Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/55

Rh fact that under a respectful observance of those teachings this Republic has grown from the most modest beginnings into a Union spanning this vast continent; our people have multiplied from a handful to seventy-five millions; we have risen from poverty to a wealth the sum of which the imagination can hardly grasp; this American Nation has become one of the greatest and most powerful on earth, and continuing in the same course will surely become the greatest and most powerful of all. Not Washington's name alone gave his teachings their dignity and weight. It was the practical results of his policy that secured to it, until now, the intelligent approbation of the American people. And unless we have completely lost our senses, we shall never despise and reject as mere “nursery rhymes” the words of wisdom left us by the greatest of Americans, following which the American people have achieved a splendor of development without parallel in the history of mankind.

You may tell me that this is all very well, but that by the acts of our own Government we are now in this annexation business, and how can we get decently out of it? I answer that the difficulties of getting out of it may be great; but that they are infinitely less great than the difficulties we shall have to contend with if we stay in it.

Looking them in the face, let us first clear our minds of confused notions about our duties and responsibilities in the premises. That our victories have devolved upon us certain duties as to the people of the conquered islands, I readily admit. But are they the only duties we have to perform, or have they suddenly become paramount to all other duties? I deny it. I deny that the duties we owe to the Cubans and the Porto Ricans and the Filipinos and the Tagals of the Asiatic islands absolve us from our duties to the seventy-five millions of our own people and to their posterity. I deny that they oblige us to destroy the moral