The speech of Mr. Teller in the American Senate on
the annexation of Hawaii, reported in the Congressional Record of June 25th, is worthy of notice by all who are interested in America's colonial future. Mr. Teller, who defended the President from the charge of invading Hawaii, declared that he was not one of those who lay awake at night or worried about what would be the conduct of the American people. He had an abiding faith in the good sense of the great masses of his countrymen, and if it became necessary for them to change their policy and, in the interests of the American people or of humanity, to do what they had heretofore declined to do, he was convinced they would be found solving that question in the right direction. Every time when new territory had been acquired, from the date of the admission of Louisiana in 1811, the same objections had been raised, the same gloomy prophecies uttered, but they had invariably been triumphantly disproved in the sequel. As regards Cuba Mr. Teller declared that it could support a population of twenty millions under "such a Government as we shall give them, or a Government such as they shall establish and we shall assist them in maintaining." He ridiculed as a -confession of incompetence the idea of "trading off" the Philippines to another Power, and declared that if they failed in the task of managing colonies, it would be the first time that the Anglo-Saxon race had failed in grappling with the great problem. The speech, while most significant as an indication of the desire for expansion now spreading like a wave through the States, was wholesomely free from " spread- eagleis m."
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