The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-01-27
A MERCHANT VIEW
AntiEIpanSiOl Speeches at a
Boston Banquet.
MR.. BOUTELlE is POSITIVE
a Notion Of the Moment-Gen.
tor Perkins Figures.

At the Merchants banquet in Bos-
ton most of the speeches were against
expansion. Here are portions OF three
OF the addresses:
Congressman Boutelle-The more |
have heard, read or seen about the
whole question, the more | have come
to the conclusion that there has been
a great deal of highfalutin sentiment
and a great many high-sounding
phrases expended on it. But tonight
l have heard more of concrete horse
sense on the question that ever | have
found in the public print hitherto
The truth is that the American peo-
pie have gotten themselves into a
frame of mind. and that is all there
is about it. They have just taken up
a notion, and they are riding a hob
| by, and they don't want to know even
the hobby's name, but they are dead
sure if anybody says anything against
their hobby, he is a bad fellow, and
they make a great rumpus and a great
deal of pounding on tin pans in the
public streets in order to beat them
| down
| Now l want to know if ever there
came from any human being any sug-
gestion for the annexation of the Phil
| ippine Islands. / have never heard
anything of one. Now 1 cannot con-
ceive of any man telling me, a year
ago, with the map of the world spread
out before him, looking it over, that
he would suggest that a great advan-
| tage was to come to the American
people in its trade and in the shifting
of its moral sentiment by the anneXa-
ton of these islands, which very few
school children knew were on the map
at all If he did, we should laugh at
him. There is nothing in it, 1t is
a humbug 1t is a political ''fetich."
1t is a war cly of the moment. 1t is
a newspaper sensation. That's all there
is to it.
What happened at Manila? Our sec
rotary, after we had declared war
which meant fighting, ordered the ad-
miral of our feet in Asiatic waters
to go where there was a Spanish fleet
and capture or destroy it. That was
absolutely essential to the scheme of
war, dictated by every idea of military
wisdom. He went, but did anybody
suggest at that time that he was going
TO capture Manila, Luzon and the Phil
ippine State or municipality? Of course
not. The capture of the islands, the
capture of Manila, were incidents of the
bubbling over of the enthusiasm of the
American people, who had started in to
| lick something, and didn't know when
| to stop.
| / don't hazard a single iota of repu-
tation when | say that when Admiral
Dewey had sunk the last ship and
spiked the last gun of the Spanish feet
in Manila harbor every bit of the Uni
ted States business he had to do was
transacted and finished there. And
while it is a long stretch of magma
ton, I will say that if I had been in
any position where | had authority, [
should have ordered him out of that
bay as soon as he could have refitted
his ships.
We wanted to beat the Spanish ships
so that they could not come down to
Cuba and interfere with us. The Con-
gress of the United States never gave
the President of the United States au-
thority to go into the harbor of Manila
and capture the Philippine Islands. We
were not making war for the purpose.
We were making war for Cuba. l was
not very enthusiastic about that my
self, for I was one of those old fogy
members of Congress who believed at
the time that we declared war that We
really had the matter settled and ought
to let it be settled.
I am not speaking unadvisedly. l
am echoing the statements made by the
minister to Spain, by General Wood
ford, not half a mile from where 1
stand, only a few weeks ago, when he
reported to the merchants of Boston
that when he was in Madrid conduct
ing the negotiations he had progressed
TO the point where he had settled every
controversy we had with Spain "a
voice: Hear, Hear" That's what We
want to hear')-that we had proceeded
with our negotiations along the line
to the point at which Spain had con-
ceded every demand We had made, and
that when the Government of Spain
drafted the scheme Of autonomy to be
put in force in Cuba it comprehended
all we had demanded, and that if the
Congress of the United States had let
the question alone, he believed we
would have established a stable gov
eminent in the isle of Cuba, and that