The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1899-10-14
WONDERFUL SUGGESTIONS.

President Schurman, 10 his add rcss
at the opening of the Scholastic year
of Cornell university the other cay
spoke at some leugth on the subject
of expansion. just year before he
argued strongly that we should not
take the Philippine islands fr''m
Spain and now e'goes on tryins 20
give reasons for changing his opinion.
Schurman is as slippery as he is un-
reliable, and the president, imagining
that he welded some influence in the
East. thought it might be good policy
to buy him over with an Office or
tickle his inordinate vanity with some
distinction, so he made him president
of as useless a commission as the world
ever saw.
The United States having taken the
islands, what shall be done with
them? This he thinks is "a grave
question:" and after drawing several
thousand dollars to decide this very
question, he comes back unable to
give an answer further than to say
that this issue must be decided by the
president and congress. This is what
every school boy, even If he hasn't
been in Manila, has been saying for
the last six months The president
having taken this island and that
-s.Lo La nf
surely must know what he intends to
do with them. If man undertakes
to hold up train, and is caught and
folled in the attempt, we cannot see
by what right he can appeal To the
we'll disposed part of the people and
ask them to help him out. He ought
to have known what he would do with
his plunder before he started in.
Imagine him saying. 81 undertook t"
rob that train, but have not been
able to succeed, pray what shall do
now?" Or, put it this way: II have
robbed that train; I am loaded down
with the plunder. and do not know
what to do with it; please tell me Shat
l must do to save myself?" This is
just where Mr.. Mckinley stands to
day. He has taken these islands.
Now let him tell US what he is going
to do with them. That's his business
and not those who never approved OF
the act. What the people must con
slider is, what shall we DO with the
men who led US into the trouble, who
have been piling up the burdens of the
people, pushing our young men to the
front to be slaughtered. starving them
with rotten beef and sending them to
die in miasmatic camps? That is the |
'graye issue they must uecide." Shall
they re-elect these men to Office and
power, or shall they consign them to
ignomy and defeat for the balance Of
their lives?
Schurman says the "Filipinos sus-
pect and fear us.' He could have dis
covered this without travelling all the
way to Manila at the expense Of the
taxpayers. And then he adds: "We
must allay their anxiety and suspicion
by splendid Philippine service"
That's the remedy, then. If this had
been done at the beginning, there
would have been no war. If the presi |
dent had given Agoncilla this assur-
ance, our army might have been with
drawn. Had the treaty that recog-
lized the independence of Cuba |
recognized the independence of tie |
Philippines at the same time, there
would haye been no shedding of inno-
cent blood.
But imagine Mckinley inaugurating
a splendid Philippine service" Why |
Schurman knows, but he lacks the |
courage to say it, that if he we're to
attempt that there wouldn't be
corrupt old party hack in the country
but would be sent down there with a
carpet-bag in his hand. It would be
such men as ". Godfrey Hu, ter, of
Kentucky; Alger, of Michigan; Eagan,
the slanderer; Carter, the robber,
Barney Sullivan, of South Dakota; or
McCook. American consul at Dawson
City. These are the kind of men he
has favored all along, and against the
protests of the respectable element of
his party, and these are the kind of
cattle he would send to Manila to give
the poor people ''a splendid Filipino
service" Even his selection of Schur-
man as president of a Philippine COM
mission shows how he would proceed
TO carry out that eentleman's idea