Greater America

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GREATER AMERICA

ADDRESS

HON. DAVID J. HILL, LL. D.,

Assistant Secretary of State.

Delivered at the Annual Banquet of the Rochester
Chamber of Commerce, December 8, 1898.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

JUDD & DETWEILER, PRINTERS.

1898.

58179

Air. Presidoif nnd (Iniflcm/'ii of flic ('lifiiii/>er of ('(ntfiDrrce :

It is witli a thrill of peculinr ])loasur(' tliaf I greet you
liere tonight. A wandcrci' upon the tacc of the earth, I feel
like a returning niai'incr when the light of his home Hashes
out over the sea to salute him, and a great wave of emotion
sweeps from memory thedi'eary days and perilous nights of
a long and tempestuous voyage. My eountry — with what
patriotic ])i'ide 1 call it mine! — uever seemed so great, its
people so noble, its future and theirs so full of hope and
promise. A great crisis, In'avely met and victoriously passed,
lifts a country, as an individual, to a })rouder elevation than
before. When last I met with the members of this Chamber
the roar of Niagara blended with the voices of the speakers,
but a power greater and moi-e irresistible than that of the
great cataract has changed the destiny of twelve millions of
human beings, and a more [)otent voice has commanded the
action of this nation and called it to their rescue. Incidents
of an unparalleled nature have kindled a conflagration
which all the waters of Niagara could not ([uench. 'Idie
miraculous feats of our small but illustrious navy hll the
world with wonder, and indicate more ehxjuently than
human words that the path of the Republic to its })lace
among the nations lies in the broad highway of the deej).
Our little army, the smallest of any great power in the world,
has swollen in a few months to a mighty host, gathere<l from
every quarter of the Union, the workshop and the field, the

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lonely ranch and the fashionable club, eager to follow a
common standard and shed its blood upon a common battle-
field. Many a pale face has turned for the last time to the
silent stars of a tropic sky, and a subtler foe than whistling
l)ullets has racked with agony the mute sufferers in our fever-
stricken camps. Thousands of brave volunteers have almost
wept with disappointment because they could not press to
the front, but when History completes her roll of heroes and
tells their fateful story the untrembling hand Avhich records
the solemn judgment of the world will write :

"They serve as well who only .stand and wait."

Had Na[)oleon won the victories which have been achieved
under the wise leadership of our great President, a new em-
pire might have been called into being and this sober Re-
public have l)een suddenly swept from an era of industrial
peace irdo an era of unbounded conquest and im})erialism.
But that mistaken word " imperialism," suggested by the
unexpected fruits of victory, does not express the motives
and sentiments of this nation. The American people have
not coveted territories beyond the sea. They have engaged
in war not for land, but for humanity ; not to multi})ly their
possessions, but to vindicate their })rinci})les. Empires are
made by personal ambitions, but the history of our great
moments of victory is the roll-call of sacrifice. The struggle
for independence reached its culmination in Washington's
refusal of a crown, and the perpetual union of the States
was sealed by a bleeding nation's supreme renunciation in
the martyrdom of Lincoln. In the solemn moment when
the ways parted at the mile-stone of intervention in the

tragedy of Cuba's wrongs, — i]\v one IcadiiiLi' to iialidiial liii-
miliation, tlie other to iiianil'cst duty. — the sci-cnc vnicc of
our o-j-eat, ])oa('c'doviuii' statcsniau, William MrKinlcy. whose
kiry,e intelliui'iUT (urncij with sadness from the sweet vision
of peace, recalled to the nation the nohle sentiment,

" He ifJ tiirice ariiuMl w lio liatli his ([iiairi'l Just."

Tiieii, panoplied in the confidence of the peo})le, he who
was the hist to abandon peace stood first in the hour of war,
not to ac(|uire new dominion, hut to extend the rule of jus-
tice.

And now that victory lias })laced the fate of twelve mil-
lion human benigs in tlie hands of a trium[)liant nation,
with wdiat right does a spii'it of criticism, which derives its
inspiration from conditions that have ceased, stamj) with
the word '■ im})erialism '" the magnanimity of this Kepuhlic
in extending the sheltering wings of its protection over those
whom the war has liberated from oppression and misrule?
The momentous tpiestion presented to the Government of
the United States by the results of the war has ])een : " Hav-
ing attempted by liumanitarian intervention, and without
ulterior purposes, to stop the horrors of a perennial strife,
shall the American peo[ile, for fear of new responsil)ilities,
hurl these millions back into the abyss of anarchy ? " That
is the question which our Commissioners have tried to
unswer at Paris, and which this nation nuist answer before
tlie Throne of Eternal Justice.

