Unhampered by serious foreign interference we freed Cuba in the summer of 1898. Late in September John Hay returned to Washington, to be Secretary of State, a position which he held until his death, July 1, 1905. He knew what England had replied to Germany, and he could have told, perhaps better than any one else, how much his straightforwardness and urbanity, whether social or official, had helped to dispose the English to be friendly toward us. He had been frequently with Mr. Chamberlain and on familiar terms; and we can imagine with what satisfaction he read the speech which that statesman made at Birmingham on May 11, 1898.

"What is our next duty?" Mr. Chamberlain asked his hearers. "It is to establish and to maintain bonds of permanent amity with our kinsmen across the Atlantic. There is a powerful and a generous nation. They speak our language. They are bred of our race. Their laws, their literature, their standpoint upon every question, are the same as ours. Their feeling, their interests in the cause of humanity and the peaceful developments of the world are identical with ours. I don't know what the future has in store for us; I don't know what arrangements may be possible with us; but this I do know and feel, that the closer, the more cordial, the fuller, and the more definite these arrangements are, with the consent of both peoples, the better it will be for both and for the world and I even go so far as to say that, terrible as war may be, even war itself would be cheaply purchased if, in a great and noble cause, the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack should wave together over an Anglo-Saxon alliance."

EFFECTS OF CHAMBERLAIN'S SPEECH

Chamberlain's startling speech," Hay wrote to Senator Lodge from London, "was partly due to a conversation I had with him, in which I hoped he would not let the Opposition have a monopoly of expressions of good will to America."

Hay knew also that Chamberlain did not stop at the friendliest words merely; because he knew-and the American public does not yet know what took place at Manila when the preposterous Von Diederich, the German Admiral, threatened Commodore Dewey, and Chichester, the British commander, privately informed Dewey that if there were trouble the Union Jack would fight beside the Stars and. Stripes. Dewey was not the man to be in

timidated by the superior German force but he doubtless felt more comfortable after receiving Chichester's assurance. That assurance was

the practical proof of Chamberlain's-that is England's friendship for us.

Once in Washington, at the head of the Department of State, John Hay made the maintenance of the mutual good will between the United States and Great Britain the cardinal point of his policy. Secretary Hay had no thought, however, that he was conceding everything. Far from it: "All I have ever done with England," he wrote to Secretary John W. Foster, on June 23, 1900, “is to have wrung great concessions out of her with no compensation. And yet, these idiots say I'm not an American because I don't say, 'To hell with the Queen,' at every breath." There were critics, of course, who did not refrain from insinuating that he had become an Anglomaniac, "a tool of England," one of those degenerate Americans whose snobbish instincts burst forth and blossom in the atmosphere breathed by the British nobility. Even his friends, like Senator Lodge, feared at times that Hay in his desire to be friendly, and more than fair to England, saw some matters from too strictly an English point of view. But John Hay was an American through and through, and his Americanism does not require my defense or that of any one else. In his youth he spent four years at the elbow of Abraham Lincoln in whom he saw Democracy embodied, active, beneficent, indefectible. Then, after having studied the Despotisms of Napoleon III at Paris, and of Francis Joseph at Vienna, he wrote John Bigelow: "I am a Republican till I die; when we get to heaven, we can try a monarchy, perhaps."

When the Irish demagogues learned that Hay favored the English in the Boer War, they abused him as they had Lowell. If he could have spoken out then in regard to England's help to us in squelching the proposed coalition of European fleets against us in 1898, I imagine he would have said: "Since the first Irishman landed in this country till now, the IrishAmericans have never done any service to the United States comparable to this. When you have, you may abuse. Meanwhile, drop your hyphen in the only simple, loyal, patriotic way; become Americans."

No, Secretary Hay's policy was not based on a snobbish Anglomania, but on the perception that the welfare of the world depended then.

and would depend more and more, on the firmest alliance between the two great Englishspeaking nations. This alliance, he recognized, could never be preserved on the ground of material interest. He knew that among nations of high minded men, mere trade can never be the dominant reason for friendship or hostility. "By God!" said Commodore Tatnall, the American commander, as he steered his ship to aid the English ships which were being pounded by the Chinese forts in 1860, "blood is thicker than water." Hay knew that in origin and in essence American blood and English blood run from the same veins, the veins of men who had supported Saxon Alfred, who had demanded the Great Charter which curtailed the tyranny of the king, who had risen up and suffered martyrdom in behalf of religious freedom, comrades of Hampden and Cromwell, believers in the law of Habeas Corpus, of the Bill of Rights and of every other reform to protect the individual against oppression, and to perfect him to the utmost in his mind, body, and estate. Every drop of true American blood carries latent within it the seed of these ideals; when it is otherwise, the American Republic will cease to be, and despotism in one of its monstrous forms will take its place. THE GREAT FRIENDSHIP”

