GREATER AMERICA. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 HON. DAVID J. HILL, LL. D., 
 
 Assistant Secretary of State. 
 
 Delivekeu at the Annual Banquet of the Rochester 
 Chamber of Commerce, December 8, 1898. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 JUDD & DKTWKII-KR, PRIIJTKKS. 
 
 1898. 
 
. /7P 
 
Mr. Pres^ident and Gentlemen of flic Chamber of Commerce: 
 
 It is with a thrill of peculiar pleasure that I greet you 
 here tonight. A wanderer upon the face of the earth, I feel 
 like a returning mariner when the light of his home flashes 
 out over the sea to salute him, and a great wave of emotion 
 sweeps from memory the dreary days and perilous nights of 
 a long and tempestuous voyage. My country — with what 
 patriotic pride I call it mine ! — never seemed so great, its 
 people so noble, its future and theirs so full of hope and 
 promise. A great crisis, In-avely met and victoriously })assed, 
 lifts a country, as an individual, to a })rouder elevation than 
 before. When last I met with the members of this Chamber 
 the roar of Niagara blended with the voices of the speakers, 
 but a })()wcr greater and more irresistible than that of the 
 great cataract has changed the destiny of twelve millions of 
 human beings, and a more potent voice has commanded the 
 action of this nation and called it to their rescue. Incidents 
 of an unparalleled nature have kindled a conflagration 
 which all the waters of Niagara could not quench. The 
 miraculous feats of our small but illustrious navy fill the 
 Avorld with wonder, and indicate more el()(|Uently than 
 human words that the path of the Republic to its place 
 among the nations lies in the broad highway of the deep. 
 Our little army, the smallest of any great ]30wer in the world, 
 has swollen in a few months to a mighty host, gathered from 
 every quarter of the Union, the workshop and the field, the 
 
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lonel}^ ranch and the fashionahle chib, eager to follow a 
 common standard and shed its blood upon a common battle- 
 field. Many a pale face has turned for the last time to the 
 silent stars of a tropic sky, and a subtler foe than whistling 
 bullets has racked with agony the mute sufferers in our fever- 
 stricken camps. Thousands of brave volunteers have almost 
 wept with disappointment because they could not press to 
 the front, but when History completes her roll of heroes and 
 tells their fateful story the untrembling hand which records 
 the solemn judgment of the world will write : 
 
 " They serve as well who only stand and wait." 
 
 Had Napoleon won the victories which have been achieved 
 under the wise leadership of our great President, a new em- 
 pire might have been called into being and this sober Re- 
 public have been suddenly swept from an era of industrial 
 peace into an era of unbounded conquest and imperialism. 
 But that mistaken word " imperialism," suggested Ijy the 
 unexpected fruits of victory, does not express the motives 
 and sentiments of this nation. The American people have 
 not coveted territories beyond the sea. They have engaged 
 in war not for land, but for humanity ; not to multiply their 
 possessions, but to vindicate their princii)les. Empires are 
 made by personal ambitions, but the history of our great 
 moments of victory is the roll-call of sacrifice. The struggle 
 for independence reached its culmination in Washington's 
 refusal of a crown, and the perpetual union of the States 
 was sealed by a bleeding nation's supreme renunciation in 
 the martyrdom of Lincoln. In the solemn moment when 
 the ways parted at the mile-stone of intervention in the 
 
tragedy of Cuba's wrongs, — the one leading to national hu- 
 miliation, the other to manifest duty, — the serene voice of 
 our great, peace-loving statesman, William McKinley, whose 
 large intelligence turned with sadness from the sweet vision 
 of peace, recalled to the nation the noble sentiment, 
 
 " He is tlirife armed wiio hath liis (juarrel just." 
 
 Then, i)anoplied in the confidence of the people, he who 
 was the last to abandon peace stood first in the hour of war, 
 not to acquire new dominion, but to extend the rule of jus- 
 tice. 
 
 And now that victory lias placed the fiite of twelve mil- 
 lion human benigs in the hands of a triumpliant nation, 
 with vvdiat right does a spirit of criticism, which derives its 
 inspiration from conditions that have ceased, stamp with 
 the word " imperialism " the magnanimity of this Republic 
 in extending the sheltering wings of its protection over those 
 whom the war has liberated from oppression and misrule ? 
 The momentous question presented to the Government of 
 the United States by the results of the war has been : " Hav- 
 ing attempted by humanitarian intervention, and without 
 ulterior purposes, to stop the horrors of a perennial strife, 
 shall the American people, for fear of new responsibilities, 
 hurl these millions back into the al)yss of anarchy? " That 
 is the question which our Commissioners have tried to 
 b'nswer at Paris, and which this nation must answer before 
 the Throne of Eternal Justice. 
 
