Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1898-08-21

INTERESTS OF THE LABORER.
OTHER SPEAKERS VIEWS.
Saratoga, N. Y, August 30-The
National Conference on the foreign
policy Of the United States resumed
it's deliberations this morning. 1t
was presided over by Robert Treat
Paine, of Boston. In a brief address
he defined himself am anti-eXpan-
Bionist. We must treat those islands
captured from Spain as prizes to be
dealt with as we think best. We must
do the best thing we can under the
circumstances. While we may not
hold them by the right of conques.
We should see that proper form of
government is established over each.
We should never for moment forget
the great principles that underlie this
great republic.
Moorefield Storey, of Boston, next
addressed the conference.
At the conclusion of Mr.. Storey's
remarks, Nlr. Paine, the chairman, said
that he conceded with the leading
anti-expansion features of Mr.. Storey's
address. The next speaker was Sam
uel Gompers, president of the Fed
Grafton of Labor.
In the course of his address he said:
II have been invited, as wage
Garner, and a representative of labor,
to address this conference upon the
subject for which it is called, and it
is not unfair to assume that the rea-
son which prompted the invitation
was the desire to learn, as nearly as
possible, the view which the organized
wage-earners of our country hold re-
garding this all absorbing question.
1--WE have annexed Hawaii and ap-
pointed a commission to determine the
form of its government. How many
of our people are aware that of less
than 100000 inhabitants of Hawaii,
$4,000 are contract and practically
: slave laborers; that of these there are
so per cent Chinese and Japanese, and
about 20 per cent Portuguese (from
the Azores Islands,, and South Sea
Islanders; that the terms of these cou-
tracts usually run seven years; that
the laborers have NO right to change
their employers; that the
CONTRACT TO LABOR
is specifically enforceable by law nd
that ~ Rltion ado2ted1 .~
gress specifically declares thai the
laws of Hawaii shall govern until the
new form of government shall be
adopted; that any time a laborer may
serve in prison because of his deser-
ton from labor is added to the term
of the life of the contract to labor?
Gas to the Philippine Islands, they
have between seven and eight million
inhabitants of semi-barbaric popula-
ton almost primitive in their habits
and customs, as unlike the people Ct
the United States i'm thought, senti-
ment, education, morals, hopes, as
pirations or governmental forms as
night is to day. What advantage then
can possession of these islands with
such people bring to our country?
The nation which dominates the mar
kets of the world will curely control
its destinies. To make of the United
States the workshop of the world is
our manifest destiny and our duty,
and thus side by side with other ma
tions, in industrial and commercial
of the workers upon the highest in
telligence and the most exalted stand
ard of life, no obstacle can be placed
in cur way to the attainment of the
highest pinnacle of national glory and
human progress. But, to attain this
end, is the requirement of the Philip
pine Islands, with their semi-savage
population, necessary? Surely not.
Neither it's gates nor those of the
globe can long be closed against our
constantly growing industrial supre-
macy.
''The most reckless advocate of the
annexation of the Philippine Islands
or of any populous island of the group
must admit that this programme in
wolves the government and domina-
ton Of the
MANY BY THE FEW,
to an extent and degree never before
,6kncNn under the American flag. We
have governed savagcs against their
will in the process of our uprooting If
Indian tribes, but never where it was
not reasonably certain that their places
would soon be taken by settled white
population many times as great as that
of any wilderness occupied only by
nomadic hunters and warriors. In the
Philippines, with its seven or eight
millions. in an area of less than half
that of the State of Texas, no such
change can ever take place.
"The whole moral effect of the ac
quisition of the Philippine Islands, it's