Philippine archipelago, and also acquaint himself with the politics and conditions of Japan and China, and of the Russians in the far East. This thorough-going, masterful method of approaching the thing in hand enabled Mr. Beveridge to take on the floor of the Senate a place which at once made him a marked man. However he may have violated the traditions of the Senate, which require a new member to be seen but not heard for a year or two, there could be no doubt of the hearty approval of the country at large. Mr. Beveridge's position with respect to our insular territories and their treatment is set forth in several of the addresses included in the present volume. Upon the great domestic problems of the day, Senator Beveridge has always taken a stand that is clear, open, and strongly presented. He is a national man, who does not fear to think in terms of continents rather than of parishes. He sees no possible reason why the Government of the United States should not use its powers for the regulation of things national in their scope which in the nature of the case require uniformity of treatment. He is not afraid of the large modern organization of capital and industry, but he believes in the supremacy of law and in the appropriate regulation of great interstate agents of commerce by the hand of the only government which has coextensive jurisdiction. His views upon these subjects are well worth a careful reading. A statesman must have large views and he must have. a sense of the processes of history. He must distinguish the permanent from the transient; he must rely upon public opinion rather than upon manipulation in politics, INTRODUCTION and there must be no doubt about his sincerity. Those who read these addresses will feel that they have before them the utterances of a man entitled to be placed in the statesman's class. If they have also followed his public career, they will not be in any doubt, but will include him with a few others in a group of our public men not so large as we could wish to have it. These are the men whose public careers have turned upon the constructive tasks and the great opportunities afforded in the period immediately following the war between the United States and Spain. ALBERT SHAW. |