Hans Teichmueller; biographical sketch, addresses and letters to his family Page: 45

HANS TBEIOCHUEMTER 45
self and his contemporaries expected. It has proved a great achievement,
wrought by history regardless of the constitution.
Can we reasonably expect similarly happy results from the acquisition
of these Spanish colonies? They are islands inhabited by millions of
uncivilized people unfit for American citizenship. They will resist the
kind of government which we may deem suitable and salutary for them,
as tyrannical and oppressive. Their claim of independence will be asserted
by civil disturbances, conspiracies, revolutions, and counter-revolutions,
to be subdued by the military power of our government.
Having gained a foothold in the Philippine Islands, we shall encounter,
and expect to encounter, the nations of Europe as competitors for
commercial and political influence in Asia. This is the essence of the
expansion theory. In order to enforce our rightful claims and demands
as the mightiest of all civilized nations, we have to maintain armies and
navies able to cope with the military power of European nations. We
step right into the center of the international complications of Europe,
and delicate negotiations with foreign powers, efforts to prevent wars,
.or preparations for conducting them successfully, will engage the
thoughts and energies of the people, and their overshadowing importance
will divert public attention from our own unsolved social and
political problems, which involve our happiness and are of incomparably
greater concern to us than the welfare of the inhabitants of these islands.
When pursuing the line of thought these facts suggest, can we resist the
rising suspicion, that the leaders of the classes favoring expansion are
interested in preventing the solution of our pending social and political
controversies, and court militarism as a means of perpetuating present
economic conditions, which are the source of wealth to them?
This suspicion ripens into a strongly supported opinion when we discover
that our alleged duty to the people of these islands, and to the
civilized world generally, proves but a thin disguise of the real purpose
to change our government and the character of our civilization, in order
to expand our commerce for the benefit of America. To justify this
fatal policy on the ground of necessity, we are asked: If Spain cedes
these islands to the United States, what else can we do but govern them?
The answer is obvious and easy: We should do exactly what we have
declared to be the purpose of our war with Spain: to free Cuba from
the cruel tyranny of Spain, and -to help the "patriotic insurgents" in
their struggle for liberty and independence. Some contend that our
declaration of war commits us to this course so far as Cuba is concerned,
but that it does not apply to any other territory we may capture. This
position, however, can not be seriously insisted on, for that declaration
was not made inadvertently. We made it because, as Chief Justice
Taney says: "The genius and character of our institutions are peace