Conclusion

          It will still be many years before the work of the Anti-Imperialist League can be finally evaluated and the organization and its sponsors assigned with certainty their proper place in American history.  This is not because the documents upon which to base a study of the organization are as yet unavailable, for the author has had unrestricted access to the official records of the League and to the private papers of the small group of men who carried on most of its activities and dominated its policy.  The letters and memoirs of many of the opponents of the organization are also available. The material which has been used, therefore, will be added to but slightly in the future. A finally accurate and comprehensive view of such a movement, however, can only be obtained through the perspective of time, and the events of 1898 and the subsequent years are as yet too near to make that perspective accurate.  Furthermore, although the active existence of the League seems to have ceased, the questions with which it was fundamentally concerned have not yet been finally answered by the people of the United States.  Its influence during the momentous period when America turned from isolation to empire cannot be fully assessed until it is known whether the American nation is embarked for an indefinite period upon a course which involves the political control of alien people and territories; and, if such a course is to be followed, until the relations between the United States and its dependencies have been more fully developed.  Nevertheless most of the facts about the career of the Anti‑Imperialist League, and many conclusions concerning it may already be stated with confidence, and it has been the purpose of this dissertation to set forth those facts and to make clear the conclusions justified by them.

          The Anti-Imperialist League grew out of a public meeting held at Faneuil Hall, Boston, on June 15, 1898, called to oppose the ratification of the treaty of peace with Spain because this treaty provided for the cession of the Philippine Islands to theUnited States, and contained no agreement that the Island should subsequently become independent. The sponsors of the gathering were under a deep conviction that the acquisition and retention of such territory by the United States was dangerously wrong. They felt that such a course of action would give the conflict with Spain the aspect of a mercenary war of conquest; that it would violate the fundamental principles of American democracy and in the end lead to the destruction of the institutions of liberty in the United States; and, although primarily concerned with the welfare of their own country, they were also certain that American rule in the Philippines could never bring satisfaction and happiness to the Filipinos.

          Wholly convinced of the soundness of these views, the original Boston group headed by George S. Boutwell felt it to be their inescapable duty as citizens to do everything in their power to save their country from a course of action at once so immoral and so dangerous. To this purpose these Massachusetts .patriots dedicated their efforts, and it was to the cause called anti-imperialism, which grew out of their opposition to the extra-continental expansion of the United States, that the original Anti-Imperialist League and the subsidiary leagues which sprang from it were to serve for more than twenty years.  The “Imperialism,” therefore, to which the Anti‑Imperialist League and its members were opposed, was the forcible extension and exercise of political control by the United States over extra-continental territory.  Originating in an effort to block the adoption of an “imperialistic” policy in the Philippine Island's, the League throughout its history devoted most of its attention to the relations of the United States with the Philippines. It was, however, opposed to all “imperialism” as a matter of principle, and from time to time sought to combat the extension or limit the exercise of American political control in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti, Santo Domingo, and other places.

          The Anti-Imperialist League was organized as a non-partisan organization, in the sense in which President Lowell uses that term.  That is, its object was “to carry into effect...one project or line of policy, but not to obtain control of the general government or to act as an independent political group,”(1) in Congress.  Its leaders, and the rank and file of its members included members from all parties, and throughout its career it never became the property of any of the regular parties. The League was, however, a political organization and sought to procure definite political action by the American government. Furthermore, after 1904, it officially supported Democratic presidential and congressional candidates. It did so, however, solely because the Democrats made more favorable promises concerning the Philippines than did the Republicans, and it never had any organic and permanent connection with any political party.

          From the standpoint of the League, however, its relations with the Democrats and the results of that association were not altogether satisfactory.  Time and again the officers of the League were very lukewarm towards the Democratic candidates which the organization supported.  The League supported Bryan because McKinley and Roosevelt were each regarded as the embodiment of imperialism, and because there was no alternative but Bryan.  Later it supported Wilson because the Republican Party was never willing to promise to free the Philippines.  Charles Francis Adams, for instance, never had much faith in Bryan. To him, the man was simply, “talky, talky, talky,” because despite the fact that “anti-imperialism” was advanced as the “paramount issue” in 1900, the campaign plainly showed to Mr. Adams that it was not made the real issue, and that Bryan was using anti-imperialism chiefly to advance his candidacy and his “free silver” doctrines.  Bryan's opportunism was also suspected because he had induced Democratic Senators to vote for the ratification of the Treaty of Paris.

          As to President Wilson, leading anti-imperialists felt that while he was willing to make sweeping promises of independence for the Philippines, neither he nor his party, possessed the will to actually grant independence to the Philippines.  The anti-imperialists could not forget that the Clark Amendment was defeated by Democratic votes. And while in his last massage to Congress Wilson recommended immediate independence, and the Democratic platform of 1920 carried a similar declaration, yet both message and platform came at a time when it was obvious to all that the Democrats had lost the power to put either into effect.

