hat she averted disaster and saved the ship. Then, as
to Porto Rico there is no doubt of peace; and as to Cuba very
little--although it would be too much to hope that her twelve years of
civil war could be followed by an absolute calm, without disorders.

As to other possessions in the farther East, we may as well recognize
at once that we are dealing now with the same sort of clever barbarians
as in the earlier days of the Republic, when, on another ocean not then
less distant, we were compelled to encounter the Algerine pirates. But
there is this difference. Then we merely chastised the Algerines into
letting us and our commerce alone. The permanent policing of that coast
of the Mediterranean was not imposed upon us by surrounding
circumstances, or by any act of ours; it belonged to nearer nations.
Now a war we made has broken down the only authority that existed to
protect the commerce of the world in one of its greatest Eastern
thoroughfares, and to preserve the lives and property of people of all
nations resorting to those marts. We broke it down, and we cannot, dare
not, display the cowardice and selfishness of failing to replace it.
However men may differ as to our future policy in those regions, there
can be no difference as to our present duty. It is as plain as that of
putting down a riot in Chicago or New York--all the plainer because,
until recently, we have ourselves been taking the very course and doing
the very things to encourage the rioters.

[Sidenote: Why Take Sovereignty?]

A distinguished and patriotic citizen said to me the other day, in a
Western city: "You might have avoided this trouble in the Senate by
refusing title in the Philippines exactly as in Cuba, and simply
enforcing renunciation of Spanish sovereignty. Why didn't you do it?"
The question is important, and the reason ought to be understood. But
at the outset it should be clearly realized that the circumstances
which made it possible to take that course as to Cuba were altogether
exceptional. For three quarters of a century we had asserted a special
interest and right of interference there as against any other nation.
The island is directly on our coast, and no one doubted that at least
as much order as in the past would be preserved there, even if we had
to do it ourselves. There was also the positive action of Congress,
which, on the one hand, gave us excuse for refusing a sovereignty our
highest legislative authority had disclaimed