"Evolution in Self-Government"

Hon. Leslie M. Shaw, Secretary of the United States Treasury, addressed a large audience in the Living Room of the Union yesterday afternoon on "Evolution in Self-Government."

Those of us who used to study only the facts of history, Secretary Shaw said, to the neglect of the logic of history have missed the most important as well as the most interesting portion The number of battles in a given war, their dates and the officers commanding are non-essential, but the causes and the unexpected results of the war are of prime interest. No man planned the great republic as it is today, nor even anticipated the present condition of the states. Nothing was ever further from the present homogeneous republic than the thirteen original colonies, differing in political conceptions, with religious faiths as divergent as Chrisianity admits, scattered along two thousand miles of seacoast, with rivalries and animosities unrestrained.

In this development of homogeneity each step has been in sequence to what has preceded. The first desire for union was the result of fear of the mother country. Later, came the War of the Rebellion, the greatest war the world has ever seen, and the result was a Union, welded in the white heat of civil combat. This was not planned, it was evolved. The policy of national liberality to those who have built railroads and factories, was of vast importance to the further development of the Union. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have been characterized by contests for territory, but the twentieth century will be characterized by contests for markets, none the less severe because they are bloodless.

Mr. Shaw emphasized at length the huge size of our national wealth, and the commanding position among the nations of the world which is ours to honor and protect. Our opportunities are unsurpassed to secure a fair portion of the commerce of South America and South Africa. The Isthmian Canal will be an important factor in securing our full share. But we must have a merchant marine to supplement the navy of which we are justly proud.

After all we have only just begun to do things as a nation. We can rely on that distinctive characteristic of the American people, judicial will to work out justly and successfully the problems of the present and of the future. The Philippine Islands, which are ours; Hawai, which is ours; the Panama Canal, which will be ours; plus a merchant marine, which we must have, will enable us to send our matchless resources of farm and factory into every clime and into every port.