Rhodes' Secret Will and Scholarships, Carnegie Peace Fund and Other Pan-Anglican Influences.

Rhodes’ Secret Will and Scholarships, Carnegie Peace Fund and Other Pan-Anglican Influences.—It is a well-established principle of strategy as practiced by diplomatists to arouse public attention to a supposed danger in order to divert it from a real one. Long antedating our association with England, secret plans were laid by far-seeing Englishmen, and sedulously fostered by their friends in the United States, to reclaim “the lost colonies” as a part of the United Kingdom. While the so-called German propaganda at best was directed toward keeping the United States out of the war, a subtle and deceptive propaganda was being conducted to enmesh us in European entanglements to such extent that retreat from a closer political union with England should become impossible.

In order to arrive at a clear understanding of the sources from which such influences are proceeding, it is necessary to call the reader’s attention to the secret will of Cecil Rhodes. This will is printed on pp.68 and69, Vol.I, ChapterVI, of “The Life of the Rt.Hon.Cecil Rhodes,” by Sir Lewis Mitchell, and reads as follows:

To and for the establishment, promotion and development of a secret society, the true aim of which and object whereof shall be the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom and of colonization of British subjects of all lands where the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labor and enterprise, and especially the occupation by British settlers of the entire continent of Africa, the Holy Land, the Valley of the Euphrates, the Islands of Cyprus and Canadia; the whole of South America and the Islands of the Pacific not heretofore possessed by Great Britain, the whole of the Malay Archipelago, the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire; the inauguration of a system of Colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament, which may tend to weld together the disjointed members of the Empire, and finally the foundation of so great a power as to hereafter render wars impossible and promote the best interests of humanity.

Fourteen years later, in a letter to William T. Stead, dated August19 and September3, 1891, Rhodes wrote as follows:

What an awful thought it is that if we had not lost America, or if even now we could arrange with the present members of the United States Assembly and our own House of Commons, the peace of the world is secured for all eternity. We could hold your federal parliament five years at Washington and five years at London. (“The Pan-Angles,” by Sinclair Kennedy; published by Longmans, Green and Co., London and NewYork.)

Mr. Kennedy writes further on this subject as follows:

Not alone the federation of the Britannic nations, but the federation of the whole Pan-Angle people is the end to be sought. Behind Rhodes’ “greater union in Imperial matters” lay his vision of a common government over all English-speaking people. If we are to preserve our civilization and its benefits to an individual civilizazzzz, we must avoid friction among ourselves and take a united stand before the world. Only a common government will insurethis.

These words have a remarkable resemblance to a declaration made by the late American Ambassador to Great Britain, the Hon.Whitelaw Reid, in a speech delivered in London, July17, 1902, when, speaking of Anglo-American relations, he employed these significant words:

The time does visibly draw near when solidarity of race, if not of government, is to prevail.

The similarity of sentiments expressed by two persons of different race and speaking at an interval of twelve years must strike anyone as deeply significant. We have here an agreement in that respect between Cecil Rhodes, Sinclair Kennedy and Whitelaw Reid. All three want a common government over the Britannic nations and the United States.

It is known that the millions left by Cecil Rhodes for the express object of the “ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire,” have been invested in such a manner as to carry out as secretly as possible the purpose for which they were designed. Men may well stand appalled at the working of the Rhodes poison in the veins of American life.

To its fatal operation may be attributed the rise of societies to promote Anglo-Saxon brotherhood, Pilgrim societies, movements to celebrate the centenary of English and American friendship (farcical as that pretension is), the formation of peace treaties nominally most inclusive, but in reality designed to benefit Great Britain, and the gradual elimination from our public school books of all reference to the part played by England in our history, English designs against this country and savagery against its citizens, as well as all unpleasant diplomatic events between us and England that have been of such frequent recurrence. To this influence may be attributed the movement to ignore the Fourth of July and substitute the Signing of the Magna Charta to be celebrated by American youths as the true origin of our independence, as proposed by Andrew Carnegie in placards which did, and possibly do yet adorn the walls of his free libraries. In the June number of the “North American Review” for1893, Mr.Carnegie employed the following significant words:

Let men say what they will; I say that as surely as the sun in the heavens once shone upon Britain and America united, so surely is it one morning to rise, shine upon and greet again the reunited States—the British-American Union.

