those gentlemen who, mistaking the past policy of the country, desire it to remain forever one and unchangeable; who are inexpressibly grieved because the giant is no longer content with the nursery rhymes which were sung around his cradle, but insists on singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic:

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me; As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.

We all hope that our country in the future will be the home of liberty, of justice, and of humanity. And it is not a bad way to promote these at home, to do something for liberty and justice and humanity in the islands of the ocean. The man who thinks only of himself grows narrow and mean, and so does the nation. We have given of our bounty to the weak and the suffering, and even while we were giving, the blessing came upon us in fullest measure; the hearts of our own people were knit together again in love, and sectional feeling and animosity passed away. The bitterness of party spirit and the shibboleths of party hate disappeared; the sympathy and good will of the mother country demanded the neutrality of Europe, and in turn won for herself from this country a love stronger and heartier than was ever before felt by this people for Great Britain since the Pilgrims left her shores. We want no formal alliance even with England, but henceforth in the contests which endanger the liberty or the rights of men, these two countries will stand together, and the crowned heads that are still speculating on the necessity of maintaining the balance of power,

and using Turkey as a weight in the scales, must take notice that the United States is henceforth to be reckoned as one of the powers of the world whose wishes are not to be entirely disregarded by the continent of Europe.

The Nicaragua-Panama canal should unquestionably be built, either by a private company or by the nation, but not by any union of the two, the nation furnishing the money and the company the experience, and in the end the company having the money and the nation the experience. There has been too much of that; let us have no more of it, but let the canal be built, our treaty obligations not being overlooked. Its influence on our future prosperity will be beyond calculation, and if our dreams of commercial greatness in the East are ever realized, this canal will be doubly important. Let it be built, honestly built, for the good of mankind, and it will add largely to American prosperity.

I am glad that Hawaii is ours. It ought to be. I am glad that there is hope that Porto Rico will be ours, the people not being unwilling. I do not desire Cuba, but I would take care of Cuba or make her take care of herself. I do not want the Philippine Archipelago, but I would hold Manila certainly and the island of Luzon, and I think I would let the rest of the archipelago try its hand at self-government. I am unwilling to have the flower of our youth spend their lives or lose their lives in performing police duty among a half-civilized people. Relieved of Spanish taxation and repression, allowed to use their money for their own improvement, stimulated by the sight of American liberty, American schools, and American justice, I believe the people

of the archipelago might be safely left to work out their own salvation, and if they can, it is a great deal better that they should than that we should do it for them.

Having thus very briefly disposed of the various territories which the nation does not quite know what to do with, and having undoubtedly relieved the mind of the President on this matter, I close with the simple hope that, in the future, our people may be industrious, prosperous, virtuous, and happy; that our rulers may be men who fear God and work righteousness; that our nation by its example of liberty and justice for all, may be the means of overthrowing tyranny and oppression everywhere, and of lifting up and comforting the down-trodden, and the oppressed, and that by a wise employment of the industrial forces at home, it may secure the highest utility of capital, and the most abundant reward of labor for all the people of our country.

AMERICAN PROGRESS*

It is both natural and wise for a people to think well of a country in which they live, whether it be theirs by birth or adoption. "Our nation," as Abraham Lincoln so felicitously said at Gettysburg, was "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal;" our government is "government of the people, by the people, and for the people," and surely no people on the face of the earth, looking back and noting the blessings which have come to them, have greater reason than we have to say with the Psalmist: "God hath not dealt so with any nation." The western hemisphere seems to have been kept hid from the rest of the world for so many centuries, in order that it might, at just the right time, become the home of just the right people, to lay the foundations of institutions most fitted to promote the development and happiness of mankind.

The right time came when Europe awoke from its intellectual and religious slumbers. America was discovered, but even then the right people were not ready for its settlement. The right people came when, just before the birth of Milton, the English established a colony in Virginia; when, a few years later,

*Delivered at the commencement of the University of Wisconsin, June 21st, 1893.