Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1888 — THE FUTURE REPUBLIC. [ARTICLE]

THE FUTURE REPUBLIC.

Stfiiator Ingalls on the Glorious Prospect. NqwTorkSuu. j uresque and striking figure in the hurly burlV of ..Washington political life. When Senator John J. Ingalls speaks in the Senate the chamber is crowded. His utterances are amazing, sharp, pungent, caustic and severe at times, “’and it has been the generally expressed opinion that he prepared his speeches with great care. I find, however, that the faculty of force aud finish which is so marked a characteristic of his public talk ir-the natural manner of the man. The President of the Senate has been wildly lampooned by the caricaturists. He is tall, spare, and agile looking. A big “splash” of white hair surmounts his forehead, his eyes are bright, and he speaks without affectation of any kind. He wore a morning jacket, and strolled! up and down his library, smoking as lie talked, and he talked to the point. The* interview, which appears below, was written out and subjected to his revision. It is authorized and endorsed: “Is there,” I asked, “a strong desire throughout the United States for the peaceful acquisition of Canada and Mexico? Who spoke of an ocean-bound republic?” “Stephen A. Douglas I believe,” said Senator Ingalls, "'""first* formulated the phrase, but the idea is as old as Jamestown and Plymouth. It was the cargo of the Mayflower. Obedient to its impulse, the column of Anglo-Saxon migration has in two centuries inarched across the continent, and now pauses upon the coast of she Pacific meditating conquests. It has expelled the Indian, the Frenchman, the Spaniard, and the Chinese. It is the conquering race, and tolerates no element that it cannot absorb and assimilate. Having abolished the western frontier, it will move northward and southward to the pole and the equator. We have reached the limit of arable land in dur public domain. In ten years the homestead system will be extinct withiu the territory now open to settlement. Since the war with Mexico we have ceased to enlarge our boundaries, not because the instinct of acquisition Was lost, but because we had enough. The pressure of surplus population will Boon be felt, and the overflow will absorb Mexico and Canada inevitably, and perhaps Cuba and the oth er West Indian islands, which we need for the tobacco and sugar products in order to complete our industrial independence. We have paid duties enough oil sugar In the past thirty years to have purchased Cuba from Spain thrice over. We also need additional accommodations in the torrid zone for the surplus African population of this country, which will require an outlet before the close of the century. The race problem in the South is not yet settled. If the whites and blacks can not assimilate, they will eventually probably separate peacefully, by common consent, the negroes establishing States in the tropics and accomplishing their destiny in their original and native environment. We have now a continuous line of railway to Mexico. It wtH-sooh be contiHueebte-the- valley-pi the Amazon. Vestibule*! trains will run through without change from NewYork to Buenos Ayres. Along this highway the Anglo-Saxon race will move to the domination of the hemisphere.” In a discussion concerning the Cajyadian policy of President Cleveland, the Senator said;

“The contemporaneous estimate of the President is higher, probably, than the grade to' which he will be assigned in history. Bis defects are those of temperament 1 ami training. Although I condemn liisdreatoaent of Union soldiers and his concessions to England, I am not among those wh o impute to him lack of patriotism or love of injustice. But his horizon is narrow. The scope, and range of his faculties are limited. No ruler, perhaps, ever came to the duties of exalted station with less natural aptitude or less acquainted with the methods and subjects of administration. He has great capacity for labor, unusual industry, patient attention to petty details, bat no apprehension of great subjects. He addresses himself to their consideration with the temerity of a novice, and bis view is unilateral. He regards all topics as detached, and not in their relation* to a system. His nature is phlegmatic, and he is not troubled with sensibilities or emotions. His colossal egotism has been distended even beyond its normal proportions by the incense and adulation of his emasculated idolaters. His self-complacency is excessive, and his practical usurpation of all governmental functions, legislative and judicial, as

