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take over seven or eight minutes. I will ask Senators kindly not to interrupt me.

Mr. President, I would rather not have the Sutherland amendment, and I opposed it with all my strength. It is now a part of the resolution; and the question with me is, Shall I vote for this resolution or against it with this amendment in it? I have reached the conclusion to support the resolution with the amendment. In the several arguments that I have addressed to the Senate upon the Sutherland amendment, I stated that I had not arrived at any conclusion as to whether I would support the resolution with the amendment incorporated in it. I also took good care to state that I objected to the amendment principally upon the ground that I did not consider it necessary, believing, as I still do, that Federal laws could be enacted by Congress to prevent violence, intimidation, or corruption at the polls without the Sutherland amendment as well as they could with it.

I am so strongly in favor of the election of Senators by the people that I can not possibly turn the proposition down because it contains a provision that might probably give rise to trouble in the future. We will be prepared to meet the trouble if it should ever come. Public opinion would not tolerate the passage of any measure similar to the force bill. I think that is a dead issue, buried beyond the chance of political resurrection. Nor can I, by my own vote, delay this great question until the next Congress. The vote may delay it, but I shall not and can not participate in that plan. I want to expedite it with all my might and strength. I have fought for this proposition for the greater part of my public career, and believe in it with all my heart. I consider that it will be the greatest political reform accomplished by the present generation.

The proposition that the people are incapable of selecting Senators seems to me too absurd for consideration. I have not a lingering fear of the incapacity of the people in this regard.

I would rather trust the people than trust the Legislature. Intelligence rules the day. If the people select an incompetent representative, then it is the people's fault, and it is not for us to criticise them.

The people want this change and they will have it. It is not the clamor of the mob. It is not the impulse of agitation. It is the deliberate and matured thought of the American people that the change shall come. Between the people and the Legislature, I prefer the people, and I would not want to hold my place here for a moment if I thought the popular sentiment of my State was against me. Legislatures are one thing, the people are another. Legislatures are sometimes controlled by political managers, and the people at this hour are in the humor of breaking the bonds of political despotism. The day of tyranny is over in this Republic. The rising generation is no longer being driven to the polls like cattle to the shambles, but is marching in unbroken phalanx with free ballots and ballots that are not for sale. From the ranks of labor and from our colleges and universities they come. They understand this question and demand that it shall be submitted to the Legislatures of the States. They will not tolerate the suggestion that has been advanced here, that they are too ignorant to decide it.

From whence comes this suggestion that the people can not perform the function of selecting Senators? I have hardly ever heard of it outside of this Senate Chamber. I am satisfied that this body contains a membership better equipped in point of character and ability to perform the important duties assigned to them than any other parliamentary assemblage in the world. But, on the other hand, I do not believe we will deteriorate if the people are allowed to make the selection.

I recognize the fact that this is a representative Government, but great changes have taken place since the adoption of the Constitution, and the greatest of all changes apparent now on the surface to the casual observer is that there should

be a closer relationship between the people and their public

servants.

If the people have not the intelligence or the capacity to select their representatives, then we had better submit a constitutional amendment to change our form of government from a republic to a monarchy. If the people must have political slave-masters, let us invest them with royal power and hereditary prerogative. If the people are wanting in the qualifications requisite to select Senators, then, in my judgment, the Republic is a failure. Who says that they can not be trusted? We say so. Who has authorized us to say so? We are not the masters. We are the servants of the people, and if the States demand that this question should be submitted to them, in my judgment we had better no longer trifle with their appeal.

I am not influenced by passion or feeling, but my mind has kept pace, solemnly kept pace, with this mighty problem, and we can not prevent its consummation. We may impede it, we may delay it, we may throw obstacles in its path, we may obstruct it, but the day of reckoning and accountability will come.

I shall, therefore, support this resolution for two reasons: First, because I believe in it; and, second, because I know that the people want it. Either reason would be sufficient for me. Some Senator, speaking in opposition to this resolution and substantially repeating what another great Senator years ago had said who spoke in the same vein, observed that if we pass it we will wreck the Constitution and founder the ship of state.

Mr. President, the Constitution is subject to amendment. Fifteen amendments have been made to it, and I venture to say that no amendment that ever will be made to it will impair the spirit of the instrument. So far as the ship of state is concerned, it will weather the gale that has practically spent itself in this Chamber. It may be necessary to change pilots, it may be necessary to jettison a part of the cargo, the shores may be

strewn with stranded hulks, but armed and equipped with the manhood and the courage and the honor of the Nation, Mr. President, the ship of state is safe.

RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, JAPAN AND MEXICO.

In this address, delivered in the Senate April 13, 1911, Senator Rayner opposed the idea that the Monroe Doctrine obligated this Government to collect a claim of an American citizen against a foreign nation either for redress or indemnity.

It is proper for me to state at the beginning of the remarks that I shall submit to the Senate upon the subject indicated in the resolution, that it is not my purpose in any way to criticise the President in reference to the position that he has taken in connection with the troubles in Mexico. I am satisfied that whatever he does will not only be necessary and proper to be done, but will, in his opinion, be for the best interests of the country. I have arisen simply for the purpose of emphasizing what ought to be familiar to everyone who is acquainted with the institutions of the land, and that is that the doctrine known as the Monroe doctrine is not involved in the Mexican situation in any way whatever. A great many persons of intelligence, and a number of journals ably edited, are falling into the error or supposing that, if there should be any disagreement between the United States and Mexico-which we all hope and believe there will not be-that the Monroe doctrine will form the basis of the controversy. I make the assertion that this is not true in any aspect of the case. I do not suppose that there is any subject that has been discussed before Congress to a greater extent than the subject that is designated as “the Monroe doctrine," and I have upon a number of occasions, both in the House and in the Senate, contributed to the literature upon the question, so that I really feel that I ought not to

inflict even upon an attentive and patient body any further comments or observations in connection therewith. What I will say, if it serves no other purpose, will at least relieve the public mind of a false impression that is rapidly gaining ground, that whenever there is any controversy between the United States and any other country upon the American continent, the Monroe doctrine immediately and mysteriously springs into existence and calls for our assertion and vindication of the principles that it enunciates.

One proposition I desire to make perfectly plain and that is that we must not confuse or commingle in any degree the Monroe doctrine with the Roosevelt doctrine. During the reign of ex-President Roosevelt a lot of miscellaneous doctrines were launched upon the tide of time that were all called "The Monroe doctrine," but which, in point of fact, had no possible connection with it and were not related to it in any manner whatever.

The Roosevelt doctrine, properly defined, is the doctrine of the gentleman with the shillalah at Donnybrook Fair, "Whenever you see a head, hit it." The ex-President once upon a time composed a brief treatise upon the Monroe doctrine. This is not the work in which he referred to the men who helped to frame that governmental principle as "shifty doctrinaires, mediocre minds, and imbeciles." The treatise that I refer to is another publication, and it is extremely difficult to procure a copy of it. They seem to have all disappeared, either by the public taking them or owing to the fact that the President himself bought them all up, and thus withdrew them from public inspection. It is a treatise that the ex-President need not be ashamed of in any way, because he was writing about a subject that he knew all about, which was not always the case with reference to numerous other subjects to which he has upon a great many occasions devoted his great talents and ability. A few years ago, and long after this book was written Mr. Roose

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