Josiah Strong, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present
Crisis (1885)
Again, nothing more manifestly distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon
than his intense and persistent energy; and he is developing in the
United States an energy which, in eager activity and effectiveness,
is peculiarly American. This is due partly to the fact that
Americans are much better fed than Europeans, and partly to the
undeveloped resources of a new country, but more largely to our
climate, which acts as a constant stimulus… Every one is free to
become whatever he can make of himself; free to transform
himself from a rail-splitter or a tanner or a canal-boy, into the
nation's President. Our aristocracy, unlike that of Europe, is open
to all comers. Wealth, position, influence, are prizes offered for
energy; and every farmer's boy, every apprentice and clerk, every
friendless and penniless immigrant, is free to enter the lists. Thus
many causes co-operate to produce here the most forceful and
tremendous energy in the world…
It seems to me that God, with infinite wisdom and skill, is training
the AngloSaxon race for an hour sure to come in the world's future.
Heretofore there has always been in the history of the world a
comparatively unoccupied land westward, into which the crowded
countries of the East have poured their surplus populations. But the
widening waves of migration, which millenniums ago rolled east
and west from the valley of the Euphrates, meet to-day on our
Pacific coast. There are no more new worlds. The unoccupied
arable lands of the earth are limited, and will soon be taken. The
time is coming when the pressure of population on the means of
subsistence will be felt here as it is now felt in Europe and Asia.
Then will the world enter upon a new stage of its history--the, final
1
competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being
schooled.
Long before the thousand millions are here, the mighty centrifugal
tendency, inherent in this stock and strengthened in the United
States, will assert itself. Then this race of unequaled energy, with
all the majesty of numbers and the might of wealth behind it--the
representative, let us hope, of the largest liberty, the purest
Christianity, the highest civilization--having developed peculiarly
aggressive traits calculated to impress its institutions upon
mankind, will spread itself over the earth. If I read not amiss, this
powerful race will move down upon Mexico, down upon Central
and South America, out upon the islands of the sea, over upon
Africa and beyond. And can any one doubt that the result of this
competition of races will be the "survival of the fittest"? ... Nothing
can save the inferior race but a ready and pliant assimilation.
Whether the feebler and more abject races are going to be
regenerated and raised up, is already very much of a question.
What if it should be God!s plan to people the world with better and
finer material? Certain it is, whatever expectations we may
indulge, that there is a tremendous overbearing surge of power in
the Christian nations, which, if the others are not speedily raised to
some vastly higher capacity, will inevitably submerge and bury
them forever. These great populations of Christendom--what are
they doing, but throwing out their colonies on every side, and
populating themselves, if I may so speak, into the possession of all
countries and climes?"* To this result no war of extermination is
needful; the contest is not one of arms, but of vitality and of
civilization. ...
Some of the stronger races, doubtless, may be able to preserve
their integrity; but, in order to compete with the Anglo-Saxon, they
2
will probably be forced to adopt his methods and instruments, his
civilization and his religion. … The contact of Christian with
heathen nations is awaking the latter to new life. Old superstitions
are loosening their grasp. The dead crust of fossil faiths is being
shattered by the movements of life underneath. In Catholic
countries, Catholicism is losing its influence over educated minds,
and in some cases the masses have already lost all faith in it. Thus,
while on this continent God is training the Anglo-Saxon race for its
mission, a complemental work has been in progress in the great
world beyond.
3
Clemencia Lopez, "Women of the Philippines: Address to
Annual Meeting of the New England Woman's Suffrage
Association, May 29, 1902," The Woman's Journal, 7 June
1902.
It gives me very great pleasure to greet the Massachusetts Woman
Suffrage Association on behalf of the women of my own country. I
have yielded to your kind invitation to tell you something about the
condition of women in the Philippine Islands, in spite of my
inexperience and lack of literary skill, for which I pray your
indulgence, and have had the courage to speak to you [so you] may
form a different and more favorable opinion of the Filipinos, than
the conception which ... the American people have formed,
believing us to be savages without education or morals.
I believe that we are both striving for much the same object—you
for the right to take part in national life; we for the right to have a
national life to take part in. And I am sure that, if we understood
each other better, the differences which now exist between your
country and mine would soon disappear.
