Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1899-08-21
FREELAND, Pa, AUGUST 81, 1890
Wherein is the Profit?
iladelphia City and State.

to gain by it? is the question, put in its
lowest form, which one who keeps an
ordinarily sane head upon his shoulders
is sure to ask on fairly confronting the
Philippine situation. Such a one knows
that all talk about our obligation as
country, and the obligation of our govern
ment to put down what they are pleased
to call an "insurrection" in those islands
is idle in the extreme. 1t is talk that is
used to deceive-a form of gross self
delusion to call it by no worse name.
The insurgents there are the very
people who, long before we in this land
knew or cared anything about them,
had risen up against Spanish domina-
tion; and the precise moment they found
out that our government meant to sub
stitute its domination for the Spanish,
they simply continued up. That is the
whole situation. Their folly and crime
is that they won't submit. They do not
want to be dominated. Even though by
the art of the phrasemaker we call it
benevolent assimilation" they yet wi
have none of it.
Our talk of "enlargng the area of
freedom they do not understandings
understand only too well as merely
form of speech for use on the stump at
home. 1t does not deceive them, how
ever docilely multitudcs may take to it
on this side of the globe.
1t has no charms for their ears. The
FiIipinos are not insurgents against us
us merely. They are insurgents
against tyranny and oppression-Span
ish rule which they didn't want, and
now our rule, which they want just as
little.
We paid Spain S20,OOO,OOO for this
business, but what pitiful business it
is the whole world knows-especially
how pitiful, and monstrous in all shame
full as well as lamentable ways, for this
great American republic, which for a
hundred years and over has been pro-
claiming with most peculiar emphasis
the political doctrine that more than
any other it has stood for: namely, that
just governments derive their powers
from the consent of the governed.
The Philippine Islanders do not want
our rule but, instead, they insist upon
a rule of their own. If that makes
them insurgents, then they are insur-
gents and their conflict is an 'insurrec-
tom" if it makes them rebels, then they
are 'rebes"
But that is good old word with us,
who are children of our fathers, whose
forefathers fought at Lexington and
Princeton and Yorktown, and suffered
at Valley Forge,
They were rebels against the Spanish
rule, and now simply continue to be
rebelssagainst our rule, which we pur-
chased-the right to 1T If we could get it
by the expenditure of twenty millions
of good gold, and are now trying to
to enforce VI et d2miS,
But after we have gotten our islands
in the Asian seas, what then? After
all the expenditures above noted and
also Standardization tramping upon our
cherished national traditions and much
belauded principles, and making oul-
selves the astonishment to the intelli-
gent OF the earth and a laughing-stock
to other nations; after squandering
untold treasure and sacrificing heca-
tombs of thousandfold more precious
lives; and after stirring up, perhaps,
age-long bitterness, and causing no end
of confusion and varied forms of wrong
at home-what are we to gain by it, not
for the world or for humanity, but in
the lowest and most primitive meaning
of the term, for ourselves?
What is it all for, this fight we are
N, lipfr In tlu DbiIinp,ipnSO