Connecticut western news., 1899-06-08


 igious Welfare.
 ICopyright, Louis Klopsch, 1S99.l
 WASHINGTON, June 4.-In this dis course Dr. Talmage steers clear of the political entanglements of our time and recommends that which will meet the approval of all who hope for the per petuity of our republic and the welfare of other lands; text, Genesis xviii, IA, "Thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east 7"
 Since the eAmericano-Hispanic war is concluded and the United States em- bassador is on the way to Madrid and the Spanish ambassador is on the way to Washington the people of our coun- try are divided into expansionists and antiexpansionists From a different standpoint than that usually taken l discuss this all absorbing theme. leave the political aspect of this subject to statesmen and warriors and pray Al mighty God that they may be enabled rightly to settle the question whether the islands in controversy shall be final ly annexed or held under protectorate or resigned to themselves while call attention to the fact that campaign of moral and religious expansion ought to be immediately opened on widest and grandest scale.
 At the close of this war God has put into the hands of this country the key to the worlds redemption. Heretofore the religious movement in pagan lands had to precede the educational. After in China and India and the islands of the ses>the missionaries have labored over 50 or 75 years the printing press and the secular school came in. Now to better advantage than ever before re- ligious and secular enlightenment may go side by side, and so the work be ac- complished in short time and more thoroughly. Starting with the fact that in Cuba and Porto Rico and the Philip pine Islands at least three-fourths of the people can neither read nor write. what an opportunity for school and printing pressl Within five years every man in those islands may be taught to read not only the Bible, but the Declar- ation of Independence and the consti- tuition of the United States and the biography of George Washington and of Abraham Lincoln.
 It seems to me that the government of the United States ought by vote of congress afford common schools and printing presses to those benighted regions. Our national legislature by one vote appropriated $50, 900, 900 to give bread and medicine to Cuba Why not by a similar generosity give $50, 00o.- 900 for feeding and healing the minds and souls of those ignorant and besotted archipelagoes. In the name of God nominate school for every neighbor- hood of Cuba. Porto Rico and the Phil ippines- As soon as the gavel falls al 12 o'clock of next Dec. on the table of senate and house of representatives and the roll has been called and the prelim- inaries observed let some member of our national legislature. with mind and soul and voice strong enough to be heard not only through those halls, but through Christendom. propose meas ure for the mental and moral disen- thrallment of the islands in controversy
 What has made American civiliza- ton the highest civilization the world has ever seenf Next to the Bible and the church, schools. common schools, schools reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from British America to gulf of Mexico. Five years under such educational advantage, and this whole subject that keeps our public men agitated. some of them to frothing at the mouth. will settle itself. Give those islands readers, spoilers, arithme- tics, histories, blackboards, maps, geog- raphies, globea Let the state legisla lures at their next meeting, some of them assembling in early autumn. take parts of those islands under their es- pecial educational patronage. What is needed is state and national action in this matter of schools
 Work of the Printing Press.
 Then let the editorial associations of the United States, .,as- many of such organizations as there are states, resolve at the next convocation to establish in every region of those islands printing press. to be supported by people of this country until it can become self sup porting. Each of these state editorial associations sending out to those islands at least one editor and two reporters and enough typesetters, down will go the ignorance and superstition of those islands as certainly as the Spanish fleet under Cervera sank under the pound ing of our American battleships, and into their every port will go intelli- gence and love of free institutions as certainly as into the harbor of Manila went Admiral Dewey on that famous night when he was not expected. Hoes printing pressl Nothing can stand be- fore its bombardment. Editors of American newspapers and publishers of American booksi Take the ordination for such a magnificent service. Elo- quence on yonder Capitol hill cannot meet the exigency. Epigrams of politi- cal platforms or in state legislatures will not hasten the desired consumma- tion one week or one hour or one mo- ment
 When Cubans and Porto Ricans and Filipinos see the morning and evening newspapers thrown into the doorways and hawked along the streets of Ha- vana and Santiago and Manila, those who cannot fead by the force of curiosi- ty will learn to read, so that they may know what information is being scat tered, and that which may be mission ary effort at the start and carried on by Americans sent forth to do the work will soon be done by educated natives. Porto Rican edjtorsl Porto Rican re- portersl Porto Rican typesetters Porto Rican publishers It was great mercy to take these islands from under the heels of despotism, but it will be a mightier mercy to emancipate them from ignorance and degradation. The expansion of the knowledge and intel lectuai qualification of all those islandy regions is the desire of all intelligent Americans Awake, all you schools and colleges and universities and printing presses, to your opportunity
 Still further, here is a wide open door for Christianity. First of all. we have the attention of those people. The