Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1899-04-13
PHILIPPINES POLICY SCORED

A notable meeting was held last |
week in fremont Temple, Boston, to
protest against the Philippine policy
Of the administration. The addresses
delivered were admirable. Among
others were Mr.. Robert M. Morse of
Boston, who said:
quote at the outset paragraph
from yattel's Law of Nations: He
who is engaged in war derives all his
right from the justice of his cause.
Whoever, therefore, takes up arms
without a lawful cause can have abso--
| lutely no right whatever; every act of
hostility that he commits is an act of
| injustice. He is chargeable with all
| the evils, all the horrors of the war /;
all the etfusion of blood, the desolation
| of families, the rapine, the acts OF
violence, the ravage5, the contiagra-
tions, are his works and his crimes.
Ho is guilty Of crime against the
enemy whom he attacks. Expresses,
and massacres without cause; he is
guilty of q crime against his people
whom he forces into acts of injustice
and exposes to danger, without reason
or necessity, against those of his sub
jpcts who are ruined or distressed by
| the war, who lose their lives, their
property, or their health in con-
sequence of it,; finally, he is guilty of
q crime against mankind in general,
| whose peace he disturbs, and to whom
he sets pernicious example. Shock.
ing catalogue of miserles and crimes
Dreadful account to be given to the
King of Kings, to the common Father
of men ~
The President of the United States
is now employing the army and navy
in war against the people of the
Philippine Islands with the avowed
purpose of destroying their army and
of reducing the people to admit the
sovereignty of our government. This
war is conducted with all of the
attendant miseries and horrors which
Vattel SO truthfully describes. In such
which has never before existed in our
history, it is the right and duty of
citizens who love peace and who be-
lieve in maintaining the high ideals for
which our government has stood, to
inquire whether the war is righteous
and justifiable and if it is not such
war then to denounce it and to demand
that it shall cease.
Attorney General Pillsbury said:
Who, then, were the aggressors?
Tried by the high declaration with
which we began the war against Spain,
who were the aggressors? Forcible
annexation was declared to be not only
aggression, but criminal aggression.
1t is said that we are not guilty of
such criminal aggression, because we
acquired the islands by purchase.
Who sold them to US? The inhabitants
have never sold them. We acquired
, from Spain only such title as she had,
| l.. s..I taI hi
, but force. We took it such as it was,
with full notice, that it was disputed,
and not only disputed, but broken.
The headlines call the Filipinos
. "rebels.' Why rebels? What ale
glance have they ever owed to us?
, We have not even the paper authority
of international law for claiming their
allegiance. We knew, before we set
foot on the islands, that they denied
, allegiance to Spain, and We took full
, advantage of this fact. Our $40, 600, GOO
paid to Spain did not purchase their
t. allegiance, and much less did it pay
, for drop of their blood. Do they
, owe more allegiance to us than the
1 ,Cubans owed to Spain?
We began the war with a declaration
of both houses of Congress that 1.-THE
people of Cuba are, and of right ought
to be, free and independent, expressly
t disclaiming any purpose to acquire
! sovereignty over them. What single
q title had the Cubans to freedom and
/ independence, or to possession of their
a own country, that tho Filipjnos do not
! possess todayP Not one. Was our
{ declaration, then. lie--the declara-
y tion which alone reconciled the people
/ of the United States to invoke, in the
n cause of liberty, the horrors and
i calamities of war? A few ImperialIsts
3 are candid enough to avow that it was
n lie, and was never meant to be any
4 thing else. But that declaration was
q made in the name of the American
a people, and no less authority than
. theirs can recall it or depart from it,
\ and they mean that it shall be made
!, good, not only toward Cuba, but
3 toward the world.
, Ex-Gov. Boutwell, said:
The President occupies the position
in reference to the Philippines that
n Russia occupies in regard to Poland,
v and position kindred to the position
I that Austria occupied to Hungary il
q contest in behalf of self government in
n which all America sympathized.
4 The President abandons the Declare
a tion of Independence, and sets aside
n the immortal words, Governments are
a instituted among men, deriving theil
q Just powers from the consent of the
@ governed. He is now using an army
of American citizens to overcome ar
obstacle-the opinion of the inhabi
tants of the Philippine Islards, tina
& they have q natural and inalienablt
" right to govern themselves. In thu
@ presence of the proclamation of January
!. 9Th, the conjecture even is impossible
Q that the President contemplates tint
Q when the inhabitants of the Philip
n pines will be permitted to govern
d themselves.
i He is now engaged in carrying on ;
war for the purpose, as he alleges, o
"bestowing the blessings of good anc
stable government upon the people 0
n the Philippine Islands, under the fret
It flag of the United States" Thus doe
it the President avow a purpose through
II war to undertake the 'tbestowal of thu
J. blessings of good and stable govern
,r ment under the free flag of the United
!, States upon unwilling peoples. VIVA
is the meaning of this declaration
when it is stripped of its rhetoric
?. Only this,-we arc to enter upon war
10 of conquest, and to govern the con
of quered by force. The flag which to IL
81 is free flag would be to them only al
10 emblem of tyranny.
l. Judge Dunbar said:
III Tho Eilipiuos have hean suhiapt II