What, now, will our national legislators do witli the terri-
tories ceded by Spain to the United States? Will they re-
store them to the vengeance of the vanquished ? A\dll they

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Icjivc tlu'iu to the occiii)ation and pai'tition of other powers?
Will they al)an(loii them to their own inexperience and in-
ternal di.scords, or will they attempt to establisli within them
the conditions of peace and ultimate self-government ?

There is nothing novel in tlie idea of territorial expan-
sion, which has marked every period of our national history.
Only a little strip of territory along the Atlantic seaboard
was peopled by the victorious colonies at the close of the
war of independence, but the American Commissioners were
instructed to claim for the colonies the whole area east of
the Mississippi. Franklin, the most astute diplomatist of
his time, coveted in addition the whole of Canada. In 1803
Jefferson strained the (constitution to the breaking point, as
he l)elieved, to secure the purchase of the great province of
Louisiana, which at one stroke doubled the area of the
country. His op})onents considered his act not only uncon-
stitutional, but in effect a dissolution of the Union ; and a
historian has accused him of " making himself monarch of
the new territory, and of holding, against its protests, the
power of its old kings." Jackson did not hesitate to invade
and conquer Florida for the peace of the nation, Texas came
into the Union by revolution, and the entire tract which
now forms the prosperous States stretching from Mexico to
Oregon was the fruit of war and forced occu})ation. Thus,
by continued territorial expansion, the better part of this
continent has become incorporated into the United States,
and fi'om a few scattered settlements along our eastern coast,
a great nation has been formed, bounded by two oceans
with widespread commerce over both, and not one human
being in all this vast continental area regrets for a moment

ilu' liistoric iicct'ssilics wliicli Iuinc u'ivcii to our uiiilc<l Ke-
|>ul>li(' a roiniiKiii law and a coimiioii lilxTtv.

Now conditions of existence have swept away forevei' the
fears and niisii'ivinu's which were felt at evei'V thrilling- act
in this iii-(>at drama ol' continental expansion, rndreanied
of facilities of transj^ortation have wrout;ht this wonder and
rendx'i'ed possihle the unity and solidai'ity of so vast an en-
terprise. The j)ower of steam locomotion lias carried west-
ward a vigorous race, pbintinti,- homes like those of Xew
England upon the sunny slopes of the racitic, und our orig-
inal western boundary, the Mississippi, has become the cen-
tral waterway of a united nation, l)oi'dering upon widely
separated seas. Is our expansion to be bounded by these
great waters, or will the annihilation of s|)ace by mechanical
energy permit of a still wider horizon ? Having won from
nature and untitled claimants the possession of what is most
desirable ui)on this continent, shall we henceforth renounce
all dominion upon the sea? Shall we declare that the ocean,
whose broad bosom makes the whole world one, has only
perils for our commerce and our polity ? Jefferson, indeed,
once said that our national ambition should be limited to
possessions that would not need a navy to defend them ; but
that was long ago. Could he contenn>late the ma}) of the
United States today, an area connecting the two great oceans
of the temperate zone, and believe, in the presence of modern
battle-ships, that our present territories could be defended
without a navy? Could he imagine that the late war could
have been conducted, or that our seaboard cities could have
escaped destruction without a lun-y ? \\^ould he not rather
believe that, with friendly neighljors on the north and south

and our })oints of exposure cliiefly on our coasts, our princi-
l)al need of defense is a still greater navy ?

We seem, indeed, to have renounced our hope of primacy
upon the ocean by suffering the decline of our mercantile
marine, and that, too, in an era when the forces of industrial
production have far outstripped the development of markets.
In 1860 the merchant navy of the United States was, after
that of England, the largest in the world. Seventy per cent,
of our foreign trade was then carried by our own vessels, but
the proportion has declined until now all but 11 per cent,
has been taken from us, while England's carrying trade has
in the meantime doubled ; yet, notwithstanding this, our
annual trade with Asia and Oceanica has grown to
$62,000,000, nearly twice our entire trade with Central and
South America. Our exports to China have trebled since
1890, and our entire volume of trade with that country is now
equal to that of the whole of continental Euroi)e, outside of
Russia. The Far East has become the land of i)romise for
the merchant, and Civilization, full-grown, having made the
circuit of the globe, returns with priceless treasures to its
primitive cradle, to lay them at tlie shrine of its nativity.

