Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/396

372 would be taxed to the utmost, and that meanwhile he would, being to his whole capacity engaged with us, be at the mercy of his possibly hostile neighbors at home. This, leaving all other considerations aside, is the reason why no Old-World power will think of going to war with us, unless kicked into it by some absolutely unendurable provocation on our part. They will, on the contrary, readily, even with alacrity, concede to us every right that we can justly claim, every demand that we can decently make, to secure our good-will. Have we not of late years, at times with some astonishment, witnessed the spectacle of some of them fairly running a race for our friendship? And now we must have no end of battleships, at whatever cost, to protect the Monroe Doctrine against them!

But—as we are told without ceasing—we are now a great world-power, and as a great world-power we are bound to have a great navy. Of all the humbugs of the day—and there are many—the aberration that this Republic has but recently issued as a great world-power from our Spanish war is perhaps the most audacious. What is a world-power? A power whose voice is listened to in the councils of nations with respect and deference, and which by word or act exercises an important influence in the development of the great affairs of mankind. It was perhaps half a hundred years ago when Richard Cobden called this Republic the greatest power on earth. At that time we did not think of having a great army or navy. This power was not first revealed by the fights around Santiago. By its very birth this Republic gave a mighty impulse to liberal movements in the old world. In its early childhood it put its strong hand upon the piratical practices of the Barbary States, although our war-fleet hardly counted among the navies of Europe. About the middle of the last century it took a leading part in