The Forrest City times., 1899-10-27
shot Down "without ParIey.-

| war-not of conquest-God forbid!-but of | liberation and humanity. We invade the spanish colony of the Philippines. destroy | the Spanish fleet and invite the cooperation | or the Filipino insurgents against Spain. | We accept their effective aid as allies all | the while permitting them to believe that | in case of victory they will be free and in- dependent. By active fighting they get con | trol of large part of the interior country, from which Spain is virtually busted. | When we have captured Manila and have no further use for our Filipino allies our president directs that, behind their backs, | treaty be made with Spain transfer ring their country to us, and even before | that treaty is ratified he tells them that. in | place of the Spaniards, they must accept us as their masters, and that if they do not | they will be compelled by force of arms. They refuse and we shoot them down, and. as President Mckinley said at Pittsburgh, | we shall continue to shoot them down | without useless barley
 ''I have recited these things in studiously | sober and dry matter-of-fact language, | without oratorical ornament appeal. l | ask you now what epithet can you find justly to characterize such a course? Hap l oily. you need not search for one, for Pres | ident Mckinley himself has furnished the | best, when, in a virtuous moment, he said that annexation by force should not be l thought of, for, according to the American code of morals, 1t would be criminal az gression. Yes, criminal is the word. | Have you ever heard of any aggression more clearly criminal than this? And in this case there is element of peculiarly | repulSive meanness and treachery l pity | the American who can behold this spec | tacle without the profoundest shame, con- l triton and resentment. Is it a wonder, repeat, that the American people, in whose name this has been done, should be troubled in their conscience?
 | ITO justify, or rather to excuse, such in nn nfnr hftt r.la nf ha trlrr eGt necessity will avail Did such a necessity exist? In a sort of helpless way the de- lenders of this policy ask: What else could | the president have done under the circum- stances?' This question is simply childish. | If he thought he could not order Commo- dore Dewey away from Manila after the | execution of the order to destroy the Span ish fleet he could have told the people of the l Philippine islands that this was, on our | part, war, not of conquest, but of libera | tion and hun:a nifty; that we sympa thized | with their desirr for freedom and independ- ence and thas w would treat them we had specifically promised to treat the Gu ban people in surthering the establishment | of indepe ndent government. And this task would have been much easier than In | the case of Cubs, since according to Ad- miral Dewey's repeatedly emphatic testi- mony the Filipinos were much better fit- ted for such a government. Our ingenious | postmaster general has told us that the president could not have done that. because | he had no warrant for it, since he did not know whether the American people would wish to keep the Philippine islands. But what warrant, then. had the president for | putting, by his 'ba1evolent assimilation or der before the Filipinos the alternative of submission to our sovereignty or war? Challenges Proof of Savagery. | "I am far from meaning to picture the Philippine islanders paragons of virtue and gentle conduct But challenge the l imperialists to show me any instances of l bloody disturbance or other savagery among themselves sufficient to create any necessity of our armed interference to re store order or to save them from anachy.' | ask and demand an answer. Is it not true that, even if there has been such disorder | ly tendency, it would have required long | time for 1t to kill one-tenth as many human | beings as we have killed and to cause one tenth as much devastation as We have | caused by our assaults upon them? Is it not true that instead of being obliged to | restore order we have carried riot and death and desolation into peaceful com munities whose only offense was not that they did not maintain order and safety within themselves, but that they refused to accept us as their rulers? And here is the | rub.
 Tn the vocabulary of our imperialists | order means, above all, submission to their will. Any other kind of order be it ever so peaceful and safe, must be sup
 
 is the kind that has been demanded by the despot since the world had history It's language has already becoSe dangerously familiar to us-a familiarity which cannot cease too soon.
 From all these poir.s of view, therefore, the Philippine war waS As unnecessary as it Is unjust. A wanton, wicked and abomi | nable war-so it is called by untold thou sands of American citizens, and so it is a heart felt to be. I have no doubt by an inn | pna mai nf hn oapiRa enf1a Aye, as such it is cursed by many of our very soldiers whom our government orders to shoot down innocent people. And who will deny that this war would certainly have been avoided had the president re- | mained true to the national pledge that the war against Spain should be a war of lib- 1 eration and humanity, and not of conquest? [? And what have we now? After eight l months slaughter and devastation, squan- dered treasure and shame. an indefinite prospect of more and more slaughter, devastation, squandered treasure and shame
 Is Wnnton Killing Humane.
 What is the ultimate purpose of this policy? To be perfectly fair will assume that the true spirit of American imperial ism is represented not by the extremists who want to subjugate the Philippine is- flanders at any cost and then exploit the islands to the best advantage of the con queror. but by the more humane persons who say that we must establish our sov ereignty over them to make them happy. to prepare them for government, and even recognize their right to complete in- dependence as soon as they show them selves fit for it. Let me ask these we'll meaning citizens simple question. If you think that the American people may ulti- mately consent to the independence of those islanders, a matter of right and good policy, why do you insist upon killing them now? You answer: Because they refuse to recognize our sovereignty Why do they so refuse? Because they think themselves entitled to independence and are willing to fight and die for it. But if you insist upon continuing to shoot them down for this reason does not that mean that you want to kill them for demanding the identical thing which you yourself think that you may ultimately find it just and proper to grant them? Would not every drop of blood shed in such a guilty sport cry to Heaven? To kill men in a just war and in obedience to imperative neces- sity is one thing. To kill men for demand ing what you yourself may ultimately have l to approve is another How can such kill