NECESSARY AND NATURAL TERRITORIAL

EXPANSION.

BY HON. WILLIAM V. ALLEN,

United STATES SENATOR FROM NEBRASKA.

No attempt will be made by me to discuss the question of national expansion at any length. I will confine myself to referring to that subject in general language, but before I conclude I shall attempt to distinguish between necessary and natural territorial expansion and what may be called Napoleonic. imperialism.

I shall vote to ratify the treaty of peace with Spain, and in doing so I must not be regarded as representing the views of anyone but those of my constituents. and myself. I have necessarily been absent from the Chamber for some days and I have not had the full benefit of all the speeches that have been made during that time, but I have read sufficiently on the subject to satisfy my mind as to what course I should pursue. I think, however, that I ought now to set at rest, as far as I am capable of doing so, a suggestion of the Sunday morning Washington Times, in which it is said:

If Senator Allen makes good his promise to enlighten the Senate and the country as to the motives that control Senator Gorman in committing his party in the Senate to a cause directly opposite to that recommended by William J. Bryan, * * and if all other things happen that it was said yesterday would happen, then the three hours of the Senate's session preceding the vote on the peace treaty will indeed be dramatic and exciting.

If there is anything I dislike, it is to be patted on the back and coddled and nursed like an infant by a

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newspaper. I have the greatest respect for that kind of journalism that is cast on a high plane and takes a lofty view of public questions, but I have not the slightest regard for that kind that would deal with the prejudices of men or that would appeal to any real or supposed vanity that I might possess to influence my conduct regarding a public question. The statement of that paper is gratuitous. It is wholly inexcusable, for I have at no time "promised to enlighten the Senate and the country as to the motives that control the action of Senator Gorman." Nor do I know what his motives are or what he intends doing, nor am I concerned in knowing.

I am not the keeper of the conscience or of the opinions of Colonel Bryan. I know no more of his wishes or opinions than I gather from his public utterances, a means of information open to all. I do not presume to represent him here or elsewhere and assertions frequently made that I am doing so are utterly unfounded, sinister, and insincere. I am proud to admit that I at least regard myself as the personal, as I trust I am also his political, friend, and I may be permitted to say, in this presence, without intending to reflect in the slightest degree on any other gentleman in public life, that I regard him as easily the superior in point of knowledge and capacity for public duty of any living American statesman, and I do this not because I am his debtor for political or other favors, as he is not my debtor. Whatever may betide him, I am clearly of the opinion that the impartial historian who may write in the calm of another age will rank him with Webster and Clay and that he will be regarded by future generations as one of the greatest statesmen our country has produced. I look upon him as a comet that has appeared in the political heavens, as those great statesmen appeared, that is