Let us recall that it was Lord Bryce, the former British Ambassador to the United States, who advocated:

“The recognition of a common citizenship, securing to the citizen of each, in the country of the other, certain rights not enjoyed by others.”

And that Lord Haldane, in a speech in Canada some years ago, broadly hinted at an ultimate union of the two countries.

We find in “The Pan-Angles” of Mr.Kennedy a map of the world in which Great Britain, Canada, Australia and the United States are represented in a uniform color, to illustrate their solidarity. In the minds of the Pan-Angles the vision of the great Cecil Rhodes, backed by his countless millions, is approaching its realization. Rhodes held that “divine ideals, on which the progress of mankind depended, were for the most part the moving influence, if not the exclusive possession, of the Anglo-Saxon race, of which Great Britain is the head.” (“The Right Hon.Cecil Rhodes,” by Sir Thos.E. Fuller, p.243.)

Rhodes’ published will of July1, 1899, has a broad provision for his American propaganda in paragraph16: “And whereas I also desire to encourage and foster an appreciation of the advantages which I implicitly believe will result from the union of the English-speaking people throughout the world, and to encourage in the students from the United States of North America who will benefit from the American Scholarships to be established at the University of Oxford under my Will, an attachment to the country from which they have sprung,”etc.

The effect of the Rhodes American scholarship scheme was clearly set forth in the “Saturday Evening Post” of July13, 1912, wherein the writer says:

“Twenty years hence and forever afterward there will be between two and three thousand men (Rhodes graduates) in the prime of life scattered over the English-speaking world, each of whom will have had impressed upon his mind at the most susceptible period the dreams of a union of our people.”

In the “North American Review” for June, 1893, Mr.Carnegie already advocated the subordination of our fiscal policy to that of England. Hesaid:

“I do not shut my eyes to the fact that reunion, bringing free entrance of British products, would cause serious disturbance to many manufacturing interests near the Atlantic Coast which have been built up under the protective tariff system. Judging from my knowledge of the American manufacturers, there are few who would not gladly make the necessary pecuniary sacrifices to bring about a reunion of the old home and thenew.”

In a like manner Mr.Carnegie spoke at Dundee, in1890, and in the “North American Review” he candidly stated: “National patriotism or pride cannot prove a serious obstacle in the way of reunion.... The new nation would dominate the world.”

The war has blinded us to many issues that affect our political future. With Lord Northcliffe admittedly in control of many important American papers, there has been printed only what was approved in London, and suppressed whatever menaced the peaceful pursuit of the policy of the proposed merger. It cropped out in the draft of the League of Nations, rejected by the United States Senate, which provided for six votes for Great Britain and her colonies and only one vote for the United States on all questions to be decided. Only a few Senators were alive to the danger, and the misguided public was so reluctant to hear the truth that Senator Reed of Missouri, one of the first to protest, was for a time repudiated by the leaders of his party in his own State, and assailed on the platform when he attempted to speak in Oklahoma.

The movement to anglicise the United States is making rapid progress. It had its inception in London and is conducted in this country under the auspices of pronounced Anglophiles in the name of the “English-Speaking Union,” headed by former President Taft, with the following persons as vice presidents: George Haven Putnam, chairman of the organization committee; Albert Shaw, Ellery Sedgwick, George Wharton Pepper, John A.Stewart, Otto H.Kahn, Charles C.Burlingham, Charles P.Howland, R.Harold Paget, Edward Harding, the Rev.Lyman P.Powell, E.H. Van Ingen, and Frank P.Glass. In London the organization is called the Anglo-American Society. At a meeting held in that city on June26, 1919, presided over by Lord Bryce, an elaborate programme was agreed upon to carry the propaganda into the United States and England. To that end, Washington and the Puritan fathers, though the former headed the rebellion against England and the latter fled its shores to escape persecution, are to be employed as symbols of Anglo-American unity, and a great number of festivities and memorials are included in the program, which will develop in the course of the year. Preparations are now being made for the 300th anniversary celebration of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers.

