Volume XXV, Number 10

Thursday, 8 September, 1898

THE MILES-ALGER CONTROVERSY The Kansas City "Star's" Disclosures General Miles, according to an interview published in the Kansas City Star, charges the war department with exhibition of unfriendly opposition to him as the commanding general of the army, and with interfering with plans for operations against the enemy. When he was in Cuba General Miles charges that a secret dispatch was sent from the war department to Shafter, assuring that officer that the presence of Miles in front of Santiago would make no difference with Shafter's supreme command. Of this dispatch General Miles was given no notification, notwithstanding the fact that he was in negotiation with the enemy for a surrender of his forces. General Miles also charges that dispatches to and from him were mutilated and garbled in Washington when given to the public. "Words and sentences were left out," said the general, "which changed the meaning and significance of the messages, and

several very important ones, which would have thrown a clearer light upon the situation, were entirely suppressed." J. D. Whelpley, the Star's correspondent, says that the interview with General Miles on the conduct of the war was not confidential, and that he feels confident that General Miles will stand by the interview. A number of dispatches are given to show that the war department recognized General Miles as in command of the entire army, not only when he was in Tampa in June, but after General Shafter landed in Cuba. On July 4 General Shafter sent the following dispatch to Washington, addressed to the adjutant-general:

There seems to be no reasonable doubt but that General Pando succeeded in entering Santiago last night with his force, said to be about 5,000 men. This puts a different aspect on affairs, and while we can probably maintain ourselves, it would be at the cost of very considerable fighting and loss. General Lawton reports that General Garcia, who was to block entrance of Pando, informed him at ten o'clock last night that Pando had passed in on Cobra road. Lawton says can not compel General Garcia to obey my instructions to place themselves in any position where they will have to fight, and that if we intend to reduce Santiago we will have to depend alone upon our own troops and that we will require twice the number we now have. I sent a message to Admiral Sampson asking if he proposed entering the harbor so as to give us his assistance. Commodore Watson replies that he does not know Admiral Sampson's intentions since the destruction of the Spanish squadron, but does not himself think the fleet should try to go into the harbor of Santiago. This, under the circumstances, is not very encouraging. Have been expecting a division from Tampa and Duffield's Second Brigade from Camp Alger, but only a small number of recruits has appeared so far. If we have to go to try and reduce the town, now that the fleet is destroyed, which was stated to be the chief object of the expedition, there must be no delay in getting a large body of troops here. The town is in a terrible condition as to food, and people are starving, as stated by foreign consuls this morning, but the troops can fight, and have a large quantity of rice, but no other supplies. There will be nothing done here until noon of the 5th, and I suppose I can put them off a little longer to enable people to get out. Country here is destitute of food or growing crops, except mangoes. Men are in good spirits, though it is hard to tell how long the latter will continue. I am sorry to say I am no better, and, in addition to my weakness, can not be out on account of a slight attack of gout, but hope to be better soon. Lieutenant Miley had interview with consuls this morning, and his report will be telegraphed immediately. I do not send this in cipher as time is precious. SHAFTER, major-general.

In view of this situation General Miles determined to go to Cuba, and sent the following dispatch to Shafter, July 7:

Take every precaution against surprise and be on the lookout that the enemy does not turn your right flank and come in on the line of your communications. Reënforcements are being sent forward as rapidly as possible, but you will have to be the judge of the position you are to hold until reënforcements can reach you. MILES, major-general, commanding.

The Star says that Miles arrived at Santiago, July 11, and assumed command. All of the subsequent business of the surrender was entirely in his hands, as shown by the fact that the war department communicated with him direct, not even mentioning General Shafter's name in the numerous dispatches. The following dispatch is given as an example:

judgment an assault would fail. Consult with Sampson and pursue such course as to the assault as you jointly agree upon. Matters should be settled promptly. R. A. ALGER, secretary of war.

