The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1899-06-13
Goods Children"

Goods Children"
If we are Gods children, they are
Gods children;* so says prominent
DenisoE democrat the other day. refer.
ring of course to America and the peo-
pie of the Philippines. The saying is
both trite and true. If we are Gods
children, the American Indians are
Gods children, and yet it would have
been a crime unreasonable to civiliza-
ton and to humanity had our FORE
fathers withdrawn from this continent
in order to allow the atorigines the
free range of the forest and plain which
God had given them.
live are Gods creatures, so is the
poison adder, the malicious tiger and
the fierce hynea. And yet these beasts
of prey which we kill without compunc.
ton are no more dangerous to mankind
than are the American Indians and the
treacherous Tagals to human civiliza-
ton. 1t should not be gathered from
this that we favor the wholesale des-
truction of either of these races, but it
is inevitable that when they come in
contact with the strong races of the
world, these weaker and debased peo-
pies shall fall. This is a fact which al
lows no gailisaying, it is one of the
things which are bound to occur
whether the agent be the Anglo-Saxon,
the Tueton, the Cossack or the Gaul.
Fate is relentless and cruel. Through
all the ages the sentimentalist has
wasted sympathetic tears at the harsh
ness of its onward march, but it has
never turned aside and never will.
This is the broader view of the case,
the view which tries to see wherein
passing events take their place in the
universal plan.
1t may be well said here, that the
fact that man is doomed to die does not
justify murder. This is true, and we
must now see wherein America has
been specifically justified in the course
it has pursued in the Philippines. The
facts are old straw which hardly bears
re-threshing, but their reiteration is
necessary in order to refute the con-
slant stream of falsehoad poured forth
by distraught men who seek only to OPP
pose anything which is done by the
administration.
1t will be remembered that the first
trouble between the American forces
and the insurgents arose when the
American generals refused to allow
4 Aguinaldo's men to loot and pillage.
and massacre and outrage the people of
Manila. This was the first serious
breach. According to our philanthrop-
lc friends we should have assumed no
such authOrity-the victory was as
much theirs as ours. we are tOld-and
If they wished to burn and kill and
ravish, it was none of our business; it
was in fact base interference with
their heaven born right to misgovern
themselves, After this first misunder-
standing there came pause, one of
those pauses so dangerous in time of
war. when the hands of the American
generals were tied by the long drawn
out, wearisome and wholly unnecessary
delay on the part of the American Con-
gress in ratifying the treaty of peace.
During the months of this criminal de-
lay America stood in most unnatural
and we'll nigh untenable position. In
! the eyes of the whole civilized world
America was both morally and finan-
cially responsible for whatever took
place in the Philippines. On account
of the delay we had no power to act, no
vested rights, nothing but responsible
ty.
The next act in the drama of the
Philippines was the concentrated night
attack upon the American forces by
) Agulnaldo. What would the sentimen-
} talists have had our forces do at such a
J time. If we are Gods children, they
are Gods children, and therefore we
should have retired and allowed the
Tagals, who do not represent one fifth
] OF the population, and that the most
unintelligible part. to work their will
upon the peaceful populace who were
looking to America for protection.
u The most severe blow to the senti-
mentalist has come from Aguinaldo, he
has declared himself Dictator. The
cry of ''let them govern themselves is
no longer appropriate. The choice
I, offered to the peaceful Inhabitants of
the Philippines is this: Aguinaldo and