Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/558

 joint guarantee of good government and autonomy. But this, like every other plan proposed, offended the chauvinistic spirit that had been aroused by the war, and for very lack of any practicable project for letting the Philippines alone, the treaty which took them under the sovereignty of the United States was ratified in February, 1899. Then ensued the long war to bring the natives into subjection, with the repulsive incidents of all such hostilities with inferior races.

The course of events stimulated Mr. Schurz to a series of orations in his best and strongest style against the new and alarming spirit of our political life. He could not and would not believe that expansion was more than a passing delusion, which would yield to time and proper treatment. With unabated zeal he pressed upon the public the lessons of history and of reason as to the incompatibility between the new imperialistic spirit and the institutions and traditions of the Republic. At the University of Chicago on January 4, 1899, and at Philadelphia on April 7th, he delivered elaborate addresses on the great problems of the time. Meanwhile the relatively few and scattered but very earnest sympathizers with the cause he was sustaining organized for their propaganda, and Schurz promptly associated himself with their proceedings. In November, 1898, he had been made a vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League, which had its headquarters at Boston, and thenceforth he was an untiring counselor in every phase of the activity of the organization.

The breach with the semi-independent and semi-reforming Roosevelt and the association with the protectionist and intensely partisan Hoar alike illustrate the strength of Schurz's conviction that all other political issues had become subordinate to that of expansion. As the presidential campaign of 1900 approached he feared that his unpopular views on imperialism