Retrospection, political and personal

Front matter

OTHER WORKS

West American Series of Histories

Resources of Mexico

Chapter I

Building of the Republic — The English Colonies — Northwest Coast and the Fur Trade — Acquisition of Louisiana and California — The Oregon Question — Interoceanic Canal — Nicaragua or Panama — The Spanish War — Philippine Islands

— Imperialism.

CHAPTER II UTOPIAN DREAMS Altruistic Ideals — Precept and Practice — Economic Conditions

— Passion for Proselyting — The Scotch at Darien Isthmus — South Sea Bubble — William Penn's Utopia — The Franciscans in California — Missionaries in Oregon — The Mormon Eruption

— Polygamy and Politics — Mormon Exodus to Utah.

Chapter III The Silent Mystery Of The Untenanted Plains

Rise and Trend of Civilization — Expeditions of Vaca, Niza, Coronado, Parades, and Drake — The Northern Mystery — Conjectural Geography — Mythical Cities of Cibola and Quivira — California an Island — Strait of Anian — Interior of Savage Enchantment.

CHAPTER IV Characteristics of the English Colonists — Milestones of Progress

— The Call Westward — Application of Steam — Historic Highways — Turnpikes and Canals — Pathways of the Plains

— Opening of the Continental Interior — Sutter at Sacramento

— Sam Brannan and His Saints in California.

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Chapter V Some Ohio Yankees

Migrations Through the Alleghanies — Settlements in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys — The Licking Land Company — Granville Old and New — Personal Affairs — New England Life in Ohio — Religion and Education — Abolitionism and Underground Railroading — Mid- century Politics in the West.

Chapter VI

Marshall and Sutter — Peculiar Conditions Attending Gold Discovery — Effect on Commerce and Finance — Decadence of Hispano-Californians — Ruin of Sutter and Vallejo — Men of Empire, Not of Money — Effect of Gold Shipments during Civil War — Loyalty of California.

Chapter VII

California Coast in 1835 — Personal Experiences — The Voyage in 1852 — Isthmus Transit — Imperial Panama — Entrepot of the Pacific — Land of Romance and Adventure — Expeditions Thence — New World Rendezvous — California in the Early Fifties — A San Francisco Gambling Palace.

Chapter VIII The Passing Of The Frontiers

The Atlantic Frontier Receding Westward — The Pacific Frontier Drifting Eastward — The Wilderness Between — Human Rights and Human Wrongs — Land Purchase and Indian Pacification — Penn's Method — Meeting of the Frontiers — Disappearance of the Natives.

Chapter IX A New Land And A New People

Economic and Ethnic Combinations — New Americans — Intermingling of Types — Transmigration and Transformation — Geographical Provinces and Types — Migratory Virginians and Yankees — The North Pacific Anglo-American — California Miner of the Flush Times.

CONTENTS vii

CHAPTER X THE MILLS OF THE GODS People and Events at Yerba Buena Cove — Rise of Justice — Hounds or Regulators — Vigilance Committee — Australia Criminals and Southern Chivalry — Outbreak of Crime in Montana — San Francisco's Grand Tribunal of 1856 — James King of William — John Nugent — Justice Terry,

Chapter XI The Interregnum

The Swing of Time — A Period of Rest — Political Parties — Career of Broderick — Mexican Land Titles °** Growth of Manufactures — Favorable Economic Conditions — Mining and Agriculture — Gambling in Stocks — Secessionists — Premium on Gold — Specific Contract Law.

Chapter XII

EVOLUTION OF HIGH CRIME Mid-Century Finance — The Mexican War — The Civil War — Doctrine of Inequality Before the Law — The True Criminal Class — Modern Business Ethics — Increase of Wealth — Tendency to Moral Obliquity — Influence of Railroads and Subsidies — Justice and Journalism — Some of Our Presidents.

CHAPTER XIII THE DARK AGE OF GRAFT Epoch in History — Overland Railway — Betrayal of the People — Credit Mobilier — Introduction of High Criminality — Economic and Political Domination — Decline of Industries — The Great Afraid — Debased Legislation — Civic Debauchery — Rule of Schmitz and Ruef — Deliverance.

CHAPTER XIV THE INJUSTICE OF LAW Primary Principles — English Law Courts — The Jury System — Judicial Skill in Technicalities — The Hollow Power of Precedent — Judges as Law-Makers — Judges as Law-Breakers — The Law as a Fetish — The Judiciary Recall and the People.

