The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1899-03-25
THE WHITE MANS HUmBuG.

liz OlS Slty Vi LOlluOll Has one news
paper, and only one, that fearlessly ex-
poses British villainy and Anglo-Saxon
hypocrisy at the risk OF its suppression
by the government. Were this organ Of
democracy published in Ireland, it
would soon cease to exist. And yet it
is published and edited by an Irishman
w. w. Thompson, OF Oman, county
OF Tyrone, who is descendant of the
grand Presbyterians of Ulster who fur
nished such patriots as William Orr and
Henry Joy McCracken in the last cen
fury to suffer the penalty OF death on
the scaffold for love Of Ireland and hat
red of British oppression. Reynolds
Newspaper" may not be inaptly called
an advocate of republicanism. 1t holds
the aristocracy in contempt and derides
the pretensions of the ruling class in the
British empire. The whitened sepul-
chres who move in court circles do not
escape its satire, and so feared is it by
society leaders in the modern Babylon
that they scan its pages in trepidation
to seek cause for the prosecution of the
publisher. But as he is a member OF
the legal profession he has managed
thus far to escape unmolested at their
hands.
Mr.. Thompson has read Rudyard Kip
ling's imperialistic poem, urging the
Americans to join the English in grab
bling territory for the uplifting of COL
ored populations, and shows the phar-
saisrn Of the production which has been
eulogized by the Anglo Saxon press on
both sides OF the ocean, Commenting
on the "White Mans Burden" by Kip
ling, he says:
"What arrant humbug is there in all
this talk about the duties of the white
man! In the ancient world there was
none of the nauseous cant which Jour
nalists, missionaries and poets like Mr..
kipling thrust on lis every day. The
Romans. when they went on their butch
ering expeditions and stole the lands of
their conquered foes, did not pretend
they were doing all this for the benefit
OF their victims. They did not pretend
that they loved their enemies and were
laboring for their good in the style of
Our lying newspapers.
"Old Cato used to wind up his speech
es regularly with the words, Carthage
must be destroyed There was no hum
bug about that Brutal, if you like, but
not hypocritical like Mr.. Kipling. Cecil
Rhodes has occasionally a touch of the
old Roman frank brutality, bur the rest
OF them all sacrifice to the deity OF con-
ventionalism. They do so love the poor
Soudanese, or the poor Chinese, or the
poor Burnan or some other poor devil
whom they pretend to be burning with
desire to save and to elevate and COM
fort and look after generally with a
view to his well-being in this world and
the next
"The means taken to accomplish this
desirable result are curious. Thousands
are mown down with Maxim and Cat
ling guns, thousands are degraded by
cheap poisonous spirits from our distil-
leries, thousands more are slowly killed
by disease which they never knew before
we came to do them good, thousands
more are induced to forsake their simple
dress or no dress for our shoddy, and
many thousands become hypocrites for
life by pretending to accept our religion.
Such is the way in which we go to work
to aid these dear black and brown
brethren of whom we are so fond"