--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 1 number: 6 published: 1898-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations, \"Editor's Table,\" *Improvement Era* 1, no. 6 (April 1898): 448–455." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera16unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera16unse start_page: 448 end_page: 455 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1898-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera16unse publication_year: 1898 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1898, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Editor's Table EDITOR'S TABLE. WARS AND WAR CLOUDS. These are the days when there are wars and rumors of wars; days when the whole world seems to be in commotion and suspense that is growing painful. Within the past three years there has been war between Japan and China; between Greece and Turkey; Italy has been humiliated in her war with the Kaffirs in eastern Africa; England has been vexed by uprisings in India, and half threatened coalitions in Europe against her; Austria has been on the verge of revolution, which threatened the very existence of the dual empire, through troubles arising from race jealousies among her heterogeneous people; France has been upon the verge of an uprising against the Jews within the republic; a state of war has existed in the island of Cuba for two years, and has resulted at last in bringing about strained relations be- tween the United States and Spain, and both countries are actively engaged in making preparations for war. While all this has been going on more serious complications have arisen in the far east. There the great nations of Europe have sud- denly confronted each other in attitudes, to say the least, ex- tremely threatening. China unquestionably is in the throes of dissolution, and the great nations of Europe, that is to say, Russia, France, Germany, and England, are hovering about the dying empire like vultures about a carcass, each to rend and tear for himself and devour with greedy haste, so much as he may be able to pluck away. These great nations are now armed and equipped for war as nations never before were prepared. Engines of destructive warfare have never before attained so great perfection as now, and armies have — EDITOR'S TABLE. 449 never before been so completely disciplined for war, and navies never before so formidable. The loss of life and treasure in the event of war under these circumstances is something fearful to contemplate, and may well make states- men, parliaments, and monarchs hesitate to be the first to draw the sword. And yet war will come, fearful, terrible, nation-de- stroying war. may not come from present complica- It tions, the fencing of the nations may go on for some time to come, but the nations are surely drifting towards a crisis in theiraffairs, the end of which will be the dreadful shock of battle, of devastating war, which, when it is over, will doubtless leave the political map of the world very ma- terially changed. It is with no feeling of pleasure that we contemplate such a prospect. We would rather think of men beating their swords into plow-shares and their spears into pruning hooks and the nations learning war no more than to think of them pursuing an opposite course; but one cannot close his eyes to the trend of events, to the increased rapacity of nations as manifested in their "earth hunger," in commercial jealousies, and the desire for supremacy. Nor can we ignore what God has revealed upon this head. In that great revela- tion which the Lord gave through the Prophet Joseph Smith concerning the great war of the Rebellion, he also spoke of other wars which should involve other nations, and of other calamities which should bring distress upon mankind. The language is: And the Southern States shall call upon other nations, even the nation of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall call also upon other nations, in order to defend themselves against other nations, and thus war shall be poured out upon all nations, * * * and thus with the sword and by bloodshed, the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with fa- mine, and plague, and earthquakes, and the fierce and vivid lightning, also, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath and indignation and chastening hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption decreed, hath made a full end of all nations. With such a prediction as this standing in a prophecy so much of which has been fulfilled, and so remarkably fulfilled, one cannot afford to ignore the part that still remains to be 35 fulfilled, nor can he withhold belief that this part, too, will yet become an accomplished fact —war will desolate and destroy the nations as they now exist. THE HAND OF GOD IN THE AFFAIRS OF NATIONS. Who does not perceive the hand of God in the affairs of nations, has surely not given his attention to the subject. There must be some meaning in their existence, and in the mighty procession formed by their rise and fall. Each, doubtless, performs some mission; just what, may not always be clear to our imperfect vision, or discernible in the very limited span of time that human eyes have watched the un- folding of God's purposes. But one feels aware of the gen- eral truth of it as our astronomers feel aware that there is a movement among what custom has taught us to call the "fixed stars." It is in vain that skeptics to the theory of movement among the said stars point to the fact that so far as may be discerned Pleiades and Orion and Arcturus occupy the same place in our universe as they did when old Job watched and admired them. The answer to the skeptic in that case is that so immense are the orbits in which they move, so great their distances and so brief the time that man has known and watched them, to ascertain if they move or not, that, as yet, movement is imperceptible; but the astronomer's faith in the fact of their movement remains unshaken by the skeptic's un- belief. So with him who believes that a divine Providence watches over the affairs of nations, guides their destiny and appoints to each its mission. He may not be able always to point out to a mocking skepticism just what divine purpose this or that nation has accomplished, but he remembers that in the mighty purpose that God is working out in the uni- verse, the life of a nation constitutes but a minute step, and is no more and accomplishes no more, perhaps, in its relation to the whole purpose of God than a single touch of an artist's brush in the production of a landscape. As one un- skilled in art and unable to see the landscape, yet seeing that one stroke cannot tell just the importance of it, or the rela- EDITOR'S TABLE. 