You will no doubt be surprised and pleased to learn that the
condition of women in the Philippines is very different from that of
the women of any country in the East [i.e., Asia], and that it differs
very little from the general condition of the women of this country.
Mentally, socially, and in almost all the relations of life, our
women are regarded as the equals of our men...Long prior to the
Spanish occupation, the people were already civilized, and this
respect for and equality of women existed...
Before closing, I should like to say a word about the patriotism of
the women. This is a delicate subject, for to be patriotic to our
country means that we must oppose the policy of yours. But
patriotism is a quality which we all ought to be able to admire,
even in an opponent. I should indeed have reason to be ashamed if
I had to come before this Association with the admission that our
women were indifferent to the cause of their country's
1
independence. You would have a right to despise me and my
countrywomen if we had so little love for our native land as to
consent that our country should be governed by foreign hands....
In conclusion, in the name of the Philippine women, I pray the
Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association to do what it can to
remedy all this misery and misfortune in my unhappy country. You
can do much to bring about the cessation of these horrors and
cruelties which are today taking place in the Philippines, and to
insist upon a more humane course. I do not believe that you can
understand or imagine the miserable condition of the women of my
country, or how real is their suffering. Thousands have been
widowed, orphaned, left alone and homeless, exposed and in the
greatest misery. It is, then, not a surprising fact that the diseases
born of hunger are increasing, and that to-day immorality prevails
in the Philippines to an extent never before known. After all, you
ought to understand that we are only contending for the liberty of
our country, just as you once fought for the same liberty for yours.
2
Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of
Labor, “Imperialism—Its Dangers and Wrongs,” October 18,
1898.
If the Philippines are annexed, what is to prevent the Chinese, the
Negritos and the Malays coming to our country? How can we
prevent the Chinese coolies from going to the Philippines and from
there swarm into the United States and engulf our people and our
civilization. If these new islands are to become ours, it will be
either under the form of Territories or States. Can we hope to close
the flood-gates of immigration from the hordes of Chinese and the
semi-savage races coming from what will then be part of our own
country? …
If we attempt to force upon the natives of the Philippines our rule,
and compel them to conform to our more or less rigid mold of
government, how many lives shall we take? Of course, they will
seem cheap, because they are poor laborers. They will be members
of the majority in the Philippines, but they will be ruled and killed
at the convenience of the very small minority there, backed up by
our armed land and sea forces. The dominant class in the islands
will ease its conscience because the victims will be poor, ignorant
and weak. When innocent men can be shot down on the public
highway as they were in Lattimer, Pa., and Virden, Ill., men of our
own flesh and blood, men who help to make this homogenous
nation great, because they dare ask for humane conditions at the
hands of the moneyed class of our country, how much more
difficult will it be to arouse any sympathy, and secure relief for the
poor semi-savages in the Philippines, much less indignation at any
crime against their inherent and natural rights to life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness?
1
Hiram W. Evans, “The Klan’s Fight for Americanism,” North
American Review (March–April–May 1926)
The [Ku Klux] Klan…has now come to speak for the great mass of
Americans of the old pioneer stock. We believe that it does fairly
and faithfully represent them, and our proof lies in their support.
To understand the Klan, then, it is necessary to understand the
character and present mind of the mass of old-stock Americans.
The mass, it must be remembered, as distinguished from the
intellectually mongrelized “Liberals.”
These are, in the first place, a blend of various peoples of the socalled Nordic race, the race which, with all its faults, has given the
world almost the whole of modern civilization. The Klan does not
try to represent any people but these.
There is no need to recount the virtues of the American pioneers;
but it is too often forgotten that in the pioneer period a selective
process of intense rigor went on. From the first only hardy,
adventurous and strong men and women dared the pioneer
dangers; from among these all but the best died swiftly, so that the
new Nordic blend which became the American race was bred up to
a point probably the highest in history. This remarkable race
character, along with the new-won continent and the new-created
nation, made the inheritance of the old-stock Americans the richest
ever given to a generation of men.