Sir

This conviction underlies Hay's international negotiations. Whatever business came up, he unconsciously or consciously judged it by its bearing on the Great Friendship, which was his ideal. So far as England went, he had the friendly coöperation of the public men whom he had known there, and of Sir Julian Pauncefote, the British Ambassador in Washington. Julian was a diplomat of long training, with the manners of a man of the world, courtly, reserved, rather than effusive, and accessible to those stimuli which touch the generosity or the sportsmanlike instincts of the best Britons. Personally, Hay and he worked together in the happiest accord. Each felt that the other was an honorable gentleman, and so trusted him. I pass over many of the smaller affairs which they had to attend to together; and I come to a matter of the first importance—the negotiation of the Panama Canal Treaty.

To connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by a canal had been the dream of visionaries long before the tools and apparatus existed for carrying out such a project. The obvious convenience a canal would afford to commerce

required no argument. As soon as the United States became a World Power, the need of a canal for naval and military purposes loomed up, and during the Spanish American War, when the battleship Oregon had to make the voyage from San Francisco round Cape Horn, everybody saw this need. In 1889 a French Company which was excavating a canal at Panama went to pieces, and for more than ten years the enterprise lay dormant, although, in the interval, another company was formed to promote the route through Nicaragua. But our position in the world had now changed so radically, that our wisest men insisted that wherever the canal were run it must belong to the United States. Before the question of ownership could be decided, however, England and the United States must come to an agreement; because in 1850, those countries had signed the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which gave them joint control and joint obligations over the Isthmus of Panama. Lord Salisbury, the British Prime Minister, declared his willingness to have the matter negotiated, and accordingly Secretary Hay and Ambassador Pauncefote set to work heartily.

GOOD WILL AND PANAMA

Hay saw in this transaction an opportunity not merely for forwarding a commercial plan of vast scope, but of welding the friendship between England and America. This to him was by far the most important aspect of the matter and if when the draft of the Treaty was published the terms seemed too unfavorable to the United States, this was owing to Secretary Hay's conviction, that almost any concessions were worth making, if they could lead to a solid and permanent bond between the two nations. Nevertheless the first Treaty was defeated by the Senate, and before the second Treaty had been discussed Pauncefote had died. From this second arrangement the objectionable features of the first were left out, and in their stead were incorporated the terms which Colonel Roosevelt, Senator Lodge and others. had urged throughout-including complete control as well as ownership of the Canal by the United States, and the right of our Government to fortify it.

In all these negotiations Hay's AngloSaxonism, as we may call it, cropped out, and I suspect that he impressed it upon his British colleagues, so that they too began to see in it more reason and significance than they had

dreamed of. Always slow to readjust themselves to new political combinations, the English did not for a long time appraise at its true value the rising menace of Germany. Tradition imposed on them the policy of splendid isolation from meddling with the affairs of Continental Europe, except in so far as these might seem to threaten their supremacy in India. They supposed Russia to be their only dangerous European neighbor, and they therefore scarcely noted the rise in Europe of a Power which was preparing not only to dominate Europe, including Great Britain, but also to conquer the world.

SENSING THE GERMAN PERIL

I would not claim that Secretary Hay recognized to the full the exorbitance of the German Kaiser's ambition; but he did see the direction which German schemes were taking, and he knew from his official dealings the methods of the German Government. Their brutal seizure of Kiao-Chau and appropriation of Shan-tung disgusted him. He abominated German Frightfulness as it was rehearsed by Waldersee's troops after the Boxer Uprising in 1900. "At least we have been spared," Hay wrote privately to his friend, Mr. Henry Adams, on November 21, 1900, "the infamy of an alliance with Germany; I would rather, I think, be the dupe of China, than the chum of the Kaiser. Have you noticed how the world will take anything nowadays from a German? Bülow said yesterday in substance-We have demanded of China everything we can think of. If we think of anything else we will demand that, and be d-d to you'-and not a man in the world kicks." Like the rest of the world in those days, Hay sometimes took the preposterous Teutonic projects somewhat derisively, as the phantasmagoria of a megolomaniac prince, who inherited the Hohenzollern taint of insanity and resorted to any means for advertising himself. Even when put forth by the slick and wily Bülow, these schemes failed to convince. And yet Hay, witnessing German expansion in many parts of the world, did not fail to ask himself what influence could in the long run successfully compete with, if not actually overthrow, the Pan-German power. Himself a confirmed Democrat, he understood the defects of. Democracy, and I think it not too much to assert that he foresaw the danger which Democracy would run in any conflicts with a disciplined Militarist Autocracy. Such pondering led him