The Star also prints the following: This dispatch recognized Miles as commander, and gave him authority to act. Shafter was entirely ignored. In the face of this situation, Secretary Alger, through Corbin, sent a dispatch to Shafter, assuring him that Miles did not come to Cuba to supersede Shafter in any way. This dispatch Miles refers to as "secret," for he says he did not know it had been sent, not being notified from Washington, and General Shafter saying nothing about it. After the surrender Miles still retained control. He authorized Shafter to appoint peace commissioners, and, judging from Shafter's report that all was over, he instructed him as to the disposition of the troops. In one of his telegrams to Miles, Alger says: As soon as Santiago falls the troops must all be put in camp as comfortable as they can be made, and remain, I suppose, until the fever has had its run." Miles did not agree with Alger, for on July 21, in a letter, the general commanding urged the return of the army to the United States as soon as possible. On July 17, after the surrender was complete, General Shafter wired as follows to General Miles:

66

SIBONEY, July 17, 1898-8.40 p.m. Received July 18, 1898.

}

General Miles, on Board Yale: Letters and orders in reference to movement of camp received, and will be carried out. None is more anxious to get away from here than myself. It seems from your orders given me that you regarded my forces as part of your command. Nothing will give me greater pleasure than serving you, general, and I shall comply with all your requests and directions, but I was told by the secretary that you were not to supersede me in command here. I will furnish the information called for as to condition of command to Gilmore, adjutant-general, A. H. Q. SHAFTER, major-general.

General Miles replied as follows:

PLAYA DEL ESTE, July 18, 1898. Guantanamo, 11.30 a.m.

General Shafter: Telegram received; have no desire and have carefully avoided any appearance of superseding you. Your command is a part of the United States army, which I have the honor to command, having been duly assigned thereto and directed by the president to go wherever I thought my presence required, and give such general directions as I thought best concerning military matters, and especially directed to go to Santiago for a specific purpose. You will also notice that the orders of the secretary of war of July 13 left the matter to my discretion. I should regret that any event should cause either yourself or any part of your command to cease to be a part of mine. NELSON A. MILES.

New York Herald

"If my cablegram to Major-General Shafter, informing him that Major-General Miles was not sent to supersede him in supreme command of the troops in the field at Santiago de Cuba, prevented the storming of the city on the day of its surrender, this result in the saving of lives which otherwise would have been lost in the attack, then I am repaid for sending it a thousandfold." This statement was made to me by Secretary Alger apropos of the publication in the Herald, setting forth the doings of Major-General Miles during his brief stay in Cuba. The secretary told me he did not propose to enter into any controversy regarding the Santiago campaign with anybody. The results spoke for themselves, and they were a sufficient justification for the policy which had been pursued by the war department in the conduct of the operations against Santiago.

Press Comment

New York Commercial Advertiser (Rep.)

It is mere childishness to talk about court-martialing General Miles for the technical offense of criticising his superiors. It is time for these gentlemen at Washington to understand that the issue has risen above the level of their schoolboy rules and regulations, and that the case has been taken out of their hands. It is now before the American public, whose just anger will break their technical discipline as a pedagogue's ruler breaks in a strong man's hand. Court-martial of General Miles for action which, whatever its motive, makes for reform of dangerous abuses and punishment of shameful incapacity would be a very doubtful experiment for the strongest administration. It would make him a popular hero, and might

make him a formidable competitor for highest civil honors. This administration is too sensitive to public opinion to commit such an error. Technically the war department can put General Miles on trial for "conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman" in the jargon of the regulations. Actually the war department itself is on trial before the bar of public opinion for professional incapacity undreamed of before and almost unthinkable; for connivance, conscious or inconceivably stupid, in most shameless and brutal malfeasance; for neglect of duty, either densely ignorant or deliberately interested, whose consequence was wholesale murder. This is the indictment against the war department. General Miles is in no way responsible for it. Jealousy of his superiors denied him participation in the war till his trained capacity and executive forcefulness were needed to retrieve the blunders of political incompetents. But now chance has given him the position of the people's attorney to prosecute the great criminal of the war. If he is able to ignore his small personal wrongs and slights and rise to the level of his large opportunity, he will make the one military reputation of the war.

Philadelphia Ledger (Ind. Rep.)

