Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-02-20
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.

Baltimore Sun.
When the Hon. William Mckinley, of
Canton, Ohio, was elected President of
the United States he was reputed to be,
and we supposed with good grounds, a
kindly and humane, not to say a pious
and God-fearing man. Such being his
character, unless. like Secretary Alger,
he refuses to read any criticisms on
himself and his conduct, he must feel
keenly some of the things that are said
about him-as, for example, when his
favorite policy of benevolent assimil-
alton is compared to the bloody Gar
of ~Juggernaut" grinding people, by a
distinguished Senator of his own party.
He cannot but vince under the compar-
the presidency, Colonel Bryan, who, in
a speech at st. Paul, asked whether it
is not time for the people of this coun-
try to send back to France the statute
of Liberty presented by that nation and
erected in New York harbor in honor
of ar illustrious Frenchman who risk
ed his life and fortune in behalf of a
colonial people struggling for their lib
erty, and to borrow from England in
its stead a statute of William the Con-
queror. William Mckinley will do well
to SO shape his course that the derisive
epithet shall not stick to him in re-
ality.
The American people will not soon
forget-and the civilized world never
that not ten months ago President Nc
Kinley Joined with the two houses Of
| Congress in a solemn disclaimer of any
intention to wage war with Spain for
purposes of aggression or conquest. In
the face of that solemn declaration of
April 20, 1898, the world has seen with
cynicism, and a large portion of the
American people with disappointment
and surprise, the President acquire the
Island Of Porto Rico in the West In
dies, and Guam in the South sea by
conquest, and engage deliberately in
the work left unfinished by Spain of
%conquering the natives of the Philip
pine archipelago. How Mr.. McKin-
ley's pacific work of assimilation is pro-
crossing let the same Republican Sen
ator tell: I'VE kill them (the Flip
inos), not by scores, not by hundreds,
but by thousands. More Filipinos have
been killed by the guns of our army and
navy than were patriots killed in any
six battles of the Revolutionary war.
The slaughter of people in no way
equal to us, meeting us with bows and
arrows and crawling into the jungles
by hundreds to die, has stupefied the
American mind"
And yet our William the Conqueror
has but started upon his career of con-
quest, though it must be confessed he
has started much in the fashion of his
Norman prototype, who began his con-
quest of England by the destruction of
Saxon villages and ham1ets and the ex-
termination of their inhabitants. In
addition to the city of Manila our
troops hold the surrounding country to
a distance of some fifteen miles, with
in which radius a large number of viii
lagos have been humanely burned and
destroyed. But the Island of Luzon
embraces 4 0,800 square miles, a little
less than the area of Mr.. McKinley's
| own State of Ohio. Is the whole island
to be visited with fire and sword? The
| same question may be asked with re-
gard to the Island of Panay, which is
about the size of Connecticut, and
where u Conquest" so far, is confin-
ed to the city of Ilolio and its immed-
late environs. And these, after all, are
but two islands in an archipelago num-
boring some twelve hundred, great and
small. Many are doubtless small, with
a single village of bamboo huts, which
can be easily blown out OF existence by
a few broadsides from one of our men
of-war. According to the dispatches
which the Navy Department has pub
lished with apparent pride, our gallant
tars have already had considerable
practice in the vicinity Of Manila in
Smelling to death frightened coveys of
natives huddled together upon the
beach.
Other islands are larger, such as Min
danao, comprising 1926 square miles,
being nearly as large as Luzon, and
divided INTO a number Of independent
| Mohammedan suftanates, which have
never submitted to the yoke Of Spain.
The conquest of these free communities
will have for Mr.. Mckinley and lis
troops all the freshness of novelty. II
is true that in the two years thai are
left of Mr.. McKinley's administration
there will be little opportunity TO ex-
tend the work of conquest beyond the
settlements along the coast of the priI-
cipal islands. That is all that in o u
centuries Spain was able to Go, and
we car hardly hope even by the most
careful and studious adherence to
Spanish methods to do more than they
did in two years. Indeed, at the rate