Delaware gazette and state journal., 1899-05-11
"INCENDIARY LITERATURE"

New York Evening Pos.
We have been waiting for some time
for the appearance Of "inceDdiary
literature. I" We have been as sure it
was coming as that the sun would rise
this morning. "Incendiary literature"
is one of the invariable properties or
accompaniments of imperialism. As
soon as you get people under your rule
who dislike it and wish to throw it
off, "incendiary literature" turns
up. 1t was one of the most marked
phenomena of American politics during
the latter years of the -anti-slavery
agitation. Nearly all Northern litera-
ture was 'incendiary" ht the South,
and each postmaster was allowed to
pass on its character and exclude il
from the mails. Russia and Germany
both have their incendiary literature,
whose circulation has to be forbidden
and whose authors have to be punished.
British India has the same thing, and
SO has President Kruger. For our
foreign possessions incendiary litera-
ture is as necessary as soldiers and
guns. You cannot rule any men against
their will, or infiict on them any treat
ment which they consider unjust, with
out treating their favorite literature
as "incendiary," without, in short,
experimenting their reading, and
seeing to it that they read nothing
which presents you to them in an un-
favorable light. The censor is as need
full to you as the drummer. No con-
queror can bear free speech, or has ever
borne it. Therefore, we were not sur
prised that Gen. Otis had to veil his
great battles with rigid censorship,
that the free talk of American citizens
"on the soil, {" to use Wendell Phillips
language, 'consecrated by the prayers
of the Puritans and the blood Of
patriots had to be kept from the
knowledge not only of the "niggers"
whom he was slaughterIng, but of the
American whites who were doing the
slaughtering. The language Of freemen
and the sound of conquerors' guns go ill
together.
While acknowledging freely, how
ever, the imperialist's right, if he has
any right, to gag and smother as a
necessary incident in his odious trade,
we must remind our ''glory- crowned
Americans once moro that their po-
sition is peculiar, that nice as it would
be to become great nation. to prove
Washington an old fool, all at once,
they have to contend with special diff
culties which other imperialists know
nothing of. and which are destined to
plague them, Just as an humble home
and poor relations plague an adven-
turer who has been palming himself
off in foreign parts, as marquis OF
ancient lineage.
An American conqueror, as we have
more than once had the honor to point
out to him, is the only conqueror who
holds his authority to conquer for only
four years. At the expiration of that
term, as even President Low and DR..
Lyman Abbott must acknowledge, he
has to step down and out, and lay all
his doings before the base multitude.
explain them and justify them, and
run the risk if he does not satisfy it
by open ungagged discussion, of being
dismissed from Office. This is dread
fully humiliating for a conqueror. 1t
is enough to make his patriotic sword
fly from its scabbard and hit the
'ttraitors'' over the head. But SO it
is. Every American conqueror has to
be elected every four years by popular
vote of people whose opinions have to
be, and are, by law and constitution,
formed and clarified by free discussion.
This makes all censorships on Ameri-
can soil, all attempts to silence any
thing any man wishes to say, or to
prevent any voter from seeing it and
reading in security and at his leisufe.
treason of the worst kind, and any con-
queror or President who orders it or
sanctions it, worthy of impeachment.
This is American law and polity, and
has been so for ITO years. Even Nc
Kinley and his syndicate must govern
themselves accordingly. We cannot be
easily argued into slavery. There is
one other point to which we must call
the attention of the great minds at
Washington. The American conqueror
| is the only conqueror who has to let
| the army vote on his own conduct In
| Russia or Germany or British India,
| the proposal to allow the soldiers to
pass at the polls upon the object or
| causes or manner Of conducting the
campaign would excite shouts of
| laughter; but to this humiliation the
great Mckinley has to submit next
year. The army in the Philippines
and in Cuba and in Porto Rico will
| have the right to say what it thinks of
him, not only as President of the
| United States, but as slaughterer OF
| foreigners who have never injured him
| and owe him no allegiance. In making
up their minds about him, the soldiers
are entitled to see not only what DIR.
| LYMAN Abbott and President Seth
Low say about him, but what Edward
| Atkinson, William James, Senator Hoar,
j. Laurence Laughlin and Edwin
Burrit Smith say about him. What
| they say is not complimentary; il is
humiliating for first-class conqueror
| to have to listen to it but it is the law
revered Mckinley. If you do not like
| this sort of thing you should not have
taken the place. You knew its con-
| ditions and you knew how the Ameri-
can government was framed. You knew
| it was not adapted to the conquering
business and you should therefore never
have gone into the conquering busi-
ness. You should have led quiet,
sober, and peaceable life. suited to
your capacity and to the laws of your
| country. But you are now engaged,
not only in slaughtering men for not
allowing you to rob them peacefully,
| but in preventing your own electors
| from seeing any accounts of your con-
duct or comments on it, except such as
you yourself have concocted or edited,
and yet you call yourself an American,
and so do the members of your syn
| dicate.
Tho Thomas Company Must Answer.
A demurrer to the bill of complaint
in the case of the Dennison Manufac-