HumanitiesWeb.org - Published Articles - William Jennings Bryan (Will it Pay?) by William Jennings Bryan
HumanitiesWeb HumanitiesWeb
WelcomeHistoryLiteratureArtMusicPhilosophyResourcesHelp
Regions Alphabetically Nationality Timelines Topics Glossary
pixel

Bryan
Index
Selected Works
Quotations
According To...
Suggested Reading
Other Resources
Chronology
Related Materials

Search

Get Your Degree!

Find schools and get information on the program that’s right for you.

Powered by Campus Explorer

& etc
FEEDBACK

(C)1998-2012
All Rights Reserved.

Site last updated
28 October, 2012
Real Time Analytics

Published Articles - William Jennings Bryan
Will it Pay?

by William Jennings Bryan

New York Journal, Jan. 15, 1899.

On former occasions I have quoted authority against the policy of imperialism and have insisted that the adoption of an European colonial policy would endanger the perpetuity of the republic. While every lover of his country should be willing to surrender a pecuniary advantage, however alluring, if that advantage would in the least jeopardize our national existence, still the opponents of imperialism are fortunate in having upon their side the dollar argument as well as the arguments based upon fundamental principles.

The forcible annexation of the Philippine Islands (and, in my judgment, even annexation by the consent of the people) would prove a source of pecuniary loss rather than gain. Heretofore our acquisitions have been confined to the North American continent, the Nation having in view either security from attack or land suitable for settlement. Generally both objects have been realized. Florida and the territory between the Mississippi and the Pacific were necessary for purposes of defense, and, in addition thereto, furnished homes and occupation for an increasing population.

The Hawaiian Islands are nearer to the western than to the eastern hemisphere, and their annexation was urged largely upon the ground that their possession by another nation would be a menace to the United States. When objection was made to the heterogeneous character of the people of the islands, it was met by the assertion that they were few in number. In the opinion of those who favored the annexation of Hawaii the advantages to be gained from a strategical standpoint outweighed the objection raised to the population. No argument made in favor of the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands can be used in support of the imperialistic policy. The purchase of Alaska removed one more monarchy from American territory and gave to the United States a maximum of land with a minimum of inhabitants.

In the forcible annexation of the Philippines our Nation neither adds to its strength nor secures broader opportunities for the American people.

Even if the principle of conquest were permissible under American public law, the conquest of territory so remote from our shores, inhabited by people who have no sympathy with our history or our customs, and who resent our attempt to overthrow their declaration of independence, would be a tax upon our military and naval strength the magnitude of which cannot now be determined.

Who can estimate in money and men the cost of subduing and keeping in subjection eight millions of people, six thousand miles away, scattered over twelve hundred islands and living under a tropical sun?

How many soldiers did Spain sacrifice in her effort to put down almost continuous insurrection in Cuba? How many perished from wounds and disease in the vain attempt to keep the Pearl of the Antilles under Spanish dominion? Yet Cuba has only about a million and a half of inhabitants, and Havana is only half as far from Cadiz as Manila is from San Francisco.

If this question is to be settled upon the basis of dollars and cents, who will insure the Nation that the receipts will equal the expenditures? Who will guarantee that the income from the Philippines, be it great or small, will find its way back to the pockets of the people who, through taxation, will furnish the money?

And even if the amount invested in ships, armament and in the equipment of soldiers is returned dollar for dollar, who will place a price upon the blood that will be shed? If war is to be waged for trade, how much trade ought to be demanded in exchange for a human life? And will the man who expects to secure the trade risk his own life or the life of some one else?

The demand for a standing army of one hundred thousand men is the beginning of a policy which will increase the hours of toil and fill the homes of the land with vacant chairs.

