hodder: the duty of the scholar in politics. 69 



Very different are the recent cases. In no one of them is there 

 an}' menace to our national existence. We have no right of inter- 

 ference, upon the same principle of law that an individual has no 

 standing in a controversy in which his rights are not involved. 

 The fact that states are located in the Western hemisphere gives 

 us no protectorate over them. Much of Europe is actually nearer 

 to us than many South American states and all of Europe is more 

 easily accessible than any of them. International law knows no 

 North, no South, no East, no West. The rights and duties of 

 states are the same everywhere. The assertion by the President 

 that an extension of the boundary of British Guiana is dangerous 

 to our peace and safety is an absolute absurdity. And yet, so far 

 as I am informed, only three newspapers in the United States had 

 the courage to say so. The only other protest came from a few 

 college professors, who in the popular view, by reason of the special 

 study of particular questions, become thereby incapacitated for 

 forming intelligent opinions respecting them. These few protests 

 were met by crushing charges: their authors were dudes and 

 Anglomaniacs and turned up their trousers when it rained in Lon- 

 don. And now the government has come to the college professors 

 because no one else can read the documents upon which rests the 

 settlement of the questions involved. Two members of the Vene- 

 zuelan commission are college presidents and former professors of 

 history and the actual study of maps and manuscripts is being 

 carried on by Mr. Winsor, the librarian of Harvard, Professor 

 Burr of Cornell and Professor Jameson of Brown University. I 

 am bound to say that the moderation of Great Britain in view of 

 our repeated interference in her affairs is truly remarkable. I do 

 not believe that the American people would for a moment brook a 

 similar interference by any European state in matters that con- 

 cern ourselves exclusively. 



The case of Cuba affects us more nearly. We cannot but 

 sympathize with the insurgents, struggling for liberty and inde- 

 pendence, but we have no interest that justifies interference. The 

 interest of Great Britain in our civil war was far greater, for the 

 blockade closed her factories and caused widespread distress and 

 actual starvation. It is reported that the contest in Cuba is waged 

 with great cruelty, with the use of poisonous and explosive bullets, 

 with summary trials and barbarous executions, storming of hospitals 

 and massacre of non-combatants, but the evidence does not show 

 that the cruelty is much greater on one side than on the other. 

 "As for a state's having the vocation to go forth like Hercules," 