451 tion it will bear to the whole picture, so one seeing but an infinitely small part of God's great purpose, and that small part as through a glass darkly— small wonder if he can not determine the meaning for the existence of this nation, tellwhat it has accomplished, as part of the purpose of the Deity, or say why it passes away; but that its existence was brought about by divine ordination; that it accomplished something to bring about God's purposes, before passing away, he has every reason for believing. THE CASE OF SPAIN. The present position of Spain in her relations to America illustrates the general truth asserted in the foregoing: It is the chief glory of Spain that under her auspices and patronage the western world was discovered. About that time she ranked among the first powers of Europe, and had a career open to her the like of which had been given to no other nation on earth. By right of discovery and after- wards by right of occupancy Spain had claims upon the greater part of the new world. There is lying before us a map showing the possessions of Spain in the Americas in — 1795 a little more than one hundred years ago. According to that map Spain was in possession of nearly all of South America, Central America, Florida, all the West Indies, a narrow strip along the north of the Gulf of Mexico, all of Mexico, and all that part of the United States lying west of the Mississippi, and as far north as the Canada boundary line. An empire which in extent and resources was beyond the wildest dreams of ancient conquerors; and to a Christian power disposed to reign in righteousness and deal justly, such a chance to bless mankind and win honest glory as never be- fore was accorded to any earthly kingdom. Yet how miserably has Spain failed! Out of all that mighty domain which one little century ago she ruled as sole mistress, she retains her hold, and that precariously, upon but one little war-swept island, Cuba! Piece by piece her American possessions have been wrenched away from her. — Her own children have resented her authority; and driven its representatatives from the land they ruled in her name. Is it not marvelous? So amply rewarded for becoming the patron of God's appointed servant to discover the new world, now so completely stripped of all that was given her — for what? Read it in the following page from Draper. The priests of Spain denied to the people they found in America Adamic de- scent, and now Draper The lust for gold was only too ready to find its justification in the ob- vious conclusion; and the Spaniards, with appalling atrocity, proceeded to act toward these unfortunates as though they did not belong to the human race. Already their lands and goods had been taken from them by apostolic authority. Their persons were next seized, under the text that the heathen are given as an inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for a pos- session. It was one unspeakable outrage, one unutterable ruin, without dis- crimination of age or sex. Those who died not under the lash in a tropical sun died in the darkness of the mine. From sequestered sand-banks, where the red flamingo fishes in the grey of the morning; from fever-stricken man- grove thickets, and the gloom of impenetrable forests; from hiding-places in the clefts of rocks,and the solitude of invisible caves; from the eternal snows of the Andes, where there was no witness but the all-seeing sun, there went up to God a cry of human despair. By millions upon millions, whole races and nations were remorelessly off cut. The Bishop of Chiapa affirms that more than fifteen millions were exterminated in his time! From Mexico and Peru a civilization that might have instructed Europe was crushed out. Is it for nothing that Spain has been made a hideous skeleton among living nations, a warning spectacle to the world? Had not her pun- ishment overtaken her, men would have surely said, 'There is no retribution, ' there is no God!" It has been her evil destiny to ruin two civilizations, Oriental and Occidental, and to be ruined thereby herself. With circum- stances of dreadful barbarity she expelled the Moors, who had become children of her soil by as long a residence as the Normans have had in England from William the Conqueror to our time. In America she destroyed races more civilized than herself. Expulsion and emigration have de- prived her of her best blood, her great cities have sunk into insignificance, and towns that once had more than a million of inhabitants can now only show a few scanty thousands. Fight on, Gomez and other Cuban patriots, wrench from Spain the last province she holds in the western hemisphere, for she by her cruelty and injustice has forfeited her right to — every foot of land in the new world. Fight on offended Justice overlooks the field and your sharp swords are but her instru- ments. If for some unknown purpose or lack of worthiness EDITOR'S TABLE. 455 in you, victory shall not perch immediately upon your ban- ners, our faith that other hands will finish your work, it is and at the last Spain shall own no stock or stone in all the new world which she has filled with remembrances of her un- worthiness to rule. And Spain, like many another nation be- fore her, shall stand a witness to the great truth that God rules among the nations and punishes them for their injustice. AMERICA'S POLICY OF ANNEXATION. A propos the article of Professor Benj. Cluff, Jr., president of the Brigham Young College, Provo, in this number of the Era, on the subject of the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, and the discussion on that subject still going on in the Am- erican congress and throughout the country, there is, in a late number of the Forum, an able argument against annex- ation, from the pen of Rt. Hon. James Bryce, author of "The American Commonwealth" under the caption, "The Policy of