The Forrest City times., 1899-05-19
FREE SPEECH NOT TREASON.
The Anne rfcan People Do Not Approve of McKinley's "BenevoIent
 Assimilation."


 pinos so ardently that he paid Spain s20,- 00o,Oo0 for them. His purpose was, as he himself assured the world by procla- nation, benevolently to assimilate them. Of course, he could do nothing else, because there is provision in the constitution of the United States against making them or anybody else slaves. Benevolent assimilation in ef- feet takes the form of butchery. A dead Filipino is a benevolently assismilated Filipino.
 There are fellow citizens of William Mckinley who. do not like the situation, and have no hesitancy in making their opinion public. We are assured that the cabinet has been seriously considering what in old Roman and imperial days was called lese majeste. We are as- sured, further, that what the president will do with citizens who oppose him is not yet decided, but it will not be sur prisiDg if warning in the shape of a message will remind free critics charac- terized as mischief-makers that there is a serious law against treason, which will be enforced if there is any further attempt to tamper with the men at the front. Free discussion of William Me Kinley's use of American millions to purchase brown men of the antipodes and murder them is described as tam pering with the men at the front" We may feel reasonably sure that the pres- ident, sworn as he is to support the con- stitution and hoping, as he does, that he may be reelected chief magistrate a year hence, will not be unmindfui of certain provisions in the fundamental law. One is that congress shall pass no law abridging the right of free speech; another is lucid definition of treason, which shall consist only of levying war against the United States or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. Incidentally, there are other provisions which the president must regard. He cannot clap citizens of the United States who do not agree with him in Fort Lafayette or any other stronghold of the United States, but he must proceed, unless he shall suspend the writ of habeas corpus, in due ac- cordance with law. No conviction for treason can be had unless on the testi- mony of two witnesses of the same overt act, and it will hardly be con tended that a declaration that it was a monstrous mistake to pay $20,00O,000 for 1o,o0o,O0O of people and use them for targets is a reasonable act.
 Criticism of President Mckinley is not treason. It is not even statutory otfense, for while at common law it is an offense to libel the government con stitutional systems have ignored this provision as inconsistent with the genius of free institutions. Mir. McKin- ley is shrewder than John Adams, who served but a single term in the chief magistracy. The initial triumph of de- mocracy in the republic grew out of the tyrannous absurdity of the federals of John Adams time, who insisted upon the passage and the rigorous enforce ment of drastic alien and sedition laws, since when it has not been popular to talk as President McKinley's friends are now talking. If the administration should assume that the citizen of the United States who will not dumbly as- sent to all that is going forward in the Philippines shall be subject to harsh treatment there will be such benevo- lent assimilation of the Mckinley ad- ministration next year as will destroy it. Mckinley will be spared further worry about expansion and imperial ism. For him the rainy season will set in with vengeance, and instead of din- ing with comfort upon such a miracu- lous draft of fishes as fell to him in 1896, he will be doomed to diet of that embalmed beef which he permitted to be fed to the soldiery, who no longer relish the task Mckinley sets for them in an archipelago of the distant seas.
 McKinley's advisers may make up their minds that the American citizen is bound to avail himself in mighty vol ume of his fundamental privilege of free speech before the majors work of "beney olent assimilation" of the Krag- Jorgenson rife kind is fully consum- mated in the Philippines.-Chicago Chronicle.