The extraordinary controversy between General Miles, the major-general commanding the United States army, and General Alger, secretary of war, can scarcely fail to end in a court of inquiry or a court-martial. General Miles has enough courage to face the latter, and he will have the hearty support of the American people if he shall force a complete exposure of the evils of Algerism. It is true he might be convicted by a military court of a purely technical violation of army regulations if he should avow himself responsible for the interview attributed to him, but a careful reading of the statements made by the correspondent of the Kansas City Star does not show that General Miles criticised his superior officers. It is the facts that impeach Alger; the most that General Miles has done has been to make public the facts. It is by no means clear that his cablegram to Shafter had anything to do with saving lives, for it had no effect whatever, Miles assuming his proper command; but if it had, there would still be no excuse for a message liable to bring about confusion in the command of an army while confronting an enemy. Secretary Alger could not have foreseen that Miles would want to attack, while Shafter would hold off and negotiate for a surrender of the Spanish forces. The fact of the matter is that he was engaged in low politics as usual, and was seeking to give his friend Shafter, by secret message, authority to defy his superior officer. Nothing more infamous is recorded in military history. The war department gave out false news for the benefit of Shafter, and every effort was made to make it appear that Miles was a mere looker-on at Santiago. The dispatches made public through General Miles prove the duplicity of Alger and Adjutant-General Corbin. It is not necessary for Miles to say anything, but he should compel the publication of all the dispatches and letters relating to Santiago. They will be quite sufficient to overwhelm and condemn Alger. Then if the ad

ministration should attempt to "break" Miles, it will have to first break the spirit of the American people, for they will stand by the man who has exposed the mismanagement of the war department to the end.

Brooklyn Eagle (Ind. Dem.)

The Kansas City Star's contribution to the literature of the war furnishes no surprises. It is not even surprising to learn that Alger sent this dispatch to the commanding general: "As soon as Santiago falls, the troops must all be put in camp as comfortable as they can be made and remain, I suppose, until the fever has had its run." What is more or less surprising is the fact that the secretary did not issue a peremptory order to keep them there. Much valuable information would have been obtained. Students would have been furnished with an illustration of what fever can do when there is plenty of fine material at its disposal. Unfortunately, there is a certain perversity about the commanding general. He insisted that the troops should be hurried out of Cuba with all possible rapidity, the secretary of war's sage supposition to the contrary notwithstanding, but thanks to hard tack and nauseating grease, fever made quite a handsome record for itself. Another side light illumines the Santiago situation just at the time when so much depended upon the physical and mental condition of the man in charge. "I am sorry to say," said Shafter in a telegram to Alger, "I am no better, and in addition to my weakness can not be out on account of a slight attack of gout, but hope to be better very soon." This makes it clear that Alger has something to be thankful for. No allusion to Santiago can now be made without recalling a glorious page of American history, but it is manifest enough that Miles started for Cuba none too soon. It was supposed that our fighters would have to reckon with Spaniards only. Before long, discoveries were made. The Mauser has proved to be a comparatively inoffensive weapon. Algerism is equally smokeless and never misses fire. It hits to kill. As a matter of fact it is irresistible. Let it have time and opportunity and it will see to it that there are no survivors.

Washington (D. C.) Post (Ind.)

But for this luck many more hundreds of our soldiers must have perished of starvation-with plenty of provisions not twenty miles away. The plan of Miles's campaign after he landed--and it was not the plan either that the board of military strategy had mapped out and recommended to him— showed a fine comprehension of the task before him. It was no wild dash, with a hit or miss at the end, like Shafter's. It was a carefully prepared and skillfully laid out plan, which took account of contingencies in advance; which assailed different strongholds of the island at the same time so that the Spanish garrisons could not go to each other's assistance; and which assured the final break-up of the enemy's power by smashing it piecemeal. We admit that, at the commencement of the hostilities, we had no great admiration for Miles, taking him to be largely tailor-made and a poseur; but the events of the war have forced us to a change of opinion— to this extent at least that, in comparison with an incompetent and bungler like Shafter whom the war secretary pushed ahead of him, he is quite an able general. Miles has not had much to do; but the little he has done he has done in excellent fashion, to the people's contentment and his own credit. Shafter has touched nothing of which he has not made a mess. And it will be interesting, therefore, as we said, to see the popular and the official reception that the two warriors will get.

