Josiah
Strong - Our Country
This
selection from Josiah Strong's book, Our
Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, illustrates the feeling
of white superiority in the
Every race which has
deeply impressed itself on the human family has been the representative f some
great idea - one or more - which had given direction to the nation's life and
form to its civilization. Among the Egyptians this seminal idea was life, among
the Persians it was light, among the Hebrews it was purity, among the Greeks it
was beauty, among the Romans it was law. The Anglo-Saxon is the representative
of two great ideas, which are closely related. One of them is that of civil
liberty. Nearly all of the civil liberty in the world is enjoyed by
Anglo-Saxon: the English, the British colonists, and the people of the
The other great idea of
which the Anglo-Saxon is the exponent is that of a pure spiritual Christianity.
It was no accident that great reformation of the sixteenth century originated
among a Teutonic, rather than a Latin people. It was the fire of liberty
burning in the Saxon heart that flamed up against the absolutism of the Pope….
It is not necessary to
argue to those for whom I write that the two great needs of mankind, that all
men may be lifted up into the light of the highest Christian civilization, are,
first, a pure, spiritual Christianity, and, second, civil liberty. Without
controversy, these are the forces which, in the past, have contributed most to
the elevation of the human race, and they must continue to be, in the future,
the most efficient ministers to its progress. It follows, then, that the
Anglo-Saxon, as the great representative of these two ideas, the depositary [sic]
of these two greatest blessings, sustains peculiar relations to the world's
future, is divinely commissioned to be, in a peculiar sense, his brother's
keeper….
There can be no reasonable
doubt that
Mr. Darwin is not only
disposed to see, in the superior vigor of our people, an illustration of his
favorite theory of natural selection, but even intimates that the world's
history thus far has been simply preparatory for our future, and tributary to
it. He says: "There is apparently much truth in the belief that the
wonderful progress of the United States, as well as the character of the
people, are the results of natural selection; for the more energetic, restless,
and courageous men from all parts of Europe have emigrated during the last ten
or twelve generations to that great country, and have there succeeded
best…."
The time is coming when
the pressure of population on the means of subsistence will be felt there as it
is now felt in Europe and
In my own mind, there is
no doubt that the Anglo-Saxon is to exercise the commanding influence in the
world's future; but the exact nature of that influence is, as yet,
undetermined. How far his civilization will be materialistic and atheistic, and
how long it will take thoroughly to Christianize and sweeten it, how rapidly he
will hasten the coming of the kingdom wherein dwelleth righteousness, or how
many ages he may retard it, is still uncertain; but it is now being swiftly
determined….
Notwithstanding the great
perils which threaten it, I cannot think our civilization will perish; but I
believe it is fully in the hand of the Christians of the United States, during
the next fifteen or twenty years, to hasten or retard the coming of Christ's
kingdom in the world by hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of years. We of this
generation and nation occupy the
Excerpt
2
It seems to me that God,
with infinite wisdom and skill, is training the Anglo-Saxon race for an hour
sure to come in the world's future. Heretofore there has always been in the
history of the world a comparatively unoccupied land westward, into which the
crowded countries of the East have poured their surplus populations. But the
widening waves of migration, which millenniums ago rolled east and west from
the valley of the
"Any people,"
says Dr. Bushnell, "that is physiologically advanced in culture, though it
be only in a degree beyond another which is mingled with it on strictly equal
terms, is sure to live down and finally live out its inferior. Nothing can save
the inferior race but a ready and pliant assimilation. Whether the feebler and
more abject races are going to be regenerated and raised up is already very
much of a question. What if it should be God's plan to people the world with
better and finer material?
"Certain it is,
whatever expectations we may indulge, that there is a tremendous overbearing
surge of power in the Christian nations, which, if the others are not speedily
raised to some vastly higher capacity, will inevitably submerge and bury them
forever. These great populations of Christendom-what are they doing, but
throwing out their colonies on every side, and populating themselves, if I may
so speak, into the possession of all countries and climes?" To this result
no war of extermination is needful; the contest is not one of arms, but of
vitality and of civilization. "At the present day," says Mr. Darwin,
"civilized nations are everywhere supplanting barbarous nations, excepting
where the climate opposes a deadly barrier; and they succeed mainly, though not
exclusively, through their arts, which are the products of the intellect."
Thus the Finns were supplanted by the Aryan races in Europe and Asia, the
Tartars by the Russians, and thus the aborigines of North America,
Every civilization has its
destructive and preservative elements. The Anglo-Saxon race would speedily
decay but for the salt of Christianity. Bring savages into contact with our
civilization, and its destructive forces become operative at once, while years
are necessary to render effective the saving influences of Christian instruction.
