The age-herald., 1899-08-06

fair discussion In a national campaign. It is trying to escape the real issue, as Lin coin expressed It, by fixing the public gaze upon the. exceeding brightness of military glory-that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood If our deliberate pur- pose is expansion, why should we have se- lected the deadliest climate in the world? Why have selected a race of Tagals? Why have we selected a group of islands 1000 miles away, certain to involve us in the in- trigues of a devious diplomacy, parcellIng out the remains of China? We all recog- nize that this great Philippine war, costing untold lives and treasure is the result of accident, and not of far-seeing statesman ship. We are there even when everyone knows it is a mistake; when every one, from the top down, would be only too glad to find way out-solely because false pride and unmanly stupidity keeps up the sacrifice of our soldiers.
 "If we really desire expansion then ev- cry argument in favor of taking the Phil ippines applies with much more strength to taking Canada and Mexico. But to take Canada would mean war with Great Brit ain. So-hoi Then we took the Philippines because they were the easiest to get, the weakest to defense. In other words, we have returned to the predatory policy of the Middle Ages. which we used in taking territory in the Mexican war, and which history has recorded to our everlasting shame and disgrace. Look at 1t in any way we please, we are in the Philippines for the lowest and basest of motives. Grant that under international law of monarch ical nations we have a legal right to be there; is that any reason for our viola ton of every maxim of common sense and morals? Why sink forever hundreds of mill lions of dollars in the Philippines, when we know that the people can never in centuries be assmilated into an Anglo-Saxon state that the land can never be colonized by the white race successfully?
 Not Worth the Candle
 "The commercial game is not worth the candle. l have shown on another occasion that the trade advantages are not worth considering as weighed against one Ameri- can life least of all against great po- litical and moral world.
 ''The expansion policy is but another and immoral expression of the spells system. It provides a district so far away, that as Secretary Gage said in substance of Alas ka, it is too remote to be able to apply civil service rules there It provides new posi- lions for politicians and their retainers. So many more lieutenants so many more commissions to dangle before the workers on the eve of another election. The back ward step in civil service reform was only a part of the same work yielding of the principles of a great party to the wolf and the hawk in politics. I object to expansion because it appeals to the lowest motives of conquest and commercial gain as against our duty to liberty and free gov ernment. I object to it because 1t assumes that our people have no principles as against the base gains of trade and office. and that Americans are really cruel. de- spotic and indifferent to race fighting for liberty. When, in truth, no nation was ever more ready to help struggling people against a despotic conquerer. Although we have the same international rights in the Philippines which Russia or Germany might exercise if they were in our place, We could not as a republic do what would be permitted to imperial Russia or Ger many.
 Some tell US that we can do what we please with the Philippines because sbv- eregnty over them belongs to us by treaty So, also, when slavery was permitted to the United States by law, we were able to do what we pleased with the slaves we owned. But after years of turmoil and agony, we decided not to do all that law allowed, but in the spirit of right aIsd justice we set to work to remove our unjust legal enact- ments and to give liberty and indepen- dence to the slaves. Are we as a Chris tian and free nation, justified in doing with the Filipinos all that international law would permit to any monarchial nation?
 
 anything else than hypocritical falsehoods, we have no moral ground for demanding the unconditional surrender of the natives than we should have had for the contin- uance of slavery, under cover of law Right and freedom are above all technical legal enactments, whether national or in- ternational; in the progress of mankind laws must conform to right.
 Civil War Brought Up
 We are told that the subjugation of the f11pinos differs in no whit from the reduc- ion or the descending states In the civil war, whom we forced to accept a goyern ment against their will. There is a great difference. Did the Fiipinos ever through ther representatives in constitutional convention join in forming our government 10 which they afterwards voted to accept. as did our states? Did the Filipnos ever create part of union, by the voluntary consent of the governed as did Georgia or Virginia? Then when seeding states tried to dissolve compact which they helped to construct, and break up a union of which they were an integral part, thereby putting themselves in insurrection against the national government, is their case the same as that of the Filpinos, who have never formed any voluntary part of our union, and who have come under our con- trol only by force and conquest? The diff ference in the two cases is the mighty diff ference arising from a great principle the principle that governments derive their first powers from the consent of the gov erned.
 ''Take a simple test of tho whole ques- tion. Suppose Canada had revolted from Great Britain, and had possession of all the territory to our north, except Quebec and Montreal. Then suppose we bought the right of sovereignty over the Canadians by paying 20,000,000 to Great Britain. Would we have the face to regard the objecting Canadians, who had swung over the vast region from the St. Lawrence to the Arctic Circule as the rebellion against the union? Far from it. We would be able to claim control over the Canadians, only after we had reduced them by right of conquest-by the same right of the sword with which Spain held the low countries. This, then, is the position of our boasted land of liberty, standing there as the Romans stood, sword in hand, over a subject colony How has the wheel of time turned us back to the base spirit of greed and conquest!
 Tn plain English. we are in the Philip pines on the highwaymans plea that might makes right' If 1t is wrong to sub- .-,t3l l. ,f,4,,