The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1899-09-15
AMERICAN HUMILIATION
In the Philippines as a Result OF President
McKinIey's War.
Now Work. Evening Post.

(New York Evening Post.
If British warships were threatening
to lombard New Orleans unless the in
habitants behaved themselves, what
should we think? We would probably
be too furious to think at ALL but If,
| in addition, we had to admit that we
could not protect British subjects in
| New Orleans we should undoubtedly
feel disgraced. Well, this humiliation
is now hanging upon us in another part
| of our territory Mr.. Mckinley affirms
that the PHILIPPINES are just as much a
| part of our territory as Louisiana: SO
that 1t is on our own coasts, under our
own Jurisdiction. that we ARE suffering
the shame, which this mornings news
| reports, of having English men-of-war
| threatening to lombard Philippine
towns. 1t is added that the natives have
"a wholesome respect for the British"
| What they have for the nominal SOW
ereign of the islands, who cannot keep
order or protect foreigners in them, is
not stated, but it must be very like both
hatred and contempt.
This isWnly one of the national hu-
miliations which the president has
brought upon his country by the Philip
pine mismanagement We say nothing
now of any question of principle. Let
the expediency of morality of the ac-
QUESTION of the Philippines be what 1t
may. Taking the purely lingo stand
point, reasoning as do the champions
of brute force that our national prestige
means only the rough enforcement of
the national will, right or wrong, what
series of disgraces has Mr.. Mckinley
brought upon the American name by
his shocking blunders in the Philippines.
We hear much of Dewey's guns having
reused the world to a new sense of
American greatness. Grant it; but al
most everything that has been done
since the echoes of those guns died
away has tended to set the world
aghast at American incompetence and
failure
We have only to compare McKinley's
Vain-gloriouS promises and proclama-
tions with the actual facts to see what
frightful mess he has made of it. He
was going to assert and enforce Ameri-
can sovereignty 'in every part" of the
archipelago; he is shut up, in a state of
siege, in few coast towns. He was
going to prevent anarchy; he has pre-
cipitated 1t. He solemnly bound this
government to secure the release of the
Spanish prisoners in the hands of the
insurgents; he has not been able to re-
lease a man. A few prisoners have es-
capped to our lines, but the Filipinos, in
this respect, as in most others, has sue
cessfully defied our power to do what we
undertook to do. This is a fine way of
making the American name feared
abroad. What Mr.. Mckinley has re-
ally done is to make us, by his ignorant
laundering in the Philippines, the butt
of thenations.
The crowning humiliation of all is
the presidents agreement with the
Sultan of the Sulu islands. To hire
Mohammedan despot to keep the is
lands in order for us is disgrace enough;
but to assure him, in the act, that we
will not interfere with polygamy in the
dominions, and that the American flag
will once more float over slaves without
freeing them, is enough to make the
cheeks of all of us tingle. Mind, we do
not now speak of the moral shame of
1T. For the moment we are trying to
feel and talk as a jingo does, and it
seems to us that he must simply swell
with rage and burst with indignation at
such a confession of national impotence.
for that is what it amounts to. Does
any one suppose that if Mckinley had
force enough at his command that he
would have gone on his knees to the
Sultan? He could have made out a
much better case for fighting him than
for fighting Aguanaldo. Imagine the
heroics he would have indulged in about
putting down slavery, and how he would
have posed as the advocate of setting
up the American home" in Towi Towi
Immediately. Why did he not do it?
Simply because he had not the neces-
sary men and ships and guns. The
agreement with the Sultan is an unex-
ampled confession of national impor-
tance. Governor Roosevelt should re-
nounce such craven weakness from
every stump in Cattaraugus county.
We see it put forward by one Of the
few defenders of the president who
dare to refer to the Sulu treaty at al!
that his recognition of slavery and
polygamy is only temporary" It was
necessary as a provisional and pacify-
ing measure, but presently the good
Mckinley will proceed to interfere with
and extirpate both. In ather words,
the president is lying to the Sultan
Promising not to meddle, he means to
meddle as soon as he feelshimself strong
enough. 1t is well enough to publish
this explanation in Boston, but suppose
General Bates were to lay this view of
the case before the Sultan? He would
undoubtedly hear some of the most
vigorous Arabic that ever came from te
mouth of an enraged viceregent of the
prophet. Dog of an intidel, the Sui
tan would say, docs that gra ndfather
of all liars, your president, think he can
trick a true believer in that way?" And
down would come the American flag.
giving the world one proof more that
the president of the United States had
taken his country into an adventure
which led only to hum .iati"n after
humiliation.