206 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



for, in the long run, the law which proclaims the survival of 

 the fittest regulates human affairs as it controls all organic life. 

 When the lion is hungry the lamb dies ; when the man with 

 a rifle takes to expansion, the man with the spear yields his 

 estate. In Samoa the operation of this law was unique. 

 The unfortunate natives were only saved from immediate 

 extermination through the jealous watchfulness of three pro- 

 tectors. The duty in Samoa of each protector was ostensibly 

 to shield the natives from the rapacity of the other two. In 

 the meantime, the Samoans lost all control over their own 

 affairs, anji were crushed underthe ^weight^fjinj^jm^ 



mOU^^pyp!]^*-, 11 ft * oft * jrt h V +-k 1 *' "kimfly"fKapna>d friends. 



TKe" mevitable^Trd the loss of their territory has just 

 recently been effected, and their ultimate race extinction is 

 simply deferred. 



The history of American political relations with Samoa is 

 primarily of interest because it reveals the first genuine 

 instance of departure from a time-honored policy of non- 

 intervention in the domestic affairs of alien nations. In 

 assuming the responsibilities of fashioning and maintaining a 

 system of government for this little group of islands in the 

 mid-Pacific, the United States entered into treaty relations 

 with two great powers, pledging itself to protect a people it 

 had not accepted into the Union, and in whose interests it 

 had not the least concern. 



Since the famous farewell address of President Washing- 

 ton, until quite recently there have been few public officials 

 of the United States who have not expressed belief in a doc- 

 trine of non-interference in the political affairs of other 

 nations. This principle, which had become as much a tenet 

 in the American political creed as any enactment of the con- 

 stitution, was forcibly expressed by Washington, who realized 

 that his country was destined to attain great wealth and 

 influence, could it be spared the exhausting drain of need- 

 less wars. He foresaw the great danger of -meddling in the 

 chronic quarrels that tormented the nations of Europe. Simi- 

 lar sentiments were expressed in the strongest language by 

 John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. President Fillmore, in 