 What, now, will our national legislators do with the terri- 
 tories ceded by Spain to tlie United States? Will they re- 
 store them to the vengeance of the vanf[uished ? Will they 
 
leave them to the occupation and partition of other powers? 
 Will they ahandon them to their own inexperience and in- 
 ternal discords, or will they attempt to establish within them 
 the conditions of peace and ultimate self-government? 
 
 There is nothing novel in the idea of territorial expan- 
 sion, wliich has marked every period of our national history. 
 Oidy a little strip of territory along tlie Atlantic seaboard 
 was peopled by the victorious colonies at the close of the 
 war of independence, but the American Commissioners were 
 instructed to claim for the colonies the whole area east of 
 the Mississippi. Franklin, the most astute diplomatist of 
 histirae, coveted in addition the whole of Canada. In 1803 
 Jefferson strained the Constitution to the breaking point, as 
 he believed, to secure the purchase of the great province of 
 Louisiana, which at one stroke doubled the area of the 
 country. His opponents considered his act not only uncon- 
 stitutional, but in effect a dissolution of the Union ; and a 
 historian has accused him of '• making himself monarch of 
 the new territory, and of holding, against its protests, the 
 power of its old kings." Jackson did not hesitate to invade 
 and conquer Florida for the peace of the nation, Texas came 
 into the Union by revolution, and the entire tract which 
 now forms the prosperous States stretching from Mexico to 
 Oregon was the fruit of war and forced occupation. Thus, 
 by continued territorial expansion, the better part of this 
 continent has become incorporated into the United States, 
 and from a few scattered settlements along our eastern coast, 
 a great nation has been formed, bounded by two oceans, 
 with widespread commerce over both, and not one human 
 being in all this vast continental area regrets for a moment 
 
the historic necessities which have given to our united Re- 
 public a common law and a common liberty. 
 
 New conditions of existence have swept away forever the 
 fears and misgivings wliich were felt at every thrilling act 
 in this great (h-ama of continental expansion. Undreamed 
 of facilities of transportation have wrought this wonder and 
 rendered possible the unity and solidarity of so vast an en- 
 terprise. The power of steam locomotion has carried west- 
 ward a vigorous race, planting homes like those of New 
 England upon the sunny slopes of the Pacific, and our orig- 
 inal western boundary, the Mississippi, has become the cen- 
 tral waterway of a united nation, bordering upon widely 
 separated seas. Is our expansion to be bounded by these 
 great waters, or will the annihilation of space by mechanical 
 energy permit of a still wider horizon? Having won from 
 nature and untitled claimants the possession of what is most 
 desirable upon this continent, shall we henceforth renounce 
 all dominion upon the sea ? Shall we declare that the ocean, 
 whose broad bosom makes the whole world one, has only 
 perils for our commerce and our polity? Jefferson, indeed, 
 once said that our national ambition should be limited to 
 possessions that would not need a navy to defend them ; but 
 that was long ago. Could he contemplate the map of the 
 United States today, an area connecting the two great oceans 
 of the temperate zone, and l)elieve, in the presence of modern 
 battle-ships, that our present .territories could be defended 
 without a navy ? Could he imagine that the late war could 
 have been conducted, or that our seaboard cities could have 
 escaped destruction without a- navy ? Would he not rather 
 believe that, with friendly neighbors on the nortli and south 
 
and our points of exposure chiefly on our coasts, our princi- 
 pal need of defense is a still greater navy ? 
 
 We seem, indeed, to have renounced our hope of primac}' 
 upon the ocean by suffering the decline of our mercantile 
 marine, and that, too, in an era when the forces of in(Uistrial 
 production have far outstripped the development of markets. 
 In 1860 the merchant navy of the United States was, after 
 that of England, the largest in the world. Seventy per cent, 
 of our foreign trade was then carried by our own vessels, but 
 the proportion has declined until now all but 11 per cent, 
 has been taken from us, while England's carrying trade has 
 in the meantime doubled ; yet, notwithstanding this, our 
 annual trade with Asia and (3ceanica has grown to 
 $62,000,000, nearly twice our entire trade with Central and 
 South America. Our exports to China have trebled since 
 1890, and our entire volume of trade with that country is now 
 e<jual to that of the whole of continental Europe, outside of 
 Russia. The Far East has become the land of promise for 
 the merchant, and Civilization, full-grown, having made the 
 circuit of the globe, returns with priceless treasures to its 
 primitive cradle, to lay them at the shrine of its nativity. 
 
