426 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



peculiar to herself. America is not interested in them and ought 

 not to be vexed or complicated with them. Each great European 

 power, for instance, to-day maintains enormous armies and fleets 

 in self-defence and for protection against any other European 

 power or powers. What have the states of America to do with 

 that condition of things, or why should they be impoverished by 

 wars or preparations for wars with whose causes or results they 

 can have no direct concern ? If all Europe were to suddenly fly 

 to arms over the fate of Turkey, would it not be preposterous that 

 any American state should find itself inextricably involved in the 

 miseries and burdens of the contest? If it were, it would prove 

 to be a partnership in the cost and losses of the struggle but not 

 in any ensuing benefits. 



What is true of the material, is no less true of what may be 

 termed the moral interests involved. Those pertaining to Europe 

 are peculiar to her and are entirely diverse from those pertaining 

 and peculiar to America. Europe as a whole is monarchical, and, 

 with the single important exception of the Republic of France, is 

 committed to the monarchical principle. America, on the other 

 hand, is devoted to the exactly opposite principle to the idea 

 that every people has an inalienable right of self-government 

 and, in the United States of America, has furnished to the world 

 the most conspicuous and conclusive example and proof of the 

 excellence of free institutions, whether from the standpoint of 

 national greatness or of individual happiness. It cannot be 

 necessary, however, to enlarge upon this phase of the subject 

 whether moral or material interests be considered, it cannot but 

 be universally conceded that those of Europe are irreconcilably 

 diverse from those of America, and that any European control of 

 the latter is necessarily both incongruous and injurious. If, how- 

 ever, for the reasons stated the forcible intrusion of European 

 powers into American politics is to be deprecated if, as it is 

 to be deprecated, it should be resisted and prevented such 

 resistance and prevention must come from the United States. 

 They would come from it, of course, were it made the point of 

 attack. But, if they come at all, they must also come from it 

 when any other American state is attacked, since only the United 

 States has the strength adequate to the exigency. 



Is it true, then, that the safety and welfare of the United States 

 are so concerned with the maintenance of the independence of 

 ever}' American state as against any European power as to justify 

 and require the interposition of the United States whenever that 

 independence is endangered? The question can be candidly 

 answered in but oiie way. The states of America, South as well 