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CHAPTER XV

AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE Selfishness of Good Men — Conspiracy for Bad Government — A Pair of Pats — Gunpowder and Dynamite in Court Practice — Effective Work of Heney and Burns — Strictures of the Predatory Press — Ruef 's Career — The Sowing of the Dragon's Teeth

— Infelicity of the Bribers — Effect of the Fire of 1906.

CHAPTER XVI

COMPARATIVE REPUBLICANISM Porfirio Diaz and Benito Juarez — Their Genius and Achievements

— A Half-Savage Populace — Necessity of Arbitrary Rule — Signal Services of Diaz — French Intervention — Defeat of Maximilian — Peace and Prosperity — Economic Development

— Treachery — Ingratitude — Return to Anarchy.

CHAPTER XVII EVOLUTION OF A LIBRARY

A Fortuitous Undertaking — The Routine of Collecting — The Territory Covered — Expeditions Abroad — Pinart and Petrof in Alaska — Historical Dictations — Archives of the Vigilance Committees — The Maximilian Collection — Russian Material — Archives of Mexico and Spanish America — Special Search in Europe.

CHAPTER XVIII METHODS OF WRITING HISTORY

A Mixed Mass of Material — Classifying and Indexing — Old Methods Inadequate — Drilling Assistants for the Work — Extracting and Arranging the Material — Cooperative Methods Not Feasible — Inception of the General Plan — Important Interviews for Filling Gaps — Special Work with Diaz in Mexico — Collateral Histories and Dictations.

CHAPTER XIX ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA First Coming of Chinese — Hearty Welcome with Fair Promises — Ill-treatment in the Mines — Eruption of the Sand-Lotters — Ireland Sets the Pace — Broken Pledges and Demagogism — Imposition and Persecution — The Impossible African.

CONTENTS ix

CHAPTER XX

Capital as Crystallized Labor — Militant Attitude of Labor — Tyrannies of the Industrial Life — Cupidity of Capital — Arbitrary Demands of Labor — Wages, Trusts, Strikes, and Monopolies of Industry — The Labor Leaders.

CHAPTER XXI

Impelling Force Behind the Newspaper — Mendacity as Stock in Trade — The Great Sunday Edition — As a Teacher of Truth, Honesty, Artistic Taste, and Morality — Price of Civic Loyalty and Integrity — Charms of Vilification and Scandal.

CHAPTER XXII

Neurotic Temperament of the Idle Rich — Decadence of the Race — Sham and Conventionalities — Indifference to Vice — International Marriages — High Crime and High Society — Mental and Moral Sterility — Slavery of Fashion.

CHAPTER XXIII

The Imperative and Ever-Recurring Need — Waste of Men and Spoliation of Women — Present System Detrimental to the Higher Rural Life — Overcrowded Professions — Cramped City Life — A Little Lesson in Pronunciation — Tainted Men and Tainted Money.

CHAPTER XXIV

Our Seraphic Father and the Good God Plutus — Six Great Fires, and the Seventh — During the Flush Times — Development of a New Society — Law and Lawlessness — Curse of the Labor Monopoly — Wanted, Men and Manufactures.

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CHAPTER XXV

Significance of the Movement — A Moral Revolution, a New Civilization — Reforms Already Accomplished — Patriotism of Predatory Wealth — Good Government Ideals — Administration of Hiram Johnson — Progressive Movement at Los Angeles — A New Reign of Law and Justice.

CHAPTER XXVI

Decadence of the Republic — Base Admixtures of Population — Standards of Citizenship — Vital Measures of Reform — Progress Made Permanent — Untenable Attitude of the Judiciary — Corruption of the Appellate Courts — Referendum and Recall — Marvelous Progress.

CHAPTER XXVII

The Isthmus in the Olden Time — New Channel of World's Commerce — What the Canal Will Accomplish — Early Efforts to Penetrate the Continent — Mythical Waterways — Various Routes Considered — Explorations and Surveys — France and the United States.

