Ohio History Journal

Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual Meeting.           91

 

on its passenger list to preserve the equilibrium of its cash account. A

fine line of side-wheel boats has always been maintained between Cin-

cinnati and Louisville; and who has not heard of those magnificent

double-deckers, the United States and America, that nightly carried great

cabins full of happy travellers between those two cities, until one night

a disastrous collision brought a brilliant career to a tragic ending.

But a permanently navigable river which admits of deeper draft

than is now permissible will quickly replace the wooden inflammable

craft of today by a steel constructed vessel, so comfortably and elegantly

appointed, so safe, fleet and smooth of movement, through river scenery

of matchless beauty, gratifying every choice of distance and direction,

as cannot fail to appeal to our people.

Not that the hurrying commercial traveler will choose this method

for making five or six towns a day, but it will be sought by that great

body of leisurely travelers, the product of our unparalleled national

prosperity, which moves like a solid phalanx on our coast and lake re-

sorts in summer time, and like an army of occupation invades our

Southern States in winter; for whose comfort and enjoyment great

fleets of luxuriantly equipped greyhounds are speeding from ocean to

ocean and from shore to shore.

Another new and potent factor in the future commerce of our

Western rivers is the Panama Canal. Through its open gates the Ohio

and Mississippi Valleys will have direct water connection with the

west coast of South America, our own Pacific Coast, and the harbors

of the Orient. The largest share of American-made goods that will

seek these markets will come from the workshops and mills of the

Mississippi Valley. The greatest beneficiary of this new commercial

roadstead will be the Mississippi Valley.

 

 

 

 

AMERICAN INTERESTS IN THE PACIFIC.

 

BY HOMER B. HULBERT, F. R. G. S.

 

When the founders of our Republic chose the eagle as the

symbol of our national life, they did not have in mind its carniv-

orous nature nor its predatory habit. They saw in it the only living

creature that could see the farthest and that could climb the highest

into the blue. There was in this choice some predetermination of Provi-

dence; for three hundred years ago when this continent was, like an-

cient Chaos, without form and void, there appeared on the Atlantic sea-

board a little fringe of Anglo-Saxons who never dreamed that they

were an empire in embryo; but there, already was the eagle's egg.

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Nor does the analogy stop here. An egg contains two component

parts, the white which develops into a bird, and the yolk which forms

its food during the process of incubation. Even so with the national

bird; the Anglo-Saxon immigrants were the living embryo while the

wide-sweeping plains, the forests and the minerals were the yolk which

was to nourish it during the period of gestation.

Slowly, patiently, doggedly the plow and axe bit and furrowed

their way westward into this unmeasured wealth of natural resources.

No human calculation could have foreseen that the Cyclopean wealth

of the continent would ever be exploited in its entirety. It was like a

bevy of ants attacking a mountain barrier with a view of its demolition.

But here, as with the egg, the living organism grew in size and appetite

while the yolk diminished until the relative proportions were reversed.

There were three capital assets of the American people. The first

was the mineral resources. These being fixed and measured in extent

are necessarily exhaustible without the possibility of renovation or re-

placement. Second, the agricultural resources. These being perennial

are inexhaustible, but, being susceptible of a fixed maximum develop-

ment, the time was sure to come when agriculture could no longer

suffice to absorb the excess of industry which rapidly increasing immigra-

tion was destined to bring into the country. The third asset was the

indomitable energy, the fiery enthusiasm and the inventive genius of the

people. But this third asset did not lie in the yolk of the egg. It was

the appetite of the living organism, the white of the egg. It was the

heat which made incubation possible. For, though the Anglo-Saxons

first came to escape the narrowness and bigotry of Europe, they soon

substituted for the negative motto "Get away from it" the more positive

and constructive one "Go to it."