A Sulgrave Institution has been organized—Sulgrave Manor being the ancestral home of George Washington—which has raised $125,000 in England and is raising a fund of $1,000,000 in this country. The use of the fund was explained by John A.Stewart, chairman of the board of governors, who said it was “to establish scholarships in English universities and later in this country, and also to refit Sulgrave Manor.” King George was one of the first contributors to the English campaign, hesaid.

On June28, 1919, the King of England sent by cable a message to the President, in which he said:

Mr. President, it is on this day one of our happiest thoughts that the American and British people, brothers in arms, will continue forever to be brothers in peace. United before by language, traditions, kinship and ideals, there has been set upon our fellowship the sacred seal of common sacrifice.

During the Paris peace conference the New York “Times” of February13, 1919, in a Paris correspondence, declared that there was complete Anglo-American concord, the program of the conference revealing a fundamental identity of aims and the understanding between English-speaking peoples being never so complete as today. Former Attorney General Wickersham took the lead in proposing to remit England’s enormous debt to us, explaining that we owe them that much for “holding back the Huns,” and the proposition has been received with great favor by many of the 18,000 additional millionaires created by the war, meaning, of course, that England’s burden shall be transferred to the shoulders of the American tax payers.

Among the advocates of the merger are General Pershing, Lord Balfour, Chauncey M.Depew, James M.Beck, Lord Grey and the American bankers and great industrials, like Charles M.Schwab. Surrounded by distinguished men of England, General Pershing, in the Military Committee room of the House of Commons, dwelt with special pathos on the proposed Anglo-Saxon brotherhood. “I feel that the discharged and demobilized soldiers will carry with them into private life,” he said, “the necessity for closer and firmer union, and that we may be united as peoples likewise forever.” Subsequently he was made a Knight of the Bath by King George.

At a meeting of the Pilgrim Society in New York, January22, 1919, James M.Beck, recently made a “Bencher” in London, after reviewing England’s achievements in the war, said:

England’s triumphs are our triumphs, and our triumphs are England’s triumphs.

Lord Edward Grey, one of the principal figures in the events preceding and throughout the war, was sent as ambassador to the United States to foster the movement. Nominally, the movement is for the preservation of peace, which is represented as seriously imperiled from hour to hour unless the United States and England unite. To this end there is to be “an exchange of journalists” as well as scholars and professors.

“The Nation,” speaking of an address by Admiral Sims at the American Luncheon Club, on March14, 1919, says:

How far has this alliance actually been realized by secret understandings? In an article in the “Revue des Deux Mondes,” in1907, M.Andre Tardieu, the foreign editor of the Paris “Temps,” accusing President Roosevelt of partisanship for the German Emperor in the Algeciras conference, distinctly charged him with bad faith in this direction in view of the secret understanding between the United States and England.

A formal treaty has not so far been arranged, but we may ask: In how far are we involved in a policy looking to the abdication of our sovereignty as an independent republic in view of statements such as were made unchallenged by Prof. Roland G.Usher in his book, “Pan-Germanism:”

In an interview published in the St.Louis “Star” of May2, 1915, Prof. Usher confirmed these statements by saying that a verbal alliance is in existence between this country and the Allies.

Material support of the charge is furnished by the late British Secretary of the Colonies, the Hon.Joseph Chamberlain, who, in a statement in Parliament during the Boer war, referred to the treaty of alliance as “an agreement, an understanding, a compact, if you please.” On November30, 1899, Chamberlain delivered an epochal speech at Leicester against France for some unseemly cartooning of Queen Victoria. In his speech he threatened France with war and distinctly spoke of an Anglo-American union: “The union between England and America is a powerful factor for peace.” (N.Murrel Morris, “Joseph Chamberlain, The Rt.Hon.,” London, 1900, Hutchinson & Co., publishers.) Chamberlain further supported Prof. Usher in the latter’s assertion that the treaty was verbal, as a written treaty must have the official sanction of the Senate. In this same Leicester speech, Mr.Chamberlain declared:

To me it seems to matter little whether you have an alliance which is committed to paper, or whether you have an understanding which exists in the minds of the statesmen of the respective countries. An understanding perhaps is better than an alliance, which may stereotype arrangements, which cannot be accepted as permanent, in view of the changing circumstances from day to day. (Morris.)

