THE

YALE REVIEW.

FEBRUARY, 1899.

COMMENT.

The Government of Alien Races by the United States; Imperialism and the Constitution; The Proposed Plan for the Government of the Hawaiian Islands; The Economic Association and the Twelfth Census.

IF

F the policy of "expansion" shall prevail, there will be incorporated into the population of the United States several millions-ultimately, perhaps, a dozen millions-of people, who belong to the Malayan, the Mongolian, the Polynesian, the African, and mixed races. These will have to be governed by us, at least for a long time, for they are obviously not now fitted for self-government, in our sense of that term. Naturally the question arises, whether our former attempts to manage peoples of alien race and inferior political education have met with such success as to encourage the hope that we shall do well with this new task. We have had two such experiences, both prolonged, namely those with the Indians and the Negroes. And it is worthy of note that we have pursued opposite policies. in the two cases. The Indians we have in the main treated as political infants, as wards of the nation; the Negroes, on the contrary, after freeing them from slavery, we invested with full political rights, by constitutional amendment. And the question is, Which of these methods shall we adopt in principle as concerns these new populations? Or shall we seek to combine the two? Or have both, and equally, proved ineffective? The experience of the Indians under our charge and tutelage is often alluded to in the newspapers as showing our inaptitude for such tasks; we do not remember to have seen the case of the negro

alleged. The truth, however, seems to be that we have failed quite as conspicuously and as disastrously in the latter case as in the former, and by one method as by the other. The blacks cannot for the most part vote to-day, despite the Fifteenth Amendment; and when for a season they did vote, no sort of good and several distinct sorts of evil came from the exercise by them of that function. The attempt to create and guarantee political rights by law where they neither did nor as yet could exist in reality, and to transform a subject race in the twinkling of an eye into sovereign citizens, was foredoomed to failure, as any entire or partial repetition of it will be. The wholesale introduction into the body of electors of ignorant and irresponsible, or alien, elements will not be tolerated.

If we become responsible for the management of these populations, we must definitely abandon, so far as they are concerned, the democratic doctrine that government derives its just rights from the consent of the governed and that representation is a prerequisite to taxation or other control. To be sure, we have never practiced this theory, as is seen in the long minority of the Indian, the enslavement in both North and South of the blacks and the various limitations placed here and there upon the suffrage; yet we have never ceased to profess and proclaim the doctrine.

In doing this we have laid such stress upon certain political dogmas that we have overlooked the greater importance of the maintenance of civil and economic rights as secured by the Constitution. Our public orators have created a fictitious, theoretical Constitution, into which fragments of the real Constitution and scraps of the Declaration of Independence, have been worked as in a mosaic. Even statesmen of ability and experience have come under the influence of this creation of the imagination, as the recent discussions with regard to expansion and imperialism have shown. Many men seem to think that the most powerful argument we can aim at this departure lies in the claim that it is contrary to the fundamental principles of our Constitution, because it involves taxation without representation, government established without the consent of the governed, and a

denial of the doctrine that all men are created equal. It is unfortunate that a good cause should be supported by such two-edged weapons. Historically, the Declaration of Independence cannot for a moment be put upon the same plane as the Constitution. The former was a political manifesto, issued by a revolutionary body, and, like most such manifestoes, was a rhetorical appeal for support. The latter is the fundamental law of the country, which can be quoted in court, and according to which the rights of the individual may be gauged. Leaving aside rhetoric and an appeal to the feelings, it lays down carefully and exactly the really essential maxims of good government. It very wisely leaves the subject of political rights almost untouched, allowing the States to decide for themselves who shall vote, and how the votes shall be counted; but it does lay great emphasis upon the maintenance of civil rights. It protects the citizen against unjust searches and seizures; it secures him against the loss of life, liberty, and property, without due process of law; it guarantees him the right of trial by jury in criminal suits. Practically these civil rights have done much more to make our country prosperous and great than the possession of political rights. People flock to our shores, not because they can vote, for the inhabitants of most European countries from which we receive immigrants already enjoy that right at home; but they come here because they are free to earn their own living in their own way, secure in their persons and property, and exempt from the burden of a standing army and of a military aristocracy. The right of suffrage is worth little without the ability to earn a comfortable living, as we may see in the case of the Negroes, and the lack of the right of suffrage does not seriously impair the attractiveness of the country as long as there is a chance to earn good wages, as is seen in the case of the Chinese.

