Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/541

Rh effects of the tropical climate nor quell the dissatisfaction of the volunteers still in the service who think that they ought to have been sent home after the close of the war. They will continue to fill the air with their lamentations through their friends and relatives. Neither will the investigation encourage enlistments for the regular Army, at least not for some time to come. In the meantime the financial burdens brought upon the people by the annexation policy will also make themselves more felt, and appropriations will go on increasing, while the expected commercial benefit will necessarily be slow to come in. All these elements of discontent will coöperate to make the great mass of the people heartily sick of the whole business. Disease spreading among the tropical garrisons, or anything like a mutinous demonstration of restlessness among the volunteers, might put the public mind in a state of critical excitement. The political consequences apt to follow, I need not point out. They have so far only partially manifested themselves, but they will grow worse and worse as the obnoxious concomitants of the annexation policy develop themselves, which they will necessarily do.

As you may perhaps remember, at the beginning of the war I ventured to suggest that no opportunity be lost by your Administration for demonstratively declaring that, according to the pledge put forth by Congress, this was a war of liberation and humanity and not for aggrandizement, and that therefore annexations of territory were out of the question. Had that been done, your moral position would have been so strong and unassailable as to command the general support of the people, with the exception, perhaps, of that of the most reckless and unscrupulous jingo element. Then you would have had no trouble at all about the final settlement. When you failed to take that impregnable moral ground, your troubles