CHAPTER IV.

Ourselves as England's Tool.

1. A Kind Cat's-Paw.

Nothing damns and blackens the expansion movement

Are the masses

so much as the question, Who want it. of plain Americans demanding murder, conquest and an armament for universal war, or is it certain cliques and classes with private ends to promote? The command that we shall renounce our past and fight for sovereignty of the world comes from British Imperialists, from our commercial classes, from our professional politicians, our clergy (already considered), our editors, and our 'great' naval and military commanders. A contemplation of this motley group of irreconcilable advocates of international lynching ought to be enough in itself to enlighten and sicken us of their dazzling military scheme.

Why do those incomparable men who are tottering under the load of British empire, the shaggy-minded Salisbury, the acrobat Chamberlain, stroke our backs lovingly since we cudgelled poor Spain and assassinated Philippine liberty? England is far gone in a most precarious pickle, and every word of advice that her lordly statesmen waft us is a disguised moan for help. Joe Chamberlain, the man who screened the infamous Cecil Rhodes and his dupe Jameson in their South African freebooting raid, has let no chance slip of telling us how great and good we may become by putting on a coat of mail and trotting with England around the globe beating weak races into submission to Anglo-Saxon virtue. But when the key to his love of our glory is England's

extremity, who believes a word that this cunning modern Joseph with a brain of many colors says? Between his speeches this blazing genius sometimes forgets himself and other people forget him, and there is no way to grasp the elusive rudder of his mind unless we read his scattered words together.

He said in a speech at Manchester felicitating AngloAmerican rapprochement: "I shall not attempt to predict what may follow this better feeling, but I may at least hope that in the future the understanding of which I have spoken may be perfected, and that in the face of that understanding we two may be able to guarantee. peace and civilization to the world."

In Scribners Magazine he 'welcomed the advent of America as a colonizing power' in sugared words:

"It can hardly be necessary to say that the British nation will cordially welcome the entrance of the United States into the field of colonial enterprise, so long and so successfully occupied by themselves. There would be no jealousy of the expansion of American enterprise and influence; on the contrary, every Englishman would heartily rejoice in the co-operation of the United States in the great work of tropical civilization. From the nations of the continent of Europe he has nothing to learn except what to avoid. Their system, their objects, and their ideals are entirely different from his; and, as he thinks, inferior."*

He said that while the other Powers "imputed to the United States motives of selfish aggression, only transparently cloaked by a hypocritical pretence of humanity and disinterestedness, Great Britain alone, basing her judgment on her own feelings and experience, . . sought for the springs of action, not in the excesses of jingoes or the greed of interested individuals, but in the great moral forces which move a free people in the presence of injustice and wrong, perpetrated against helpless men and innocent women and children.'

*December, 1898.

And the British nation "would not shrink even from an alliance contra mundum, if the need should ever arise, in defence of the ideals of the Anglo-Saxon race-of humanity, justice, freedom, and equality of opportunity."

Going back a year to last May, when we were just beginning to chastise Spain for doing to Cuba as we have since done to the Philippines and would not have others do unto us, this Rt. Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, who as Secretary of State for the Colonies may be supposed to know England's inner needs, announced at Birmingham:

"The time has arrived when Great Britain may be confronted by a combination of powers, and our first duty, therefore, is to draw all parts of the empire into close unity, and our next to maintain the bonds of permanent unity with our kinsmen across the Atlantic. (Loud cheers.) "There is a powerful and generous nation, said Mr. Chamberlain, "using our language, bred of our race and having interests identical with ours. I would go so far as to say that, terrible as war may be, even war itself would be cheaply purchased if in a great and noble cause the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack should wave together over an Anglo-Saxon alliance. (Prolonged cheers.)"

England's method of civilizing the world by stealing it has brought her to the pass where the world hates her. Through an earlier development of industry she acquired foremost wealth and a sea power which qualified her to outstrip and defeat other nations in appropriating the world's territory; but now the other powers have caught up and expansion meets expansion and is blocked. There is a feeling among the powers that England already has too much, that the division of the world is not fair, and this may shape continental policy into a combination of powers to confront and strip Great Britain. Speaking for the Government Lord Stanley recently said: "With regard to the future, this country must come to an understanding with certain Powers abroad, or have a greatly increased army."

The 'Marquis' of Dufferin in a speech at Bristol last September, 'extolling the friendship existing between the two nations,' confessed, "To Englishmen, in the present state of affairs, how momentous is the fact that the mighty regions of North America are peopled by the Anglo-Saxon and a cognate instead of an alien people.”

The gruesome conditions move Chamberlain to love us with turgid emotion. An ally England must have or not very long hence divide her stolen goods; and yet it would be a bitter sorrow to divide with powers that she has so shrewdly eluded. If she accepts a continental ally it means great concessions, a long step down from a high pedestal. But if there is in the world a new nation, ‘a powerful and generous nation, using our language, and having interests identical with ours,' we proud Englishmen will be able to hold what we have seized against the whole world. England can magnificently use the United States. We have vast wealth, owned and governed by a few citizens who are growing less American and more upper-class English daily. We need not be a serious competitor with England for territory anywhere in the world. If our cupidity can be baited by a section of China in the presumptive partition we shall serve British designs handsomely. We shall sink huge masses of our wealth in war fleets and arm to do battle with England against the coalition of Europe. We shall be ourselves the greatest conquest England ever made. What transcendent fighting strength we shall add to her! And this mighty acquisition will not cost her a pound, a shilling, or a penny. With supreme generosity we shall pay the bills; we shall furnish whatever she asks, to 'preserve the glory of the Anglo-Saxon race.' From the scrape in which she is plunged by world greed we shall deliver her by pouring out our wealth and the lives of our young men, by sacrificing hundreds of millions for army and navy, by turning over as a nation from the progressive trade of peace to the degenerate trade of war. Was ever a nation in all

history so sweetly unselfish? Attend well-it is our citizens who are to be sacrificed and destroyed to uphold England's avarice. Never since upper-class statesmen first sang their tuneful lies to gullible multitudes has any purblind folly equalled this! Never was a nation so lucky as England in finding the paws of a mighty cat to put in the fire in place of her own! She says it will be good for us to back her in confiscating territory and we believe the lie and stalk forth panoplied in a cupidity equal to hers. Thanks to the olive branch of brotherly love and the olive oil of lubricating flattery England conquers us to her designs and we are harnessed in to drag the car of her imperial progress.

And above all these English are absolutely certain that they will find our instincts as low as theirs and will win with us. Arnold White, who writes from London to Harper's Weekly, tells us openly of their perturbations and hopes: "Anxiety is also caused by American difficulties in the Philippines, and the reported statement of General Lawton that 100,000 men would be required to conquer and hold the islands has induced certain scribes to predict the abandonment of American possessions in the Far East. Jingo England would be very, very sorry if Uncle Sam abandoned his imperial projects. Those acquainted with the American character are aware how little foundation there is for the rumor. That temporary checks are irritating when fighting in a vile climate with a race 'half devil and half child' is fully intelligible; but after the object-lesson of our costly scuttle from the Transvaal and the Soudan, it is incredible that the United States will dream of relinquishing the burden of her responsibilities in the Far East, whatever may be the destiny provided for the Filipinos when law and order are established." (May 13, 1899.)

I shall let the James Russell Lowell of the fifties answer this. "Yet, after all, thin, speculative Jonathan is more like the Englishman of two centuries ago than John Bull