Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1899-09-01
81. 90 PER Al!NNUiIlllkll||lll'.. ! { !! Z.

"THF FLAGS BLESSED MIs-
sION.'' s5. !..5s
The ntterance Of Presid lent Nc Kinley
before the Champlain Catholic SUM
mer school, when he referred to the
flags blessed 5niasio on off liberty and hu-
manity, 4 was 3 savage piece Of irony
and hypocricy; and the jelly fish Cath
les there assembled not only received IT
but applanded III & degrading
etiquette that demand such baseness.
Now what Il ths character Of the
Blessed Mission i p,resnmed for the
American Aags Let rs grant, for the
purposes Of our argument, that the
American volunteer soldier is no worse
than other men. We are warranted in
presuming that he who was reared in
an atmosphere Of liberty and decency
is superior to the Turk or the English
man; and yet we know from reliable
sources that among this chosen army Of
liberty and humanity" there were
numerous rufians who left death, dis
honor and desolation in their pathway.
And if this be true Of the volunteers,
what must we expect from the rein-
forcements now in course of organiza-
ton? To them no standard OF moral
character is applied. Indeed, the gov (
ernment does not expect that the de-
cent young man hood Of the nation will
volunteer for service in The Philippines
and SO the standard applied to the new
recruits requires only the qualities Of 3
wild beast, the capacity to kill and
to devour.
Now, think, gentle read syouss
will, Of fifty or sixty Thousand
men turned loose'' upons a s & ] u
people, Catholic people M csnse
to murder and plumber nd to ravish;;
and this il what President McK Kinley at
q Catholic summer school last wesk
called ''The flags blessed mission of
liberty Of humanity. ss5s ss5
A distinguished general Of the Union
army assures us that ''war is hell. z" Yea,
hell, indeed, even when prosecuted be.
tween civilized nations, and when tenn
pered by enlightened direction, and
controlled by the laws Of war. The
scenes enacted in such so-called civiliz-
ed wars are conceivable. There wounds
and death, sorrow and suffering, blood
and carnage and all that men can know
Of pain and agony. But the American
mind is still happily unconscious Of the
added horrors Of . war of conquest, con-
Quoted on the Anglo Saxon PLAN.
The soldier goes forth to kill the enemy;
and having done the bidding Of his gov
eminent in this regard, he then engages
in other enterprises on his own account.
Those enterprises consist in the plunder
Of private property and Of churches; In:
the dissertation Of the sacred vessels;
and the vestments in these holy places
in dragging the bodies Of the dead from
their sepulchers for the purpose Of rob-
bing them; in nameless violence against
women, and shameless acts Of indecency
towards female children. This is the
record in the island Of Luzon; and
when we, think of this record made
while the victims were still capable Of
making some feeble resistance, what
are we to expect when an overwhelm-
ing force is let loose among them?
Such deeds as we have enumerated are
not the isolated cases, but the common,
ordinary and inevitable incidents in
wars Of conquest. Ask the Poles, the
Irish, the Hungarians, the Italians, the
Armenians, the Hindoos. And this
blessed mission Of humanity and liber-
ty" is the subject Of laudation in poetry
and prose and picture in the imperial
istic press; and this is the blasphemous
and hypocritical cant to which dough
faced Catholics listened at the summer
school.-Nortwestern Catholic.