In his essay on the West Indies, Lord Macaulay denies that colonies are a source of profit even to European countries. He says:
"There are some who assert that, in a military and political point of view, the West Indies are of great importance to this country. This is a common but a monstrous misrepresentation. We venture to say that colonial empire has been one of the greatest curses of modern Europe. What nation has it ever strengthened? What nation has it ever enriched? What have been its fruits? Wars of frequent occurrence and immense cost, fettered trade, lavish expenditure, clashing jurisdiction, corruption in governments and indigence among the people. What have Mexico and Peru done for Spain, the Brazils for Portugal, Batavia for Holland? Or, if the experience of others is lost upon us, shall we not profit by our own? What have we not sacrificed to our infatuated passion for transatlantic dominion? This it is that has so often led us to risk our own smiling gardens and dear firesides for some snowy desert or infectious morass on the other side of the globe; this induced us to resign all the advantages of our insular situation -- to embroil ourselves in the intrigues, and fight the battles of half the continent -- to form coalitions which were instantly broken -- and to give subsidies which were never earned; this gave birth to the fratricidal war against American liberty, with all its disgraceful defeats, and all its barren victories, and all the massacres of the Indian hatchet, and all the bloody contracts of the Hessian slaughter-house; this it was which, in the war against the French republic, induced us to send thousands and tens of thousands of our bravest troops to die in West Indian hospitals, while the armies of our enemies were pouring over the Rhine and the Alps. When a colonial acquisition has been in prospect, we have thought no expenditure extravagant, no interference perilous. Gold has been to us as dust, and blood as water. Shall we never learn wisdom? Shall we never cease to prosecute a pursuit wilder than the wildest dream of alchemy, with all the credulity and all the profusion of Sir Epicure Mammon?

"Those who maintain that settlements so remote conduce to the military or maritime power of nations fly in the face of history."
Thus wrote England's orator, statesman and historian.

Shall we refuse to profit by the experience of others? Has the victory of seventy millions of people over seventeen millions so infatuated us with our own prowess that gold is to become to us also as dust and blood as water?

Let us consider for a moment the indirect cost of annexation. Grave domestic problems press for solution; can we afford to neglect them in order to engage unnecessarily in controversies abroad?

Must the people at large busy themselves with the contemplation of "destiny" while the special interests hedge themselves about with legal bulwarks and exact an increasing toll from productive industry?

While the American people are endeavoring to extend an unsolicited sovereignty over remote peoples, foreign financiers will be able to complete the conquest of our own country. Labor's protest against the black-list and government by injunction, and its plea for arbitration, shorter hours and a fair share of the wealth which it creates, will be drowned in noisy disputes over new boundary lines and in the clash of conflicting authority.

Monopoly can thrive in security so long as the inquiry "Who will haul down the flag," on distant islands turns public attention away from the question, who will uproot the trusts at home?

What will it cost the people to substitute contests over treaties for economic issues? What will it cost the people to postpone consideration of remedial legislation while the ship of state tosses about in the whirlpool of international politics?

In considering the question of imperialism we have a right to weigh possibilities as well as certainties, and among the possibilities may be mentioned an offensive and defensive union between the United States and one or more European nations. Already one may hear an Anglo-American alliance suggested -- a suggestion which would have been discarded as a dream a year ago. When this nation abandons its traditions and enters upon a colonial policy, a long step will have been taken toward those entanglements against which Washington and Jefferson with equal emphasis warned their countrymen.

What a charge the imperialistic idea has already wrought in the minds of its advocates! During the Nation's infancy and development the American people spurned the thought of foreign alliance and its attendant obligations; they refused to yoke the young republic with a monarchy. The wisest among us are not able to measure the cost of a policy which would surrender the Nation's independence of action and drag it into the broils of Europe and Asia.

The Monroe doctrine, too, what will become of it? How can we expect European nations to respect our supremacy in the western hemisphere if we insist upon entering Asia? So long as we confine ourselves to our own continent we are strong enough to repel the world; but are we prepared (or is it worth while to prepare) to wage an offensive warfare in other parts of the globe?

On the other hand, what advantages are suggested by imperialists to offset the cost and dangers mentioned?