I call you to witness that during the first three hundred years

of our national incubation this energy and enthusiasm and inventive

genius were almost wholly absorbed in the fascinating work of reaping

where we had not sown and gathering where we had not strawed. In-

estimable wealth lay right on the surface, titanic forests to be hewn,

fat plains to be tilled, rock ribs of iron and coal, copper and gold heav-

ing their rich deposits up to the very surface, all to be had for the

taking, without money and without price. Not that I would belittle the

herculean task that our pioneers performed, nor the swift, persistent

indefatigable march across the longitudes which is unparalleled in the

history of human achievements; but the rewards which they secured

for themselves and for their descendants were all out of proportion

even to their suberb devotion and their unfaltering faith. Hardly less,

in proportion, is the fledgling, lying in its shell required to pay for

the yolk that it consumes than our nation had to pay for this mighty

feast to which it came uninvited and unhindered.

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Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual Meeting.           93

 

At this precise point we discover the genesis of the most character-

istic feature of the American people, the thing which differentiates them

the most clearly from their Anglo-Saxon forbears. The lust for un-

earned increment got into the very blood of the nation and was woven

into the very fiber of our body politic. It was a recrudescence, if you

will, of the old Viking spirit which harried the coasts of Europe in

search of unearned wealth; or, if this simile sound too harsh, it was

the child-nation drawing forth the gifts with which a kindly Santa

Claus had crammed its Christmas stocking.

But the time inevitably came when this riotous exploitation of

surface wealth could no longer afford an outlet for the fierce energy

that had been generated.   The fertile fields were all attached, the

forests were all preempted, the mines were all staked out, the buffalo

were all killed off, and gradually economic conditions came to assume

something of the sane and conservative aspect of European countries.

But note the appalling energy that had been developed through the en-

thusiasm aroused by this easy exploitation of resources. The momentum

of that energy was proportioned to the facility with which fortunes had

been made. It was a momentum that nothing could stop, and when the

material upon which it had expended its titanic power shrunk to normal

dimensions, some new outlet had to be found, some new field to

conquer.

Already under the spur of increasing wealth and of national de-

mand a beginning had been made in the work of supplying the people

with manufactured goods. At first these were crude and bungling and

those who could afford it still bought their manufactured goods from

Europe. But at last under the spur of necessity, the inventiveness of

our people, and incidentally the protective tariff, we forged ahead into

active and successful competition with Europe.

And now a new and immensely important development took place.

It was the wholesale immigration of European people. It grew by leaps

and bounds and the question became a legitimate one: How are we

to feed and clothe these millions? It was discovered that though agri-

culture, lumbering and mining could absorb a part of this surplus energy

that part was a mere fraction. The larger portion of it was diverted

into manufacturing lines and the terrific momentum of our progress

went on not only unhindered but accelerated. In the natural course of

events the fact was revealed that our people could no longer absorb

the product of our manufactories. In other words the yolk could no

longer suffice to feed the bird in the shell. One of two things must

happen: either the bird must hatch or else must stifle in its prison-

house. When we came to the point where our domestic markets could

no longer handle the products of our industry, we had to find new

markets or else smother in the plethora of our over production. To

change the figure, we were like a mighty locomotive engine sweeping

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along the track at sixty miles an hour and nearing the end of the track.

One of three things must happen. The momentum must be checked,

or the track must be extended, or there must be a catastrophe. To put

an efficient check upon that engine which represents the energy and

enthusiasm of the nation is impossible. The track cannot be extended

except it be beyond our own territory but to escape disaster this is the

only thing that remained to be done. To revert to our original figure

the bird hatched and America became what she was predestined to be-

come, or as some would prefer to say, foredoomed to become-a world

power.

There's many a mother that longs to keep her "little boy" in short

pants even after he has shot up beyond her own height. The lad goes

about shame-faced and mocked by his companions until the old gentle-

man sees how things are going, takes the boy down street and fits him

out in long pants without consulting the partner of his joys. Well,

there are some people in this country who would like to keep their

dear little six footer of a nation in short pants, but the head of the house

has grasped the situation.

Immigration and foreign markets are necessary complements of

each other. If we take in twenty thousand Austro-Hungarians who were

accustomed to make matches to sell in India, they ought here to make

steel to sell in China or else make some other commodity to sell abroad.

In other words, in addition to the fifty dollars that each one has to bring

to tide him over the interval until he secures employment, each one

should bring with him his economic market. Only thus can we evade

an ultimate excess of production and a consequent industrial catastrophe.

This needs no argument. It is axiomatic in its simplicity.