to regard an Anglo-Saxon union, not necessarily based on official compacts, but rooted in the ideals of a common race, as the world's only safeguard against Teutonic domination. This conviction caused him to regret the differences which sprang up between the English Foreign Office and Washington, in the settlement of the Alaska Boundary, in the dispute over Newfoundland fisheries, and in several other affairs of secondary moment. As he knew how ticklish Diplomacy is, so he wished to avoid even the most fleeting annoyances. In the main the two countries acted most cordially toward each other to the end. Once, however, British policy with Germany flew off at a tangent, and perplexed Hay greatly. The British Foreign Office has not yet explained this aberration publicly, and so it is not for me to disclose it.

CLOSING UP MINOR QUARRELS

In President Roosevelt, Secretary Hay had a strong collaborator, from the year 1901 on. The President was the clearer in seeing America's advantages. He had understood also, quite as early as Hay did, the implications of the Monroe Doctrine and the new needs and obligations which the position of World Power thrust upon the United States. Nor did he fear hurting England's feelings, when he believed that his demands were just. It was Roosevelt and not Hay, who brought to a prompt and satisfactory conclusion negotiations which had dragged on too long. Thus he hastened the solution of the Alaskan Boundary dispute by writing a private letter to an American judge, traveling abroad, whom he asked to show it, indiscreetly of course, to Mr. Chamberlain and other English statesmen. Whoever read that letter could have no doubt that the dispute must be settled at once, and settled in comformity with American rights. So also it was the President who detached England from her partnership with Germany in blockading Venezuela, and he it was who then forced the German Emperor to arbitrate his quarrel with Venezuela, unless he preferred to fight. Probably it would have been better for the peace and welfare of mankind if William II had decided to fight then, because he was certain to have been beaten; but he was too wary to risk plunging the world into war until he knew that Germany was wholly prepared, and supposed that his unsuspecting neighbors would be easy victims. The upshot of the Venezuela transaction was that the United States Government proved it

self determined to defend the Monroe Doctrine against all comers, and that Germany having failed to land troops on American soil relied thereafter on craft instead of on force for her conquest of the American Continent.

That John Hay was right in thinking that our people must face the future hand in hand with the people of the British Empire, or that the Civilization from which both spring and by which both live would go down, had been demonstrated years before he died. Long before the Atrocious War, German officers drank their toast to "The Day" at their public banquets"The Day" when they should destroy the British fleet and, by controlling British sea power, control the world. Years before Hay died German professors were conducting their sly and despicable propaganda from Harvard and otherAmerican Universities, and hordes of other tools of the Kaiser were at work honeycombing this country with deceit, falsehood and sedition to make smooth his path here.

ANGLO-SAXONISM VS. GERMANISM

Hay's belief in Anglo-Saxonism, his diplomacy which assumed that British and American friendship are indispensable, and his own character, with its staunchness and urbanity, making friendly dealings natural, were and will remain among the noteworthy factors in our national life. His attitude was prophetic. The war has taught us that there is in Central Europe a strong and populous nation which does not believe in individual rights-that it does not believe in any right, any duty, any pledge, any obligation toward other peoples; that war is the normal state of man; that the purpose of an army is to devastate and conquer neighboring countries and to carry away all the portable wealth, as the footpad holds up and robs his victim of his watch and purse.

