1900 Democratic Party platform on interventionism

[eridani]

http://janda.org/politxts/PartyPlatforms/Democratic/dem.900.html

We declare again that all governments instituted among men derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that any government not based upon the consent of the governed is a tyranny, and that to impose upon any people a government of force is to substitute the methods of imperialism for those of a republic. We hold that the Constitution follows the flag, and denounce the doctrine that an Executive or Congress deriving their existence and their powers from the Constitution can exercise lawful authority beyond it or in violation of it. We assert that no nation can long endure half republic and half empire, and we warn the American people that imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home.

We are in favor of extending the Republic's influence among the nations, but we believe that that influence should be extended not by force and violence, but through the persuasive power of a high and honorable example.

The importance of other questions, now pending before the American people is no wise diminished and the Democratic party takes no backward step from its position on them, but the burning issue of imperialism growing out of the Spanish war involves the very existence of the Republic and the destruction of our free institutions. We regard it as the paramount issue of the campaign.

We oppose militarism. It means conquest abroad and intimidation and oppression at home. It means the strong arm which has ever been fatal to free institutions. It is what millions of our citizens have fled from in Europe. It will impose upon our peace loving people a large standing army and unnecessary burden of taxation, and will be a constant menace to their liberties. A small standing army and a well-disciplined state militia are amply sufficient in time of peace. This republic has no place for a vast military establishment, a sure forerunner of compulsory military service and conscription. When the nation is in danger the volunteer soldier is his country's best defender. The National Guard of the United States should ever be cherished in the patriotic hearts of a free people. Such organizations are ever an element of strength and safety. For the first time in our history, and coeval with the Philippine conquest, has there been a wholesale departure from our time honored and approved system of volunteer organization. We denounce it as un-American, un-Democratic and un-Republican, and as a subversion of the ancient and fixed principles of a free people.

Private monopolies are indefensible and intolerable. They destroy competition, control the price of all material, and of the finished product, thus robbing both producer and consumer. They lessen the employment of labor, and arbitrarily fix the terms and conditions thereof; and deprive individual energy and small capital of their opportunity of betterment.

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. Whatever happened to that Democratic Party?

"Imperialism". "Militarism."

Such language.

Americans today... including Democrats.... think "Monopoly" is a board game.



K and R

[redqueen]

6. The DLC. nt

[Liberal_Dog]

2. William Jennings Bryan Opposed Imperialism

Bryan expressly campaigned against imperialism in 1900.

He later resigned as Secretary Of State under Wilson because he opposed our getting into WW1.

[MisterP]

3. the antiimperialism even contributed to his involvement at Scopes

since there was this little thing called Social Darwinism and a recent little war between countries who'd been strongly influenced by it ...

Theodore Roosevelt rhapsodized that "In this world the nation that has trained itself to a career of unwarlike and isolated ease is bound, in the end, to go down before the other nations which have not lost the manly and adventurous qualities." The timid, lazy, those who distrust their own country, the overcivilized, the dull, those incapable of feeling the mighty, thrilling lift of nation-statehood "shrink from seeing the nation undertake its new duties. ... If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world." War was in fact America's ideal condition.

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder proclaimed that "war is an element of the order of the world established by God [without which] the world would stagnate and lose itself in materialism."

Homer Lea (a general, though only in China) said that "As physical vigor represents the strength of man in his struggle for existence, in the same sense military vigor constitutes the strength of nations; ideals, laws and constitutions are but temporary effulgences, and are existent only so long as this strength remains vital."

Hudson Maxim said that of course "Our American Republic cannot survive unless it obeys the law of survival."

Johann Kaspar Bluntschli said that strife brought out something noble in humanity, something that'd die if the ideals of peace were widely and firmly embraced.

Friedrich von Bernhardi ransacked Christ, Luther, and Wagner to prove that "War is not merely a necessary element in the life of nations but an indispensable factor of culture, in which a truly civilized nation finds the highest expression of strength and vitality. ... War gives a biologically just decision, since its decisions rest on the very nature of things. ... It is not only a biological law, but a moral obligation, and, as such, an indispensable factor in civilization."

Herbert Spencer declared that "The whole effort of nature is to get rid of such, to clear the world of them, and make room for better," the stupid, vicious, and idle dying off. Everyone's on trial: "If they are sufficiently complete to live, they do live, and it is well they should live. If they are not sufficiently complete, they die, and it is best they should die" and competition "can no more be done away with than gravitation."

(I made a little WWI Centennial project that covers this theme)

[eridani]

4. Stephen Jay Gould made that very point in one of his essays

Not sure which collection it wound up in.

[MisterP]

5. all of 'em, probably (and I have most of them)

[pampango]

7. There was a big and welcome liberal opposition to the colonization of the Philippines and

Puerto Rico.

... the burning issue of imperialism growing out of the Spanish war involves the very existence of the Republic and the destruction of our free institutions. We regard it as the paramount issue of the campaign.

... we favor an immediate declaration of the nation's purpose to give the Filipinos, first, a stable form of government; second, independence; and third, protection from outside interference, such as has been given for nearly a century to the republics of Central and South America.

We favor trade expansion by every peaceful and legitimate means. But we are unalterably opposed to seizing or purchasing distant islands to be governed outside the Constitution, and whose people can never become citizens.

We condemn the Dingley tariff law (a protectionist tariff passed by republicans in 1897) as a trust breeding measure, skillfully devised to give the few favors which they do not deserve, and to place upon the many burdens which they should not bear.

I think that platform was more opposed to imperialism and colonization than it was to interventionism.

[eridani]

8. There was also conservative opposition, much like the paleocons today.

Liberal and conservative opposition stemmed from very different values, of course--just as today.