Omaha daily bee., 1899-02-24
SUBDUlNG THE FILIPlN0S
Purchased soNercignty sealed with
the Blood of Men Fighting for
Home and Native Land.

OF The Bee: Mr.. Mckinley in his speech
before the Home Market club in Boston
has said that we must teach the Filipino
that we are friends, not enemies; that our
aim is their good; that our welfare Is thelr
welfare, but our authority must first be
established and unquestioned." a liberty
loving people can never be happy after
foreign tyranny is established and un-
questioned. The question of authority is
the whole matter. In it lies the difference
between independence and subsection, be-
tween liberty and national death. 1t is
vain to call It a bubble over a question of
mere nominal sovereignty. 1t was a ques-
ton CT nominal sovereignty that brought
on our Revolutionary war. We had no
real grievances then, but merely disputed
England's right to inflict grievances If the
desire came to her. When she finally re-
duced her taxes to nominal ones we were
the more incensed, because we saw she was
attempting to lure us into an admission of
her right TO tax.
The Poles will acknowledge the justice,
beneicence, and even munificence of their
alien rulers, but all this cannot compensate
them for the loss of national existence and
independence. The slaves of the south were
better remunerated for their labors than
were their free brethren in the north, but
Nv uutoNiDi vi I huNN ohN w
and drove the other to madness.
Why are we so determined to establish
our authority while we are telling the
Filipinos that 1t is a matter of name only?
If authority is dear to us it is dear to them.
Retreat is as much a humiliation to them
as to us. They will be willing to barter
everything else for an acknowledgement of
their independence. Independence is their
one desire and it is the one thing our ad-
ministration is determined they shall not
have.
After we have stolen this priceless treas
ure, quenched the fires of this fondest hope,
we are to tell them that we are friends,
net enemies; that we work only for their
good; that their welfare is our welfare.
A man is not a dog. He cannot lick the
hand that beats him. The sympathy of the
victor is no balm for the vanquished. We
have already earned the hatred of the Fill
pinos by our inconsistency and our deceit
and with 1000 of their dead on one field
we are friends quite too well disguised.
Benevolence can't be shot into a people.
National welfare is not appreciated when
we see it come from the muZzle of a Cat
ling gun.
Our only claim to sovereignty over these
people is that we have bought them. No
claim Is more revolving and repugnant to a
modern ear than this. We fought a war of
five years duration to prove that a white
master could not sell his black slave at
public auction. The whole north was aghast
at the thought of a human soul being treated
as a chattel.
AS Christ died to make men holy,
Let us die to make men free.
was the battle cry.
For a planter to sell one slave for $500
was a crime against God and man; to buy
10, 900, 900 men for $40, O00, 900 is not a crime,
but diplomacy. This is in keeping with the
i>~de which says that to steal $40 is a theft,
to steal $40, 900 is inanciering.
The parallel between our own struggle for
independence and that of the Filipinos is
a ghost that will not down. Shame is busy
furnishing the points of similarity. While
we exult over the victory of Caloocan we
| must not forget that the trenches of Bunker
Hill were filled with patriots cold in death
and Aguinaldo might recite to his dispirited
men the words Of Warren's address,:
Stand! The grounds your own, my braves!
Wal you give it up to slaves?
VIII We look for greener graves?
Hope We mercy still?
Our troops advance against a people whose
only defense is a desire to be free and our
bands play Hail, Columbia, Happy Land!'
The words of that song are:
Immortal patriots! Rise once more;
Defend your rights, defend your shore!
Another appropriate air for us to use
in this warfare against consistency would be
Rally round the flag, boys,
Rally once again,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom!
The longer these people resist our rule
the longer they dispute our authority, the
more respect will they be entitled to. We
cannot hope. but we can wish that when
authority has been established that there
may be no living Filipino to accept the hui
initiating reward of submission. Is it q
friend who will deny to them the freedom
that we offer Cuba? All reports insist that
they are a superior race to the Cubans, yet
we thus publicly debase them. The differ
ence is only that in one case we bound
ourselves by a formal declaration to be
decent and consistents while in the Philip
pines, we feel free to bully, swagger, lie
and kill because, like a bad little boy, 1--WE
didn't promise to be good" 1t is no use
to deceive ourselves by a talk about a
higher duty than Kindness
Every tyrant that oppressed a feeble race
every brute that beat a wife always did
1t for the coed and welfare of his victim
ALFRED II. ESTES.