Barre evening telegram. (Barre, Vt.) 1898-19??, 1899-05-31
IN MEM0R|AM.
CONTINUED FROM FIRST PAGE

toryP We fought one for independence.
We fought another to make Yankee sea-
men safe on deck We fought third,
at the bidding of the South, to wrest
land from Mexico and make more slave
states. We fought again to keep the
| Union safe and free the slave. But we
did not fight this war for our own free
DOM we were free before. We did
not fight to win territory; we had land
enough. We knew that our commerce
was destroyed, that our tranquility was
disturbed We resented the murder of
our sons and the vie insult to our flag
in the harbor of Havana. But there was
deeper cause behind it all. We fought
this war to right monstrous wrong,
and to teach the world once for all that
misgovernment fit only for hell must
keep to the other side of the sea. The
war was inevitable. How could these
frigates fail to collide?-Spain and Am
erica, despotism and democracy, the
middle ages and the twentieth century
The only wonder is that riding in the
same waters they kept apart so long
What shall we do with the Philip
pines? Sir, answer the question: DO
with the Philippines as we do with Am
erica. Keep the peace. and let the peo-
pie govern themselves. And that is all
we have ever attempted or proposed to
do. In the first place, we were obliged
to take the Philippines. Our ships were
at Hong Kong. Hong Kong was neu-
trail port; and they had so many hours
to leave. At Manila lay formidable
Spanish fleet, ready to seize the Sand
witch Islands and scourge the Pacific
coast. 1t had to be destroyed and thank
Heaven we had man there, born with
in SIX miles of the spot where we stand
today, who had the brain and audacity
to do it. When it was done, Luzon and
Manila were in our hands, and Spanish
power to keep the peace in that part of
the world was gone. What then?
There were life and property and the
beginning of civilized order, surround
ed by millions of savages. There were
the leading race, the Tagals, split into a
dozen snarling factions, led now by one
now by another, perhaps by Luna, per
haps by Aguinaldo, ready, as their earl
lest proclamation proved, to put to the
edge of the sword every foreigner and
every native who refused to follow or
submit Had we right to sail away?
The only government there was we had
destroyed. Should we leave the islands
to anarchy? Should we make Aguinal-
do king, dictator, president? The is
lands, they say are peopled by many
millions. The Tagals are but a hand
full of the number. Are we asked to
set the foot of Agulnaldo on the neck of
these. and to do it in the name of the
Declaration of Independence? Should
we set up a petty oligarchy and take
our liberties jurisdiction for step like
this? 1t is not a question of reducing
those islands to slavery. 1t is a qucs-
ton of reducing them to peace, that
freedom may find room to breathe. 1t is
Il simple question of duty, nothing
more, Who wants to subjugate
the Philippines? Who wants a Malay
an slave9 Nobody. But who that has I
a drop of true American blood in his
veins would see IL foot of the soil thai
Dewey's guns left at our feet overrun by
ravaging hordes of adventures, or cast
as bone of contention into the snarling
hordcs of old-world powers? Over that
great Archipelago in the East, without
a thought or plan of ours, God has flung
the shadow of mighty shield; and all |
the nations of the ca1tn take note that I
the shield is bazoned with the stars and |
stripes.
cannot pass from this part of my
subject to the last few words have to /
say, without asking you to rejoice with
me that the war we stunned so long |,
and entered so reluctantly. not only .
drew together the halves of our divided T.
land, but went far to bind in bonds of ,
aye-lony amity this child of England +
and her mother beyond-sea. do not
advocate nor wish to see formal al /,
lance; but do pray that Britain and
America, united by tradition and pur-
pose, may stand together for law and
liberty from this time
forth forever
We have been born again into II bet
er national life. Who shall fifty praise
hat spirit of idealism which is ever and
lgain taking possession of mems hearts
md minds and winning them to finer
md mole benignant uses. That is the
pirit which touched and transformed
'aganism, until Paganism itself yielded !
o the world all but the highest expires
ions of beauty, dignity and truth.
Me same spirit, with purer purpose