Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/38

10 of civilization—is too shocking a proposition to be entertained for a moment, and that our people will resist it to the bitter end. No, they will not resist it, if indiscriminate expansion has once become the settled policy of the Republic. They will be told, as they are told now, that we are in it and cannot get honorably out of it; that destiny, and Providence, and duty demand it; that it would be cowardly to shrink from our new responsibilities; that those populations cannot take care of themselves, and that it is our mission to let them have the blessing of our free institutions; that we must have new markets for our products; that those countries are rich in resources, and that there is plenty of money to be made by taking them; that the American people can whip anybody and do anything they set out to do; and that “Old Glory” should float over every land on which we can lay our hands.

Our people, having yielded to such cries once, will yield to them again. Conservative citizens will tell them that thus the homogeneousness of the people of the Republic, so essential to the working of our democratic institutions, will be irretrievably lost; that our race troubles, already dangerous, will be infinitely aggravated, and that the government of, by and for the people will be in imminent danger of fatal demoralization. They will be cried down as pusillanimous pessimists, who are no longer American patriots. The American people will be driven on and on by the force of events as Napoleon was when started on his career of limitless conquest. This is imperialism as now advocated. Do we wish to prevent its excesses? Then we must stop it at the beginning, before taking Porto Rico. If we take that island, not even to speak of the Philippines, we shall have placed our selves on the inclined plane, and roll on and on, no longer masters of our own will, until we shall have reached