Speech #570042961

If my friends wish to give the sugar trust power. let them refuse to pass this bill. Mortgage foreclosures will give the sugar trust the power. But. whether it be they or other large land owners who get control of the lands of Cuba. their wish will be � for labor. and if this bill do not pass. and it be possible for them. they will do what Hawaii has long wished to do. namely. encourage cooly immigration. Chinese or otherwise. under contracts. which amount to slavery. and will reestablish the cheap and nasty methods of the cultivation of sugar cane in that island. It is an island which has 41.600 square miles of land. sufficient. with the density of population that there is in Massachusetts. to accommodate 15.000.000 of people. although it has now only 1.600.000. It is an island which. with the density of population that there is in Porto Rico. would have sufficient land to maintain a population of 10.000.000 of people. If this wonderful and fertile land. with its gentle slopes and fertile plains. and with its equable climate except on the immediate sea coast. if that place is to fill up with labor contracted for from China (perhaps contracted for from Africafor who knows. in these days. but that this commerce may extend even into the midst of the Dark Continent?). if this country is to fill up with that sort of labor. it will be another Santo Domingoneither more nor lessand we shall have to maintain the guaranty that we have given. not by the strength ot the people of Cuba. but rather by the swordby our Navy and by our Army.-and by no other means. If. on the other hand. as proposed by this bill. that sort of immigration and contract labor shall be cut off. if they can only admit population as good as that which comes to the United States. if the island can grow up as Texas did when it became an independent State and was peopled by the immigration of Englishspeaking people to such an extent that. although Spanish was once the language of that magnificent State. it is today ahost unknown. If Cuba can grow in that way. if such growth can be encouraged by encouraging trade with America so that our capital will go there. so that their trade will come here. so that the affiliations between one and the other will be the same as has existed between Florida and the North. and that have built up that garden of flowers. I say if this can be done. the guaranty of independence costs us nothing.