          On the other hand, the Jones Law, which give a promise of ultimate independence and extended immediately and radically self-government in the Philippines was a Democratic measure.  Between 1913 and 1921 the government of the Islands was, in fact, virtually turned over to the Filipinos. Furthermore, between 1898 and 1913 the Democrats made common cause with the Anti-Imperialist League in attacking both the principles and the practices of “imperialism.”  On the whole, it seems probable that the anti-imperialists were wise in allying themselves with the Democratic Party.  They sought to accomplish definite political ends, and in America such ends can hardly be attained except through one of the two great parties. The extent to which the Anti-Imperialist League and the anti-imperialist movement influenced the Philippine policy of the Democratic Party is practically impossible to estimate with accuracy, as is the value of the political assistance which the League was able to bring to the party.

          The whole record of the relations between the League and the Democrats illustrate the difference in character between a merely political organization such as the League and a political party, and the weakness of the former in dealing with the latter.  To the League, anti-imperialism was everything, its sole object for existence.  To the Democratic Party, anti-imperialism, and more particularly, Philippine policy, was merely one of many issues, to be treated as the general interests of the party demanded, perhaps even to be used simply as a means to party victory. For this reason, and also because when in power the party was responsible for its actions, the party never could, or at least never did, apply in full the principles which it held in theory and in which it may have sincerely believed.  The League could not compel the party wholly to accept its views or to apply them when opportunity came, because it never really converted the American people to them, and it had no other means of coercion than public opinion.

           At no time since the ratification of the Treaty of Paris in 1899 was Philippine independence, and the immediate goal of the Anti-Imperialist League, so near as in 1916.  Had the Clark Amendment, adopted by the Senate, not been defeated in the House of Representatives by the votes of thirty Democrats, the hopes of the anti‑imperialists would have been realized.

          Today, independence seems to be as far from the reach of the Filipinos as it was in 1898.  Senator Clark was right when he said in 1916 that the psychological moment had arrived and were it allowed to pass it would take many, many years for it to return. Proportionate with the progress of the Philippines is also the progress that the world has made.  Standards have advanced, the interests of the United States, its power, prestige, and needs have grown. The Philippine Islands today are almost inextricably linked with this country's affairs in the Far Fast.  The history of colonial expansion reveals no single instance in which the sovereign state has willingly given freedom to a subject people after the territory of that people has grown necessary to the interests of the more powerful state.  So it still remains today for the United States will follow the trails of its predecessors among colonial powers, or whether it will heed the counsel of the anti-imperialists and make the progressive experiment of freeing its subject territory before pressure from within the United States itself, from the Philippines, or from without, forces it to do so.

          As in the case of its major objective, Philippine independence, so in other spheres the Anti-Imperialist League seems to have ended its active career without having succeeded in turning the United States from a policy of “imperialism.”  It does not follow, however, that the work of the League was in vain. It performed definite services both for the United States and the Philippines. At one of the turning points of American history it presented to the American people forcibly, persistently, disinterestedly and on a national scale the unpopular side of a great public question. It forced that public debate which is believed to be the life of free government.  To paraphrase a famous expression, although it could not change America's course it could trouble the mind of the Republic. More than any other single force, the Anti‑Imperialist League made the duty of the United States to the Philippines a burning moral issue.  It helped to put the Philippine question on a moral plane from which it can never be entirely removed. Furthermore, by exposing inevitable lapses from high standards of conduct in the subjugation and administration of the Islands, it probably made the American government more alert to safeguard the rights of the Filipino people, and thus contributed to the establishment in the Philippines of a government the character of which Americans and Filipinos may well be proud of.

          The anti-imperialists also performed a most important service to both the United States and the Philippines by stimulating American interest in the Islands and increasing American knowledge about them.  Millions of Americans became interested in the Philippines chiefly because of the fight which the anti-imperialists made upon the Philippine issue and the information which they disseminated about the Islands.  Whether these persons sympathized with the League or with the Filipinos is, perhaps, of relatively minor importance.  One of the outstanding difficulties faced by a democracy which attempts to govern justly a distant dependency is the creation at home of an informed public opinion concerning the affairs of the territory. The Anti-Imperialist League questionably assisted in solving this problem during the early years of American sovereignty in the Philippines. It educated America about the Philippines at the time when the Filipino people were almost unknown in the United States, and when their representatives were not allowed to be heard there. When the Islands were first given official representatives in Congress the League helped them to obtain a hearing from the American people.  They paved the way for them.  These activities constitute a contribution to the Philippines, and to the United States the value of which is not generally realized in either country.  Perhaps, therefore, the greatest, certainly the most definite service of the Anti-Imperialist League was that it made itself heard and gave to Filipinos their best opportunities to be heard in America at the crises of Philippine-American relations.

          Finally, the record clearly shows that the Anti-Imperialist League was disinterested, unselfish, patriotic.  It did not depend upon power, for neither the League nor its members possessed political power. Its leaders sought neither wealth, office, nor fame.  They sought the interests and the honor of their country.  They placed their faith in an unwavering belief that if the American people could but be made aware of the irrepressible conflict between “imperialism” and the fundamental principles of American democracy their battle would be won.