POLITICAL AND PERSONAL

Chapter I

WERE we as ready as were our forefathers to see the hand of Providence in the affairs of men, some things might be accounted for which now must await further accession of wisdom. In our ignorance we might ask, for example, what possible connection could there be between a Yankee fur-trader on the Northwest Coast of America in the year 1792, the federal congress at Philadelphia, and a Corsican adventurer seeking advancement in the streets of Paris. Or, again, what could black cannibals in the jungles of Africa, or whilom importations thence in Georgia and Alabama, or the visit of a future president to Florida have to do with the late possessions of the king of Spain, or in establishing the southern limits and frontage on the Pacific of an Anglo-Saxon commonwealth in the wilds of America. And yet, enlightened by wisdom from on high, one might answer, It is the Invisible Architect of the Republic, his finger pointing out where the corner stones shall be laid, corners so wide apart, so utterly at variance, that only the eye of omniscience may trace the lines of their connection.

For at the very moment that Robert Gray of Boston entered the mouth of the River of the West, giving the name of his good ship Columbia to that stream, on the Atlantic side the soldiers of the Revolution were clearing away the debris after the battle and returning to their farms and merchandise, while statesmen were fashioning forms of government to meet the requirements of a new nation.

By virtue of the presence of Jacques C artier in the Saint Lawrence in 1534, and of the Chevalier de la Salle on the Mississippi in 1681, the king of France held Canada and the interior of the continent from the great lakes to the Mexican gulf, and from the Alleghanies to the Rocky mountains. The treaty of Paris in 1763, following the fall of Quebec, transferred to England the midcontinent French possessions east of the Mississippi, and to the thirteen English colonies bordering on the Atlantic was added this newly acquired French domain, the whole constituting the area of the United States in 1787 as won from England by the war of Independence.

Claims had been preferred by the several colonies each to a strip beyond the Appalachian range equal in width to its frontage on the ocean, which claims 'were ceded to the federal government.

Turning to the Pacific, we find thus early agencies at work in the Oregon country. Though fortuitous it is none the less gratifying that this unsurveyed angle should have been so accurately placed by these instruments of destiny — men all unconscious of the potential significance of their acts — that the unimaginary lines should have been so accurately drawn along the same parallels of latitude as to place their possessions on the Pacific exactly opposite their home on the Atlantic.

The shipping interests of the colonies had enlarged during the period of dependency until their vessels were seen in all ports of every sea. Many voyages since Drake's visit to California in 1579 had been made to the coast, voyages of discovery and trade, notably by Spanish,

English, and American navigators, each of whom set up rights of possession.

The coastwise fur-trade offered attractions equal to those of the forest, and the Northwest was a prolific field. Routine was in this wise : New England ships exchanged their cargo of Yankee trinkets and more substantial Indian goods for the rich peltries of the natives, then sailed away for China, where the furs were sold, teas and silks taking their place. A successful voyage of two or three years was very profitable, the return cargo selling at three to five times the original cost.

Captain Gray was the first New Englander to adventure a voyage round the world, and it was on that occasion, while exploiting the coast southward from Juan de Fuca strait, that he came to the great river.

A score of times the place had been passed by famous navigators, but the noble stream had withheld its secret until it should be found by an American mariner to be given to his country.

Not without controversy, however, for never were there lands so far away or undeveloped that men could not be found to fight over them.

After all other claimants had been eliminated by the Nootka convention and other conferences, Russia meanwhile having relinquished her rights to all lands below latitude 54° 40', and Spain having included whatever pretensions she may have had to the Oregon country in her sale of Florida to the United States in 1819, there remained as parties in the dispute England and the United States only. The territory in question lay between latitudes 42°, the northern boundary of California, and 54° 40', the southern limit of Alaska.

Each side claimed the whole- — a truly diplomatic opening to a discussion which was to last for half a century and become famous in history as the Oregon question.

The United States cited the New England trading vessels on the Northwest Coast since 1784; the discovery and naming of the Columbia river by Robert Gray in 1792 ; the government expedition of Lewis and Clarke in 1805; the appearance of the Astor parties and erection of Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia in 1811; Williams, Henry, and Winship in the mountains and on the Columbia ; American missionaries on the Willamette, and free trappers and traders elsewhere.

England brought forward the navigations of Vancouver and others along the coast; the adventures of David Thompson in New Caledonia; the coming of Alexander Mackenzie to Bentinck North Arm, and the doings of John Stuart and Simon Fraser at Stuart lake and on Fraser river. Then throughout the northern interior were the British fur-forts of the English Hudson Bay company and the Scotch Northwest company, with baronial halls at forts Victoria and Vancouver, ruled in state by the chief factors Sir James Douglas and John McLoughlin respectively, who bowed forth to dinner their Indian wives with all the form and circumstance due to princesses of the blood.

