Devils Lake inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1905, 1898-08-12
"rhe Terms OF Peace"

"The Terms OF Peace.0
We prefer, like most civilized per
sons, peace to war, but some of the
arguments just now employed to in
duce America to mako u quick peace
with Spain strike US as not only un-
founded but profoundly immoral.
What did America 60 to wal for?
First of all, to terminate SPANS au-
thority over her colonies, which Amer
leans believed to be tyrannical, de-
struotive of human happiness, and in
all ways bad. Whether their evidence
in support Of that belief was good, as
we believe it to have been, or as bad as
average Spaniards assert, or as ac-
cidental and temporary as many
thoughtful Spaniards maintain, has
little to do with our present subject.
The Americans believed the charge
heartily, and, so believing, went into a
war which, to all human appearance.
will end in giving them the power to
terminate the misrule which SO
affronted their consciences.
A moralist would say, one would
think. that, having begun so great q
work, they were bound to carry it
through, that they had contracted
weighty, yer terrible, obligations to-
ward the colonists of Spain, and we're
bound to discharge those obligations
without thinking too much of the con-
sequences to themselves. They can,
if they like, being Anglo Saxons, give
the colonists firm. and lenient govern
ment, and, as the historian will say, in
the merest justice, and out of a decent
care for their own self-respect, they
ought to do it, That, however, is not
the opinion of most of our contem-
poraries either in Great Britain or in
Europe. They are crying aloud to
Washington to be generous in the
hour of victory" to restore to Spain,
If not Porto Rico-the. value of which
as a naval station they Understandable
all events, the Philippines. We will
tell them what generosity" under
such circumstances means. 1t means
that Spain should recover full author
ity over eight millions of dark per-
whom she has for 800 years SO
governed that. as Mr.. Foreman testi-
1ies, tho children fly with shrieks if
they see a "Castilian," and should re-
cover it at the very moment when
every virtue as we'll as every vice in a
Spaniard will incline him toward Sc
verify in punishment. He will be full
of loyalty to his country and full of
against rebels who have in
suited her, and in the strength of both
feelings he will strike as Spaniarls
struck in Peru.
1t means that Americans, having en-
couraged them to revolt, are to hand
over the two millions of Tagals to a
nation which regards their revolt not
only as q crime-that is usual-but as
an unparalleled insolence calling
aloud for chastisement. 1t means that
the United States, which of all powers
should keep engagements because of
her relation to the two continents in
which she claims hegcmony, are to be-
tray Aguinaldo and the whole tribe of
Tagals, two millions of dark people
who have accepted Christianity and
display many considerable qualities
though mercy, we fear, attracts them
as little as it attracts some Spaniards
those Spaniards' hands. Ameri-
may be compelled by a continental
coalition to do this thing and yet be
blameless, for there can be no sin
where there is no will, but to do it vol
UNFAIRLY under the false plea of ."gen-
erosity" would be nothing less than a
base. She had better even partition
the islands among the great powers,
though, as we maintain, she is bound,
having upset a bad civilizations pro-
vide a good one, and not to shirk re-
sponsibilities which, from the moment
Admiral Dewey broke into the harbor
of Manila, she took upon herself
London Spectator.