The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-11-16
EDMUNDs ON IMPE-
RIALISM.
Letter to Ex-Governor stewart of ver-
mont.

| mont.
Ex-senator Edmunds has written the
following letter to the Hon. J. W. Stew
srt of Middlebury, VT:
| 1724 Spruce Street,
| Philadelphia, Nov. Z, 1898.
| My dear Governor:
| Yours of the I'd inst. was duly received,
asking me to state what think respect
Ing the proposed acquisition of the Phil
| ippine Islands by the United States. As
| you know, that archipelago consists of
one thousand or twelve hundred islands,
embracing one hundred and fourteen
thousand square miles, and extending
over a large area of the Pacific and the
China Sea, in the heart Of + the tropics.
1t is subject to, and frequently EXPERT
ences, earthquakes and hurricanes. 1t
contains altogether about seven millions
of Inhabitants being about sixty to the
square mile, and just about double the
population OF Vermont to the square
mile. zsssqi
| Before the war with Spain, take it
| that nine tenths of the intelligent people
of the United States would have thought
| it bordering on madness to have taken
| those islands into our domain. Their
population is almost entirely what may
| fairly be called savage, and absolutely
| incapable Of anything that civilization
| would call self-government. And If their
| inhabitants were as peaceable as the best
of other tropical countries, they would
still be (as ali experience has proven) in
capable of governing themselves. Our
only motive for their acquisition there
fore, must be the material advantage
supposed by some to flow from our con-
trolling the products of the islands and
their trade. We get all the products of
the islands now that we wish for, and on
the same terms that other nations do. Ii
we take them, the cost will be precisely
the same, unless we adopt the ancient
colonial policy of Great Britain and some
other nations, in controlling their trade
exclusively, and allow it to be carried on
only In our own ships. In that case, re-
taliation will certainly follow, and our
ships and goods will be excluded, in like
manner, from the colonial possessions of
the great manufacturing and trading
powers, which would leave the balance of
disadvantages vastly against u.s. In d
business point of view we must take into
consideration the cost of governing the
islands. This cost cannot, in all human
probability, be met by the taxation, OF the
Inhabitants to any considerable extent
Nature supplies them with substantially
all the food and clothing they require,
and they are. of course, indisResed to
labor or thrift. If we take them we must
govern them by external power. and not
through any autonomy on thelr own.
This mean a large and expensive civil list
governors, councillors, administrators.
officers of justice, and so forth, and SO
forth, who must, in the main, be paid
out OF the treasury of the United Sta ties.
The climate is, of course, very unwhole-
some for Americans, and the death rate
of our officers there would be very large.
1t will also require an American army of
defense and for the preservation Of peace
and order. of many thousand men, and
an American navy of six or more ships
and probably two thousand men; all ex
posed, like the civilians. to the constant
hostility of the climate, to say nothing
of that of the Inhabitants of most, II not
all, of the islands Are we, under such
circumstances, to force q government
upon them?
The present condition between ourselves
and Spain in regard to the islands is, as
the protocol of armistice distinctly shows,
that we have not obtained the islands,
and that all our rights that were recog-
nlzed there. were those of hoIdung the
bay and city of Manila and their environ
lnents, until Eeace should be- established
What was to be done with the whole
group was left for negotiations which our
comm issioners at Paris are now engaged
in. Ii then, We are to,get them Without
cessionlof Spain. we must do 10 by force
OF further war against Spain, and proba-
bly, by force of arms against the vase
majority OF the Inhabitants who, so far