THE GREATER AMERICA by Frederic Emory

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 12, 1901

THE GREATER AMERICA.

By Frederic Emory

What Our Growth as a Nation Means—Commercial Absorption of the Western Hemisphere—Will It Involve Further Acquisitions of Territory?—Conditions That May Reconcile Latin America to Our Supremacy.

FREDERIC EMORY,

Chief of the Bureau of Foreign Commerce, Department of State.

(Concluded.)*

ANNEXATION OR A STRONGER AUTONOMY?

The precise nature of our future political relations with the other countries of America as they are developed by our industrial invasion of them, one after another, is necessarily a matter of wide speculation, for the reason that no one can predict the course that national or race impulses are likely to take. As our people become entrenched in commerce and industry in a Latin-American country, it is but natural to suppose that they will exert a controlling influence in public affairs. Will their interest be found to lie in federation with the United States, or in molding the native elements capable of co-operating with them into stronger sovereignties not merely imitative of, but actually responsive to, our ideas of self-government, of public order, of healthful progress in manufactures, in commerce, in education—in a word, in all the lines that cross and recross each other so inextricably in the cunning fabric that makes us what we are?

In the consideration of this question—the question which, more than any other, is agitating the minds of Latin Americans in their discussion of the growing power of the United States—the experiment about to be made in Cuba becomes a matter of great importance. If the Cubans, aided by the immigration from the United States, and restrained by the impact of our capital and industry, should prove themselves capable of maintaining political independence, to the benefit of all concerned, a working model will have been provided for other Latin-American communities as they fall, one by one, under our industrial control.

A GUARANTEE TO ALL LATIN AMERICA.

Such a solution of our future relations with the rest of America would seem to be the easiest, the most economical, the most healthful for ourselves as well as for the countries, which, as has been shown, seem fated to become, industrially and socially, dependencies of the United States at first, and ultimately, partners in its prosperity and power. It would relieve them of all apprehension of territorial acquisition; it would safeguard us against the intrusion into our political system of influences alien to our institutions which might and probably would have a baneful effect upon our domestic affairs. In view of these considerations, may we not conclude that it is the part of sound economy, as well as wise statesmanship, to do everything in our power to make Cuba self-supporting, free, and stable? She would thus become a guarantee to all Latin-America of the moderation of our views, and an object lesson of the material benefits accruing from the closest association with our industrial forces, our rapidly augmenting money power. No Latin-American country would fear us longer if the conviction spread that we were much more deeply interested in making it strong and prosperous, and, therefore, a profitable customer and an inviting field for our capital and enterprise, than in aggrandizing ourselves politically.

HOMOGENEITY OF OUR PEOPLE: THE SOURCE OF OUR STRENGTH.

Undoubtedly, there is much to be said in favor of preserving the homogeneity of our people. If

we have prospered so amazingly, it is because we have proceeded systematically on the lines laid down by the founders of the republic for a chain of colonies peopled by a single race, with substantially the same political and social instincts, the same standards of conduct and of morals, the same industrial capabilities. Wave after wave of European immigration—made up of elements the most diverse and often the most antagonistic—has broken upon the rock of American character with no other effect than to be lost in the general current of our development. Had these elements not been swept from their moorings at home and forced to mingle with our native population, they might have preserved their traditional instincts, and have exercised a strongly modifying influence in shaping our national growth and evolving an American type very different from that which has given us such prominence in the eyes of the world. In other words, had we annexed these peoples en masse, without dislocating them from their native environment, we would have enabled them to preserve the solidarity of their racial traits, and might not have found it easy to absorb them. Wherever they have gone, they have been exposed to contact with purely American ideas, customs, impulses, and the most stubborn of them have yielded gradually to the constant attrition.

It is doubtful whether we shall so readily convert the populations of our dependencies—Porto Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines. Their racial instincts are probably not more stubborn than those of the Italians, the Poles, the Russian Jews whom we have Americanized, but they are detached from us, and incapable of being merged into the great mass of our population.

DANGER OF ACQUIRING MORE TERRITORY.

It follows that Canada and Mexico are the only regions to which we could look for such extension of our boundaries, and both of those countries are growing so rapidly in the elements of a healthful national development and independence that it will probably be found to be unprofitable to disturb them. As a matter of fact, have we any sound interest in seeking more territory? Is it not true that the greatest strain our democratic institutions have had to bear—a strain that culminated finally in the terrible convulsion of civil war—has sprung from the vast extent of our domain, dividing, by reason of mere distances as well as climatic conditions, into large sections of country with different interests and different economic and social conditions? It is only because of that racial homogeneity which has been described that the breach has been healed, and the Union to-day is stronger, more durable, than ever before. It is the Northerner at work in the South with his ingenuity and his money; the Southerner at work in the North as well as at home, with his new spirit of enterprise and practical adaptability, who reconcile the two sections to each other. It is New England enterprise spread all over the West that has harmonized that region with the interests of the East. . . . Solidified though we be at present, we have not wholly passed beyond the danger point of sectional jealousies. Political or economic changes are easily imaginable which might again array one part of the country against another. It is not impossible that statesmanship may some day find its hands full in adjusting fresh causes of difference; and at all events, our labor will not be thrown away in conserving with jealous care the influences that make for a closer Union, a more widely diffused Americanism, a stancher national life.