They tell us that trade follows the flag and that wider markets will be the result of annexation. Without admitting that any argument based upon trade advantages can justify an attempt to adopt a double standard in government -- a government by consent in America and a government by force in Asia -- it may be answered that commerce is a matter of cost and not a matter of bunting. The protectionist understands this and demands not a flag barrier but a price barrier between the home manufacturer and the foreign competitor.

Public attention has already been called to the fact that, while Spain was sending soldiers to the Philippines, England was sending merchandise. While the home government was sending money to the islands Great Britain was drawing money from them.

The cost of transportation is an important factor and has more influence than sovereignty in directing the course of trade.

Canada does not refuse to deal with us merely because she flies the British Jack; in fact, I have been told that she sometimes buys even her British Jacks in the United States. Our foreign trade is increasing, and that increase is not due to an expanding sovereignty.

The insignificance of the trade argument will be manifest to any one who will compare the consuming capacity of the Filipinos with that of a like number of Americans. The inhabitants of the torrid zones can never equal, or even approach, the inhabitants of the temperate zones as customers. England's commerce with the United States is greater than her commerce with India, and yet India has a population of nearly three hundred millions, and the English flag floats over them.

It is yet to be decided whether the open door policy will be adopted in the Orient or a tariff wall built around our subjects there, but neither plan will be found satisfactory. Our people, however, should not expect a colonial policy to prove acceptable, either to the governed or to the governing. If we attempt to run our country upon the European plan we must prepare ourselves for continual complaint. History has thus far failed to furnish a single example of a nation selfish enough to desire a colony and yet unselfish enough to govern it wisely at long range.

It has been argued that annexation would furnish a new field for the investment of American capital. If there is surplus money seeking investment, why is it not employed in the purchase of farm lands, in developing domestic enterprises or in replacing foreign capital? In 1896 we were told that we were dependent upon foreign capital and must so legislate as to keep what we had and invite more. Strange that it should be necessary to have an English financial system in order to bring European capital into the States and also an English colonial policy for the purpose of taking American capital out. Every dollar sent to the Philippines must be withdrawn from present investments, and we must either suffer to the extent of the amount withdrawn or borrow abroad and increase our bondage to foreign money-lenders.

It is sometimes suggested that the Philippines would furnish homes for those who are crowded out of this country. This argument, too, is without foundation. The population of the United States amounts to only twenty-one persons to the square mile, while the Philippine Islands already contain about sixty to the square mile. It will be several generations before the population of the United States will be as dense as it is now in the Philippines.

Our people will not flock to Manila; climatic conditions will be as great an obstacle as over-population. English supremacy in India has continued for nearly a hundred and fifty years, and yet in 1891 the British-born population of India was only 100,551 -- less than the total number of prisoners confined in the jails of India at the end of 1895.

Jamaica has had all the advantages which could be derived from an English colonial policy, and yet the white population in 1891 numbered less than fifteen thousand out of a total of 639,000.

Java has been under the dominion of the Netherlands for nearly three hundred years, and yet in 1894 the Europeans upon the island numbered less than 60,000 out of a total population of more than 25,000,000.

Spain has been able to induce but a small number of her people to settle in the Philippines, and, if we can judge from the reports sent back by our volunteers, we shall not succeed any better.

But while the Philippines will not prove inviting to Americans, we shall probably draw a considerable number from the islands to the United States. The emigration will be eastward rather than westward. During the six years from 1889 to 1894 more than ninety thousand coolies left India, and we may expect an influx of Malays.

It is not strange that the laboring men should look with undisguised alarm upon the prospect of oriental competition upon the farms and in the factories of the United States. Our people have legislated against Chinese emigration, but to exclude a few Chinese and admit many Filipinos is like straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.

The farmers and laboring men constitute a large majority of the American people; what is there in annexation for them? Heavier taxes, Asiatic emigration and an opportunity to furnish more sons for the army.

Will it pay?
Previous Next
Personae

Terms Defined

Referenced Works