Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-02-24
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Gold Medals to BE Given to Scholars
for Best Essays.

for Best Essays.
Messrs. Gaillard Hunt Marcus Benjamin
and Thos. Nelson Page, a committee repre-
senting the Society of the Sons of the Revo-
Tuition and the Society Of the Sons Of the
American Revolution in the District Of CO.
lumbia, have issued announcements that
will be interesting to every patriotic scholar
attending schoel in the District.
The committee has been authorized to
award two gold medals, the first to
scholar in regular attendance upon a high
school or a private school of equal stand
ards q scholarship; the second to a scholar
in regular attendance upon public grade
school or private school of equal standards,
for the best essay in each class on given
topic. For the first competition the subject
is 1.-THE Declaration of Independence" The
requirements are as follows:
No essay shall exceed 1 800 words
Essays shall be transmitted by the prin-
cipals of the schools and not by the
scholars direct, so that none but meritori-
Gus compositions shall reach the commit
tee, and in order that their originality may
be beyond dispute.
Each essay must be signed by an as
sumed name, and in separate sealed en-
must be a statement of the SCHOLARS real
name and the school he or she attends.
The winner shall be selected under the as
sumed name, and before the envelope re-
yelling the real name shall have been
opened.
All essays must be sent to Marcus Benja-
min, Phi. D., 1710 N street, on or before
April 10. The announcement of the award
will be made as soon after that date as
practicable.
In the second competition the subject
shall be 1.-THE Private Soldier in the War of
the American Revolution" and no essay
shall exceed 1900 words in length. The
other requirements are the same, except
that all these essays must be sent to Mr..
Gaillard Hunt Department of State, on or
before April Is.
The committee will not return unsuccess-
full essays in either case
Our New Dependencies and Their Con-
troll.
To the Editor of The Evening Star:
Vigorous objection is made to exercise of
governmental control by the United States
over the Philippines and Cuba. One ground
of such objection is the cost of securing
and exercising such control. That, if the
interests of the islands and of humanity
can be best served by such control, Is an
excuse too purely selfish and cowardly to
waste time and space on.
The main objection is based on the ques-
ton of the rightfulness of any such con-
troll The DIRECTORS proclaim the natural
and inalienable right of any people to gov
ern themselves, no matter what their in
capacities may De III 6uuCdIlOD, HdDlt. UloTdl
quality; matter how brutal their bar
barrie savagery. or how fatal, to themselves
and their neighbors, their sanitary condi-
tions; or how perlous to the world their
anarchies and chaos of misrule. One liable
religious editor frankly affirms, in discus
sion of this matter, that ''savages have al
ways governed themselves fairly we'll"
Good news. indeed. were it in any sense
true, which it is not. These DIRECTORS use
with great JUNCTION certain phrases of our
revered ancestors as if they were aXioms
of craftsmanship. For example: "All men
are created free and equal''-a maxim that
has done real service in good faith and in
bad faith. But everybody knows that it is
not true "Free?' No human being comes
into this world free Each comes hther
into absolute control dependent from the
hour of birth for everything, free in moth
ing. At the time of the framing of this
MAXIM the Trainer knew that there We're
being born in these colonies every day
many who could never come to any show
of freedom-a great company of African
slave babies, to say nothing of the depend
ence of all the new born 'Equal?" These
very aristocratic ancestors of ours! John
Adams would have repealed with disgust
an intimation that his own well-born John
Quincy was but the equal of some wretched
brat born at the same date of a slave
mother, or in some howell o. vice and shame
in the slums of London Paris, or on the
Fiji Islands. "Equal?' Why, no two hui
mans were ever created equal in physf
tiles, inducements, conditions or opportun-
tiles. These respected ancestors of ours
knew that. Exactly what they meant by
the phrase it is hard to say. They pro-
claimed certain inalienable rights as life.
liberty and pursuit of happiness. Yet they
alienated this 'inalienable right to life in
the case of all capital crimes; to liberty by
their system of slavery and their courts
and prisons and in their sanction of par
entail authority in the home: to free pur-
suit of happiness. by all their laws re-
straining such pursuit beyond the lines of
the general welfare. The declared in
alienable'' they alienated, without hest
fancy, in all three of the specified particu-
lars.
But the axiom most wearisomely iterated
hv these directors is that falSeSt OF them
all, about the Just powers of government
derived from the consent of the governed:
1t is catching phrase which served their
purpose well.
Did these same trainers mean 1t? 1t has
never been learned that they took measures
to secure even the formal consent of the
colonial dames,'' their wives. mothers, SIS
tiers. aunts and cousins, to their structure
of most Just government, nor that of the
great majority of citizens under twenty-one
wears of age nor of the black folks, their
slaves nor of the Indians, whom they pro-
posed to govern with stiff hand, nor that
of aliens living amongst them, nor that OF
criminals. obviously all they meant was
that these Just powers should be derived
from the consent of such a small minority
of the governed they might select
from the great mass, as best fitted in their
sovereign Judgment for an intelligent
consent" Why, the new Constitution it
self was adopted only by very narrow
majority in several states, over very
sharply protesting minority, against their
consent These minorities only yielded
because they must. That Is not consent
in the sense of the boosted phrase.
Consent of the governed" One must
suspect, nay, must hope, that in the homes
of this land there is Just power of house
hold government which Is not framed on
consent of the governed infants. In the
justly governed school small part of the
Just powers of educational authority is
derived from the consent of the governed
children. In fact, the government of this
universe-its Just powers'-do not lie in
the consent of the governed Those Just
powers issue from God himself. Govern
ment does not burst up from below, but
comes down from above. Its Just powers
are only in the consent of their right
eousness and their ultimate utility. Tax
alton without representation is another
phrase which the makers of it utterly fail
ed to apply, and which the DIRECTORS mis-
apply. Neither the fathers nor their de-
scendants have shown any consistent faith
in 1t. Then, and to this day, all private
property is taxed without regard to the
question whether or not the owner has any
-, Ill