Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-11-25
New York Divine Takes Pessimistie
View of Situation.

From the New York Tribune Of Today
The Rev DR. Charles II. Parkhurst in
the course of his Thanksgiving sermon in
the Madison Square Presbyterian Church
yesterday morning, said:
THE Americau-Spanish var Is now sub
stantally thing of history. No practical
interest would therefore be served at this
day by discussing whether or not the war
was righteously undertaken. If ii was right
in its inception ii was made more righteous
by the success of its conclusion If il was
Lnrighteous in its inception II was no less
unrighteous by the success of its conclusion.
The fact remains, and perhaps always will
remain, that it cannot be stated whether the
President finally and reluctantly declared
war because the Maine was exploded. be-
cause the Cubans were being maltreated
because lot of congressman told the Pres
ident that if he was recalcitrant they would
play Judas TO the republican administra-
ton. The verdict Of history will probably
be. passion. piety and politics.
Il venture to say thar our victory, now
that it is achieved, is not thing TO brag of.
We have conquered people that WIS ten
times our inferior in brute force. military
genius and personal fiber How We should
have come out of it If, as the boys say, We
had taken one of our size cannot SO east
ly be asserted. Be that it may. the vic
tory having been secured the next question
to determine is, What going to do
with it? 1t is easier to win victory than
TO use II.
There is not today respect enough for
the aur hoTity Of the general government To
secure to the negro the rights that belong 10
him as a citizen, although such rights were
nominally conferred upon him third of a
century ago. Aside from the question OF
the negro, Heterogeneous populations ara
pouring in upon US from all parts of the
globe. and we cannot keep up with these
great undigested masses of foreign stun
here. that are no more American in their
appropriations and sympathies than the day
he W rel md IN nj nd
Russia or out in the great east.
What are our laboring people thinking
about. that they are not rising up in pro-
test from one end of the land to the other
against swinging wide open the flood-gates
of cheap immigration? You shut out the
Chinese because you don't want cheap la
Dor and bad morals. and send cards of in
vitation to the Malays. Are you going to
treat them caDtiVes-shoot them down
if they undertake to leave the islands a
visit to the home government? Then what
becomes of the vaunted spirit of American
institutions, and of such principles so dear
for one hundred years 10 the American
heart as that all men are created free ami
equal, or that little apothegm Of ours that
governments shall derive their just powers
from the consent of the governed? or did
Dewey's guns, that shocked the Spanish flag
to pieces, blow up all OF the Declaration Of
Independence? You see there is great deal
of ground TO go over.
1T Is simply a question whether the gov
eminent is going 10 keep its word TO its
own people and to the world or whether il
is not. Ii is simply a question whether we
have become so intoxicated by our military
success as to have unlearned the simple
principles of transparent honesty that we
started out with. We wish we could have
some ringing words from the President on
this matter. We are, some of US, tired Of
seeing him put his ear to the ground in
order to catch the reverberations that roll
in from the wild west.
II do not wonder that those islanders do
net want to be governed from America
They VIII probably want il less after they
have had it a while. Our policy of dealing
with sen1f-civilfzed people and with savages
is not Just what you would call reassuring.
| would rather be a Malay subject to Spain
than be an American Indian subject to the
Indian bureau. So long It is under
stood thing that Office is spells We may well
pray to be delivered from the responsibility
~ ooverninsy denendepcies"