But in looking abroad to see where this increased market can be

found we see, first, that in Europe there is no possibility of any imme-

diate large increase of selling area. There is a commercial equilibrium

that gives no hope of our securing an expanding market sufficient to

keep pace with our growing need. Some people say that in South Am-

erica we can find a sufficient market; but we must note that area alone

does not make trade. It takes people; and in all South America there

are only a little more than twice the population of Korea, which we so

complacently turned over to the Japanese six years ago. There is only

one place where we can find a prospective market commensurate with

our need. That market is China. Empire still takes its westward way,

but now it is industrial empire and not political.

Some ill-informed people have affirmed that China is not a great

prospective market; that its people are too poor and too conservative.

It is true that their per capita wealth is small but the aggregate is

gigantic in its proportions. No one has attempted to estimate the gross

wealth of the Chinese people but it may well be doubted whether it

falls far below that of the Americans themselves. It is certain that

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Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual Meeting.          95

 

wealth is more evenly distributed there; for the clan rather than the

individual is the repository of wealth. Now a large homogeneous, thrifty

population of moderate average means is the best market in the world,

the most steady, the most dependable. They must have the necessities

of life and they are compelled both by their modest fortunes and their

native thrift to buy in the cheapest market. And here is where the

argument about conservatism breaks down. There is no superstition,

no custom, no tradition, no gilded god in all Asia that would stand

for an instant between a Chinaman and a bargain sale. It is a passion

with him, and before that passion as before the breath of a typhoon

every prejudice is leveled with the dust. Take their old-time notion

that China is the center of the universe and that all other nations are

but satellites. Why, the Chinese are more widely distributed through-

out the world than the Anglo-Saxons are, five times over. There are

more Chinamen in India than there are English, more in Mexico than

there are Americans, more in eastern Siberia than there are Russians,

more in Annam than there are French, more in Java than there are

Dutch, more in Singapore than all others combined, more in Europe

than there are Europeans in China. They bid fair to become the com-

mercial cosmopolites of the world.

But there are some who think that the Chinese market is pretty

well supplied already, that the demand is already met. One might as

truthfully say that the resources of Alaska have been exhausted. Only

the merest fringe of China has been touched. A thousand miles from

the nearest railway and hundreds of miles from navigation patient

camels plod across the mountains carrying American goods today to

inland points where only the wealthy can afford to buy. There are tens

of millions who want those goods but who cannot afford them. The

projected railways in China will open up the inland markets with a

rapidity and to an extent never before seen in the history of trade.

It is safe to say that China will afford the one market commensurable

with the demands of American industrial expansion.

This fact gives us a personal and poignant interest in that much

discussed but very indefinite phrase The Mastery of the Pacific. But

before discussing that term I should like to put in a demurrer against

the statement that trade follows the flag. My objection to it is a very

simple one, namely that it is not true. Trade does not follow the flag;

it follows the demand, and the flag follows the trade to protect it.

Demand is color-blind and cannot tell one flag from  another. The

ultimate consumer cares not an iota what flag convoys the goods so

long as the goods are good and cheap. It may therefore be confidently

believed that the future domination of the Pacific will be a commercial

and industrial one.

But there is one all-important question that has still to be de-

cided-the rules of the game. This is a more serious matter than our

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people are at all willing to admit. There are several nations vitally

interested in the trade of China; they may all be called competitors in

the game and unless there be some uniformity in method and in ideals

confusion is certain to result. If two football teams were to meet on

the gridiron each with its own private set of rules and without a referee

the game would probably deteriorate into a free fight. The same thing

is true about such a game as that which faces us in the Pacific. The

contest is on and yet the rules have not been formulated nor has a

referee been chosen. If we as one of the contestants should retire

from the field and refuse to play, on the ground that there are no

rules, all difficulty might be avoided, but as I have attempted to show

we cannot withdraw without doing a cruel injustice to the millions of

our industrial workers and the risk of economic ruin. It follows then

that if any one of the competing nations is willing to adopt for itself

a code of rules which countenance slugging and tripping, all the others

must follow suit or else give up the game and retire from the field;

or, as a last resort, they must induce the offending party to revise its

rules.

