Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/45

Rh on the government of the people by the people and for the people in justice, liberty, order and peace without large armies and navies.

Let this Republic and Great Britain each follow the course which its conditions and its history have assigned to it, and their ambitions will not clash, and their friendship be maintained for the good of all. And if our British cousins should ever get into very serious stress, American friendship may stand behind them; but then Britain would depend upon our friendship, which, as an American, I should prefer, and not America on British friendship, as our British friends, who so impatiently urge us to take the Philippines, would have it. But if we do take the Philippines, and thus entangle ourselves in the rivalries of Asiatic affairs, the future will be, as Lord Salisbury predicted, one of wars and rumors of wars, and the time will be forever past when we could look down with condescending pity on the nations of the old world groaning under militarism with all its burdens.

We are already told that we shall need a regular Army of at least 100,000 men, three-fourths of whom are to serve in our new “possessions.” The question is whether this necessity is to be only temporary or permanent. Look at the cost. Last year the support of the Army proper required about $23,000,000. It is computed that taking the increased costliness of the service in the tropics into account, the Army under the new dispensation will require about $150,000,000; that is, $127,000,000 a year more. It is also officially admitted that the possession of the Philippines would render indispensable a much larger increase of the Navy than would otherwise be necessary, costing untold millions for the building and equipment of ships, and untold millions every year for their maintenance and for the increased number of officers and men. What we shall have to spend for fortifications and the