Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1898-08-18

gent, aggressive population, used to
self-gOvernment, and to whom personal
liberty is a necessity. We admit that
it is desirable to acquire this class of
people. But we cannot do so, except
with their own consent. Again, Can
ada has vast uptenanted domain
which will some day be filed by the
overflow from the more settled parts
of her territory, and the United States.
There would be good reasons for TAX
ing in Canada if she wished it. But
the populations of the Spanish Ameri-
can islands have few of the character
istics of the Canadian. We do not get
the highest type of the genus homo
from a country where all the clothes a
man requires is a straw hat, cotton
shirt and pair of overalls, and where
he can find his dinner hanging from
the next tree.
Unlike the Canadian, the Spanish
American has no conception OF per-
sOnal liberty, as we understand that
term. There is a constitutional bias
in all Spanish peoples toward despot-
ism. What is the mental capacity of
these people? How many of them can
read and write, or can think and act
for themselves intelligently? Mr..
Blaine, in his lifetime, thought them
an undesirable acquisition to our pop
ulation, and We are inclined TO think
he was right.
The Sugar Trust probably does not
take this view of it. Here is large
territory added to its domain with
laborers already broken to harness.
They are entirely used to being driven
AMI to obeying the orders of military
officers. They know of no rights that
the soldier is bound to respect. and
had the Spanish government allowed
them bare living there would never
have been a Cuban revolution.
The keeping of hundred thousand
soldiers in these islands makes very
pretty squad of men to call upon in
case some of our fellow citizens should
insist upon attention being paid to the
old-fashioned notions of right of as
semblage, free speech, and respect for
local authority.
We take it for granted that the
Sugar Trust expects to rule it's new
acquisitions directly from Washington,
without the intervention of any pestif
erOus local authority. One of the
greatest objections we see to acquiring
this territory is the fact that its people
are so completely prepared to be gov
erned for their own good. that in con-
templatlng the beauties of Sugar Trust
government there we are apt to forget
all about local self-government here,
and the manly defense of that doctrine
once made in this State by William j.
Stone-a defense we agreed to in every
word.
The United States ought not to take
upon itself the business OF educating
the rest of the continent. 1t cannot
appropriate to itself other peoples by
right of might, without violating the
fundamental principles upon which all
free governments rest, viz: the consent
of the governed. We cannot commit
the larceny now contemplated by the
Sugar Trust without erasing that
clause from the Declaration of indie
pendence which asserts that all gov
ernments derive their just power from
the consent of the governed.
The REGISTER is inclined to look
with suspicion on this new departure.
Who cared about the question of an
nexation one year ago? Was it i'm
portant then? II so, why was it not
brought to the front? If it was not of
sufficient Importance to attract public
attention then, why should it be a
matter of so much consequence now?
Is it possible that politicians believe
that voters attention can be attracted
from those questions which are of vital
by series of spectacular
pyrotechnics entitled Expansion"
from which no good results can posi-
bly, come to him or his? We suspect
it to be part of much larger game.
The Money Trust has acted upon the
theory that the public can be broken
as horse is broken. If people can be
accustomed to any hardship, they will
hear 1t patiently until it is no longer
oearable. Acting upon this theory
they have. little by little. taken one
half the value of the property of our
people and given it to the money they
control. They have confidence that if
they can find an excuse for a standing
army, and can accustom the people to
the interference of that army in their
domestic concerns, they will be as free
to do as they please, untrammeled by
law or local authorities, as are the |
members of their class in Austria or |
Italy. We believe they underrate the |
of the American Deonle |