The Crisis before Us

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 11, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 32.

The Crisis before Us.

The Madrid correspondent of the London Times, in speaking of peace prospects between the United States and Spain truly remarks:—

“The moment has arrived when America, having reached the parting of the ways, must choose between war with a specific object and an indefinite war of conquest.”

This puts the matter as it is. Now is a crisis, the crisis, of this nation. Many enthusiastic Americans are talking of “Imperial America,” of “our place among the nations,” of our “manifest destiny” as a controlling world power, little dreaming of what all this means. Many writers are rejoicing over the demolition of the “Monroe doctrine,” and speak of this nation’s emerging from her “isolation” as one of the great powers of earth. The San Francisco Examiner of July 15, in bold type and double-leaded matter, outlines “The Coming National Policy” under the headings “The Nicaraguan Canal, A Mighty Navy, Strategic Bases in the West Indies, Great National Universities at West Point and Annapolis.” The article speaks of a “broadened horizon,” “new policy,” a navy able “to keep command of the sea,” and “more educated warriors” at the great universities of war at West Point and Annapolis, “graduating yearly thousands of young men trained in the arts of war.” In the center of this demand is the face of “Uncle Sam” in an attitude of hesitancy, saying, “I don’t know.”

But a policy of this sort will embroil this government with all the governments of earth. Instead of being an object lesson of the arts of liberty, peace, education, and progress, as she has been the past, she will be considered a rival and enemy, against which will be turned the plottings of diplomacy and the movements of armies. “The parting of the ways” means much to America, as it has meant to other nations. The times are big with immense possibilities and probabilities. Happiness is he who is anchored “the sure word of prophecy.”