I have said that trade does not follow the flag. This rule like

all others has its exception. There is one people of whom it can truly

be said. That people has nowhere succeeded in commercial competi-

tion except where it has first secured a military domination and has

obtained control of the governmental agencies which determine trade

conditions. Take Manchuria as a case in point (and I do it not for

the purpose of criticising any particular people but merely as an illus-

tration of the wide variations in the rules of the game). Six years ago

American enterprise was flourishing in Manchuria. In fair competition

we held about half of all the foreign trade of that rich territory. To-

day we have comparatively nothing. Why the difference? The trade

is there, the demand is unimpaired, our merchants are as keen as ever.

The explanation lies in this one fact that we do not play the game the

way our competitors do. During the recent war trade was supended in

the affected provinces and when peace was signed we were told that it

would take two years to remove the troops and prepare for the re-

opening of the territory to general trade. But singularly enough this

rule was not made to apply to the very party that made it. Their

marchants poured into the country by thousands, their goods were car-

ried practically freight free, every seat of trade was preempted and

every point of strategic commercial advantage was seized; and when we

were blandly told that the door was now open we found that there

was not even standing room. We had bought our tickets to the ball

game but they were lost in the mail and everything was in the hands

of the speculators. When Secretary Knox asked that the game be played

according to some recognized rules he was told that there was "nothing

doing."

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Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual Meeting.           97

 

At the time when these things were going on it was my fortune

to pass through Manchuria where I conversed for some hours with

every American Consul and with British, German and other officials,

and I found it to be the fixed opinion of every man I saw that the

term "open door" was not applicable to Manchuria, but that even after

the nominal opening there were gross acts of favoritism and special

privilege towards the merchants of the dominant power. One British

official in an important Manchurian port cited to me a case that came

within his purview. A Chinese governor was approached by a deputa-

tion of Japanese and asked for a certain concession. The magnitude

of it startled him and he said he would have to refer the matter to

Peking. They demurred at this and insisted that it be granted without

that formality, evidently being well aware that if it were referred to

Peking it would be certainly refused. The Governor persisted in his

determination and at last the visitors drew their weapons on him and

fiercely demanded his consent without an hour's delay. He laughed in

their faces and dared them to touch him. Of course they gave in. I

give this authentic instance to show merely the rule of the game as

played by the dominant party. No legitimate competition can overcome

such a handicap.

The question that faces us in the Pacific is the same as that which

faces the whole civilized world. Shall society advance only so fast as

the most backward shall dictate; shall the chain of evolution always be

measured by its weakest link. If so then all talk of universal peace

and disarmament must be laid aside. The American people hate war

with a hatred that is intelligent but without fear. We know there is

a better way and that in time the race as a whole will come to that

opinion. But the practical man as distinguished from the idealist wants

to know how we are to manage until the war-nations have been con-

vinced. In this year of grace 1911 there is no such thing as disarma-

ment. War is not a clash of weapons but a clash of wills, and as

society is now constituted if national passions are aroused and vital

national interests are endangered men will fight. Sink all the navies

and disband all the armies; the only result would be that in the clash

of wills that is called war, men would fight with cobblestones and brick-

bats. There would be no non-combattants and every individual and

home and village would be a legitimate object of assault. Civilization

has nowhere demonstrated its beneficent character more than in the

steady diminution of the area; the duration and the relative mortality

of war.

When you have killed the will to decide disputes by force then

disarmament has already come, however many dreadnaughts there may

be.

I thank God that the American people have no appetite for terri-

Vol. XXII-7.

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98         Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

