The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1899-08-26

supposed incapacity of the Filipinos for
self-government and the claim that
Aguinaldo is self-constituted dictator,
self-seeking, INSCRIPTIONS and treacher-
Gus. These falsehoods, branded as such
through the testimony of Dewey and of
our consuls at Hong Kong, Singapore
and Manila, are on par with the infor-
nation dished up to the American peo-
pie ad nauseam that Otis has the situa-
ton we'll in hand, that the backbone of
the instruction is broken and that
few days more will bring the end of the
conflict. When number of well-known
reporters of imperialistic papers, includ-
ing the Chicago Tribune, felt con-
strained to protest against the deliberate
Justification by General Otis of their
cablegrams and to accuse him of will
fully misrepresenting the situation in his
reports to the American people, and
when the national administration does
not heed the protest, but proceeds to
pat Otis on the back, how much, ask,
can sensible people believe of what they
are told respecting the Filipinos by
those in the confidence of the admins
tration.
"But suppose that the Filipinos were
incapable of self-government according
to our ideas. What right, what business
have we to force upon them with Maus-
ers and Krag-J orgensens our ideas of
government and civilization? Why not
let them be happy according to their
own fashion? But they have never re-
fused to allow us to guide them in the
gradual setting up of a popular govern
ment based upon enlightened principles.
They have never spurned, but, on the
contrary, have solicited, an American
protectorate during the formative period
of their own independent government.
All they asked of us was an official
declaration OF our intention to give them
independence at some time in the flu
ture under proper guarantees of peace
and order. This we not only denied,
but every official act and declaration of
our government, the language of the
peace protocol, the peace negotiations
at Paris, in which the Filipino ENJOYS
were refused an audience respecting the
wishes of their countrymen, the Ian
guage of the treaty of peace, the procla-
nation of President Mckinley of last
December, the pronounced attitude of
a large majority of the senate, the I'M
disguised statements of members of the
cabinet and of the pet senators of the adj
ministration all pointed Enthusiastically to
an intention to keep the Filipinos in
permanent vassalage and subsection"
Referring to the colonial system, he
said:
"A colonial empire of necessity re-
quires an immense fleet, extensive for
tifications at home and in the colonies,
the yearly sacrifice of many thousands
of our boys, possibly in consequence
thereof, the introduction of involuntary
military service by system of con-
scription, vast increase of the burdens
of taxation. Is it right that, instead. of
cultivating the arts of peace and devel-
oping the resources of our richly
blessed country, we should sacrifice our
best energies to the love of glory, to
the dream of an empire, that we allow
ourselves to be allured by the will OF
the wisp of external splendor into the
mire of militarism?
'The first fruits of the new and un-
tried course in which Our ship of state
is steering are the disgraceful press
censorship at Manila, the forbidding of
the mails to manly protests against our
war Of conquest, the efforts of the press
to make traitors of those who have the
courage to denounce the breaking away
flom traditional principle, the adulation
and blind worship of the responsible
head of the government on the part of
those who call themselves loyalists, but
who had better be styled royalists.
Meanwhile OUR own taxes go on and
transports laden with new recruits for
Philippine graveyards hurry across the
sea.
"'Cui bono? we ask today, and the