Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/511

Rh These are not all the troubles the possession of those islands would bring us. We have now race problems on our hands in this country, the solution of which is exceedingly problematical. We have still to atone for our long toleration of slavery. The ills we thus have we must bear as best we can. But would it not be sinful folly to add to them tenfold by the incorporation in our body-politic of millions of persons belonging partly to races far less good-natured, tractable and orderly than the negro is?

And can we permit ourselves to forget the fact that in tropical regions there is always a strong tendency, under the plea of necessity, to use for the exploitation of the resources of those countries people of colored races, black or yellow, often under systems of contract labor which in various ways are akin to temporary slavery—at any rate entirely incompatible with our principles as to the freedom and dignity of labor and hostile to its interests? Have we not an example of this in the presence of the more than 40,000 Chinese and Japanese laborers in Hawaii, which imposes upon us a problem of most perplexing nature?

But this is not all. Who will deny that if we expand territorially, especially in the Far East, we shall at once become involved in the quarrels and jealousies of the Old-World nations that are competing there for colonial acquisition with constant danger of armed collision?

And shall we not be exposed to such chances infinitely more than ever before, when our interests, our pride, our ambitions and jealousies are engaged in complicated enterprises far away? And are not such chances especially fraught with danger in a democracy, in which public sentiment, when nervously excited, does sometimes run away with sober judgment and may precipitate great conflicts which calm and patient reason, acting only on full and trustworthy information, would avoid?