** v % ?■%. ^ "^ ♦ :: *£.' -rC> ^•o* r oK V o V -. ^ .^ 'oV OtfN^SS^ **.ptf C v o / The Great Republic The United States of North America One Flag and One Official Language from the Colombia-Panama Boundary to the Arctic Pole JOHN ALLAN WYETH, MD., LL.D. LOOKING FORWARD COPYRIGHT JOHN ALLAN WYETH, 1916 \1A The Great Republic THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA One Flag and One Official Language from the Colombia- Panama Boundary to the Arctic Pole John Allan Wyeth, M. D., LL.D. This government cannot endure in that assurance of peace so essential to happiness and prosperity, with chaotic Mexico, the land of revolution, bloodshed and demonstrated incapacity, on one side, and on the other, a Monarchical Dom- inion, consecrated to the rule of Kings, and to the principle of INHERITED PRIVILEGE. These facts, every thoughtful American of the United States, must sooner or later recognize, for in their hands rests the ultimate solution of our national problem. The first essential is UNITY OF LANGUAGE in all gov- ernmental relations. Without restricting the privilege of any individual or community to use among themselves the lan- guage of their choice, English must, on the NORTH AMERI- CAN CONTINENT be the accepted means of official inter- communication. History is largely a narrative of wars waged between peoples speaking different languages. Europe is to-day an armed camp. Fully 20,000,000 men, capable under peaceful conditions which UNITY OF LANGUAGE, government and interests would make possible, of quadrupling the products essential to the happiness and the moral, mental and physical advancement of mankind, are armed with the most expensive and improved machinery of destruction, and instead of peace- ful production, are killing each other by the hundreds of thou- sands, and laying waste vast areas in which the innocent and helpless suffer and perish with those who fight. And history is only repeating itself. A century ago, in the invasion of Russia and at Leipsic, more nations than are now at war were in arms. It was the same before Napoleon, and will be the same after the Kaiser, so long as the Russian, the Turk, the Servian, the Italian, the German, the French and the English with their different languages continue to culti- vate national exclusiveness and to strive for commercial supremacy. The verdict of our Civil War was the indestructibility of the American Union. The idea, which had taken hold of the minds of many of our foremost statesmen, especially in the section where African slavery existed, and where the teach- ings of Calhoun had long been inculcated, that secession and the establishment of another republic within the limits of the then United States, was the inherent right of the several States, was not to prevail. That idea was wiped out in the blood of a mighty war, which carried to untimely graves a million men. Henceforth, there could be but one flag over the Union of the States, "one and inseparable, now and forever." THIS VERDICT OPENED THE VISTA OF THE GREAT REPUBLIC, THE ULTIMATE UNION OF ALL THE PEOPLES OF THE CONTINENT OF NORTH AMER- ICA, UNDER THAT FLAG WHICH SHALL BE THE SYNONYM OF LIBERTY AND LAW. It was the despair of securing liberty of thought and speech and action which drove our fathers westward, across the then almost unknown seas, to seek a home in an unex- plored wilderness. They sought and found a land where they and their children might live and be free from the tyranny of INHERITED PRIVILEGE; where the opportunity for pre- ferment was open to all. The form of government which they evolved, and the developments which have followed within the limits of the republic their courage and wisdom established are the wonders of history. To the Declaration of Independence and the war of the Revolution, which were protests against tyranny, there was added, in 1823, a second declaration of far-reaching signifi- cance, which, by common consent, has become an essential article of the political faith of the one hundred million human beings who control the destiny of the Western Hemisphere. "The American continents, by the free and independent condi- tion which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered for future colonization by European ©CU431020 MAY II 1916 powers." But once has the Monroe Doctrine been seriously challenged. In 1861, taking advantage of the disturbed con- ditions due to our Civil War, Great Britain, Spain and France (with Austria as a silent partner) undertook the establishment of an empire in Mexico. When our war was over, William H. Seward, Secretary of State, backed by the victorious army of the Union, demanded and secured the withdrawal of all for- eign troops; and the final scheme of imperial colonization in America died with Maximilian. To this far-sighted statesman was due the further empha- sis of this doctrine, when, in