Moreover, the pioneer wave of our civilization carries with it more scum than
salt. Where there is one missionary, there are hundreds of miners or traders or
adventurers ready to debauch the native.
Whether the extinction of
inferior races before the advancing Anglo-Saxon seems to the reader sad or
otherwise, it certainly appears probable. I know of nothing except climatic
conditions to prevent this race from populating Africa as it has peopled
Thus, while on this
continent God is training the Anglo-Saxon race for its mission, a complemented
work has been in progress in the great world beyond. God has two hands. Not
only is he preparing in our civilization the die with which to stamp the
nations, but, by what Southey called the "timing of Providence," is
he preparing mankind to receive our impress.
Document Analysis
Albert Beveridge - The March Of The Flag
Albert
Beveridge expressed his views concerning
It is a noble land that
God has given us; a land that can feed and clothe the world; a land whose
coastlines would enclose half the countries of Europe; a land set like a
sentinel between the imperial oceans of the globe, a greater England with a
nobler destiny.
It is a mighty people that
He has planted on this soil; a people sprung from the most masterful blood of
history; a people perpetually revitalized by the virile, man-producing working
folk of all the earth; a people imperial by virtue of their power, by right of
their institutions, by authority of their Heavens-directed purposes - the
propagandists and not the misers of liberty.
It is a glorious history
our God has bestowed upon His chosen people; a history heroic with faith in our
mission and our future; a history of statesmen who flung the boundaries of the
Republic out into unexplored lands and savage wilderness; a history of soldiers
who carried the flag across blazing deserts and through the ranks of hostile
mountains, even to the gates of sunset; a history of a multiplying people who
overran a continent in half a century; a history of prophets who saw the
consequences of evils inherited from the past and of martyrs who died to save
us from them; a history divinely logical, in the process of whose tremendous
seasoning we find ourselves today.
Therefore, in this
campaign, the question is larger than a party question. It is an American
question. It is a world question. Shall the American people continue their
march toward the commercial supremacy of the world? Shall free institutions
broaden their blessed reign as the children of liberty wax in strength, until
the empire of our principles is established over the hearts of all mankind?
Have we no mission to
perform, no duty to discharge to our fellowman? Has God endowed us with gifts
beyond our deserts and marked us as the people of His peculiar favor, merely to
rot in our own selfishness, as men and nations must, who take cowardice for
their companion and self for their deity -
Shall we be as the man who
had one talent and hid it, or as he who had ten talents and use them until they
grew to riches? And shall we reap the reward that waits on our discharge of our
high duty; shall we occupy new markets for what our farmers raise, our
factories make, our merchants sell - aye, and, please God, new markets for what
our ships shall carry?
Hawaii is ours, Puerto
Rico is to be ours; at the prayer of her people Cuba finally will be ours; in
the islands of the East, even to the gates of Asia, coaling stations are to be
ours at the very least; the flag of a liberal government is to float over the
Philippines, and may it be the banner that Taylor unfurled in Texas and Fremont
carried to the coast.
The Opposition tells us
that we ought not to govern a people without their consent. I answer, the rule
of liberty that all just government derives its authority from the consent of
the governed, applies only to those who are capable of self-government. We
govern the Indians without their consent, we govern our territories without
their consent, we govern our children without their consent. How do they know
that our government would be without their consent? Would not the people of the
And, regardless of this
formula of words made only for enlightened, self-governing people, do we owe no
duty to the world? Shall we turn these peoples back to the reeking hands from
which we have taken them? Shall we abandon them, with
Wonderfully has God guided
us. Yonder at Bunker Hill and
Document
Analysis
Justifying
Annexation of the Philippines (1898)
In
this speech to a group of ministers, President William McKinley outlined his
rationale for annexing the Philippines in a treaty of 1898, paying the Spanish
(under duress) $20 million for the privilege. It was a difficult decision, and
it foreshadowed the path of
When next I realized that the
Philippines had dropped into our laps, I confess I did not know what to do with
them. I sought counsel from all sides - Democrats as well as Republican - but
got little help. I thought first we would take only
I walked the floor of the
White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you,
gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light
and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way - I
don't know how it was, but it came:
(1) That we could not give
them back to
(2) That we could not turn
them over to
(3) The we could not leave
them to themselves - they were unfit for self-government, and they would soon
have anarchy and misrule worse then
(4) That there was nothing
left for us to do but to take them all, and to educated the Filipinos, and
uplift and civilize and Christianize them and by God's grace do the very best
we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died.
And the I went to bed and
went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the chief
engineer of the War Department (our map-maker), and I told him to put the
Philippines on the map of the United States [pointing to a large map on the
wall of his office], and there they are and there they will stay while I am
President!
Document Analysis