The British apparently getting the best of it, our pugnacious patriots sent forth their loudest argument in the war cry of " Fifty- four-forty or fight/ '

Doubtless some who thus shouted understood it, if not the "fifty-four-forty," at least the " fight/ ' The question came up in a cabinet meeting in 1845. President Polk favored the popular demand, insisting upon the entire territory for the United States, but Buchanan, with more regard for the rights of others, was satisfied to divide the land at latitude 49°.

Had our belligerent progenitors won their way we should now have a continuous coast line on the Pacific side of four thousand miles; as it is the break is but five hundred miles, or thereabout, in length.

In 1803 was effected the purchase of Louisiana, by which term was then known all that region lying west of the Mississippi to the borders of the Spanish possessions and the Oregon territory. It came fortuitously, like most of the additions to our domain, and nearly doubled the original area of the United States.

It happened in this way. The island of New Orleans in foreign hands had proved an obstruction to American commerce, and James Monroe was sent to Paris commissioned to buy it. He had no thought of purchasing half a continent, but only a small lot at the mouth of the Mississippi.

It appears that the Corsican wanted money. European rulers generally want money. When informed of Mr. Monroe's errand Napoleon saw that so small a transaction, if consummated, would not greatly help him. So he said to his agent, Marbois, "I need money in France more than wild lands in America; get me fifty or a hundred million francs and let it all go. ' *

The price finally agreed upon was fifteen million dollars. But alas! the pity of it for the Yankee bargainmaker, when it might have been had for ten millions, even though at the price at which stolen lands were then selling it would have been cheap at thirty millions.

Two army officers, Lewis and Clarke, were detailed to examine the new purchase and report.

They ascended the Missouri to its source, found thereabout the head- waters of the Columbia, and followed that stream to its mouth.

Andrew Jackson entered Florida at the head of an expedition in 1816. Regardless of instructions he seized Spanish forts, hanged white men without a trial, slew Seminoles without quarter, and swore by the Eternal. For which piratical proceedings he was hailed a hero and twice made president, Spain meanwhile being glad to get five millions for the country and throw in Oregon.

Texas, after gaining independence from Mexico, joined the United States confederacy in 1845, the last to be received into the union as a slave state.

After an inglorious war with Mexico in 1848, fifteen million dollars was given for the upper California country, and ten millions in 1853 for the Gadsden strip, which brought the Pacific coast line down to San Diego, and included the region contiguous to California back to the Rio Grande, thus rounding out the Republic proper as it stands to-day.

Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867 for seven millions, or a little more ; the Hawaiian islands applied for and received admission in 1898 ; Wake island was acquired the same year; part of the Samoa islands in 1900; Porto Rico and the Philippines in 1899; and the Panama canal zone in 1904.

Thus fell into place as a compact whole the several parts of our commonwealth, from which category we may if we choose exclude our Panama possession which was obtained for a purpose — as a place it may be for displaying before the world a specimen of American art or artifice. ,

It came to pass as the century neared its end that reflective minds at Washington began to consider the exposed position of our Pacific possessions as illustrated by the late civil war; also the ever-increasing arrogance and the ever-decreasing honesty of the railway magnates who usurped the government, and the advantages which would accrue from an interoceanic waterway.

Unfortunately Spain was four hundred years before us in securing all the isthmuses. For four hundred years there had been talk of utilizing some one of them as a site for a canal, and but for Theodore Roosevelt and John Hay the talk might have continued for another four hundred years. Some day our successors will clear away where the sources of three great rivers so conveniently placed in juxtaposition straddle the Rocky mountains, the Missouri flowing eastward, the Colorado southward, and the Columbia westward, thence to dig and canalize the whole country.

The first choice of the United States for a canal site after Panama was Nicaragua, the land-cut there being less, and the ocean travel between our eastern and western shores less by a thousand miles. The French were at Panama though they had made overtures to sell.

Nicaragua was exceedingly solicitous; so further surveys were made and the cost estimated. The men of Managua understood what it signified to their little effervescent republic — isolation ended, the world brought to their door, employment for all their people, a market for all their products, and perpetual peace assured under the safeguard of a powerful neighbor.

So the bargain was struck ; Nicaragua was to receive ten million dollars for such rights and privileges as were necessary for the purpose. The people of the lakes were full of joy.