Of the propriety of the course which General Miles has seen fit to adopt, there is a serious question. We greatly doubt whether a military officer of his rank, either in this or in any other country, ever before made a public declaration of similar import and under similar circumstances. He has not only charged the war department with incompetency and bad faith, but he has done this through the novel medium of a newspaper. We venture to say that it is not customary to do things in quite this way, and have no hesitation in saying that, so far, General Miles has violated the usages and the rules of his profession. In some respects, indeed, the general has spoken without warrant. It is not fair to say, because an official dispatch or document has been edited for publication, that it has been garbled and distorted. We do not think that any government, conducted under enlightened auspices, ever proclaims for the information of the populace the full and unabridged text of its official reports. To certain facts the people are undoubtedly entitled, but there are always other facts which it would be manifestly unwise to publish. The country would not understand them. Their utterance would promote only an untoward and a mischievous end. If, therefore, the department suppressed any portions of Miles's dispatches or of its own communications to him, it does not follow that he sustained any injury in the process or that the motive was at all discreditable. As regards the main question, however, there can be no two opinions. General Miles has without doubt treated the government to a dilemma from which there can be but one issue. He has made accusations and indulged in criticisms that imperatively demand an investigation. It will hardly be denied that the situation is without a precedent. But the situation exists and the government can not deal with it too swiftly or too conscientiously.

New Orleans Picayune (Dem.)

Boston Transcript (Ind. Rep.)

What the public wants to know is the rights of the controversy between the secretary of war and General Miles, and it cares little how the knowledge is obtained so long as it gets it. At the same time to obtain this knowledge will be no easy matter. To court-martial General Miles for disrespectful language constituting unmilitary conduct would be a very awkward undertaking. Court-martials in so important a case, constituted to try a distinguished officer of high rank, should in the natural order of things military have at their head somebody distinctly superior in rank to the accused. Now while General Miles is commanding general simply by superiority he holds the highest rank known at present in our army, that of major-general. Moreover, he is the commanding officer. Every other officer in the army from Major-General Merritt down to the second lieutenant whose commission was signed yesterday owes implicit obedience to General Miles. Of course a court might be constituted in some fashion by the president to try General Miles, but it would labor under very serious disadvantages in trying the general commanding. Thus a court of inquiry might trace the Alger-Miles controversy down to its source and follow it in all its ramifications. We should think that Secretary Alger would not welcome the suggestion of a court of inquiry. Such a court might report that General Miles's conduct and language constituted sufficient ground for court-martialing him; but, on the other hand, it might simply return a list of facts ascertained, going to show that if his

Shafter attended to nothing that his position required him to attend to. He did not even trouble himself to see that the siege artillery or the tents or the ammunition or the medical supplies were landed; as soon as the men set foot on shore he sent them forward and allowed every sort of necessary, every needed accommodation, to remain behind. It was lucky for Shafter and the army both that General Miles happened along at Baiquiri ten days or two weeks afterward, and that, seeing the supplies still lying there, he sent them to the front.

IN

ARVATION

THE BLOT ON THE ESCUTCHEON.-New York World

words were censurable they were uttered after provocations that threatened his seniority and weakened his authority as commanding general.

Chicago Times-Herald (Rep.) Although Secretary Alger has announced that he will make no investigation, it is certain that the president will have any specific charges inquired into. In justice to himself and the good name of the army the truth should be known. While it is certain that such an investigation will show more or less incompetency on the part of staff officials, it is also certain that it will result in disproving many charges against the war officials and will show that the condition of the army has been grossly exaggerated.

New York Press (Rep.)

As the only general commanding the American army who never planned a battle, it is natural that at the conclusion of the war General Miles should desire to fight somebody. But he should be careful whom he fights. He should control his forces, his whelps, and Whelpleys. If General Miles desires to flesh his sword, entirely maiden in independent command, on Alger nobody will object. And there are those who deem that in the adjutant-general's steel the ornamental end of the war department, which is the magnificent Miles, will find its mate, if not its master, in the business end, which is the useful Corbin. Springfield (Mass.) Republican (Ind.)