Having created and developed our industries by a judi-
cious system of protection until we can successfully compete
with foreign nations by the greater inventive powers of our
people and the more extended aj)plication of machiner}-,
shall we now refuse to protect our commerce? Shall we
forget that we are no longer merely an Atlantic, but have
become also a Pacific power, with hve thousand miles of
coastline on the Pacific ocean? Shall we forget that the
people of the Great West will be more closely in sympathy
with their fellow-citizens of the East, if they also have their

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niavitinu' cities niul their |>r()|Kii1i(m (if iiilei'ii;it ioiial ti'jule'.''
And, liiially, shall we forget that the iKiMlieal suh(li\isi(iii
and eoniniei'eial oeeupation of Asia hy foreii^n powers in-
volvc^s tlie |)er|>etnal isohition of this continent '/

The (K'stiny of nations is not (h 'tern lined hy the in(H\"i(hiaI
wilh nor can national (hities he ineasnre(l hy pi'ivate stand-
ards. Nations orow hy ol>eyinu' the instinct of development,
an instinc-t [)hinted in [\\vu\ l)y Ilim who hohh'th the sea as
in the hohow of liis han(h 'Pheii' n-reatness is not in tlie
hreathli of their heritage, nor in tlie fertility of theii' lands,
nor in the wealth of their mines. J^ittle Israel has given
the law of righteousness to the ends of the earth ; little
Greece has shaped the humanities foi' all time; little Hol-
land, pusliiny,' hack the sea with one hand, has distrihuted
the wealth of the world with the other; little Switzeihind
has shone like a star of Heaven, guarding; her liherties
among the snowy fastnesses of her Alj)ine })eaks and
ghiciers; little New luigiand has nurtured her Puritans and
sent forth her teachers of self-government ; hut it is one
mission to prepare the seed, another to scatter it. I cannot
believe it an evil for any people that the Stars and Stripes,
the symhol of liherty and law, should lloat over them.
There have been those who have thought otherwise, hut
theyliave returned with penitence and confession when their
dream was ended. There was a day when the sovereign
power of this nation was thought to contiict with the rights
of indivi(hials and communities to go their ways and shaj)e
tlieir own destinies, but one of the most ])recious fi-uits of
the late war is the new cvideiU'C that the nation has a truer
instinct than the individual. Wlien a lady congratulated
" Joe Wheeler," as we lovingly call liim, upon his promotion

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as major general, the brave old soldier burst into tears and
said : " It is not that, Madam, which gives me most pleasure;
it is to have fought under the dear old Flag that liears the
Stars and Stripes ! "

Greater America will lose her greatness if she fbrgets the
political philosophy that has made her great. The vital
principle of tliat philosophy is the sovereignty of the i)eople,
which in the last analysis is only another name for the fact
that in every humblest creature possessing intelligence there
is a spark of that Divine Reason which animates the world.
It is a great lesson of the war that it is not in the tonnage of
ships, nor in the weight of armor, that the fate of battles
rests. " These are Her Majesty's ships," says the Spaniard ;
''These are our ships," says the American ; and your pleas-
ure yacht, with a Wainwright in command, sends the terror-
striking destroyers to the bottom of the sea ! The sover-
eignty of the people behind the guns and in the trenches,
whether the soldier be a New York dude or a Texas ranch-
man, speaks in his aim and in his heroism ; for he does not
merely represent, he helps to constitute, the sovereignty of
the nation.

A giant's task now confronts the American peoi)le, ])ut
their histor}^ gives the assurance that they will not trend )le
before it. Amid the din of war and the strife of nations, in
the busy marts of trade and among the distant islands of the
sea, dwells an unseen force slowly shaping the destinies of
the world. It speaks alike in nature, in the human soul
and in the long drama of history. Witness a nation rising
to the full splendor of its responsibilities, and you will see
there written in letters of shining light, the august and im-
perative law of universal development.

L.ofC.

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