Vou. VITE No. ee
NEW HAVEN, CONN., THURSDAY, JANUARY 19. 1899.
SUMNER ON IMPERTALISI.
An Unusual Lecture in the Phi Beta
Kappa Course.
On Monday evening, January 16th,
Piofessor William G. Sumner of Yale
appeared for the second time in recent
years on the public platform, in discus-
sion of current economic and political
problems. Since his illness of a few
years ago, his public lectures have been
almost entirely suspended. Two years
ago he spoke to the members and
friends of the University in College
Street Hall on “Earth Hunger.” On
Monday his subject was “The Con-
quest of the United States by Spain.”
He spoke under the auspices of Phi
Beta Kappa in College Street Hall.
It goes without saying that the audi-
ence taxed to the utmost the capacity
of the hall. Members of the Faculty,
residents of New Haven, and many
ladies, as well as the students, were
there. Professor Sumner spoke for an
hour and a half, and at the close the at-
tention of this somewhat heterogeneous
but exacting audience was as close as
on the opening sentence. The listeners
remained in their seats for a considera-
ble time after the lecture was closed in
order to express their enthusiastic ad-
miration. Those who differed diametri-
cally tom the conclusions of the ad-
dress vied with the most zealous anti-
imperialists in their applause and their
admiring comments on the speech as
an intellectual triumph. Professor Sum-
ner was in excellent voice, and in man-
ner, spirit and gesture showed at least
all his old force.
With the limits of time and space it
is only possible to indicate a few of the
points. Spain, said the speaker, stood
with us for a certain set of ideas and
the United States for another set of
ideas diametrically opposed to them.
Spain was the first of modern imperial-
istic states; the United States the first
of the nations which stood for revolt
against the ideas, principles and prac-
tices of such a nation. In the war of 1898
the United States had overcome the
military power of Spain, and now the
Spanish political ideas were threaten-
ing to overcome the political ideas of
the United States.
The speaker characterized the war as
a move of partisan interests in a politi-
cal strife at Washington, followed up by
an appeal to the people on grounds of
alleged patriotism and moral sentiment.
It was not the part of statesmanship
to go into that war without knowing
anything more than we did as to the
occasion for it. It was not the part
of statesmanship to enter a war like
that, knowing, as any one ought to
know, that its results would be the
acquisition of new territory, whose
management would entail - enormous
difficulties.
“TIBERTY,
When we speak of liberty we think of
ourselves as exemplifying it, and a na-
tion like Russia as expressing the op-
posite of it. But Russia has liberty, if
it is liberty for a few men at the central
government, to decide what they want
and then do it. A large part of liberty
consists in the right of decision as to
whether we shall do a thing or let it
alone. We had no liberty in this case.
What we must meet in the evolution of
our own national character and fortunes
and interests, is a necessary part of our
national experience. What we go out
of our way to seek in the way of trouble
and burdens and problems is an un-
necessary, unwise and criminal part of
a nation’s experience, and is a throwing
away of its liberty.
the other day,
After characterizing the daily and
periodical literature of the country as
partly hypocritical, falsely sentimental
and largely hysterical, and saying that
by this means patriotism was being
-worked into a condition of nervous in-
toxication, Professor Sumner took up
the doctrine that we must accept what
is before us; that we must not do any-
thing’ about what has been done; that
we must not cross bridges befoze we
come to them, and that the past is irre-
trievable. He considered this a most
convenient form of doctrine for those
at the head of the Government. It re-
lieved them from all responsibility.
Senator Foraker says that we are go-
ing to give the Philippines their inde-
- pendence as soon as they are ready for
it. I do not know how he knows about
it. If he is right, we are paying twenty
million dollars for the privilege of tutor-
ing the Tagals up to liberty and self-
government. Some time ago there was
no class of citizens who received such
violent condemnation as those South-
erners who did not believe in the prin-
ciples of the Confederacy, but who
“went with their states.” It is just
as well not to say much about that now.