But how now ? Why do the men of Nicaragua pause ; why do they whisper and look wise? Evidently a thought has struck them. There is yet time, they say. The Washington people are rich. Having gone so far they surely will not withdraw for the matter of another ten millions. Ten for us and ten for the country; that were well. Or stay, twenty for us and the canal for our county; that were better. A little diplomacy and the coup were accomplished — Spanish diplomacy, Sagasta would say, wit and wisdom, seasoned or stale, whatever it might be Yankeedom had no use for it.

Loud were the lamentations of the Nicaraguans when they learned of their loss, and loud the acclaim of Colombia on the approach of the worshipful ten millions. Washington refused Managua's appeal for a reconsideration, and Bogota promised for the ten millions to grant all that was required, while the Frenchmen would be glad to take forty millions for their failure.

The negotiators for this right of way were learning fast, if indeed they did not know it before, that Spanish- Americans are not conspicuous for truth and reliability in their dealings, whether at Managua or Bogota, for after meeting the offer of Colombia promptly and fairly they found themselves subject to the same backing and filling process which had so disgusted them at Managua.

For here were the same race, the same undisciplined cupidity, the same business methods, unstable, unreliable, vapid, vain. As at Managua, so argued among themselves the men of Bogota. Ten millions and the grand canal were good. Twenty millions and the grand canal were better, and that sum divided among the Statesmen of Bogota would be quite a windfall.

Turning their back once more upon such ill-advised dealings the Washington authorities approached the people of Panama and said, "You are a sovereign state and no part of a confederacy. You were forced into this Colombian association by reason of your exposed position and lack of resisting force. Declare your independence, as is your right ; accept this peripatetic ten millions of ours and grant us what we require for our work. We will defend you from the United States of Colombia, and cause your recognition as an independent state by the powers of Europe. ' '

And so it was done. There were futile ravings at Bogota as there had been at Managua, and threats of war and dire destruction, and pleadings withal that the good Washington gentlemen would reconsider, would let Panama alone and give Colombia the ten millions as before contemplated. But all in vain. Colombia was powerless, and the United States was well pleased to be rid of so fickle and untrustworthy a coadjutor in the great enterprise. Not that the Panama people were of different stamp, but they were near at hand and could be better managed.

"I hope in all this," said Senator Hoar, "that there is nothing dishonorable." And President Roosevelt replied "There is nothing dishonorable."

Thereupon our people dug in peace, and with far less sickness than had been anticipated, owing to the superior hygienic conditions established.

The French spent $250,000,000 on a sea-level canal 72 feet wide and 29 feet deep, and failed owing to the impracticability of the sea-level plan, their extravagant and wasteful methods, the Panama fever, and inadequate control of the canal zone. Our canal is 300 feet wide and 41 feet deep ; the cost is about $400,000,000. It is 50 miles long, from a point five miles out in Limon bay on the Atlantic side to a point five miles out on the Pacific side. From the point on the north — on the Atlantic side, in the sea, five miles out — there is a channel, protected by a breakwater 500 feet wide, that runs eight miles — five miles in the sea and three miles in the Gatun dam.

The Gatun dam is 7,700 feet long, 115 feet high, its supports half a mile thick at the bottom, 400 feet thick at the water's edge, which is 85 feet above the bottom, and rises to a height of 115 feet, with a width of 100 feet at the top. That incloses a lake 135 square miles in surface, and furnishes a channel 1,000 feet wide for sixteen miles, 800 feet wide for four miles, 500 feet for four miles and until it reaches the Culebra cut.

The Culebra cut is nine miles long and the canal has a depth across the bottom through it of 300 feet. The canal is forty-five feet deep through the lake.

The vessel making this passage is raised by three steps of 28% feet each — three double sets of locks. It is raised to the level of the lake 85 feet, and continues on that level until it reaches the end of the Culebra cut at Pedro Miguel, where it is lowered again 30 feet to a small lake through which there is a mile and a half of a channel 500 feet wide. Then at Miraflores it is lowered again two steps of 28% feet into a channel 500 feet wide that goes out into the Pacific ocean five miles. It w r ill take three hours for a vessel to go up and dowm the steps and ten to twelve hours to go through the canal,

An achievement when completed to be regarded with pride and wonder, pride that we had been enabled so cleverly to assist nature, and wonder if Harriman were alive how long it would be before he had it in his pocket.

