234 
 Merritt, Gen. Wesley, 31 
 Mexico, 8, 87, 92 
 Miller, K., 184, 260 
 Mixed races, 169 
 Monroe policy, 8, 86 et zeq. 
 Morgan, Pierpont, 144 
 Municipal training, 68, 69 
 
 N 
 
 National Guard, 130 
 
 Navy, 136 
 
 Negro problem, 175 
 
 New York, 5, 7 
 
 Nixon, L., 99 
 
 North America, 88, 252 
 
 Panama, 147, 148 
 
 Paraguay, 92 
 
 Parker, Major, 31, 47 
 
 Patronage, political, 22 
 
 Peer, Dr., 95 
 
 Pennsylvania, 7, 209 
 
 Peru, 88, 92 
 
 Phelps, E. J., 29 n. 
 
 Philippine Islands, 30, 46, 48, 132 
 
 Pin grey, 55, 61 
 
 Platt, Sen., 29 
 
 Ploitics, 188 et seq. , 
 
 Population, alien, 170, 171 ; insane, 
 
 174 ; negro, 176 
 Porter, R. P., 68 
 Porto Rico, 21, 24, 43, 50 
 Prejudice, 246 
 President, title of, 14; power of, 14 
 
 et seq., 200 
 Proctor, Sen., 61 
 Prosperity, 107, 110 
 Protection, 95, 96 
 
 Quincy, J., 83 
 
 B 
 
 Referendum, 202 
 
 Religion, 13, 249 
 
 Republic, the term, 5 n. 
 
 Republicans, 189, 190 
 
 Riley, Whitcomb, 228 
 
 Roosevelt, 38 ., 40, 47, 89, 99, 129, 161 . 
 
 162, 164 n., 192, 201, 204, 227 
 Root, Sec., 129 
 Rumford, Count, 218 
 Rush-Bagot Convention, 137 
 Russia, 71, 231 n. 
 
 Sagasta, Senor, 30 
 
 Sage, Russell, 155 
 
 Sargeant, 228, 245 
 
 Schurz, Carl, 200 
 
 Science, barrenness in, 217 
 
 Seeley, Prof., 10 
 
 Senate, 19, 21 76 
 
 Seward, 138 
 
 Shattuck Bill, 166 
 
 Shipping Subsidy Bill, 142, 143, 146 
 
 Shipping Trust, 144 
 
 Sledd, Prof., 186 
 
 Smith, Goldwin, 13, 29 n. 
 
 Spain, 9, 16, 23, 29, 30, 42, 72, 127, 241 
 
268 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Society, 245, 247 
 
 South America, 86 
 
 South Carolina, 6 
 
 Southern States, 3, 8, 34, 110, 113, 
 
 176, 179, 237 
 Stanton, F. L., 228 
 State Church, 249 
 State rights, 4, 5, 7, 66 
 Steel strike, 115 
 " Suicide city," 100 
 Supreme Court, 21, 28 ., 34, 42, 44, 52, 
 
 150, 158, 160 
 Switzerland, 101, 105 
 
 1 
 
 Taft, Judge, 31 
 
 Tariff, 52 
 
 Taylor, Prof.. 61 
 
 Trusts, 95, 103, 153 et seq., 191 
 
 Twain. Mark, 227, 232, 248 
 
 W 
 
 Wallace, Gen. L., 61 
 
 Washington, Booker, 185, 209 
 Washington, city of, 20, 184, 139 
 Washington, George, 6. 7, 12, 71 
 Wellman, W., 89 
 West, H. L., 20 
 Western States, 235, 238 
 Whistler, 228 
 White House, 23 
 Wilkins, Miss, 222 
 William II., 88, 204 
 Wolseley, Lord, 116 
 
 " Yellow Press," 29, 230 
 Youth, prevalence of, 99 
 Yturbide, Prince, 93 
 
 THE END 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
 DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 ot. 
 
 REC D LD 
 
 MAR 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 7 
 
 AY8 - 5355 y. 
 
 
 RECEIVED BY 
 
 61981 
 
 i 
 
 CIRCULATION DEPT. 
 
 flFC O LD JUN 7 
 
 71-1 PM78 
 
 LD21 
 
 2 
 
?/\