NO IMMINENT RISK OF OVERCROWDING.

We have, excluding insular possessions and including Alaska, an area of over 3,600,000 square miles, about equal to that of the whole of Continental Europe. Our population, spread over this vast territory, aggregates 76,000,000. That of Europe is about 320,000,000. At our diminishing rate of progress, and leaving out of consideration the probable decline of immigration as the Union becomes more thickly settled, and new countries are opened up, offering superior inducements, it may be a century or more before we reach two thirds of Europe’s total. It is to be noted, moreover, that we have less waste land than has Europe, and that there are no political and race barriers which, on that continent, prevent the spread of one nation into the more sparsely settled territories of another.

The truth is, our people, as yet, are merely skimming the cream of their productive capacity, and there is still an immense field of agricultural development, with intensive cultivation and the more general use of labor-saving implements and machinery, even in the older, more thickly populated communities. Take the State of Maryland, for example. It was settled in 1634, and has been under comparatively close cultivation for nearly two hundred years. Yet colonies of Dutchmen and Swiss have, in recent years, settled on lands that the average Marylander has always regarded as either worthless or of but little value, and are making them blossom like the rose. So of irrigation on the arid plains of the West. Lands that were desert a decade ago are now luxuriant with vegetation. Europe has a density of population of nearly 100 to the square mile; ours is but 25.6, and it has not quite doubled in forty years. Who can doubt that we still have plenty to do before we shall have developed our soil to its full capacity of comfortable support for the increase of population?

CONDITIONS THAT ENCOURAGE INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION.

But long before there is any real overcrowding, there will be restlessness on the part of the speculative and adventurous among our people, and an eager quest for golden opportunities wherever they are likely to be found. The steady influx of Americans into Mexico, Central America, South Africa, shows that this movement is going on even now. The instinct is in our blood. In every American community, however conservative, there are always individuals who are unable to content themselves with the humdrum of the daily routine or the moderate profits to be earned. They are by nature speculative, daring, venturesome. The risk involved in enterprises in a distant region which seems to offer a dazzling prize, attracts instead of repelling them. They are born pioneers. From the birth of our nation, it is this class that has steadily advanced our outposts, and blazed the way for general immigration and the gradual upbuilding of industry and trade.

As our population grows, and the pressure of competition becomes more onerous for every individual, it is to be expected that this national spirit of impatience with contracting opportunities for acquiring wealth and distinction will become more and more pronounced. It is more than probable that the overflow of enterprise and industry from the United States into other parts of the Western hemisphere will swell with increasing rapidity every year, and this tendency is likely to be greatly accelerated by the progress of industrial combination which inevitably circumscribes individualism, and therefore increases the number of those who find it difficult at home to rise above the common level. In an undeveloped country only can they hope to emancipate themselves, and carve out a competence, or perhaps a fortune, of their own.

THE MOVEMENT SOUTHWARD.

The drift of industrial and capitalistic outflow from the United States, as has been intimated, shows that this movement will be to the southward. At each step of its progress, we may assume, it will safeguard itself by laying its impress broad and deep upon the vital interests of the people, and weaving about them a net of distinctively American influences it will be difficult to break through. The settlers from the United States in any of the Southern countries, so soon as they are strong enough, will inevitably take an active part in the government; they will help to make its laws, to regulate its foreign relations; and as they become more and more firmly entrenched as the authors and guardians of its peace and prosperity, there will be less and less danger of complications with the United States, and a more and more general acquiescence in our leadership. What possible need could we have for the mere form of suzerainty, with all the perplexities and perils which would inevitably accompany it, when once our people had won, by peaceful and ordinary means, the substance of power?

A PRACTICAL GOAL FOR PAN-AMERICANISM.

If our future relations with the Latin-American countries, following the law of what may be termed the mechanical probabilities of the case, shall take this salutary course, the sentimental idea of Pan-Americanism will be no longer a dream, but an accomplished fact, and the Greater America will be at once the largest contributor to, and the most powerful guardian of, the peace of the world. It will be imperialistic in appearance, but democratic in fact. It will wield enormous forces, and be a dominant figure in the world, but applying the general principle of home rule, of popular self-government that has preserved the individuality and stimulated the development of our States while merging them into a more perfect Union. It will secure to all the parts of a vast international fabric the same free play of expansive forces that has made us so strong and great.

Is not this a consummation, following our own historic process of development, devoutly to be wished? If we are to expand, as seems inevitable, is not this the form of expansion most nearly in harmony with our institutions? If we are to be the permanent spokesman to the world for the whole of America, would it not be best for us, as well as for our constituents, that we should act with the ready and cordial assent of all its parts? Such willing concurrence can never be obtained by the forcible imposition of our will. It can come only from the gradual blending of the material interests of every community with our own.