that same year of 1867 the United States purchased from Russia the domain of Alaska, adding to our territory 395,329,600 acres, or 590,884 square miles of land, an area equal approximately to the twenty Atlantic and Gulf Coast States east of the Mississippi. Between this territory and the present northern boundary of the United States stretches the vast area of British Colum- bia and the Dominion of Canada, destined in the fullness of time, and by A PEACEFUL AND BLOODLESS COM- MERCIAL CONQUEST, IN WHICH MUTUAL INTER- ESTS SHALL BE SAFEGUARDED AND THE ADDED STRENGTH OF UNION AND BROTHERHOOD MADE EVIDENT, to be an important part of the one great Govern- ment, the Republic of North America. The enactment and enforcement of just laws, and the studied cultivation of personal and commercial amity, cannot fail to bring into ultimate union, without the shedding of blood, the two nations which, now separated by an artificial boundary, are in reality united by the common ties of origin and language. It is, however, toward the South that our national destiny is calling with unmistakable urgency and directness. Mexico has been weighed in the balances and found wanting. The records of mankind do not contain a story more tragic or pathetic, and withal, more hopeless. No student of history can doubt the absolute incapacity of that people for self-gov- ernment. Revolution has followed revolution in such assured succession that anarchy is supreme. From 1821, when Span- ish sovereignty ceased, to the murder of Madero and the accession of Huerta, Mexico has had sixty-four different rulers. Leaving out the autocracy of Juarez and Diaz, who ruled with merciless severity and to whom protest or opposi- tion meant banishment, imprisonment, confiscation or death, the average duration of the term of office of the sixty other rulers was eight months. Several served only a few days; one was president for only 26 minutes, and, incredible as it must appear, in a single instance, Comonfort joined in an insurrection and overthrew his own government. Since the death of Madero, Huerta, Carbajal, Guiterrez, Garza and Car- ranza, have passed across the stage in the opera bouffe of presidents. Here, at our door, its northern boundary line for 1,993 miles in touch with ours, is a country with an area of 767,000 square miles, nearly as large as all of the United States east of the Mississippi River, a land so rich in natural resources that Humboldt termed it the "World's Treasure House." Wasted and impoverished as it is by years of misrule and bloodshed, Mexico is still the Land of Opportunity. Richer than any other country of equal area in mines of gold and silver, untold wealth waits only on the enterprise which a stable government, good roads and cheapened transportation will assure. As to agriculture, all the cereals of the temperate zones are native there, and the great southern staple, cotton, is profitably cultivated. Corn, the chief crop, produces four or five times as much as our best farming lands. McHugh, the historian, described vast fields, the stalks bearing each from six to sixteen fully developed ears. To the fruits of our own country, are added here the world-marketed banana, pineapple and citrous products. The foothills of the mountain ranges are heavily timbered with pine, while the tropical forests are rich with mahogany and other hard woods. Sisal fibre from a single species of cactus in Yucatan to the value of many millions is imported to the United States, while in the northern States are the only great cattle ranges north of the Isthmus of Panama. Of the 15,000,000 inhabitants, 1,000,000 are Caucasian; 2,000,000 of mixed blood, and 12,000,000 are Indian descend- ants of the natives dwelling there at the time of the Spanish conquest. There are 133 separate tribes, speaking fifty-three different languages, and numerous dialects, a condition which makes inter-tribal communication and the establishment of peaceful relations impossible. James Bryce, in his "South America," referring to Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, says: "In such countries, there can be very little public opinion common 4 to the nation, because the means of inter-communication are defective and slow. The existence in the same state of dif- ferent races, speaking different languages, prevents the homo- geneity and solidarity which are almost indispensable condi- tions to the success of democratic government." Not the least hopeful feature of the Mexican problem is the moral degeneracy of the peons, who make up the vast majority of the population, due to the almost universal con- sumption of "pulque" the national intoxicant, and to the wide- spread disregard of the marital relation. McHugh says : "The chief source of the disputes which lead to bloodshed among the poorer classes is the widely prevailing immorality. Mar- riage among them