Cornelia Steketee Hulst, in her pamphlet, “Our Secret Alliance,” quotes from a speech of Chamberlain as follows:

I can go as far as to say that, terrible as war may be, even war itself would be cheaply purchased if in a great and noble cause the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack should wave together in an Anglo-Saxon alliance.

Already the thought of a merger and the loss of our identity as a republic is coursing in a dangerous form through the minds of the people. It has been said that if a question is harped upon continuously for a sufficient period that people will go to war for the mere sake of putting the question out of their minds, and even now among the high and the low there is manifest a supine, an ominous spirit of submission to the surrender of their political independence rather than fight it as a form of open sedition.

The Rhodes trust fund and the Carnegie peace fund have their priests and priestesses, witness the statement of Mrs.John Astor, chairman of the American Red Cross in England, quoted in the New York “Times” of March5, 1915: “An alliance of the English-speaking nations would be the greatest ideal toward which to work.” George Beer anticipated Mrs.Astor in the “Forum” for May,1915:

The only practical method is to embody the existing cordial feeling between the United States and England in a more or less formal alliance, so that the two countries can bring their joint influence and pressure to bear whenever their common interests and political principles may be jeopardized.

In January, 1916, the late Joseph H.Choate, former ambassador to Great Britain, drank his memorable toast at a banquet of the Pilgrim Society: “I now ask you to all rise and drink a good old loyal toast to the President and the King.”

The prevalence of such sentiments gives us something to ponder. The war has been conducive to the propagation of seditious thought; we were kept too busy hunting down pro-Germans and imaginary spies to take heed of the intrigue being prosecuted under the Secret Will of Cecil Rhodes. That great constructive statesman was too practical to pursue an ignis fatuus; Mr. Carnegie was too much like him in that respect to create an enormous fund nominally for the preservation of peace, the interest on which, something like $500,000 annually, is available to propagate the cause of Pan-Anglicism, while in the meantime the Rhodes scholarships are filling American homes with the apostles of his creed. Their tracks are easily found, and they will become more frequent with the progress of time. Philipp Jourdan (John Lane Company, New York, 1911) speaks of 100 scholarships for the United States “to arouse love for England,” and “to encourage in the students from the United States an attachment for the country from which they sprung.” (pp.75 and328.)

What is good for Englishmen may seem good to Italians, French, Germans and Russians. In1914 many laughed at the thought that Uncle Sam could be drawn into the European war and send several million American boys over to fight in order to make the world safe for democracy, but Colonial Secretary Chamberlain, had he lived his normal span of years, would have seen the “Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack” waving over something very near akin to his cherished Anglo-Saxon alliance. (See “Propaganda.”)

Canada is being used to a great extent as a means of carrying out insidious projects against the United States. For a number of years special inducements have been offered Americans to settle in Canada, and large areas of farm land are in the hands of American immigrants. During the war many of these were compelled, in order to hold their property, to forswear their American citizenship, and many more served in the Canadian army as part of the British colonial forces. They were treated as colonials subject to British jurisdiction.

A project of more far-reaching extent is embodied in the movement to divert western traffic from New York to Montreal. The Canadian government has shown a tenacious purpose in this enterprise and is enthusiastically supported by the West and Northwest. It has promised to make seaports of the cities of the Great Lakes, from which vessels can go direct to Montreal and from there find an outlet to the Atlantic without reloading their cargoes. The object is to be accomplished by improving the Welland Canal and the cutting of a 30-foot channel in the St.Lawrence River. The Welland Canal connects Lake Erie with Lake Ontario, and its locks are to be increased 800feet in length, 80feet in breadth and 30in depth. Those of our own barge canal are only 30feet deep. The western chambers of commerce are enthusiastically in favor of the Canadian project, in view of the commercial advantage to be gained from this enterprise for a large area of western territory. It is probable that it will go into effect, and Americans will build up Canada at the expense of their own country.