torial conquest. Even the little Philippines have almost turned our

stomachs, and if it had not been for a stern sense of duty we would

long ago have had recourse to an emetic. We have absolutely no will

to fight except in possible self-defense, nor would the possession of a

thousand dreadnaughts create the appetite for conquest. Unless a man

is hungry ten plates of food are no more tempting than one. The fact

is that the more efficient our navy is the sooner we will give the people

of the Philippines their liberty, for then we shall be better able to ensure

their defense from some less scrupulous power; but until the rules of

the game have been formulated and all the interested parties have sub-

scribed to them in such fashion that their infringement would call for

instant and united penalization, I affirm that the Philippine Islands are

worth a million dollars an acre to the American people, and would be

so worth were they as barren as the Sahara Desert. Look at a map

of the Pacific and you will see that there is a line of islands running

southward from Kamtchatka. They are the Kurile Islands, the Jap-

anese Islands, the Liu-chu Islands, Formosa and the Philippines. They

are like a veil drawn across the face of China and the possession of

them all would enable the possessor to command the seaboard of China

and dictate to anyone who wished to approach that seaboard. Every

one of these islands is in the possession of a single power, excepting

the Philippines. They alone are ours. They break the chain and they

guarantee entrance to the ports of China so long as the American flag

exists.

In saying this I cannot be charged with advocating war excepting

insofar as war is thrust upon us in defense of rights that are fairly

won and that are not only not a menace to any other people but are

of distinct value to all who believe in an open market and fair com-

petition. Might does not make right, but it has its legitimate place

and office, namely the defense of the right. And therefore, if America

is to give up the principle of defending the right by force when necessary,

we must reconstruct our whole scheme of social and economic life.

Our social system needs reconstruction in some lines but I affirm that

such reconstruction must be evolutionary and not cataclysmic.

What a pity it is that the weapons of offense and of defense are

identically the same. How delightful it would be if we could have a gun

that would shoot only bad people, burglars, assassins, traitors; but that

would be harmless against good people! Today the revolver which you

keep under your pillow to defend yourself from burglars is exactly the

same as that which the burglar uses in robbing you. Now I am safe

in saying that if there were a weapon that could be used only in de-

fense that is the only kind of weapon the United States Government

would buy. But unfortunately this is not so, and therefore there are

some otherwise excellent people who, whenever they see Uncle Sam

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go into a store to buy a gun, scream out in terror: "He is going to

commit murder!"

Human nature is the same whether in the individual or in the

nation at large, and it is just as immoral for Uncle Sam to leave several

billion dollars worth of stuff lying about where anyone can steal it

as it would be for you to leave your watch and other jewelry out

on the front steps when you go to bed. It is not giving your neighbor

a square deal.

But then these casuists say that if a man has a gun he may make

a mistake and shoot when he does not intend to. Someone comes

and raps at your window at night. Being startled out of sleep you

draw your gun and shoot to kill, only to find out that it is your

neighbor's wife who has come to ask you to get a doctor for her

sick husband. But just here comes the difference between Uncle Sam

and the ordinary individual. Before the United States starts to shoot

a good many things must happen. Mr. Richard Hobson will not be

the only person to have his say (although I would remark parentheti-

cally that Mr. Hobson has a good deal more sense than many people

give him credit for). The House of Representatives would have to

discuss the matter, the Senate would probably get it out of Committee

sooner or later, meanwhile the good people of the United States would

not be entirely silent; and by the time Uncle Sam was ready to pull

the trigger it would be discovered whether it was a neighbor's wife

or a house-breaker!

In this connection the opening of the Panama Canal discloses possi-

bilities and releases forces which no one can fully foresee. Only the

crudest and most material results have been thought out. We do not

know what ambitions it may stimulate, what cupidities it may awaken,

what shifting of balances it may cause. The United States by opening

up this waterway makes herself responsible for the results. For this

reason if for no other it is morally obligatory upon this government

so to keep its hand upon the canal that any possible untoward develop-

ment may be nipped in the bud. Let it be plainly understood by the

whole world that this government once and for all removes the pos-

session of that waterway from the field of international cupidity, and

an enormous stumbling-block will have been removed from the high-

way of commerce. It has been objected that the fortification of the

Canal will show distrust of other powers. Since when have nations

shown themselves so worthy of trust that an object of such surpassing

value would prove no temptation to them? To leave the Canal un-

defended would be about as rational as it would be for a private in-

dividual of great wealth to remove the locks from his doors and

from his safes.

Another prime necessity in the securing of ample opportunities

abroad for the distribution and disposal of our surplus products is a

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Merchant Marine. We "protect" everybody in this country except those

who go down to the sea in ships. We protect hundreds of occupations

which are ludicrously small when compared with this of sea carriage.

