Americans can stand all this sort of thing that Europe can bless us with. According to statisticians it costs two or three thousand dollars to bring a child from the cradle up to adult age and working power. Consequently every able-bodied foreigner we get who is willing to work is worth two or three thousand dollars to our nation and is so much capital in our pockets. Let us have all we can of them. The men who complain of them are those who are not capable of taking care of themselves.
This country has many important duties to fulfil in the family of nations, but annexation of other lands is not one of them.
The contrary opinion is sometimes expressed, but the sooner we sit down upon it the less likely we are to neglect our own business.
Annexation is an old business, and sometimes it has been profitable; but the nations who best understood it have but few of their old possessions left, and they would get rid of some of these, if they could without being laughed at.
What nations could we stand any fair chance of annexing? Perhaps Mexico, Canada and some of the West India Islands. What could be done with them? Nothing that, in the long run, would benefit us. What would they do with us? They would merely introduce discordant elements that would not help us a particle in making our own national position secure. Our country is so large already that there are jarring interests making themselves felt and known in Congress, in the press, in public opinion, and
with all the efforts that have been made they are approaching solution at so slow a rate that a number of the advocates of one side or the other are discouraged and indignant. There are a great many brilliant theories of what might be done by the annexation of this or that country by the United States. But an ounce of fact is worth a ton of theory, and fortunately we have enough facts to keep us for a long time in examination if we will take the pains.
The ancient nation called Rome was the champion annexer of the world. She annexed every territory that it was possible for her soldiers to reach, and at one time the entire world owed allegiance to Rome. It was practical allegiance, too, because we read in the Gospel according to St. Matthew that in the days of Augustus Cæsar there went out a decree that all the world should be taxed. To collect taxes from annexed countries is more than some modern nations have ever been able to do. The military and political prestige of Rome was afterward strengthened by religion. Rome ruled the souls as well as the bodies and estates of men, but even the Holy Roman empire went to pieces.