It makes no difference what shall be discovered in detail by an investigation, the incompetence of the war department is absolute in every branch and the head of it is responsible for it. Mr. McKinley is an accomplice in the murder of our soldiers so long as he retains this unworthy person.

Views of a Peace Commissioner

Hon. WHITELAW REID, in the September Century. Condensed for PUBLIC OPINION

The chief aversion to the vast accessions of territory with which we are threatened springs from the fear that ultimately they must be admitted into the union as states. No public duty is more urgent at this moment than to resist from the very outset the concession of such a possibility. In no circumstances likely to exist within a century should they be admitted as a state of the union. The loose, disunited, and unrelated iederation of states to which this would inevitably lead, embracing all climes, all religions, all races,—black, yellow, white, and their mixtures,-all conditions, from pagan ignorance and the verge of cannibalism to the best product of centuries of civilization, education, and self-government, all with equal rights in our senate and representation according to population in our house, with an equal voice in shaping our national destinies-that would, at least in this stage of the world, be humanitarianism run mad, a degeneration and degradation of the homogeneous continental republic of our pride too preposterous for the contemplation of serious and intelligent men. Quite as well might Great Britain now invite the swarming millions of India to send rajahs and members of parliament, in proportion to population, to swamp the lords and commons and rule the English people. If it had been supposed that even Hawaii, with its overwhelming preponderance of Kanakas and Asiatics, would become a state, she could not have been annexed. If the territories we are conquering must become states, we might better renounce them at once and place them under the protectorate of some humane and friendly European power with less nonsense in its blood.

This is not to deny them the freest and most liberal institutions they are capable of sustaining. The people of Sitka and the Aleutian islands enjoy the blessings of ordered liberty and free institutions, but nobody dreams of admitting them to statehood. New Mexico has belonged to us for half a century, not only without oppression, but with all the local self-government for which she was prepared; yet, though an integral part of our continent, surrounded by states, and with an adequate population, she is still not admitted to statehood. Why should not the people on the island of Porto Rico, or even of Cuba, prosper and be happy for the next century under the rule which their kinsmen of New Mexico have prospered under for the last half century? With slight modifications, the territorial form of government which we have tried so successfully from the beginning of the union is admirably adapted to such communities. It secures local self-govern

ment, equality before the law, upright courts, ample power for order and defense, a voice in congress for the presentation of local wants, and such control by congress as gives security against the mistakes or excesses of people new to the exercise of these rights.

Objectors still argue, the constitution gives no positive warrant for a permanent territorial policy. But it does! Ordinarily it may be assumed that what the framers of the constitution immediately proceeded to do under it was intended by them to be warranted by it; and we have seen that they immediately devised and maintained a territorial system for the government of territory which they had no expectation of ever converting into states. The case, however, is even plainer than that. The sole reference in the constitution to the territories of the United States is in Article IV, Section 3: "The congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States." Jefferson revised his first views far enough to find warrant for acquiring territory; but here is explicit, unmistakable authority conferred for dealing with it, and with other property," precisely as congress chooses. The territory was not a present or prospective party in interest in the nation created under this organic act. It was "property," to be disposed of or ruled and regulated as congress might determine. The inhabitants of the territory were not consulted; there was no provision that they should even be guaranteed a republican form of government like the states; they were secured no right of representation and given no vote. So, too, when it came to acquiring new territory, there was no thought of consulting the inhabitants. Mr. Jefferson did not ask the citizens of Louisiana to consent to their annexation, nor did Mr. Monroe submit such a question to the Spaniards of Florida, nor Mr. Polk to the Mexicans of California, nor Mr. Pierce to the New Mexicans, nor Mr. Johnson to the Russians and Aleuts of Alaska. The power of the government to deal with territory, foreign or domestic, precisely as it chooses was understood from the beginning to be absolute; and at no stage in our whole history have we hesitated to exercise it. The question of permanently holding the Philippines or any other conquered territory as territory is not, and can not, be made one of constitutional right; it is one solely of national duty and of national policy.

