Rocky Ford enterprise., 1899-01-19
COLONEL BRYAN
... SPEAKS AT DENVER.
A GREAT CROWD LISTENS TO HIM.
The Eloquent Nebraskan Takes "Nabots Vineyard for
Text From Which to Argue Against Retaining the
ggr Philippines aa- -,--' -t

I In the early days. said that no principle
was more deeply fixed In the human
mind. or In the American mind, than
that we should have nothing 10 do with
conquest. But. some OF you would say.
Jefferson lived long time ago: let rs
have something later than that.
I, for one. do hot believe that good
things grow old. l do not think the
ten commandments ought to be aban-
doned because they were written
long time ago. do not believe we
have outgrown the constitution or the
Declaration of Independence. tell
you the people who made the consti.
tuition and have the right to amend 1t
are the ones who must say 1t, and not
the man who IL sworn to support the
very constitution he says we have out
grown. tApplause)
Let us come down little. In 1890
Mr.. Blaine proposed some resolutions
to the Pan-American Congress. and
they We're unanimously accepted. The
first two OF the resolutions was that
the principle of conquest shall have no
part in American public law. In 1880.
eight years ago; that's not very long
ago, but men have been changing their
minds SO rapidly In the last eight
years we probably ought to come down
later than that. l will come down to a
year ago.
Mr.. Mckinley sent message to
Congress In 1897. year ago last
month. and In that message he said:
II speak not OF forcible annexation.
for that Is not to be thought Of; that.
according to our code of morality.
would be criminal aggression" Think
OF It. a year ago forclble annexation
would be criminal aggression, and con-
trary to our code of morality. l have Il
good deal of trouble keeping up with
the President In his changing.
"My friends. I am opposed to wars OF
conquest, opposed to them not only DE-
cause they infiict injury upon others.
but because they intict injury upon
us, because my religion teaches me tiiat
the man who does wrong hurts himscii
as much as the man against whom the
wrong is committed. applause,
You cannot change the policy of this
nation on the subject without making
great change. 1t Is not little mat
ter: 1t Is no small thing; and before we
decide to do 1t, want you to thlnk
what you are doing. Whenever you
advocate wars of conquest you adopt
the principle of force instead of the
principles of reason. We have. been
taught to believe that governments
come up from the people: fadopt the
idea of force and you are told that gov
ernments come down TO the people
from superior force. Why. they tell us
that this expansion means progress. !
refuse to allow them to call 1t eNpan-
sion. 1t is not expansion. 1t is imperial
ism, and, my friends. in this contest
we are having the same difficulty we
had In 1896 about terms. % d ted 10
Our opponents would not call them
selves advocates of the gold standard III
1896, but called themselves advocates
of sound money .1aughterJ Why! Be
cause they dare not declare they ad-
vocated the gold standard, and there
fore they hid behind the ambiguous and
euphonious phrase sound money And
now our opponents hide behind the
term 'expansionists. Expansion does
not cover 1t. Expansion applied to the
expansion we have had before, but this
is n new kind. Heretofore we have
been getting territory contiguous to us
and getting 1t to settle up and make
states out of it. That is what we are
doing now. We are crossing G,O0O or
1000 miles of ocean and not trying to
get lands to settle ION. but land already
settled. .tr ai-g t,r ea#
I'VE are trying TO get people and
throw the net of our government over
them and hold them for our good, and
they sometimes say their good. This
is not expansion, but Imperialism.
What does imperialism mean? Why.
an empire is different from a nation. a
nation sets forth the idea of homeo-
! genous people. speaking the same Ian
guage and governed by the same laws,
but an empire is based upon the idea
l 1t. Ill
, race. and diversity of government. r
you know, my friends, we are not
! perfect by n great deal in this country.
DO you expect perfection over there?
No; but, my friends. there is an old
saying. you have probably heard it
heard it when ] was Il boy--some-
| thing about not going into the water
until you learned how to swim. Peo-
pie don't learn to swim that way: you
| 20 into the water to learn how to
swim, and. my friends, people become
perfect in the art of government when
they have become practiced in the art
of government. We could send people
over and govern the Cubans and the
| philippines Il thousand years and they
would not be trained in the art of self
government: but let them govern them
selves and suffer the trials and tribu-
latiOns and they will work themselves
| upsto higher idens and higher ideals.
.HThe province of this nation is not to
send thirteen-inch guns to force Ameri-
can dominion. but to make this nation
so good and pure and great that all
| over the world men will be willing to
fight to establish the same kind of gov
ernment on their soil (ApplauseD 1
have heard people say we owe relig-
ious duty to the Filipinos that we ought
to go over there and take to them the
blessings of our government. and as
someone has well asked, which part of