In spite of it, however, these Nordic Americans for the last
generation have found themselves increasingly uncomfortable, and
finally deeply distressed…Finally came the moral breakdown that
has been going on for two decades. One by one all our traditional
moral standards went by the boards, or were so disregarded that
they ceased to be binding. The sacredness of our Sabbath, of our
1
homes, of chastity, and finally even of our right to teach our own
children in our own schools fundamental facts and truths were torn
away from us. Those who maintained the old standards did so only
in the face of constant ridicule.
Along with this went economic distress. The assurance for the
future of our children dwindled. We found our great cities and the
control of much of our industry and commerce taken over by
strangers, who stacked the cards of success and prosperity against
us. Shortly they came to dominate our government. The bloc
system by which this was done is now familiar to all. Every kind of
inhabitant except the Americans gathered in groups which operated
as units in politics, under orders of corrupt, self-seeking and unAmerican leaders, who both by purchase and threat enforced their
demands on politicians. Thus it came about that the interests of
Americans were always the last to be considered by either national
or city governments, and that the native Americans were constantly
discriminated against, in business, in legislation and in
administrative government.
So the Nordic American today is a stranger in large parts of the
land his fathers gave him. Moreover, he is a most unwelcome
stranger, one much spit upon, and one to whom even the right to
have his own opinions and to work for his own interests is now
denied with jeers and revilings. “We must Americanize the
Americans,” a distinguished immigrant said recently. Can anything
more clearly show the state to which the real American has fallen
in this country which was once his own?...
All this has been true for years, but it was the World War that gave
us our first hint of the real cause of our troubles, and began to
crystallize our ideas. The war revealed that millions whom we had
2
allowed to share our heritage and prosperity, and whom we had
assumed had become part of us, were in fact not wholly so. They
had other loyalties: each was willing—anxious!—to sacrifice the
interests of the country that had given him shelter to the interests of
the one he was supposed to have cast off; each in fact did use the
freedom and political power we had given him against ourselves
whenever he could see any profit for his older loyalty.
This, of course, was chiefly in international affairs, and the
excitement caused by the discovery of disloyalty subsided rapidly
after the war ended. But it was not forgotten by the Nordic
Americans. They had been awakened and alarmed; they began to
suspect that the hyphenism which had been shown was only a part
of what existed; their quiet was not that of renewed sleep, but of
strong men waiting very watchfully. And presently they began to
form decisions about all those aliens who were Americans for
profit only.
They decided that even the crossing of salt-water did not dim a
single spot on a leopard; that an alien usually remains an alien no
matter what is done to him, what veneer of education he gets, what
oaths he takes, nor what public attitudes he adopts. They decided
that the melting pot was a ghastly failure, and remembered that the
very name was coined by a member of one of the races—the
Jews—which most determinedly refuses to melt. They decided that
in every way, as well as in politics, the alien in the vast majority of
cases is unalterably fixed in his instincts, character, thought and
interests by centuries of racial selection and development, that he
thinks first for his own people, works only with and for them, cares
entirely for their interests, considers himself always one of them,
and never an American. They decided that in character, instincts,
3
thought, and purposes—in his whole soul—an alien remains
fixedly alien to America and all it means.
They saw, too, that the alien was tearing down the American
standard of living, especially in the lower walks. It became clear
that while the American can out-work the alien, the alien can so far
under-live the American as to force him out of all competitive
labor. So they came to realize that the Nordic can easily survive
and rule and increase if he holds for himself the advantages won by
strength and daring of his ancestors in times of stress and peril, but
that if he surrenders those advantages to the peoples who could not
share the stress, he will soon be driven below the level at which he
can exist by their low standards, low living and fast breeding. And
they saw that the low standard aliens of Eastern and Southern
Europe were doing just that thing to us.
They learned, though more slowly, that alien ideas are just as
dangerous to us as the aliens themselves, no matter how plausible
such ideas may sound. With most of the plain people this
conclusion is based simply on the fact that the alien ideas do not
work well for them. Others went deeper and came to understand
that the differences in racial background, in breeding, instinct,
character and emotional point of view are more important than
logic. So ideas which may be perfectly healthy for an alien may
also be poisonous for Americans…
As they learned all this the Nordic Americans have been gradually
arousing themselves to defend their homes and their own kind of
civilization. They have not known just how to go about it; the
idealist philanthropy and good-natured generosity which led to the
philosophy of the melting pot have died hard. Resistance to the
peaceful invasion of the immigrant is no such simple matter as
4
snatching up weapons and defending frontiers, nor has it much
spectacular emotionalism to draw men to the colors.