has no sacred meaning, and more than half the total births in Mexico are illegitimate. Flandrau, writing from the experience of years with the peons on a coffee plantation, says: "Free love is not a social experiment here, it is an institution. Their habits of living are such that to a child of seven or eight there are no mys- teries. Very few of the married people on my ranch are mar- ried. There is so sense of obligation, no respect for a higher authority than oneself, no adverse public opinion." A century of misgovernment and unrest has naturally contributed to this absence of moral restraint and to the wide- spread savagery which prevails. A recital of the authenti- cated barbarities which are constantly occurring would be as painful as it is unnecessary. A single paragraph from McHugh's "Modern Mexico" (1914) is significant: "So long as he, the peon, is kept in hand, he is fairly quiet and tractable ; but when he takes to the road, and becomes his own master, he is turbulent, savage and brutal, displaying all the cruelty, lust and disregard of human life and suffering that is characteristic of the American Indian. The fiendish savag- ery of this class has been manifested again and again during the past three years by endless incidents, like the treatment of the women at the San Vincente mine in Guerrero, and at the wreck of the train to Cuernavaca last May, when the injured men were murdered, and the women passengers ravished and then thrown into the burning train, that had been deliberately set on fire." It does not detract from the significance of this awful incident to know that it occurred almost within sight of the Capital of Mexico. To the shame of our government and of our people, we, the self-appointed supervisors of the political affairs of this helpless and unhappy land, while not permitting another na- tion to intervene, sit idly by, culpable witnesses of these horrors. A President of the United States and his ambassa- dor, cognizant of Mexican methods, and in full knowledge that Gustave Madero had been shot without trial, failed to take such stand, after the arrest and deposition of President Madero as would have prevented the shocking murder which transpired. Nor has the administration which succeeded done else than invite discredit by its policy of vacillation, seemingly uncertain to-day of what it may approve or disapprove to- morrow. Ships laden with munitions of war, to prevent the delivery of which the seizure of a port, (in itself an act of war, and which cost a number of lives) was justified, were permitted to deliver the same cargo at another port. Our officials are imprisoned, our flag insulted, our sailors arrested and paraded under guard, and our country boldly invaded by armed bandits, and our soldiers and citizens murdered. There can be no practicable solution to this serious problem, except intervention and annexation; and common sense and human- ity call for immediate action. Our rendition of the Monroe Doctrine makes it imperative. By no other means than by the superior force of the United States can anarchy and murder be stopped and a humane order established. The misfortunes of Mexico are the cumulative product of centuries of misrule ; and her people, savage or civilized, should be judged in char- ity and dealt with in mercy. Of the 15,000,000 human beings whose chief avocation is revolution, fully 12,000,000 are bound in the hope- less servitude of peonage, a condition more deplorable than was that of the negro slaves in our Southern States. Practi- cally all the land is owned or controlled by the State, or by a landed oligarchy. Seventy-two individuals own all the land in Yucatan, the area of which is more than three times as large as Massachusetts, twenty-seven individuals are the proprietors of another State, and one citizen, General Torra- zas, owns 20,000,000 acres. Years of poverty, ignorance and oppression have made the poor so poor that banditry is their only resort. Until the strong hand of a humane government corrects these abuses, Mexico will not cease to be the disgrace of civilization, a disgrace which the people of the United States must share. Intervention without annexation can only prolong a cruel experiment. When our flag goes over the border, it must stay forever. I challenge the right to assert that "never again would the United States seek one foot of additional territory by conquest." The Chief Executive, exercising the powerful influence of his position, cannot prescribe a national policy. That, the voice of the electorate can alone declare. As plainly as the writing on the wall, our national destiny is impelling us to the conquest of Mexico, peacefully, if possible, and if not, by force necessary to establish the order of civilization. No people, however benighted, can fail to appreciate the bles- ings of peace. Correct the cruel abuses which