Such appeals were found in sensational assertions which we had no means to verify, in phrases of alleged patriotism, in statements about Cuba and the Cubans which we now know to have been entirely untrue. It was necessary to make appeals to the public which would bring quite other motives to the support of the enterprise and win the consent of classes who would never consent to either financial or political jobbery. As soon as it seemed resolved upon, a number of interests began to see their advantage in it and hastened to further it. The original and prime cause of the war was that it was a move of partisan tactics in the strife of parties at Washington. I asked myself, Why? What more reason is there for pursuing these studies now on behalf of our dependencies than there was before to pursue them on behalf of ourselves? In our proceedings of 1898 we made no use of whatever knowledge we had of any of these lines of study. I received the other day a circular of a new educational enterprise in which it was urged that, on account of our new possessions, we ought now to devote especial study to history, political economy, and what is called political science. I disregard all other aspects of them and all extraneous elements which have been intermingled with them. War, expansion, and imperialism are questions of statesmanship and of nothing else. Fifty years from now the historian, looking back to 1898, will no doubt see, in the course which things will have taken, consequences of the proceedings of that year and of this present one which will not all be bad, but you will observe that that is not a justification for a happy-go-lucky policy that does not affect our duty today in all that we do to seek wisdom and prudence and to determine our actions by the best judgment which we can form. They are always mixed of good and ill, and so it will be in this case. The consequences will not be all good or all bad, for such is not the nature of societal influences. In any case the year 1898 is a great landmark in the history of the United States. They are delusions, and they will lead us to ruin unless we are hardheaded enough to resist them. They are seductive, especially upon the first view and the most superficial judgment, and therefore it cannot be denied that they are very strong for popular effect. Those philosophies appeal to national vanity and national cupidity. Expansionism and imperialism are nothing but the old philosophies of national prosperity which have brought Spain to where she now is. We have beaten Spain in a military conflict, but we are submitting to be conquered by her on the field of ideas and policies. I intend to show that, by the line of action now proposed to us, which we call expansion and imperialism, we are throwing away some of the most important elements of the American symbol and are adopting some of the most important elements of the Spanish symbol. The United States, by its historical origin, its traditions, and its principles, is the chief representative of the revolt and reaction against that kind of a state. Spain was the first, for a long time the greatest, of the modern imperialistic states. On the other hand, the name of the United States has always been, for all of us, a symbol for a state of things, a set of ideas and traditions, a group of views about social and political affairs. During the last year the public has been familiarized with descriptions of Spain and of Spanish methods of doing things until the name of Spain has become a symbol for a certain well-defined set of notions and policies.
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