Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-01-10

q 6Cnty
In those days when Senator Ed
munds was at his elbow the sound
conservatism of the Presidents views
on the situation were matters of COM
ment. 1t was then that Mr.. Mckinley,
in his message to Congress in Decem-
Der, 1897 wisely and periodically de-
clared that forcible annexation would
be criminal aggression
But after that came Dewey's victory
over the Spanish fleet at Manila, the
capture of Porto Rico and other is
lands. The members of the admins
tration and the party leaders-espe-
cially those with Wall street connec-
tions-who had bitterly opposed going
to war with Spain on any account, be-
gan to smell the fieshpots of conquest.
From advocates of peace-at-any-pric
they became the most rampant advo-
Gates of an imperial and military
policy-a policy of world conquest and
territorial aggrandizement. Their
ambitions in this direction were as
bold and limitless as their previous
horror of war that might upset the
stock market was trucking and cow
ardly. In both attitudes, however,
they were moved by pure selfish greed.
AS an instance of the Presidents in
nate weakness of character and the
ease with which he is influenced by
the stronger but less scrupulous minds
that control his administration,
we have his complete change of atti-
tude at this time. From a conservative
executive, DESTROYS only of fulfilling a
national obligation to humanity and
stopping there in strict observance of
the Constitution, he became one of the
rabidest of imperialists. He no
longer had any use for Judge Edmunds
as an adviser. What was criminal ag-
gression before now became patriotic
necessity, and so far from opposing
foreible annexation, which he had I'M
der the wise guidance of Senator Ed
munds held to be criminal aggres-
sion" he openly favored it and re-
Gently went about the country asking
in the language of the demagogue,
who will haul down that fiag?' in
those far away savage islands of the
Pacific. although the flag had never
been raised there outside Manila, and
even il it had been raised over the en-
tire archipelago. it would be in entire
harmony with the Presidents Cuban
policy to haul it down whenever we
were ready.
Unlike the President. Judge Edmunds
has never changed his views on the
constitutional questions arising out of
the war with Spain in connection with
these islands: and what he held to be
criminal aggression" a year ago he
holds to- be criminal aggression to-
day.
Mr.. Edmunds has a lengthy commun-
ication to the editor of the New York
World on this subject, which takes up
the editorial page of that paper, which
he devotes to a calm, judicial and care
from the defeat of the Spanish in Man
lila bay by Dewey. He shows, first,
what the Philippines and their inhabit-
ants are. The ISLANDS are undesirable
from any point of view and the CHM
ate practically uninhabitable by Am
orleans. Their 100000 of savage and
a profitable market for anything These
100000 inhabitants represent Chinese,
Japanese, Malays, half castles and abor-
iginal natives. about two per cent of
the whole, only, being Europeans and
Americans. OF white men there is
barely a trace along the coast, while
there are substantially no white women
there. They are people, says Mr. Ed
mundS, who never can be consumers of
American products to any appreciate
extent Manila hemp, coarse tobacco,
coffee, sugar and tropical fruits and
woods comprise the resources and con-
stitute the only value of the islands.
Senator Edmunds shows that Dewey
did not go to Manila for purposes of
conquest and conquered nothing but
the Spanish fleet and acquired nothing
but the control of Manila and its i'm
mediate environments and the bay. All
beyond that was in the possession of an
organized rebellion against Spain
greater and better organized than that
in Cuba. He shows that Spain never
possessed complete sovereignty in the
Philippines, having been unable to sub
due some of the tribes in two hundred
years of effort, and at the time of Dew
eyS victory, possessed nothing outside
of Manila and its immediate surround
ings. And therefore, Mr.. Edmunds
shows, Spain could not convey to the
United States by treaty or sale sover-
eighty over the Philippines, which we
can obtain only by conquest in oppo-
sition to the everything principles on
which our nation is founded"