As a last resort, it is maintained that even if the constitution does not forbid, the Monroe doctrine does. But the famous declaration of Mr. Monroe on which reliance is placed does not warrant this conclusion. After holding that "the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power," Mr. Monroe continued: "We should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any part of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered, and shall not interfere." The context makes it clear that this assurance applies solely to the existing colonies and dependencies they still had in this hemisphere; and that even this was qualified by the previous warning that while we took no part "in the wars of European powers, in matters relating to themselves," we resented injuries and defended our rights. It will thus be seen that Mr. Monroe gave no pledge that we would never interfere with any dependency or colony of European powers anywhere. He simply declared our general policy not to interfere with existing colonies still remaining to them on our coast, so long as they left the countries alone which had already gained their independence, and so long as they did not injure us or invade our rights. And even this statement of the scope of Mr. Monroe's declaration must be construed in the light of the fact that the same administration which promulgated the Monroe doctrine had already issued from the state department Mr. Adams's prediction, above referred to, that "the annexation of Cuba will yet be found indispensable." Perhaps Mr. Monroe's language might have been properly understood as a general assurance that we would not meddle in Europe so long as they gave us no further trouble in America; but certainly it did not also abandon to their exclusive jurisdiction Asia and Africa and the islands of the sea.

The candid conclusions seem inevitable that, not as a matter of policy, but as a necessity of the position in which we find ourselves and as a matter of national duty, we must hold Cuba, at least for a time and till a permanent government is

well established for which we can afford to be responsible; we must hold Porto Rico; and we may have to hold the Philippines. The war is a great sorrow, and to many these results of it will seem still more mournful. They can not be contemplated with unmixed confidence by any; and to all who think they must be a source of some grave apprehensions. Plainly this unwelcome war is leading us by ways we have not trod to an end we can not surely forecast. On the other hand, there are some good things coming from it that we can already see. The war should abate the swaggering, swashbuckler tendency of many of our public men, since it has shown our incredible unreadiness at the outset for meeting even a third-rate power; and it will secure us henceforth an army and navy less ridiculously inadequate to our exposure. It insures us a mercantile marine. It insures the Nicaragua canal, a Pacific cable, great development on our Pacific coast, and the mercantile control of the Pacific ocean. It imposes new and very serious business on our public men, which ought to dignify and elevate the public service. Finally it has shown such splendid courage and skill in the army and navy, such sympathy at home for our men at the front, and such devoted eagerness, especially among women, to alleviate suffering and humanize the struggle, as to thrill every patriotic heart and make us all prouder than ever of our country and its matchless people.

James Bryce on the Policy of the United States JAMES BRYCE, in the September Harper's Magazine, New York Condensed for PUBLIC OPINION

The practical question which the American people will have to decide is, Do they desire to create and maintain a first-class navy, and become a great colonizing and oceanic power? If they do, they will have a vista of ambition, of adventure, of struggle, of achievement, opened before them from which they have hitherto kept aloof. The prospect is attractive to a nation of high spirits and immense resources. But the greatest nation does well to consider the risks that are involved in the difficulties that may spring from an entirely new departure, foreign to its established traditions. In this case the difficulties are of two kinds. Some arise out of the character of the territories proposed to be annexed; some out of the nature of the constitution and government of the United States. Of a third kind, those connected with the declarations which the United States made when the war began, I shall say nothing. They are proper matter for discussion by American citizens, but we do not feel qualified to express an opinion on them. Moreover, declarations honestly made sometimes turn out, through supervening events and altered conditions, very hard to put in force.

The first point that arises is as to the political arrangements that would have to be devised for the management of the islands if annexed. Suppose Cuba should turn out unfit for independence, so that the United States was obliged to keep hold of it, what could she do with it? Both in the Antilles and in the Philippines, the vast majority of the inhabitants will continue to be of the inferior races-Creole-Spanish and mulatto in the one case, Malay in the other. The same thing will happen in Hawaii, with its mixed mass of Polynesian aborigines, Chinese, Japanese, and Portuguese. From the contact of such races with their white American rulers there must arise many troubles. The more free and democratic is the system of government applied, the greater will these troubles be, at least for several generations. It would be necessary to keep a large body of troops on foot to repress native risings. The natives of the Philippines and the Antilles are turbulent. They differ in religion as well as in race and language from the Americans who would rule over them. The habit of insurrection acquired under Spanish dominion would for some time remain; and the new American government, however kindly and pacific, would have to wear not only a despotic but a military character.