The real objection to the new policy of expansion is not that there may be people under our flag who are not consulted about the government. We have endured this anomaly at the very seat of the government itself, and we can doubtless endure it on the other side of the hemisphere. But the burden of a standing army, the increase of the pension list, heavier taxation,

and a more extravagant scale of expenditure on the part of the Government are serious and practical evils which, if they become necessary, as they doubtless will in case the new policy prevails, will seriously impair the value of the United States as a place of residence, while new forms of corruption will threaten the good name of our Government. War always has a tendency to weaken the rights of the individual. The Civil War had this effect. For while it gave additional security to political rights by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the precedent established in the legal tender cases of allowing the Government, under the supposed pressure of a war, to issue legal tender notes which impaired the obligation of contracts throughout the United States, struck a blow at the Constitution under which we are still suffering.

Meantime, we note that the commission appointed by the President to "recommend to Congress such legislation concerning the Hawaiian Islands as they shall deem necessary and proper," have reported a Bill which imposes an educational qualification for all electors and an additional property qualification for the electors of Senators, as well as a property qualification for membership either in the Senate or the House of Representatives-qualifications which leave a very considerable portion of the adult males of the new Territory without the franchise, and without ambition for high office. We trust that these features will not be stricken from the Bill before its passage, and that it will give direction, in this respect, to subsequent legislation respecting the other new possessions.

The events of the past year will be judged by the world and by posterity, not with reference to the form of government which is established in our new possessions, but with reference to the well-being of the people. We must give them justice, security, good water, good roads, freedom to develop their resources, and improved sanitary conditions. Much seems to have been accomplished in this line by Gen. Wood at Santiago; but the test of our fitness for colonial possessions will come when the military force gives way to the civil, and the army of spoilsmen takes the place of the army of occupation. The

necessity of the hour for imperialists and anti-imperialists alike is to guard against the invasion of that army, and to see that, whatever the political condition of the natives may be, the civilians sent out from this country are above reproach.

The meeting of the American Economic Association at New Haven in December last, was marked by the extremely practical character of the subjects treated. The chief place was occupied by the report of a most efficient committee on the scope and method of the Twelfth Census. Not only was this committee a strong one in itself-it consisted of Messrs. Mayo-Smith, Willcox, Wright, Falkner, and Dewey-but it also enjoyed the coöperation of outside experts like Holmes and North; and it is to be sincerely hoped that its recommendations will be heeded by the government authorities in the years immediately to come.

The first criticism directed by the committee against our traditional census methods is that inadequate time is allowed for preparing the schedules. Another criticism, and perhaps an even more fundamental one, relates to the undue number and variety of subjects treated. This causes such a scattering of power that the few things which are really most important cannot receive the attention they deserve. Our census bills are in fact like our river and harbor bills; they provide for doing a good many things poorly rather than a few things well. Much of this scattering of force is wholly unnecessary; for we have a number of established bureaus which are doing continuous statistical work, which is at least to some degree duplicated by that of the census as at present conducted. As the committee suggests, the collection of statistics of fisheries might well be transferred to the Fish Commission; of railroads, to the Interstate Commerce Commission; of schools, to the Bureau. of Education: and so on, with a number of departments of enquiry. With these changes we should greatly reduce the bulk of the census; we should transfer to the bureaus in question powers which would aid them in their regular work; we should get our statistics collected at once more cheaply and more efficiently; and their results would be in a continuous