Harper's Weekly Editorials on Carl Schurz/An Entangling Alliance and A Marked Contrast

by Harper's Weekly

An Entangling Alliance

IF the Hon. Carl Schurz has not by this time received a letter of thanks from the Emperor of Germany for his strenuous efforts in behalf of the Kaiser's Imperial schemes in the Pacific, it is because Wilhelm II. either is the most ungrateful of monarchs or is too busily occupied in watching Chinese developments to spare the time necessary to the writing of it. It cannot be that one so watchful of his own interests as the Emperor is has failed to note how strong an ally he has in the person of Mr. Schurz. Noting it, he might be ten times the Kaiser and yet fail to be proof against gratitude, considering the great value of the services rendered, so that if Mr. Schurz has not heard from the Emperor it is reasonable to suppose that for the moment the house of Hohenzollern finds itself fully occupied in the contemplation of Chinese matters.

It is curious what strange bedfellows politics will make. No one would have supposed, when Mr. Schurz left his native land many years ago because he could not reconcile himself to the rulers of the fatherland, to become a free and independent citizen of this republic, that he would to-day develop into the most useful instrument in a far country of the Imperial policy of the Kaiser. Yet this strange thing has come about, and we have the anomalous spectacle presented to us at this very moment of an Anti-Imperialist bending his every energy to smooth the pathway of the most high-handed kind of Imperialism; to destroy absolutely the one serious obstacle in the Kaiser's path to commercial supremacy in the East by influencing the American people to abandon their righteous stand for liberty and the preservation of law and order in the Philippine Islands, and by allying himself with the advocates of financial dishonor to shatter the credit of the one nation of earth of whose commercial prestige the German Imperialists are most reasonably jealous.

It is a surprise and a painful one to many to find Mr. Schurz in so unfortunate a predicament. It is impossible to believe that he has consciously entered into an entangling alliance which is fundamentally so far removed from his taste and his principles, but there he is, willy-nilly. If his most lately avowed project of striving to bring about the defeat of William McKinley because Mr. McKinley has adhered to a firm and just policy in the Philippine Islands, and has refused to break faith with the Filipinos by abandoning them to the very hungry and very thirsty powers of Europe, is crowned with success, no one would be better pleased than the war lord of Potsdam. If, through the direct or indirect support of Mr. Schurz and his followers, the man whose avowed financial policy involves a vital blow at the commercial integrity of the United States is elected to administer the affairs of this nation for four years to come, no living being in all Europe could view the situation with more complacency than the strenuous statesman who rules at Berlin. And if these things are accomplished through the instrumentality of Mr. Schurz and his friends — not a likely eventuality, but still possible — a failure upon the Kaiser's part to bestow the decoration of the Iron Cross upon our distinguished and academically esteemed fellow-citizen will be one of the grossest instances of the ingratitude of princes in history.

We cannot believe that Mr. Schurz has quite considered all this. We are more inclined to the opinion that his recent association with the Anti-Imperialist League, an organization of a thousand leaders with no followers, has led him into an advocacy of measures the results of which he has not foreseen, and which a year from now he will sincerely regret. With the bulk of us laughing at the sonnets of Garrison, with many more splitting their sides over the tremendous importance of Winslow, with the scientists openly and vigorously objecting to the traitorous periods of Atkinson, and the solid, honest strength of the country repudiating the heresies of Bryan, it is a sorry sight to see the Hon. Carl Schurz allying himself with the schemes of a monarch who is the very incarnation of policies that in his own soul he detests.

A strong man should never become a cat's-paw.

IN marked contrast to the attitude of Mr. Schurz upon this question are the broad and statesmanlike utterances of Senator Hoar and the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt. Mr. Hoar abates not a jot in his opposition to what he considers the schemes of Imperialism upon which this country A Marked
Contrast has embarked, but he has sufficient foresight to perceive that even if his misgivings are all justified, there is something far worse involved in the abandonment of the reins of government to the hungry and thirsty hordes of Bryanism. He is also fair-minded enough to concede that the President has always been actuated, even in the measures which are most abhorrent in the eyes of the senior Senator from Massachusetts, by the highest and most patriotic motives; that it is even conceivable that under the given circumstances the President might not after all have been able honorably to do other than he has done. In other words, when it has come to the pinch, Mr. Hoar, without turning his back upon his record in the slightest degree, has virtually admitted that his may after all be merely a point of view, and that his differences with the President and the bulk of his party have been solely in the matter of their respective ideals. The Senator's statement, recently made, is a frank, manly, and honorable presentation of the situation, uncolored by partisan prejudice and statesmanlike in its freedom from individual bias. There is no Yellowness in the soul of Senator Hoar.

Mr. Hewitt approaches the subject in his usual incisive manner. He will have no compromise with Bryanism in any way, shape, or form. He asserts, and he asserts truly, that the American conception of government is liberty regulated by law; the Bryan notion is despotism regulated by anarchy. He does not believe that in fact there is any issue in this country between Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism. Mr. Hewitt added that it was simply a case of “having the wolf by the ear and not being able to let go.” He would gladly see such a solution. But it appeared entirely impracticable, if not impossible.

He did not believe that the administration had desired the Philippines, or had consciously entered upon a course of empire, but that it bad been gradually forced into its present situation by currents of events which could neither be foreseen nor resisted. In similar fashion, without desire or ulterior purpose, we were sustaining a part in an armed conflict in China, the outcome of which no mortal could foresee. Only, it was clear that the powers must establish there a stable government, and it was quite within the probabilities that the United States would be compelled to bear an active share in its maintenance. Without invoking Imperialism, the United States, however reluctantly, might be drawn into it by world movement, which ever produced most unexpected results, for none could keep this country within hard and fast lines.

How different are these two expressions, from men who have won their spurs in the councils of the nation, from the despairing cry of Mr. Schurz! How different in temper, how far more convincing, how more clearly fair-minded, than periods in which Mr. Schurz has held up the President of the United States to public reprobation and scorn!

It surely ought not to take much time for the unbranded mind to decide which of the two sides is right. As strongly Anti-Imperialistic as Mr. Schurz himself, Mr. Hoar cannot sacrifice the best interests of his country to the fulfilment of an impossible deal; strongly antagonistic fundamentally to the principles of the Republican party, the sterling New York Democrat, Mr. Hewitt, would rather cut off his right hand than lift his voice in favor of those who have paralyzed the energies of the good old Democratic party, dragged its good name into the mire of Populism, and by raising a false cry of Imperialism now seek to frighten the public into handing over the administration of the government to their chaotic and unprincipled care.

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