ISLAND POSSESSIONS OF THE UNITED STATES - 1907 - EDITORS INTRODUCTION - THE insular possessions of the United States, acquired within recent years, bring diverse peoples under the care and protection of the American people, raise new problems in government, at least for the United States, and place America in new relations with the other powers of the world. I t is yet too soon to play the prophet with respect to th se new possessions, but as prophecy ultimately accords with history, the future of these possessions may best ...
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ISLAND POSSESSIONS OF THE UNITED STATES - 1907 - EDITORS INTRODUCTION - THE insular possessions of the United States, acquired within recent years, bring diverse peoples under the care and protection of the American people, raise new problems in government, at least for the United States, and place America in new relations with the other powers of the world. I t is yet too soon to play the prophet with respect to th se new possessions, but as prophecy ultimately accords with history, the future of these possessions may best be read in their history before their acquisition by the United States and in the trend of affairs since they became American soil. The larger part of the present volume is a history of these possessions as foreign soil, --of independent governments, as in Hawaii of dependencies, in Porto Rico and the Philippines. The social, industrial and political problems which these new possessions raise must be approached historically having acquired these possessions, America, in attempting to introduce the principles of republican institutions among them cannot safely break with the past customs long established, traditions fixed long before historic times, perhaps, cannot wisely be ignored. The relations long existing between the native peoples and the Spanish government must be thoroughly understood as part of that knowledge necessary for the pacific and prosperous government of the islands. In other words, the complex and highly systematized political institutions of the people of the United States cannot instantaneously be v impressed upon the native inhabitants of these new possessions. The history of these insular possessions is a new and a critical chapter in thehistory of the United States. Until the time of the sudden acquisition of these possessions, the civic problenls of America were strictly continental the United States was a compact area of states and territories, each accessible and within well-known historical boundaries. The Spanish-American war suddenly changed the boundaries of the United States and by the very fact of territorial changes transformed America into a L-orld-power with new responsibilities. It would be a mistake to think that the United States until the Spanish-American war was not a world-power. That war defined anew the national responsibilities the extension of the national domain being no more than objective proof of the extension of responsibilities. The present volume narrates the causes of that war and traces them in long line into the past so that the astonishing and apparently sudden changes of international relations and policies are now seen to be less astonishing, when the history of the Philippines, of Porto Rico, of Hawaii and of Cuba is understood. The practical annihilation of distance, by modern inventions, simplifies the problem of government for geographically distant possessions. The Philippines are more easily administrable, in the matter of distance from IVashington, to-day, than was the Oregon country sixty years ago, or Alaska, until within twenty years. Civilization ignores distance the Philippine Islands once in industrial and economic accord with the people of the United States, their people will be, for all purposes of just government, no further from Washington than are the inhabitants of any state now within the Union...
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Add this copy of Island Possessions of the United States to cart. $71.19, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2015 by Arkose Press.