The expense that would be incurred in keeping on foot an army in the Philippines and another in the Antilles (should Cuba be found incapable of standing alone) would be heavy. But there would be another expense far heavier—that of maintaining fleets adequate to the defense of these distant posses sions. It may be conjectured that a navy at least twice as large as that of the United States now is would be required. But the cost would not stop there. It is quite true, as Captain Mahan has said, that even for the protection of the Philip

pines and to secure ascendency on the Caribbean sea, America would not require a vast navy, such as that of Britain. But the experience of European naval powers, and especially of Britain, has been that the more a navy grows, the more it tends to grow. Every increase in one class of vessels suggests corresponding increases in other classes. Every expansion of the navy of one country causes each of its rivals to redouble its efforts to keep abreast or ahead.

It is a further question whether the United States possesses the machinery needed for the administration of dependent and remote dominions. The United States has now nothing in the least resembling the India office or the colonial office of England, and would have to try to create them, and to build up a like body of rules, maxims, and traditions, which experiencc might approve. The nearest approach in the federal government to something of the same sort is to be found in the governors of the territories and in the Indian agents, the latter at least (with a few honorable exceptions) not an encouraging precedent. And the comparative smallness of the field would make the career of a colonial administrator far less attractive to talent than it is to the young Englishman. Could the Philippines or the Antilles be trusted to the kind of officials who now obtain places on the score of local services rendered to their party?

A third point of view from which the consequences of a new departure in the direction of transmarine conquest ought to be considered is that of the influence it must have on the foreign policy, and, indeed, on the whole political life, of the American republic. Military commanders will have a wider career of ambition opened up to them, especially if, as may well happen, wars arise out of the new struggles with foreign powers, to which the control of new dominions may lead. The foreign policy of the republic has hitherto been a comparatively simple matter, for (with rare exceptions) it has been practically confined to the assertion of the interests of the country on its own frontiers and in the seas which wash its coasts. Dominions beyond the sea will bring an entirely new set of interests, of ambitions, of projects for protecting what the nation has obtained, or of securing new positions of vantage. The experience of the great European powers has been that each acquisition leads on to others. The competition for naval strongholds and coaling stations all over the world which now occupies the great European powers will probably spread to the United States also, and the action of those powers in every quarter will be watched with the same vigilant suspicion which France, Germany, Russia, and Britain now apply to one another's movements. This would be a new task for the American people. It could not but divert some of their attention from domestic questions, from the reconcilement of capital and labor, from the reform of the currency, from the adjustment of the tariff, from the improvement of city governments. It is, moreover, a task in which autocratic monarchies succeed better than popular governments, because it is hard to pursue a firm and skillful policy when power is frequently shifting from one ministry or party to another, and when momentous decisions have to be disclosed to the public as soon as they are formed, unless the administration takes the risk that the legislature may subsequently disapprove of them.

I have endeavored rapidly to indicate, rather than to sift and discuss, the chief arguments which, in the view of European observers, deserve to be weighed by Americans in deciding whether to retain the territories which victory will place at their disposal. The United States will (so we venture to think) render a far greater service to humanity by developing a high type of industrial civilization on her own continent-a civilization conspicuously free, enlightened, and pacific-than by any foreign conquests.

LIVE POLITICAL NOTES

Ex-Governor Stone on "the Issues"

Hon. William M. Stone, ex-governor of Missouri, and now the closest political friend of William J. Bryan, gave the following interview to the New York Herald (Ind.):

I do not believe that the Democrats of Missouri have undergone any change of sentiment on the money question, and I believe the same may be said of all the western states. If any one believes that western Democrats are less interested in freesilver coinage now than in 1896 it would be well to get rid