Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/554

 so hard and you worked so effectively … all seem to be in a conspiracy to convict me of insanity. Am I crazy or not? If you say so, I shall contend no longer. If we conclude after consultation that I am really sane, then for God's sake, for the sake of humanity and for the good of our common country, let us cry aloud and spare not.”

To interpose what resistance was possible to the sweep of expansionist sentiment, its adversaries organized a “National Conference on the Foreign Policy of the United States.” Schurz drafted the call and made the chief address at the conference on August 18th. His speech was an earnest and eloquent development of the suggestions made to the President in the letter of June 1st. Expansion was opposed on grounds of morals and honor, of institutional policy and of commercial interest. The question of morals was put by the orator, suo more, in the foreground: “It may be somewhat old-fashioned, but I still believe that a nation, no less than an individual man, is in honor bound to keep its word … that honesty is and will remain the best policy. And now I ask the advocates of annexation among us whether, if this republic under any pretext annexes any of the Spanish colonies, it does not really turn this solemnly advertised war of liberation and humanity into a war of self-aggrandizement. I ask them what they will have to say when our detractors repeat against us their charges of hypocrisy and selfish interest. I ask them who will trust us again when we appear once more before mankind with fine words about our unselfish devotion to human freedom and humanity. I ask them whether as patriotic men they really think it will become or profit this great American republic to stand before mankind as a nation whose most solemn professions cannot be trusted.”

His argument on the effect of expansion upon our