we las executive, is entertaining rather than dangerous.’ It is egotism and not despotism. How far the country at large has been imprfssed by his protestations of his honesty, integrity, parity, courage, and devout and holy consecration to the public service can be better told oh. the 7th of November than this evening. Statesmanship cannot properly be imputed to the President. You might as well ask me how he will rank as a poet, an astronomer,or atheogomist. He came’ to thd* White House without ever having made a political speech or expressed a remembered opinion upon any of the great questions that have engaged the atten-

tion of our people during the past twenty-five years. It has long been evident that the claim of hiß worshippers that thissflence was the result of sagacious reticence is an error. It would have been better for his fame,and serve remained nnbroken. His manifestoes about a second term, reform in the civil service, silver coinage, pensions, or foreign policy, and the tariff have been unfortunate. But his impassive and imperturbable selfesteem does not desert him. and he is npt disconcerted by exposure, or embarrassedby detection. He disagrees with diplomatists, political economists, lawyers and philosophers with complacent composure. He has the same claim to the title of statesman that a man crossingonthe Desbross street ferry from Jersey City to New York would have to be called the discoverer of the Hudson river. Concerning Lowell’s comparison between Lincoln and Cleveland, I think it was a violation of the first commandment of the decalogue.” “Canaaa’s confidence in the power of Great Britain to avenge her wrongs and enforce her rights in supreme.” I said: “ What is your opinion of the capability of Great Britain to force the United States to terms?’

“The umbilical cord between England and Canada was long since severed. The automony of the Dominion is complete. The intrusion of England in the politics of this continent is an intolerable impertinence. It is dictated by deliberate hostility to the United States. It is a studied affront which our people understand and vil\. ultimately resent. Talk as we may about kindred blood, and the ianguagu of Milton and Shakespeare, there is EOt an American who O.Oes not feei instinctively that England is the only enemy we have ~among the nations and sooner or later'wte shaU 4)e compelled by self-respect, if not for selfpreservation, to obliterate every vestige of British power from this hemisphere. There is no afternative. The guns of Halifax and Vancouver are pointed at us. Ti e Canadian Pacific Railroad, built by England’s subsidies, makes our northern frontier more vulnerable than our seacoast. Great Britain, jealous of our supremacy, is inexorably opposed to our territorial expansion toward the pole and the equator. Her circumvallation is complete. Her navy station* And fortresses menace us from every point of the compass. From the close of the revolution till now her conduct toward us has been characterizedbv treachery, duplicity, and insult in peace, and by brutal ferocity in war. Left to the Operation of- social,industrial and commercial forces, Canada would irresistibly gravitate into the American Union. The ultimate coalition is inevitable. It may be violent and compulsory. If British meh of-war continue to haul down the flags of American fisherman without protest in waters of which England has practically no more jurisdiction than the United States have in the Mersey or the Thames, the issue will

pass beyond diplomacy, and our volunteers will march on Montreal and Quebec and take possession of the Canadian Pacific and the St. Lawrence. The chief political obstacle would be found in the fact that Canada would naturally be Repnblicaßr—Wheat was raised last yeacia. the Valley of Peace river, a thousand miles north of St. Paul.. Ihe great arable plains and rich interval would attract population like that of Dakota. “Suppose Canada were to answer the retaliatory measures by similar measures against us, what would be the effect?”

"In my judgment time is not erven a remote possibility of the adoption of the policy of retaliation, either by the United States or Canada. All know that Eng-' land is the real party in interest and not If England did not persistency interfere to exasperate, irritate, and keep alive the casual and temporary resentments between Canada and the United States the adjustment of our differences would long ago have been complete. The talk aberot retaliation is gasconading bluster for campaign purposes. As soon as Harrison is elected the Democrats will roar as gently as sucking doves. The quarrel is with England, and not with Canada, and in the application of the lex tatienis to the Dominion the United States would hold the end of the poker.” Then the Senator looked at hie- cigar. It had gone out. He tossed it into the grate, and talked no more about politics and statesmanship. Blakaubt Hs&ii.