The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-05-18

on this point are as wrong as those who
differ from me on any other point. But !
do not feel unkindly toward them. / would
not hang them, or burn them, or imprson
them, or prevent them from contributing
TO the postal revenues of the United States
in any direction, except that of the Philip
pines. And l am moi sure that l would
have stopped them even there. Al least.
, If l stopped them. / would not have told
them and the world so. policy which
accidentally disenabled their productions
from reaching our troops there would
have left the authors in a condition of
comfortable complaeency and defens,bie
inconspicuity. They would have wondered
al the failure of their effort to arouse
our soldiers in the Far East. and they
would have given over those soldiers TO
perverseness of soul to blindness of mind
and to hardness of heart. AS IT is, they
have been lattered If not inflated, by the
idea that a great government was the only
thing big enough to antagonize them, and
that they were at least Of a corresponding
size There was a grandeur about their
grievance, of which The course that | sug
gest would have deprived them.
Seriously, my friends, I do not believe
that a measure even of unfair criticism
win hurt any government or any admin
lstration An uncrihcised government is
a dangerous instumentality. Censure is
the salt which preserves almost anything
except embalmed beef. If We could make
all men think alike feel alike, and say
alike we should not do so. Minorities
put us under obligations to them which
ought to be acknowledged They prevent
maiorities from going too far. And ma
iorities are apt to go too far but for mi
porjties. In our civil war, President Lin
coin and Secretary Seward and some
times, Mr.. Stanton, put into military forts
or sent within the enemy's lines those
who said or did against The North what
some OF these men are saying and what
some of them would like to do against
the government of the republic now And
in the South, President Davis and Sec
ret9rv BENJAMIN made matters lively in
the war. for those who sought to give aid
ar comfort to those who were regarded as
the Northern enemy. In both sections,
the extent of this arbitrary sort of thing
produced a revuision. Some of the North
ern states went against the federal ad-
mlnistra ton Georgia threatened, through
Gov. Joe Brown, to secede from secessioni
and Kentucky, Missouri and what Is now
West Virginia were in, certainly what
tho theologfans call "A state Of MIND
~ take a. we are going to hold those
Islands I doubt not we shall find difficulty.
DiaicuIties. however, alter not duties. No
man living knows what We VIII do with
tbeno or should do with them for we are
learning as we go along. The situation was
not of our making. could not be OF our
,reventinR. and win not be one which We
win abandon or run away from. The
philippines are a iinahty. We have them
ana we hold them. We will govern them
under the universal right and obligation
~ the capable to govern the incapable,
caet unon their hands. We will do to them
The good which the Pilgrim and the
quaker. the Huguenot and the Cavalier
would have done to the Indians, had the
Indians had sense enough to accept II.
They had not, and the rest followed. Good,
or the consequences Of the rejection OF II.
win follow In the Philippines. The word
will NOT stop; it will go right on. The high
er races will school or harness the lower
ones to the work of the ages, and Ameri-
can newspapers should not cautiously for
get that fact in their long outlook on
events"