The Policy of Grab

The Policy of Grab

One of the most striking features of the present expansion movement is its sectional character - sectional in the sense that its advocates are for the most part Northern and Western men. Southern men, no doubt, contributed to the movement favoring war with Spain for the release of Cuba, and volunteers were forthcoming in great numbers for that war from the South. But they were not given opportunity to distinguish themselves and were mustered out. The important offices, military and civil, were filled almost exclusively with political favorites from the North. General Wheeler, it is true, was at Santiago, but he is the exception that proves the rule. General Lee was kept from the scene of action til the war was over and was then given a subordinate position in Cuba. Southern officers and soldiers have not throughout been given an opportunity to acquire military experience, or to show they possess the martial qualities they exhibited in 1861-5. In the navy they had, as officers, a better chance and improved it. Schley and Hobson won the chief honors of the naval operations in the Atlantic. There has not been wanting, however, a disposition at Washington and elsewhere to deprive these men of their well merited distinction by perversion of indisputable facts or envious ridicule.
There has been no complaint on account of this unequal treatment, though it is but fair that the distribution of the benefits of the Government should be coextensive with the imposition of taxes. Employment and salaries might well have been given to southern men in a larger way, in order that wealth and culture, so far as these result from Government employments, may bless every section of the land alike. In view of the monopoly of commissions, commissionerships and offices of all sorts held by Northern and Western men under the present administration, it is no wonder that the affairs they have in charge tend to become to the Southern people far-off matters in which they take no interest. It may be that a Republican Administration considers the Democratic South rightly excluded from participation in Federal enterprises. No doubt clamorous office-seekers from Ohio hold this opinion. But it is a narrow view, unbecoming in the occupant of the White House, who should try to be President of the whole Union. It has been suggested in some quarters that the imperial policy begins at Mason and Dixon's line, and that the South is to be considered the first of the jingo aquisitions. But this can hardly be true, in view of the unwavering loyalty of the Southern States since 1865 and the unfeigned eagerness of Southern politicians to enter the Federal service.
It is a curious that it is in Massachusetts and the South that the apathy in regard to expansion is most marked. Conservatism manifests itself sporadically elsewhere also, but it has its stronghold, it appears, in these widely separated areas. Opposition to to expansion appears in various universities of the West and Northwest, but in these places it is chiefly the professor who speaks, the masses being bellicose, or willingly led by jingo politicians who have axes to grind. Only in Massachusetts and the South does conservatism seem to control the majority of the people. In these regions the Constitution and American traditions are taken seriously. The fathers and their politcy are studied and honored. Elsewhere the old ideas are deemed obsolete and "provincial." Mr. McKinley and Mark Hanna teach a new gospel or policy, before which the older doctrine must give way - a money-getting policy which is summed up in that homely old Anglo-Saxon word, grab. The ultra protective tariff, the formation of protected trusts, the war of "humanity" on Spain, the "benevolent assimilation" of the Philippines and the degradation of the civil service, all have this one idea and object in common - grab.

uncredited

The Goldsboro Headlight

August 17, 1899

Newspaper Article

http://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn91068337/1899-08-17/ed-1/seq-2/