To the average American mind this rapid expansion of domain, trebling itself in half a century, was somewhat bewildering. In leaving their European homes to escape the tyrannies of despotism or the persecution of fanaticism ; in becoming colonists, strangers in a strange land yet subjects of the ancient rule; in breaking off their fetters only to fetter others, the curse of Adam following them to the New World; in achieving independence, in spreading themselves out though as yet only theoretically over vast areas, even from the Atlantic to the Pacific, there had been no ambitious thought regarding rulership other than to rule themselves wisely and in a God-fearing manner; no thought of dominion over others, of protectorates, or dependencies, or subservient states; no thought of empire or imperialism if indeed such words had any significance with them.

The true American people do not and never did covet their neighbors' lands, that is to say further than such as they could take from the natives. Early statesmen on the floor of congress "thanked God for the Rocky mountain barrier which placed a limit to man's ambition.' ' We do not want Canada or Mexico. As slavery is a thing of the past no more territory is demanded by the south for slaveholding purposes. There are always at hand political filibusters ready for any action that will bring to them personal advantage. There may have been men high in office whose ardent imaginations were fired by thoughts of universal rule, as vast acquisitions were added to an already widely extended domain, but these were not the American people.

By yet others, then as now, the cry of imperialism, or its equivalent was raised and reiterated upon every fresh acquisition, for opinion has been and is divided as to the wisdom of expansion, though where proper republicanism ends and improper imperialism begins it would be difficult for any one of them to say.

An anti-imperialist league was organized in Boston which manifested a lack of confidence in President Taft, and in his Philippine policy. They seemed to suspect the government of sinister designs in regard to the islands; although acting at present in apparent good faith, and notwithstanding the prompt fulfillment of our promise with regard to Cuba, they feared that politicians and capitalists were so shaping the laws and absorbing the natural wealth of the Philippine country as to render rehabilitation at any time impracticable. And this, although the people of the United States are opposed to what they call imperialism.

They claimed that the Filipinos had already demonstrated their capacity for self-government by organizing political parties, legislative assemblies, appointing officials, and employing all the paraphernalia of popular government. They deprecated the disposal of lands and the introduction, under the Taft policy, of foreign capital, which acts as a menace rather than as a benefit. Their arguments from false premises were otherwise somewhat strained, as the fact remains that in the midst of internal jealousy and external rapacity the native islanders are in no condition to exercise successful self-rule. And there is no reason after our Cuban benefactions for distrusting the American people.

What evidence the Filipinos have given of their capacity for self-government it would be difficult to say. By far the greater part of them are but little better than savages, knowing no civilized people, speaking no civilized language, and thinking no civilized thoughts. They are far behind the Cubans in intelligence and education, yet the Cubans made a failure of their first attempt at self-government.

What would they, these good people of Boston ? Would they have had us leave Spain alone, leave alone Weyler, 4 'the wickedest man on earth," to grind the Cubans into the dust, to tear them from their homes, gather them into droves and herd them in city suburbs to die of starvation and disease, all of them whom he had not already shot or imprisoned ? Would they see the dogs in their streets thus treated and not put forth a restraining hand? Was it a coterie of sentimentalists who thus felt for the Cubans, or was it a protest from the great heart of humanity that compelled President McKinley to put an end to the iniquity after he had repeatedly begged Congress for a little more time in which if possible to avert war ?

Compelled at last to act, not by party politicians or any special interests but by the noble impulses of the American people, he played the part of a true soldier and acted with promptness and vigor. And the fateful words once wired to Admiral Dewey, " Capture or destroy the Spanish fleet," where has there been a stopping-place from that day to this ? When has there been a time that the government of the United States could honorably say "Here we will rest;" when it could with decency say to the half or wholly savage Filipinos, "Now look out for yourselves," leaving them to anarchy at home and the prey of designing nations ?

True, when Dewey had sunk the Spanish fleet in Manila bay he might have sailed away and left them, his orders obeyed, his task accomplished. Would any of us have had it so ? Would not the Spaniards there have pounced upon the defenceless natives with greater cruelties than ever, pluralizing the horrors of Cuba, were it possible, with tenfold intensity? And for how long would Japan or Germany have withheld their rapacious hands ? For how long would the hungry nations have kept a promise had they made one ? Being a man and an American Admiral Dewey could not choose but land and plant there his flag, the flag of his country, which pledged himself and his government to protect this people just let loose from tyranny, to protect them from themselves and others. And since then I fail to see any time when this government could have honorably receded from that position.