The old-stock Americans are learning, however. They have begun
to arm themselves for this new type of warfare. Most important,
they have broken away from the fetters of the false ideals and
philanthropy which put aliens ahead of their own children and their
own race.
To do this they have had to reject completely—and perhaps for the
moment the rejection is a bit too complete—the whole body of
“Liberal” ideas which they had followed with such simple,
unquestioning faith. The first and immediate cause of the break
with Liberalism was that it had provided no defense against the
alien invasion, but instead had excused it—even defended it
against Americanism. Liberalism is today charged in the mind of
most Americans with nothing less than national, racial and spiritual
treason. . . .
We are a movement of the plain people, very weak in the matter of
culture, intellectual support, and trained leadership. We are
demanding, and we expect to win, a return of power into the hands
of the everyday, not highly cultured, not overly intellectualized,
but entirely unspoiled and not de-Americanized, average citizen of
the old stock. Our members and leaders are all of this class—the
opposition of the intellectuals and liberals who held the leadership,
betrayed Americanism, and from whom we expect to wrest
control, is almost automatic. . . .
Our critics have accused us of being merely a “protest movement,”
of being frightened; they say we fear alien competition, are in a
panic because we cannot hold our own against the foreigners. That
5
is partly true. We are a protest movement—protesting against
being robbed. We are afraid of competition with peoples who
would destroy our standard of living. We are suffering in many
ways, we have been betrayed by our trusted leaders, we are half
beaten already. But we are not frightened nor in a panic. We have
merely awakened to the fact that we must fight for our own. We
are going to fight—and win! . . .
6
1920 Immigrations Laws
Emergency Quota Act, also known as the Immigration
Restriction Act of 1921
H.R. 4075; Pub.L. 67-5; 42 Stat. 5.
67th Congress; May 19, 1921.
Sec. 2. (a) That the number of aliens1 of any nationality who may
be admitted under the immigration laws to the United States in any
fiscal year shall be limited to 3 per centum2 of the number of
foreign-born persons of such nationality resident in the United
States as determined by the United States census of 1910.
1924 Immigration Act, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act
H.R. 7995; Pub.L. 68-139; 43 Stat. 153.
68th Congress; May 26, 1924.
Sec. 11. (a) The annual [immigrant] quota of any nationality shall
be 2 per centum of the number of foreign-born individuals of such
nationality resident in continental United States as determined by
the United States census of 1890.
1
2
foreigners; immigrants
per centum = percent
1
1920 Immigrations Laws
Emergency Quota Act, also known as the Immigration
Restriction Act of 1921
H.R. 4075; Pub.L. 67-5; 42 Stat. 5.
67th Congress; May 19, 1921.
Sec. 2. (a) That the number of aliens1 of any nationality who may
be admitted under the immigration laws to the United States in any
fiscal year shall be limited to 3 per centum2 of the number of
foreign-born persons of such nationality resident in the United
States as determined by the United States census of 1910.
1924 Immigration Act, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act
H.R. 7995; Pub.L. 68-139; 43 Stat. 153.
68th Congress; May 26, 1924.
Sec. 11. (a) The annual [immigrant] quota of any nationality shall
be 2 per centum of the number of foreign-born individuals of such
nationality resident in continental United States as determined by
the United States census of 1890.
