So with Santo Domingo. Poor Santo Domingo! With her phenomenal richness of soil, her people ought to be among the richest and happiest on earth; but the island has been the scene of almost continued revolution and bloodshed. Her politics are purely personal, and have been a continual struggle of this and that and the other man to secure ascendancy and power. She has come to us for help. She is burdened with an enormous amount of debt, much of it fraudulent, much of it created by revolutionary governments in the bush or by regular governments in distress, needing a little money to save themselves from being overthrown, in desperate circumstances, ready to make any sort of bargain, to pay any sort of interest, to promise anything to get immediate relief. Many debts have been created in that way and are hanging over her, foreign debts as to which she has pledged the resources of this custom-house to the creditors of this country, and of that custom-house to the creditors of that country, and of another custom-house to the creditors of the third country. She is unable to pay interest; unable to make any settlement because she could not give anything to carry out any settlement. With this enormous debt hanging over her like a pall, and with this record of continual revolution and strife depriving her of credit, depriving her of courage and of hope, she came to us to help her. And we are trying to arrange so that she may have the little--very little--moral support of the United States which is necessary to settle her debts, to insure the honest collection of her revenue and its application to carry out the settlement, and that she may be able to stand and walk alone. Now, we are trying to make an arrangement of that kind by a treaty; trying to perform the office of friendship and discharge the duty of good neighborhood towards Santo Domingo. I hope you wall take a little interest in this unfortunate neighbor and try to create a little interest in her on the part of our people; for our treatment of Santo Domingo, like our treatment of Cuba, is but a part of a great policy which shall in the years to come determine the relations of this vast country, with its wealth and enterprise, to the millions of men and women and the countless millions of trade and treasure of the great world to the south. Our treatment of Santo Domingo, like our treatment of Cuba, is but a part of the working out of the policy of peace and righteousness as the basis for wealth and prosperity, in place of the policy of force, of plunder, of conquest, as the means of acquiring wealth.