Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/532

508 proves. Recovery from this sort of corruption, which in a monarchy or an aristocracy is not easy, is therefore far more difficult in a democracy. Owing to its constitutional peculiarity, a democracy is far less capable of enduring and of overcoming wide-spread and deep-seated corruption than is a monarchy or an aristocracy.

But suppose we are sanguine and call this not a certainty, but only a danger, what reason have the American people for exposing themselves to a danger so awful? We are told that we produce more than this country can consume, and must have foreign markets in which to sell our surplus products. Well, must we own the countries with which we wish to trade? Is not this a notion ludicrously barbarous? And as to more open markets which we want, will it not, when after this war we make our final peace arrangements, be easy to stipulate for open ports?

It is also pretended that if we liberate the Spanish West Indies and the Philippines from Spanish misrule, we shall be responsible for their future welfare, and shall have to keep them, because we shall not be able to make other satisfactory arrangements for them. This is “pleading the baby act” to justify the keeping of the islands in spite of the most conclusive reasons against keeping them. As soon as this Republic shows itself firmly and irrevocably resolved not to keep the islands, the minds of the imperialists will be relieved of their principal difficulty in finding suitable provision for their future. If there is a will, there will be a way. If there is no will, it is not honest to pretend that there is no way.

It remains to survey the alternative possibilities. Here is what the policy of Imperialism puts in prospect: the annexation to the United States of all the territory conquered from Spain—Cuba, Porto Rico, the Philippines and perhaps the Carolines and the Ladrones. This at once. Then the enlargement of the boundaries of the