Annexation for America." The article is worthy of consider- ation on account of the high standing of Mr. Bryce, both as an author and a statesman. The gentleman urges a number of reasons why our "policy of annexation" should be a policy of no annexation whatever. He considers the question both as to the probability of our annexing Hawaii, and the possi- bility of annexing Cuba. He calls our attention to the ad- vantage we now possess in our continuous land territory (with the exception of Alaska); the impossibility of success- ful invasion of our country,owing to that fact, coupled with our enormous size and internal measures of defense; the weakness that would come from the possession of insular territories, subject as they would be to being cut off by a strong naval enemy; the necessity in which we would be in- volved of maintaining an extensive and expensive navy if a policy of annexation be resolved upon. He also alleges that the Hawaiian Islands are not worth incurring the dangers and expense of what he calls this new policy of annexation; and urges that the islands in question are not suitable for oc- cupancy by the Anglo-American race. Then, considering — the population of Hawaii and Cuba together, with reference to their fitness for statehood,he concludes that while Cuba has numbers sufficient to make a respectable state, the Hawaiian islands have not; *neither are inhabited, he contends, by races capable of self government, and hence rules out the feasi- bility of statehood; concludes that a territorial government involves the same disabilities as statehood; and that we lack a colonial department in our government, and also a corps of men trained in colonial matters. Answering the argument sometimes urged in the support of the policy of annexation that the United States has a mission to spread democratic principles, he eloquently concludes both his argument and his article with these words: The United States has already a great and splendid mission in building up between the oceans a free, happy, and prosperous nation of two hundred millions of people. And one of the noblest parts of her mission in the world has been to show to the older peoples and states an example of absten- tion from the quarrels and wars and conquests that make up so large and so lamentable a part of the annals of Europe. Her remote position and her immense power have, as I have said, delivered her from that burden of military and naval armaments which press with crushing weight upon the peoples of Europe. It would be, for her, a descent from what may be called the pedestal of wise and pacific detachment, on which she now stands, were she to yield to that earth-hunger which has been raging among the European states, and to imitate the aggresive methods which some of them have pursued. The policy of creating great armaments and of annexing territories beyond the sea would be, if a stranger may venture to say so, an — un-American policy, and a complete departure from the maxims approved — by long experience of the illustrous founders of the republic. * * * * It must be admitted that much of his argument is force- ful; but when Mr. Bryce urges that the proposed annexation of the Hawaiian islands is an un-American policy he is met *His table of statistics of the population of the Hawaiian group ought to be of great interest to many people in Utah who have lived on the is- lands: Population. Number. Population. Number Hawaiian (pure and mixed) 39,504 American 3,080 Japanese 25,407 British 2,250 Chinese 21,616 Germans 1.432 Portuguese 15.291 That is to say, out of a total population of (in round numbers) 109,000, — — only 6,700 or about one-sixteenth belong to the three educated European stocks which are capable of working self-governing democratic institutions. EDITOR'S TABLE. 455 squarely by the fact that our government did annex Louisiana, Texas, a great part of Mexico, and Alaska. And while it is true that Louisiana, Texas, and the part of Mexico we ob- tained were contiguous territory, Alaska was not, and is even further removed and less accessible than Hawaii. As to diffi- culties that may arise in the event of annexation, many of them — with all due respect to the acumen of Mr. Bryce on — such questions will be found imaginary rather than real. The changes that are taking place on both the American and Asiatic Pacific coast — the rapid rise of Japan to the dignity of one of the first powers of the earth, the appearance of Russia on her Pacific coast, with railroad connection with St. Petersburg, the constantly increasing importance of Pacific commerce, the prospective establishment of Pacific cables, most assuredly via Hawaii, together with our present de- fenseless eastern coast — already cry aloud for an increase of our navy; and we shall find Hawaii, in the rapidly changing conditions of the Pacific, a source of strength rather than weakness, a help to the influence of our nation in the Pacific rather than a hindrance; and we have confidence to believe that once under the influence of American institutions the mixed population of those islands would soon learn the necessary lessons of self-government. It will certainly be of interest to our readers at this point to read the views of the Prophet Joseph Smith on America's policy of annexation; and we commend to their attention the broad and liberal spirit breathed by the utterances of the — Prophet a spirit which invites all men to become brothers in very deed. We quote from his "Views on the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States:" As to the contiguous territories to the United States, wisdom would direct no tangling alliance. Oregon belongs to this government honorably; and when we have the red man's consent, let the union spread from the east to the west sea; and if Texas petitions congress to be adopted among the the sons of liberty, give her the right hand of fellowship, and refuse not same friendly grip to Canada and Mexico. And when the right arm of free- men is stretched out in the character of a navy for the protection of rights, commerce, and honor, let the iron eyes of power watch from Maine to Mexico, and from California to Columbia. Thus may union be strength- to broad- ened, and foreign speculation prevented from opposing broadside side.* *Mill. Star, Vol. XXII: p. 762.