At the close of the debate in the Senate
a member from the
South congratulated a senator from
Connecticut for a speech on this ques-
tion of expansion, which was a complete
justification for all the South had done
for long years.
What the nation most needs to-day is
moral courage: the press and the pulpit
and even the university, which ought
to be the last citadel against it, are
succumbing to the vice of truckling for
popularity.
The history of Spain was drawn upon,
showing that she started with a large
degree of liberty and prosperity, and
that imperialism had meant for her
glorv and bankruptcy, a grand govern-
mental system, armies and navies, and
debts; a lot of money going into the
national treasury, which was mistaken
for national prosperity, whereas it
meant that the people were paying
more and more taxes.
OUR ‘“‘MISSION.”’
All nations think they have missions
for other nations. The French are sure
that the eyes of the world are turned
to Paris and that the ears of the uni-
verse listen to the French oracles on
wisdom and taste. Germany is op-
pressed with a sense of her mission to
the Americans, to free the nation from
egoism and materialism. Modern Rus-
sian literature teems with passages on
the grand work of civilization accom-
plished by the armies of the Czar,
' which, when translated, would pass for
some of the finest passages in our own
imperialistic journals. The Spanish
themselves have been filled with the
conviction that they were especially
commissioned by the Almighty to spread
Christianity over the globe. Each na-
tion ridicules the other’s pretensions,
and the outlying people in whose behalf
al these beneficent purposes are ex-
pressed, hate them all.
All these enterprises in respect to
other peoples, in which it is said, “We
know what is good for you and we will
make you do it”—all are wrong, be-
cause they violate the essential princi-
ple of liberty. Why do we throw it
away for the Spanish policy of dominion
and the privilege of regulating other
people’s business? :
This attitude of mind towards other
peoples is the explanation for man’s
inhumanity to man. It accounts for the
unspeakable cruelties of the Spanish in
dealing with the aborigines: it accounts
for the attitude of a large part of this
people towards the negro; for the na-
tion’s treatment of the Indians. The
ieee —
‘right to do;
Price Ten Cernrs.
doctrine that all men are equal was set
up particularly as a barrier to the idea
that “it is liberty for you to be governed
by us.” It is rather a remarkable thing
that our arms should carry this doctrine
that all men are equal to the farther-
most isles of the sea, to be tested.. It
has been no sooner tested than dis-
carded. : : cs
The speaker went into a careful anal-
ysis of the character of our federation
of states. The real nature of this federa-
tion, he said, has been largely over-
looked since the Civil War. From the
nature of this federation he showed that
it was the highest wisdom never to take
into it a heterogeneous state. Now,
as regards these new dependencies,
we must, first, either rule them by
force, denying to them the rights for
which we wrote our Declaration, framed
our Constitution and fought through
the heroic period of our history; or,
second, we must make these states a
part of our federation, and ask them to
assist in governing us, which’ we are
not going to do and which we have no
or, third, we must give
them their independence and let them
work out their own salvation, or go
without it. No Spanish-American state
has yet proved itself equal to the task
of self-government. Hayti has been a
theater for rebellion and bloodshed for
all its national history. It is a serious
question whether ‘a single Spanish-
American state would not have been
better off remaining under Spain than
in independence. We hear it said that
Mexico is teaching a good deal now
about self-government, and that we
might learn from her, but Mexico has
had a dictatorship for several years; it
may be a different story when they re-
sume governing themselves.
It was an enormous blunder of states-
manship to enter a war whose end
meant stich problems as these.
And now we want a standing army.
Why? So we can do it again when the
politicians decide the time has come
around to do it again; when’ political
ascendency is threatened. Good old
hard-headed Benjamin Franklin hit it
right when he talked about the “pest of
glory.” The thirst for glory threatens
every good thing for which this nation
was built.
THE INTEGRITY OF THE STATE.