peonage implies, give them their lands and homes, and the chance to live by honest means, give them, by patient and kindly encouragement and assistance, education and a common language; and give them, above all, good roads and ready intercommunication; for, in the long run, the pick and the shovel compel obedience to the law more surely than Springfield rifles or Maxim guns. We can surely afford to act toward Mexico, with its boundary line of 1,993 miles in touch with ours, in the same unselfish spirit we have shown in the Philippines, thousands of miles overseas. The gratifying result which has followed the bestowal of lands and home and citizenship, with a voice in government, of our Indian tribes in Oklahoma, would be well worth a trial with the scattered warring tribes in Mexico, where centuries of poverty, ignorance and oppression have made the poor so poor that banditry is widespread. Each of our 41,698 Chero- kees received 110 acres of land, and the Creeks, Choctaws, Seminoles, Chickasaws and Osages an equal or larger allot- ment. They have made homes, and quickly adapted them- selves to the law and order of civilization, and are to-day among the best of our citizens. The errors made in our earlier dealings with the aborigines would naturally be avoided in the future. Should there be opposition to annexation it could not be formidable or difficult to overcome. Exhausted by years of internecine warfare, our preponderance of men and means, backed by a rigorous blockade, would make the struggle brief, and tactful measures and fair and kindly treatment would insure a prompt submission to law and order. The brilliant achievements of army sanitation have in very recent years eliminated the danger of tropical diseases or of typhoid, chol- era and other infections. The marvelous innovations in mod- ern warfare, especially in the artillery and aerial services, would, if the emergency should demand, make easy and with the minimum loss of life the forcible establishment of a civil- ized, stable and humane government in Mexico. Any objection to the enlargement of our domain can be met with the statement that the area which Russia rules is pracically as large as all of North America from Panama to the Arctic Ocean, and much more difficult of access than Mexico, while England, through her well selected agents governs a still larger area. Steam, the gasolene-engine and electricity, have brought into a smaller compass the peoples of our continent. The aeronaut of to-day can travel from the Arctic Circle to the Panama Canal in less time than it took Washington to journey from Virginia to take command of the Continental Army at Cambridge in 1775. In addition, the acquisition of Mexico would bring us so near by land to our Great Canal, that far-sighted statesman- ship would demand a protectorate over the States of Central America, and a railway and highways, to insure defense, should approach be interfered with in either ocean. Nor should our country purchase one foot of Mexican territory. If her people ever were entitled to consideration of this character, their conduct in late years has justified a forfeiture. Our clear duty is, in the name of humanity, to establish by force, since this is necessary, a stable govern- ment, and this done, deal with all Mexicans justly and gener- ously, as citizens of a territory, until such time as we may deem them worthy of state citizenship. The States of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and portions of Wyoming and Colorado were taken by force from Mexico. Texas, after the massacres perpetrated at the Alamo and Goliad, won its independence under Houston at San Jacinto in 1836. The remaining terri- tory above given (with the exception of a strip known as the Gadsden purchase of 1853) was acquired by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the close of the Mexican war in 1848. What a stable government has done for the vast area annexed and what lack of it has done for the distracted country south of the Rio Grande is an object lesson which needs no argument to enforce conviction. AREA TAKEN FROM MEXICO Map showing the territory taken from Mexico in the war for Texan independence in 1836 and by the treaty of Guada- lupe Hidalgo after the war in 1848. A small strip, known as the Gadsden Purchase, was added five years later. This map is from Andrews' History of the United States, and is used by permission of J. B. Lippincott Company, publishers, and the author, Matthew Page Andrews. In order that our policy may not be misunderstood by our sister republics of South America, the Monroe Doctrine should be emphasized by a solemn engagement that the United States will never attempt to encroach upon their territory, and will engage to join with them, to protect them from invasion by any power or powers. 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