1
2
foreigners; immigrants
per centum = percent
1
Emilio Aguinaldo, “Aguinaldo’s Case against the United States
(1899)
We Filipinos have all along believed that if the American nation at
large knew exactly, as we do, what is daily happening in the
Philippine Islands, they would rise en masse, and demand that this
barbaric war should stop. There are other methods of securing
sovereignty—the true and lasting sovereignty that has its
foundation in the hearts of the people…And, did America
recognize this fact, she would cease to be the laughing stock of
other civilized nations, as she became when she abandoned her
traditions and set up a double standard of government—
government by consent in America, government by force in the
Philippine Islands…
You have been deceived all along the line. You have been greatly
deceived in the personality of my countrymen. You went to the
Philippines under the impression that their inhabitants were
ignorant savages, whom Spain had kept in subjection at the
bayonet’s point…We have been represented by your popular press
as if we were Africans or Mohawk Indians…
In the struggle for liberty which we have ever waged, the education
of the masses has been slow; but we are not, on that account, an
uneducated people… It is the fittest and the best of our race who
have survived the vile oppression of the Spanish Government, on
the one hand, and of their priests on the other; and, had it not been
for their tyrannous “sovereignty” and their execrable colonial
methods, we would have been, ere this time, a power in the East,
as our neighbors, the Japanese, have become by their industry and
their modern educational methods.
You repeat constantly the dictum that we cannot govern
ourselves…With equal reason, you might have said the same thing
1
some fifty or sixty years ago of Japan; and, little over a hundred
years ago, it was extremely questionable, when you, also, were
rebels against the English Government, if you could govern
yourselves. You obtained the opportunity, thanks to political
combinations and generous assistance at the critical moment. You
passed with credit through the trying period when you had to make
a beginning of governing yourselves, and you eventually
succeeded in establishing a government on a republican basis,
which, theoretically, is as good a system of government as needs
be, as it fulfils the just ideals and aspirations of the human race.
Now, the moral of all this obviously is: Give us the chance; treat us
exactly as you demanded to be treated at the hands of England,
when you rebelled against her autocratic methods…
Now, here is an unique spectacle—the Filipinos fighting for
liberty, the American people fighting them to give them liberty.
The two peoples are fighting on parallel lines for the same object.
We know that parallel lines never meet. Let us look back to
discover the point at which the lines separated and the causes of
the separation, so that we may estimate the possibility of one or the
other or both being turned inwards so that they shall meet again.
You declared war with Spain for the sake of Humanity…[Y]our
object and ours was a common one. We were your accepted allies;
we assisted you at all points. We besieged Manila, and we
prevented the Spaniards from leaving the fortified town. We
captured all the provinces of Luzon. We received arms from you.
Our chiefs were in constant touch with your naval authorities...We
hailed you as the long-prayed-for Messiah.
Joy abounded in every heart, and all went well . . . until . . . the
Government at Washington…commenc[ed] by ignoring all
promises that had been made and end[ed] by ignoring the
2
Philippine people, their personality and rights, and treating them as
a common enemy.
Never has a greater mistake been made in the entire history of the
nations. Here you had a people who placed themselves at your feet,
who welcomed you as their savior, who wished you to govern
them and protect them. In combination with the genius of our
countrymen and their local knowledge, you would have
transformed the Philippine Islands from a land of despotism, of
vicious governmental methods and priestcraft, into an enlightened
republic, with America as its guide—a happy and contented
people—and that in the short space of a few months, without the
sacrifice of a single American life...
You took a wrong step, and you had not sufficient moral courage
to retrace it. You must begin by conquering the hearts of the
Philippine people. Be absolutely just, and you can lead them with a
silken cord where chains of steel will not drag them… But this
question of sovereignty—why, such a transparent farce has never
before been flouted before an intelligent people and the world in
general. Can you wonder our people mistrust…? They do not even
regard you as being serious—a nation which professes to derive its
just power of government from the consent of the governed.
3
Ernestine Alvarado, “Mexican Immigration to the United
States,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work
(1920).
The Mexicans of the lower class who constitute the greater part of
the immigration element to this country, respond generously when
rightly treated. They are intelligent and indefatigable workers
when they are put in the right place. They are reliable, serious, of
quick comprehension, and at the same time calm and reflective. In
our country, and owing to causes against which the revolution is
still fighting, those men have received almost no education; many
of them do not know how to read and write. It is imperative that
they be educated by you. You can make of them a very useful
element in your social life and in the prosperity of the nation.
