ines to the United States;
the settlement of claims filed by the citizens of both countries; the
payment of twenty million dollars to Spain by the United States for the
Philippines; and the determination of the status of the inhabitants of
the ceded territories by Congress. The great decision had been made. Its
issue was in the hands of the Senate where the Democrats and the
Populists held the balance of power under the requirement of the
two-thirds vote for ratification.

=The Contest in America over the Treaty of Peace.=--The publication of
the treaty committing the United States to the administration of distant
colonies directed the shifting tides of public opinion into two distinct
channels: support of the policy and opposition to it. The trend in
Republican leadership, long in the direction marked out by the treaty,
now came into the open. Perhaps a majority of the men highest in the
councils of that party had undergone the change of heart reflected in
the letters of John Hay, Secretary of State. In August of 1898 he had
hinted, in a friendly letter to Andrew Carnegie, that he sympathized
with the latter's opposition to "imperialism"; but he had added quickly:
"The only question in my mind is how far it is now possible for us to
withdraw from the Philippines." In November of the same year he wrote to
Whitelaw Reid, one of the peace commissioners at Paris: "There is a wild
and frantic attack now going on in the press against the whole
Philippine transaction. Andrew Carnegie really seems to be off his
head.... But all this confusion of tongues will go its way. The country
will applaud the resolution that has been reached and you will return in
the role of conquering heroes with your 'brows bound with oak.'"

Senator Beveridge of Indiana and Senator Platt of Connecticut, accepting
the verdict of history as the proof of manifest destiny, called for
unquestioning support of the administration in its final step. "Every
expansion of our territory," said the latter, "has been in accordance
with the irresistible law of growth. We could no more resist the
successive expansions by which we have grown to be the strongest nation
on earth than a tree can resist its growth. The history of territorial
expansion is the history of our nation's progress and glory. It is a
matter to be proud of, not to lament. We should rejoice that Providence
has given us the opportunity to extend our influence, our institutions,
and our civilizatio