Whitelaw Reid as a young correspondent

[In 1898 the United States was fresh from its imperialist expansion in the Spanish American War. Ironically, the situation faced by the United States today in Iraq has a parallel with the war in Cuba, as can be readily seen from this essay by the well-known journalist and Republican politician Whitelaw Reid. The irony continues in the example given by Reid of Egypt’s colonial occupation of Egypt. Although written over a century ago in one of America’s most popular periodicals, the sentiments are relevant to the ongoing occupation of Iraq. Whether or not history repeats itself, some historical observations are well worth repeating. Webshaykh]

by Whitelaw Reid

Men are everywhere asking what should be our course about the territory conquered in this war. Some inquire merely if it is good policy for the United States to abandon its continental limitations, and extend its rule over semi-tropical countries with mixed populations. Others ask if it would not be the wisest policy to give them away after conquering them, or abandon them. They say it would be ruinous to admit them as States to equal rights with ourselves, and contrary to the Constitution to hold them permanently as Territories. It would be bad policy, they argue, to lower the standard of our population by taking in hordes of West Indians and Asiatics; bad policy to run any chance of allowing these people to become some day joint arbiters with ourselves of the national destinies; bad policy to abandon the principles of Washington’s Farewell Address, to which we have adhered for a century, and involve ourselves in the Eastern Question, or in the entanglements of European politics.

The men who raise these questions are sincere and patriotic. They are now all loyally supporting the government in the prosecution of the war which some of them were active bringing on, and others to the last deprecated and resisted. Their doubts and difficulties deserve the fairest consideration, and are of pressing importance.

But is there not another question, more important, which first demands consideration? Have we the right to decide whether we shall hold or abandon the conquered territory, solely or even mainly as a matter of national policy? Are we not bound by our own acts and by the responsibility assumed before Spain, before Europe, and before the civilized world, to consider it first in the light of national duty?…

Now the secondary provisions of any great measure must be construed in the light of its main purpose; and where they conflict, we are led to presume that they would not have been adopted but for ignorance of the actual conditions. Is it not evident that such was the case here? We now know how far Congress was misled as to the organization and power of the alleged Cuban government, the strength of the revolt, and the character of the war the insurgents were waging. We have seen how little dependence could be placed upon the lavish promises of support from great armies of insurgents in the war we have undertaken; and we are beginning to realize the difference between our ideas of a humane and civilized “pacification” and that apparently entertained up to this time by the insurgents. It is certain that when the war began neither Congress nor the people of the United States cherished an intention to hold Cuba permanently, or had any further thought than to pacify it and turn it over to its own people. But they must pacify it before they turn it over; and from present indications to do that thoroughly may be the work of years. Even then they are still responsible to the world for the establishment of a better government than the one they destroy. If the last state of that island should be worse than the first, the fault and the crime must be solely that of the United States. We were not actually forced to involve ourselves; we might have passed by on the other side. When, instead, we insisted on interfering, we made ourselves responsible for improving the situation; and, no matter what Congress “disclaimed.” or what intention it “asserted,” we cannot leave Cuba till that is done without nation dishonor and blood-guiltiness.

The situation is curiously like that of England in Egypt. She intervened too, under far less provocation, it must be admitted, and for a cause rather more commercial than humanitarian. But when some thought that her work was ended and that it was time for her to go, Lord Granville, on behalf of Mr. Gladstone’s government, addressed the other great European pwoers in a note which Congress might have studied with profit before framing its resolutions. “Although for the present,” he said, “a British force remains in Egypt for the preservation of public tranquility, Her Majesty’s government are desirous of withdrawing it as soon as the state of the country and the organization of proper means for the maintenance of the Khedive’s authority will admit of it. In the meantime the position in which her Majesty’s government are placed towards His Highness imposes upon them the duty of giving advice with the object of securing that the order of things to be established shall be of a satisfactory character and possess the elements of stability and progress.” As time went on this declaration did not seem quite explicit enough; and accordingly, just a year later, Lord Granville instructed the present Lord Cromer, then Sir Evelyn Baring, that it should be made clear to the Egyptian ministers and governors of provinces that “the responsibility which for the time rests on England obliges Her majesty’s government to insist on the adoption of the policy which they recommend, and that it will be necessary that those ministers and governors who do not follow this course cease to hold their offices.”

That was in 1884 – a year after the defeat of Arabi, and the “pacification.” It is now fourteen years later. The English are still there, and the Egyptian ministers and governors now understand quite well that they must cease to hold their offices if they do not adopt the policy recommended by the British diplomatic agent. If it should be found that we cannot with honor and self-respect abandon our self-imposed task of Cuban “pacification” any sooner, the hasty Congressmen, as they read over their own inconsiderate resolutions, can hide their blushes behind a copy of Lord Granville’s letter. They may explain, if they like, with the classical exchange of Benedick, “When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.” Or if this seems too frivolous for their serious plight, let them recall the position of Mr. Jefferson, who originally declared that the purchase of foreign territory would make waste paper of the Constitution, and subsequently appealed to Congress for the money to pay for his purchase of Louisiana, When he held such an acquisition unconstitutional, he had not thought he would live to need Louisiana.

Excerpt from Whitelaw Reid, The Territory with which We Are Threatened. The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, September, 1898, LVI(5):789-794.

Whitelaw Reid (1837-1912) was a journalist, both as a Civil War correspondent and later the editor-in-chief of The Tribune, and politician, running in the vice-presidential slot with Benjamin Harrison’s unsuccessful Republican bid in 1892.