They come from Mexico in search of new horizons. They have
been told about the prosperity of this country, of the liberty that
they may enjoy here, of the big salaries they may obtain, of the
practicability and value of your methods, of the low cost of living,
and thousands of other things which are growing obsolete. They
come seeking that wonderful country wherein they hope to find
greater liberty than in their own…
Up to the present the majority of these men have returned to
Mexico taking with them disappointment instead of fortune. They
have complained of being treated like cattle; that no one knew how
to understand their personality, their individuality; that they have
fallen into hands that intended only to exploit their physical
resistance, frugality, and unselfishness. They have rarely found
anyone who has wisely opened to them the path of education, a
course which would have been a thousand times more profitable
and more human.
1
Unfortunately, our country is misrepresented and abused nearly
everywhere in the United States, in theaters, moving pictures,
newspapers, books, and private conversations. Perhaps (I would
prefer to believe it so), it is done without ill intention, probably
thoughtlessly, but it is done. Mexicans find an antagonistic
atmosphere for everything that is Mexican, and this fact
necessarily tends to make difficult their uniting with you. You
could hardly become friends with one who begins by insulting
your mother; and for us Mexicans love for our country is not less
than love for our mothers. Both American and Mexican workers
have a lot to learn from each other. When the time comes that you
understand our country, as great as it is unfortunate, you will
respect and love those good Mexicans who come to you full of
hopes, and then you will know how to treat them in order that
those hopes may not be in vain.
2
American Anti-Imperialist League Platform, 1899.
We hold that the policy known as imperialism is hostile to liberty
and tends toward militarism, an evil from which it has been our
glory to be free. We regret that it has become necessary in the land
of Washington and Lincoln to reaffirm that all men, of whatever
race or color, are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. We maintain that governments derive their just powers
from the consent of the governed. We insist that the subjugation of
any people is "criminal aggression" and open disloyalty to the
distinctive principles of our government.
The United States have always protested against the doctrine of
international law which permits the subjugation of the weak by the
strong. A self-governing state cannot accept sovereignty over an
unwilling people. The United States cannot act upon the ancient
heresy that might makes right.
Imperialists assume that with the destruction of self-government in
the Philippines by American hands, all opposition here will cease.
This is a grievous error. Much as we abhor the war of "criminal
aggression" in the Philippines, greatly as we regret that the blood
of the Filipinos is on American hands, we more deeply resent the
betrayal of American institutions at home. The real firing line is
not in the suburbs of Manila. The foe is of our own household. The
attempt of 1861 was to divide the country. That of 1899 is to
destroy its fundamental principles and noblest ideals.
1
Senator Albert Beveridge (IN), “The March of the Flag,”
campaign speech, September 16, 1898.
[I]n this campaign, the question is larger than a party question. It is
an American question. It is a world question. Shall the American
people continue their march toward the commercial supremacy of
the world? Shall free institutions broaden their blessed reign as the
children of liberty wax in strength, until the empire of our
principles is established over the hearts of all mankind?
Hawaii is ours; Porto Rico is to be ours; at the prayer of her people
Cuba finally will be ours; in the islands of the East, even to the
gates of Asia, coaling stations are to be ours at the very least; the
flag of a liberal government is to float over the Philippines, and
may it be the banner that Taylor unfurled in Texas and Fremont
carried to the coast.
The Opposition tells us that we ought not to govern a people
without their consent. I answer, The rule of liberty that all just
government derives its authority from the consent of the governed,
applies only to those who are capable of self-government We
govern the Indians without their consent, we govern our territories
without their consent, we govern our children without their
consent. How do they know what our government would be
without their consent? Would not the people of the Philippines
prefer the just, humane, civilizing government of this Republic to
the savage, bloody rule of pillage and extortion from which we
have rescued them?...
But the Opposition is right- there is a difference. We did not need
the western Mississippi Valley when we acquired it, nor Florida!
nor Texas, nor California, nor the royal provinces of the far
northwest We had no emigrants to people this imperial wilderness,
1
no money to develop it, even no highways to cover it. No trade
awaited us in its savage fastnesses. Our productions were not
greater than our trade There was not one reason for the land-lust of
our statesmen from Jefferson to Grant, other than the prophet and
the Saxon within them But, to-day, we are raising more than we
can consume, making more than we can use. Therefore we must
find new markets for our produce…Within five decades the bulk of
Oriental commerce will be ours.
2
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