ifov \ '
ViN
Conservative. 11
! the commercial side of "expansion. "
i Ho said on this subject :
"But we arc told again , gentlemen ,
that wo need now territories in which
to extend our trade and in which to ex
ploit our enterprises. Is any man in
Georgia , is any man in Virginia , is any
man in the undeveloped states in the
South anxious to send out of this coun
try any of its wealth , any of its enter
prises , any of its industry to increase
the wealth and enterprise of foreign na
tions rather than our own ? Have you
reached that stage of industrial develop
ment , of prosperity , of wealthof growth
iu this commonwealth that you can say
to your people or to the people of the
parts of the United States , 'Take your
money , take your energj * , take your en
terprise to the Philippines or to Hawaii
or to the Ladrone Islands , or to Cuba or
to Porto Rico and develop those coun
tries , because wo do not need 3011 at
home ? '
"Fellow citizens , we do not now need
and do not need for many generations to
come now regions to develop , now coun
tries to make prosperous , when wo have
three million square miles in such a
country as this to develop and make
prosperous. ( Applause. ) And as for
the increase of trade , what increase of
trade can we reasonably look forward to
iu the acquisition of the Philippines and
Hawaii and the other islands ?
"Tho reciprocity treaty with Canada
alone would give a more healthy increase
to our trade than we can expect from all
these people. The expense of maintain
ing the army and navy necessary to pro
tect them will be far greater than any
increase of trade we can get from them.
If wo annex thorn our tariff laws extend
to them. We cannot monopolize their
trade like Spain did , else they will rebel
against us as they rebelled against
Spain. "
President Wilson thinks that the
United States has already gone too far
to retrace its steps in this new career ,
and he did not attempt to propose any
other solution of the Philippine problem
than the one proposed by McKinley.
Thus his address was without political
plan and scarcely as effective as it might
have been made. If we are to float on
helplessly with McKinley into an in
dorsement of everything that is included
in what that gentleman wishes us to re
gard as "Destiny" then wo might as well
abandon all our efforts at government
and make McKinley president for life
at once , after the fashion of Diaz of
Mexico. Now York Times.
Do wo imagine it , or has there really
been an unusual amount of wanton
bloodshed about the country since the
soldiers came back to their homes , and
especially during the election week ?
Are wo becoming so very military a people
ple that the manners of Bret Harto's min
ing camps need be revived among us ?
The
S. . , . .
i
PKOTKCTIOX.loned protection
ists and the now-
fashioned expansionists when amalga
mated and made incarnate in one hu
man organism form n very paradoxical
personality. Formerly the protection
part of this human hybrid protested that
competition by American laborers with
the ignorant and impoverished work
men of the Sandwich islands and the
Philippines would be degrading and
disastrous to our own wage-earners.
But now the consolidated jingoism and
protectionism in one man , ore vociferous
and vehement in proclaiming that by
admitting all this ignorance and pauper
ism to nil equality in this republic with
our intelligent laborers great good shall
come to the latter. TIIK CONSERVATIVE
opines that when expansion comes in
protection goes out.
TIIK CKNTUUV.
of THE CONSERVA
TIVE will publish a discussion of the
question "When Does The Next Cen
tury Begin ? " which first saw the light
iu December , 1798 , when it was printed
in The Norfolk ( Virginia ) Herald by
Peter Porcupine.
And now , a hundred years having
elapsed , the question is again up for de
bate. When will the nineteenth century
end ? When will the twentieth century
commence ?
When the year eighteen hundred and
ninety-nine (1899) ( ) shall have closed and
the year nineteen hundred (1900) ( ) shall
have opened will the nineteenth century
have been completed ? How can ninety-
nine be counted a hundred ?
Nebraska always
A KUBiisnoufl
CHOP , prolific in cereals ,
opulent in cattle
and horses , and plutocratic in hogs , is
more than Croosus-liko in its yearly
production of statesmen. But the crop
is always more numerous when fertil
ized for a senatorial election , as it is for
January , 1899. So now there are
sprouting statesmen , budding patriots ,
blooming United States senators spring
ing into fragrance and beauty from
nearly every precinct in Nebraska.
But the chilling blasts of the approach
ing winter will freeze and wither all of
them but one.
Fighting may be all wrong , but if
there must bo fighting wo want it to be
well done on the part of our representa
tives. None of his thousand genera
tions of war-like ancestors , wherever
they are , need bo ashamed in this re
spect of Private Edwards , of a Ken
tucky regiment now on service in Porto
Rico. This private was set to guard a
certain plantation , accompanied only by
his gun ; and while so employed , was
approached by a committee of the so
ciety of the Block Hand , an amiable
Porto Rican organization , which makes
a business of burning houses and tortur-
ing and murdering women and old men.
This committee contained some hun
dred armed men , but Private Edwards
and his friend so arranged matters that
there were four vacancies in it when it
retired ; three of its members staying
behind with bullet holes in them , and
one with a bayonet-wound.
Harper's Weekly thinks that a recent
speaker was about right in saying that
"the danger is that we are to bo trans
formed from a republic founded on the
Declaration of Independence , guided by
the counsels of Washington , into a vul
gar , common-place empire. " Itsjxlitor
thinks that would bo pretty bad.
And yet Harper's Weekly conspicu
ously exemplifies , in its own affairs , an
extreme detachment from the wisdom
of the fathers. It is quite possible that
the late George William Curtis , if the
current copy of The Weekly were al
lowed to circulate where ho now is ,
would be quite as despondent over the
two pages devoted in it to recent foot
ball games , as George Washington
would bo likely to bo over any dangers
now threatening the nation which ho
tended in its infancy.
Those intelligent
citizens who have
TIIK CONSKH-
VAT1VJ5. availed themselves
of the columns of
THE CONSERVATIVE for advertising pur
poses are well pleased with results
attained.
The Western Cold Storage Company
of Chicago , the John Deere Plow Com
pany of Moline , Illinois , and other prom
inent patrons of the THE CONSERVATIVE
are realizing that through it they reach
a very well-to-do , staid and substantial
class of citizens who are able and ready
to buy for cash any useful , valuable
thing upon the market.
An awful responsibility rested for a
moment on the representative of the
Austrian government at the late moot
ing , in Vienna , of the Friends of Peace ,
upon the conclusion of Mr. Mark
Twain's address to that assembly. Ho
spoke in English , or more probably in
American and the question at once
arose whether his remarks should be
overset into German. Ono may doubt
whether Mr. Twain's utterances could
bo got into the German language in
their entirety , or what they would pre
cisely mean when they did get there ,
and if they would bo exactly flattering
to existing European governments. The
Austrian functionary seems to have
thought it wiser to lot things alone , so
the Friends of Peace are probably still
wondering what the bushy-headed for
eigner was saying ; as are a number of
people also in England and America.
. As wo expected , peace is causing
backslidings in the navy. The Glou * i
cester did not stay converted , and the
Maria Teresa did not stay saved.