Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/503

Rh annex Cuba, would leave the government of that island to the people thereof.

This resolution was adopted to justify our war with Spain before the public opinion of mankind. All the world was to understand that only a sense of duty put arms in our hands; that we were impelled by a high purpose of noble disinterestedness; that this was to be a war of liberation and humanity, not of conquest or self-aggrandizement. This we solemnly proclaimed. In proclaiming it we asked the world to believe what we said. It is quite evident that if this proclamation had been open to the construction that, while we would not annex Cuba, we would annex whatever else might come conveniently our way, it would have met with general derision and contempt. Our own people would have indignantly protested against the mockery; and when some foreign papers charged us with hypocrisy, and predicted that this war of liberation and humanity would turn out to be a land-grabbing scheme, we grew very angry and loudly repelled the vile imputation.

It may be somewhat old-fashioned, but I still believe that a nation, no less than an individual man, is in honor bound to keep its word; that it can neither preserve its self-respect nor safe standards of morality among its own people, nor the esteem and confidence of mankind, unless it does, and that the maintenance of perfect good faith will finally turn out to be the best investment—that honesty is and will remain the best policy. And now I ask the advocates of annexation among us, whether if this Republic under any pretext annexes any of the Spanish colonies, it does not really turn this solemnly advertised war of liberation and humanity into a war of self-aggrandizement! I ask them what they will have to say when our detractors repeat against us their charges of hypocrisy and selfish motives! I ask them who will