The great question of the day is the
integrity of the state. The speaker
presented the threatening difficulties of
maintaining the integrity of the -state
when we applied our new policy of im-
perialism by laying aside the Constitu-
tion, and when in the consideration of
the problems at home we threw it in
the gutter and trampled on it. The ac-
complishment of this by imitating Eng-
land is impossible. England has been
at work since the Napoleonic wars in
strengthening her governmental system,
correcting abuses, and in training up
a body of men for the public service
who are given the highest education,
the ripest experience and are animated
by the highest motives. Besides all this
advantage of a long struggle and a long
development, her scheme is aristocratic,
foreign to our system, and not to be as-
similated.
The tremendous difficulty of taxa-
tion was taken up. We cannot tax
these colonies for either our own zood
or to even bear a proportionate share
of the burden of imperialism without
tearing our national history in shreds.
Shall we go to the other extreme and
let the colonies tax us, as England’s
colonies do?
The people who used to talk about
building a Chinese wall around this
country, and who would go farther
and say they were willing to have a gulf
of fire between us and the rest of the
world, now find out that by shutting the
rest of the world out they have shut
themselves in. Shall we extend protec-
tion to colonies? Then we shut out the
rest of the world and get into trouble
with other nations. Shall we order the
open door, and they have free trade
against our protection? :
The speaker thought that the result
of the war would be to break down our
restrictive system. He said at the open-
ing of the lecture that some of the re-
sults of the experiences of the year 1808
would be good, for all political results
are a mixture of the good and the bad.
Referring to those who wanted the
trade of these colonies simply for our-
selves, he spoke of our spending three
or four hundred million dollars for this
trade with Porto Rico and the Philip-
pines, when we might have obtained for
nothing a trade of vastly more value to
us by signing the reciprocity treaty with
Canada. This, while we fought our ter-
ribly expensive war, we refused to take.
WHAT MILITARISM MEANS.
Professor Sumner spoke at length of
the awful drain of militarism, which ate
up.the products of science and art.
The absorption of the energies of the
Continental nations in this connection
is something fearful to contemplate.
Militarism and republicanism are dia-
metrically opposed. The best men of
France know it, but France will give
up anything before her military power,
and militarism is now plainly the mas-
ter of the situdtion. The conservative
classes of Germany feel the awful op-
pression of their military system, but
Germany will not give it up. Bis-
marck’s refusal to take Bohemia was the
most statesmanlike act of his life.
When he later wrested Alsace and Lor-
raine from France, the beginning was
made in the process of turning Europe
into armed camps, and counteracting all
the effect of science and art in ameli-
orating the condition of the people.
The most serious factor in the situa-
tion is the fact that the masses do not
appreciate what militarism means. The
great struggle of the twentieth century
will be the struggle between plutocracy
and democracy. Plutocracy is the
greatest enemy of democracy and on its
side will be ranged the forces of mili-
tarism.
After dwelling on the enormous ad-
vantage of our isolation, on which fact,
as on a corner-stone our fathers built,
he asked what it profited us to throw it
all away and go out for a share of the
trouble in the rest of the world? There
is a consistency of character for a
nation as for a man. Then the con-
trasts of the last three years were
summed up; Venezuela and the Maine;
the attitude towards England _ Six
months ago and to-day; our immigra-
tion laws and our voluntary assumption
of eight million barbarians at a cost of
twenty million dollars; the way we
clamored for the rights of the negro,
and the way we now hobnob with those
who denied those rights.
“TIMES HAVE CHANGED.”
People say times have changed. That
_ only means that the phrase-makers have
made a new set of phrases. “Ameri-
cans can do everything.” This is the
final argument in favor of attempting
the impossible. Then Professor Sum-
ner enumerated some things that Amer-
icans cannot do. Mathematical impos-
sibilities, like making two and two
equal five; human impossibilities, like
collecting two dcllars a gallon tax on
whiskey, which we have never sticceeded
in doing: political impossibilities, like
decently governing a city of a hundred
thousand inhabitants, such as New