[Josiah Strong ] [Albert Beveridge] [William McKinely]
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 of 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 complemental 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
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
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Justifying
Annexation of the Philliipines (1898)
In this
speech to a group of ministers, President William McKinley outlined his
rationale for annexing the
When next I
realized that the
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
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