 Having created and developed our industries l)y a jndi- 
 cious system of protection until we can successfully compete 
 with foreign nations by the greater inventive powers of our 
 people and tlie more extended application of machinery, 
 shall we now refuse to protect our commerce? Shall we 
 forget that we are no longer merely an Atlantic, but have 
 become also a Pacific power, with five thousand miles of 
 coast line on the Pacific ocean ? Shall we forget that the 
 people of the Great West will be more closely in sympathy 
 with their fellow-citizens of the East, if they also have their 
 
9 
 
 maritime cities and their proportion of international trade? 
 And, finally, shall we forget that the political subdivision 
 and commercial occupation of Asia by foreign powers in- 
 volves the perpetual isolation of this continent? 
 
 The destiny of nations is not <leterniined by the individual 
 will, nor can national duties be measured by private stand- 
 ards. Nations grow by obeying the instinct of development, 
 an instinct planted in them by Him who holdeth the sea as 
 in the liollow of his hand. Their greatness is not in the 
 breadth of their heritage, nor in the fertility of tlieir lands, 
 nor in the wealth of their mines. Little Israel has given 
 the law of righteousness to the ends of the earth ; little 
 Greece has shaped the humanities for all time ; little Hol- 
 land, ])ushing back the sea with one hand, has distributed 
 the wealth of tlie world with the other ; little Switzerland 
 has shone like a star of Heaven, guarding her liberties 
 among the snow}^ fastnesses of her Alpine peaks and 
 glaciers ; little New England has nurtured her Puritans and 
 sent forth her teachers of self-government ; ])ut it is one 
 mission to pre})are tlie seed, another to scattei- it. I cannot 
 believe it an evil for any people that the Stars and Stripes, 
 the symbol of liberty and law, should float over them. 
 There have been those who have thought otherwise, but 
 they have returned witli penitence and confession Avhen their 
 dream was ended. There was a day when the sovereign 
 power of this nation was thought to conflict with the rights 
 of individuals and communities to go their ways and shape 
 their own destinies, but one of the most precious fruits of 
 the late war is the new evidence that the nation has a truer 
 instinct than the individual. When a lady congratulated 
 "Joe Wheeler," as we lovingly call him, upon liis promotion 
 
10 
 
 as major general, the brave old soldier burst into tears and 
 said : " It is not that, Madam, which gives me most pleasure; 
 it is to have fought under the dear old Flag that bears the 
 Stars and Stripes ! " 
 
 Greater America will lose her greatness if she forgets the 
 political philosophy that has made her great. The vital 
 |)rinciple of that philosophy is the sovereignty of the people, 
 which in the last analysis is only another name for the fact 
 that in every humblest creature possessing intelligence there 
 is a spark of that Divine Reason which animates the world. 
 It is a great lesson of the war that it is not in the tonnage of 
 ships, nor in the weight of armor, that the fate of battles 
 rests. " These are Her Majesty's ships," says the Spaniard ; 
 " These are our ships," says the American ; and your pleas- 
 ure yacht, with a Wainwright in command, sends the terror- 
 striking destroyers to the bottom of the sea ! The sover- 
 eignty of the people behind the guns and in the trenches, 
 whether the soldier be a New York dude or a Texas ranch- 
 man, speaks in his aim and in his heroism ; for he does not 
 merely represent, he helps to constitute, the sovereignty of 
 the nation. 
 
 A giant's task now confronts the American people, l)ut 
 their history gives the assurance that they will not tremble 
 before it. Amid the din of war and the strife of nations, in 
 the busy marts of trade and among the distant islands of the 
 sea, dwells an unseen force slowly shaping the destinies of 
 the w^orld. It speaks alike in nature, in the human soul 
 and in the long drama of history. Witness a nation rising 
 to the full splendor of its responsibilities, and you will see 
 there written in letters of shining light, the august and im- 
 perative law of universal development. 
 
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