The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 22, 1898, Page 19

THE SAN TR\NCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MAY 22, 1898. NNNHMBDNNN) )))))))):): GENERAL AATOR GENERAL. 7 BRIGADIER GENERAL. LIEUT MAY : OR CAPTAIN What This Small Fight Means to Us and the Glorious Future in Store for Our Country. BY SENATOR WILLIAM E. CHANDLER. ENATOR WILLIAM E few men at the front of tive as y particu that the sterr maintaine which has en h of considerable eminence, who ha 1 1 that with- out the hard discipline of wars, occur- ring at or less regular intervals, CHANDLER of New Hampshire is one of the 1t the capital to-day who were a vs of what Horace Greel c the National nition ‘uban in- c Wd was largely in- e j asserting that the lent,” which Spain rian will no doubt the war will be e Ren d its probable vet we would have already made mnot only naval, but a great mili- id ha and at the same v » the whole world that we have a mighty reserve power, both on land and on sea. We have made a demonstration something akin to the memorable grand review that . at the close of our lich gave us a spe 2 avenue which, I feel was a splendid RIVAL ARRIVAL the virility of the nation is in danger of being lost, that its people will softness and weak- 50 degenerate into ne But, while T do not share this view I note it as a curious fact that ast century and a quarter of tence as a nation events have d together in such a way as to give us exactly one war to every gen- eration. Thus, in the first quarter cen- tury, we had the War of the Revolu- tion, in the next quarter century the war with Mexico, in the third quarter century the War of the Rebellion, and now, when its last quarter was running to its close without any war, lo and be- hold! we have this war with Spain. Whatever may about the S assuredly is undeniable ularly when it is a war this one is, for what the na- to be a just and righteous mu have an enormous and ome tonic influence, bracing up not merely the lower and physical but the higher and moral life of the nation engaging in it. if you please, that this h war were to come to an end now, and that no more fighting were to be done. It wculd have been a short conflict, with no great loss of life, and [ = LEUT 2% LIEUT. oRE THE TENTS WENT URP object lesson as to the vital strength and resources of the republic, and was of incalculable value in its moral influ- upon foreign observ % milar thing is now going to hap- again. We shall put our 5,000 pen militia in line, and, whether we have to send them all to the front or not, we shall, by-and-by, bring them together in one great eml here in Wash- ington, and the moral effect of that as a demonstration of our latent power as a nation will be great and valuable. The war may be too short to require us to use this latent power on which we have made a first call—and the shorter the war is the better we will be pleased—but even if it ends to-mor- row, this demonstration of our capacity for war on a great scale has been made, and its moral effect will remain. Moreover, attention having been called in a pointed way to our defi- ciencies in military organization, in coast defenses and in naval equipment at various points, the country will now insist that they shall be remedied at whatever cost, so that we shall never at any future time find ourselves taken by surprise or at a disadvantage in fac- ing any foreign complication. The next broad view which comes to me is that this war is'a fortunate war in many ways. It comes at a good time and under fortunate circumstances for us. It is, in my opirion, going to save this country a bigger war, and perhaps several other bigger wars. If we had shown pusillanimity now we should have taken our place as a second-class power instead of a first-class power, with this extremely probable result— that other nations, perceiving us to be a second-class power, not willing to fight even Spain on a question involv- ing American principles and American interests in this hemisphere, would have taken advantage of the discovery to embark in various ambitious enter- prises of their own on this side of the world. Emperor William might pq , in such an event, have bought St. Thomas and St. Croix; other powers might hav bought other American possessions England, without conquering Vene- zuela, might have purchased Venezuela, and a whole series of similar acts might have followed on the part of European powers in this western half of the world if we had proved in this exigency that we were not ready or willing to fight Spain for good cause. The Monroe doctrine would thus have been made to disappear, unless we had been prepared to enter upon an armed contest to prevent such action by these great powers, a war with any one of which would have been much harder to fight than this one with Spain. Hence it is quite clear to my mind that this war is most fortunate, in this respect at least—that it will have the effect of preventing larger wars, which