This nation repudiates the claims of chivalry and of mercy, and even more damning than its cruelty is its deceit. At the head of this nation stands an irresponsible Autocrat who boasts that he grasps in the hollow of his hand the mind, body and soul of every creature in his Empire and whose bidding is done by Generals, Admirals, Parsons and Professors of his own

appointing. This is the nation that enslaves and carries away the conquered young men and young women to suffer privations, shame, and unspeakable outrage. Anglo-Saxonism denies the Autocrat and his system. Freedom is its pole-star. It proclaims the right of every human being to life and opportunity; and as it broadens the scope of every individual so it expects from him in return a keener sense of public duty. The nations which have been inspired by the Anglo-Saxon Ideal may have committed many grievous sins, but they have never sunk to the lowest sin of all-that of embracing the Teutonic Ideal. We call Justice, Mercy, Veracity, Honor, and Reverence for one's plighted word Anglo-Saxon Ideals, because during a thousand years they have been embodied in the Anglo-Saxon peoples, and in spite of all shortcomings they have shaped, little by little, the political and social life of those peoples. But they are no more a monopoly of the AngloSaxons than is the multiplication table, they belong to whoever believes in them and makes them his guide. The final product of autocracy is to convert man into a machine; the final product of democracy is to set free the soul in even the most clod-like man. For John Hay and for whoever believes as he did in democracy Abraham Lincoln and not Frederick the Great, much less William II, typifies the true guardian of civilization; the leader of mankind to a higher state than it has ever attained.

In 1900, during the Boer War, John Hay wrote to Senator Lodge deploring the apparent decadence of England as a fighting nation, and he added that if England went down and Germany and Russia made an arrangement— which the German Emperor was then plotting secretly to do the balance would be lost for ages. Coming just at the approach of a crisis to civilization more definite than any other in history, Hay distinguished clearly between the partisans of Moloch and the partisans of Christ, and he did his utmost to promote the cause of Christ; for this, posterity will always hold him in gratitude; for this he will rank among the American statesmen whose fame lives after them.

T

BY

HE keynote of the policy that has made Great Britian the greatest and most successful colonizing nation in the world is freedom. Throughout the British Empire the merchants of every colony are absolutely free to trade with whom they will. Even the small tariff preference in favor of the mother country that prevails in some of the colonies. is of colonial origin-a self-imposed duty to show their loyalty and good will. Equally important as an element in their development and prosperity is the freedom accorded by every British colony to the capital and labor of other lands to share in its industries and enterprises. No other colonial Power has yet shown an equal spirit of liberality in this regard. As to their civil liberties the citizens of the self-governing colonies are as free as those of the United States, while in the dependencies -in most of which the mass of the population has as yet attained only a relatively low degree of civilization-the Imperial Government has granted the utmost degree of self-government consistent with the preservation of law and order. Lastly, in every part of the Empire religious tolerance is a firmly established principle of governmental policy, and no native custom or institution is in any manner interfered with unless it is detrimental to the welfare of the people themselves. It is on this broad foundation of commercial, economic, political and religious freedom that the great structure of the British Empire securely rests.

It is not contended, nor would any British publicist or statesman for a moment claim, that the present high standards of Greater Britain's colonial policy were attained without much groping and many errors. On the contrary, it is the product of a continuous evolution covering a period of nearly 350 years. Three distinct stages of this evolution may be

readily traced. The first was the period of colonization and frank exploitation which lasted almost precisely two centuries, from the formal acquisition of Newfoundland in 1583 to the recognition of the independence of the United States in 1783. In the very year that the Declaration of Independence was signed Adam Smith published "The Wealth of Nations," in which he argued against the then universally accepted Mercantile System of colonial exploitation. The revolt of the American colonies gave point to his remarks. It is not too much to say that the greatness and solidity of the British colonial empire of to-day are in a large measure due to the thoroughness with which subsequent generations of English statesmen have sought to avoid the errors of George III and his ministers.

The great lesson of 1783 was not, however, learned in a moment. For almost a century there was manifest in Great Britian's colonial policy a spirit of indecision and uncertainty. This has been aptly called the period of laissez aller. Many publicists urged that the colonies should be abandoned, while others accepted as axiomatic Turgot's remark that colonies were like fruit which, when ripe, fell off. Nevertheless it is a striking fact that, while these controversies were going on, responsible British statesmen both at home and abroad were quietly going ahead consolidating the nation's colonial empire, strengthening its boundaries, and even adding enormously to its extent.

No precise date can be set as terminating this period of conflicting views, but by 1880 the advocates of a Greater Britain were clearly gaining ground and the golden and diamond jubilees of Queen Victoria, in 1887 and 1897, stimulated and intensified the spirit of imperial unity to such a degree that the nation's