It is wholly illogical, but the difficulty lies in the fact that the sailor

cannot be protected in exactly the same way as the manufacturer.

You cannot levy a customs duty on his competitors' wares very easily.

A  government subsidy is necessary, and when it comes to paying

good money out of the Treasury at Washington to a steamship com-

pany it causes an immediate outcry. Now I would ask a simple ques-

tion. Which is better, for the Government to say to the trust, "you can

put your hand into the people's pocket and extract the extra money

necessary for the protection of your industry against foreign com-

petition," or for the Government to take it out of the people by tax-

ation and hand it to the shipping company for their protection. To my

mind the latter way is the better by far; for when the Government

does it we know just how much it is getting but when the corporations

put their hands into our pockets we do not know whether it is getting

what it ought to get or whether it is getting three times too much. I

believe in giving the consumer the benefit of the doubt! We are told

that we could never learn to compete on even terms with the cheap

sea service of European countries.  So it was said about steel, but

the time has now come when that industry has made itself practically

independent of any "protection." It would be the same with the ship-

ping industry, if the Government would only encourage a beginning

whereby some of this surplus energy of our people could be expended

in the carrying trade. The inventive genius of our people would soon

make us the greatest carrying nation in the world. In the early days

of the Nineteenth Century we had a magnificent carrying trade. We

had plenty of sailors and of ships and that, too, at a time when the

great Middle West was casting its most seductive lure for the young

men of the nation. How then should we not have men enough now

when we are congested at every center of population and huge masses

of the unemployed are crying out for work?

Such are some of the factors that go to make up this Far Eastern

question as related to the water-shed of the Mississippi River, of

which this Ohio is the main tributary. The City of Hankow lies 600

miles up the Yangtse River in China.    St. Louis lies approximately

the same distance up the Mississippi, and it takes no prophet to foresee

the time when ocean vessels will load at St. Louis and discharge

their cargoes at Hankow. But more than this, far up the Yangtse lies

the city of Ichang which will some day be a great inland port, and

its logical counterpart is this splendid city of Pittsburgh and it is

not beyond the bounds of reason to hope that before the last word

is spoken Ichang and Pittsburgh may be exchanging their commodities

without breaking cargo. There is a restless energy in this country

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Ohio Valley Hist. Assn, Fifth Annual Meeting.          101

 

that will stop short of nothing that is humanly possible.  China is

arousing herself to a new national life that contains possibilities of the

most tremendous scope. America and China are natural complements

to each other. The Yangtse and Mississippi Valleys have more in

common than any other two equal tracts of country in the world.

The concluding paper of the morning was read by George

Cowles Lay of New York. The portion relating to the Ohio

Valley reads as follows:

 

 

INTERSTATE CONTROVERSIES ARISING FROM INJURIES

TO COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND PUBLIC HEALTH.

BY GEORGE COWLES LAY.

By the Federal Constitution, the States are prohibited from enter-

ing into any treaty, alliance or confederation, or any agreement or

contract with another state or with a foreign power without consent

of Congress and in any case from engaging in war, unless actually in-

vaded or in imminent danger.

The states are thus debarred, in case of disputes, from the remedies

of diplomacy or the resort to arms, while acting under the Constitu-

tion.

Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist, with prophetic insight, antici-

pated "many other sources, besides interfering claims of boundary, from

which bickerings and animosity may spring up among the members

of the Union."*

So the history and development of the country have produced

many kinds of controversies, which among foreign states might have

resulted in wars and treaties but which have been happily settled by

judicial decisions. These disputes have arisen between States as far

removed from each other as South Dakota and North Carolina, and

as New Hampshire and Louisiana, over liabilities on State bonds, but

have chiefly affected adjoining states, whose citizens have been subject

to injuries affecting commerce, navigation and public health.

Where the health or material prosperity of inhabitants of a state

have been threatened by contamination of its waterways by diversion

or unreasonable use of navigable rivers flowing through several states,

by embargoes against passengers and freight in times of epidemic, or

by obstructions to commerce, the interference of the Supreme Court

has been sought in several cases of interest.

The principles governing this class of cases are the same as those

regulating the rights and remedies of individuals. The complaining

 

*The Federalist, Vol. LXXX.

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