other- wise would have come upon us, unless we had been willing not only to give way to Spain but to surrender our Mon- roe doctrine. The Monroe doctrine is only inci- dentally touched by our action in the case of Cuba. The Monroe doctrine has always implied the recognition of ex- isting European governments in this hemisphere, but only upon this condi- tion—that any European power having possessions here which it grossiy mis- governs, we shall feel it to be our right and duty to expel. We have never taken the position that European powers already established here were to OF THE 7T¢ CAMP Kn,l_lNG be driven out, but simply that they should make no new establishments 1, as a corollary, that such ter- nd peoples as were already » their dominion should be well -eptional attitudé which we toward Spain—demanding he must go, bag and baggag out of America—is the only ca an arise, because ropean nation that of tHa twortld orn_ her colo- her colonies osed of civilized people capable of self-government with their own consent, and, I know, that true and Ger- many. So that the reas which we are fighting Spain, while it bears inci- dentally upon the Monroe doctrine, cannot p bly lead us into a war with any other F .an powel in armed conflict with Spain We are or war methoc which are because of her long and zovernment of the Cuban people; bec of her bad faith, as De Lome letter, which re- ticing deception upon of autonomy, and at shown in th vealed her as p: us in the matter the same time insulting our President, and last, but not least, because of her allowing the Maine to be blown up by some of the extreme Spaniards in Ha- vana. We are fortunate, again, in hav- ing such strong specific causes for the war we are making. This war is fortunate, too, in this, that, while Spaln is not so powerful a nation as to make it prudent to avoid conflict with her, yet she is not so weak a nation as to make her an unworthy antagonist, or one whose defeat will be an inglorious thing in itself. Her strength and resources, and the extent of her naval and military establish- ments, are not so small that we can be charged with making a cowardly fight. Her expulsion, by force, from this hem- isphere indeed, no holiday affair. It furthermor exceedingly for- tunate that the United States goes into this .war not for itself, nor to gain any- thing for its own aggrandizement, but simply to fight for friends and neigh- bors. Yet another piece of good fortune for us is that things are so situated in Europe at this time that Spain cannot get any help from the ‘“concert of Eu- rope,” which, three or four years hence, she might be able to get. All the con- ditions of the time, and, it seems to me, all the circumstances of the war, are in our favor. My feeling is that it is “manifest des- tiny,” clearly indicated by these fortu- nate circumstances to which I have al- A= IN CAMP: luded. I think it will appear in history, both as to its immediate outcome and as to the fa eaching consequences of which I have spoken, as altogether one of the most fortunate wars in which any nation ev And the world may we! that if we will take suéh and and make such sa rifices. for a neighboring people would certainly fight for oursel our own interests resolute! The n feature in our international relations is already evident in the great change which h. aken place in the feeling between ngland and this country. This change of feeling is palpable in both countrie The way in which the British Government has acted during the past few weeks, ever ce our dispute with Spain reached culminatic has made a deep and ting impression upon the American people. The logicaloutcomeof this change will standing amounting to ane we s and alliance b ingland and the United actual written treaty with to be expected or desired, because we do nc seek entangling alliances with foreign na- tions in our d: any more than our fathers of old. But we can have a mu- tually good understanding between the two countries without h. it form- ally expressed in a treaty. There has never been any very bad feeling be tween England and the United States, except what has grown cut of what I may call the assumption of England toward us of the tone and manner of the big brother to the little brother. England, in times past, has been dis- posed to play the big brother. When we have had a difference with her she has seemed to assume to treat it, and to decide it, not as if we were a nation of equal power and dignity with her- self, but as if she, having th&t big navy of hers, was entitled to act on the big brother principle and say, “We are go. ing to have it so and so, and you help it if you can.” In order to get at a working basis of alliance with England, which this war has brought into sight as a dis- tinet possibilit to be found, of course, of deciding questions between the two countries on some other principle than that. ADMIRAL. A, REAR ADMIRAL, COMMQDORE LIEW T COMMANDER = |p) (i1 ENSIGN. JUN.LIEUT. LIEUT- COMMANDER